Text: Luke 13:31-35

 “Who Kills the Prophets?” Luke 13:31-35

“It cannot be,” Jesus says, “it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside Jerusalem.”

Humor in this little exchange here, I hope you notice. The picture of a somber, serious Jesus, who is always so… earnest really doesn’t fit with the One you actually meet in the Scripture. And those who say that sarcasm is not an appropriate tool for pastoral counsel, may want to take a closer look at the tone of Jesus’ Word…

The Pharisees and Jesus do not get on very well (another common myth, that Jesus is friendly, kind, and gets along well with everyone is exploded by any close reading of His discussions with the Pharisees!). He has been critical of them and they hate Him. So it’s a little odd, at first glance that they should begin our reading this morning with seeming concern for His safety, warning Him that Herod wants to kill Him, so He should flee at once from this place (He is in the villages and cities of Judah, travelling toward Jerusalem we’re told a few verses before this).

Did the Pharisees really care about His safety? Reading the verses in context suggests not. Jesus has just finished denouncing the Pharisees again. They asked if there are few who are saved and Jesus basically says “few of you folks!” and tells them the gate is narrow, many will say to Him “Lord, Lord open for us! You know us!” and He will say: “I do not know you; depart from Me evildoers,” and those like the Pharisees who imagine themselves so pious and beloved of God will be shut out of His eternal kingdom. That’s what they’ve been talking about.

So when the Pharisees say “Get out of here because Herod wants to kill You!” it is unlikely they are truly concerned for His safety. It is a thinly veiled threat to move on down the road, find a deserted place to hide, because if Herod doesn’t get Him, they probably will. And that’s when the sarcasm comes into the discussion, and Jesus interjects it. He says “Oh, no worries. Go tell that fox that I do My thing, cast out demons and perform cures, today, tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. But I’m going to keep going My way to Jerusalem, where Herod lives, because it just cannot be that a prophet should perish outside Jerusalem!”

A pretty sarcastic denunciation of Israel’s leaders as scoundrels clinging to a tradition of murder and suppression of the truth…

Just in case someone didn’t get the sarcasm, Jesus says “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate; and truly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say ‘Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord’!”

We have this idea, most of us, that the danger to the church, the big threat, comes from outside, from the unchurched, the pagans, the nasty atheists and their empires (and so we turn out attention there). But it simply isn’t so. Never has been, and never will be. The real threat to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Church always comes from within the Church; specifically: it always comes from church headquarters, from the hierarchy, the Pooh-Bahs, the boss men (and women) of the church.

Just as it wasn’t the Babylonians who sought to kill Jeremiah, but the high priests and kings of Israel, so it always goes. Even when the pagan emperors wield the sword, as Nero did with St. Paul and St. Peter, it was their own religious hierarchy, the Sanhedrin, that condemned them first and delivered them to the Romans as dangerous criminals who had to die (and uh, didn’t it in fact go just that way with Jesus Himself?).

It wasn’t the Goths and Barbarians who troubled St. Augustine, but popular pastors like Arius, Donatus, and Pelagius. It wasn’t the Emperor who marked and condemned Luther first, but it was the pope. It isn’t atheists like Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins who have gutted the liturgy and theology of the church in our time so as to make it unrecognizable from the confession and worship of the church catholic, but our own presidents, pastors, professors, and publishing houses—all in the name of “relevance” or “missions”.

They do it out of good intentions of course. They do it because institutions crave success, numbers, revenue, growth and common sense says only hard work and a good marketing plan gets you there, which puts our minds on earthly rather than heavenly things. But the Gospel of Christ calls us to die to our old dreams of glory in order to find a new life through the Crucified One whose Story becomes our own only by way of the cross we fear, that is so inimical to our ideas of glory and success.

Which is to say it is not Athens, or New York, or Paris that stones the prophets and kills those sent to her, but it is Jerusalem, Rome, St. Louis, whatever the “Holy City” is for you in your time, that does the damage! It isn’t the Politburo or the Secret Police that muzzle the Gospel, but it is the Sanhedrin, the Curia, the Commission on Theology and Church Relations that throws the first stone, deals the killing blow. It cannot be that a prophet should perish outside the Holy City, the citadel of the Faith! Jesus says so! Which is to say the guys you should keep your eye on are the guys wearing the collar like me. Don’t hold to what is mine, that comes from me, but only what is Christ’s and comes from Him by His Word…

And yet… and yet Jesus still goes into the heart of the beast. He still journeys to Jerusalem, knowing exactly what awaits Him there: a crown of thorns, cruel mockery, spitting, cursing, flogging and finally an excruciating death on a cross. (Oh, make no mistake: we see with Jesus how Pilate and the Politburo and the Secret Police will be happy to help administer the killing stroke, but it is always Herod, Caiaphas, and the Sanhedrin who make the first move and co-opt them for this).

So why does Jesus go there? Why does He sarcastically say “it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside Jerusalem?” If we are so worthless and hopeless, we, the pious elite, the insiders, the Sanhedrin, the devout Evangelicals, as to kill the Messiah sent to save us, why in the world would He go willingly to die for wretches and scuzzballs like us?

Because His ways are not our ways! Because His mercy and love are so much greater than our concept of justice and fairness! Because, since we are bent on the idea of killing our Father to get the inheritance, He goes: “Okay, if that’s the only Way, I’ll go by My Son to die at your hands Myself!” Because He longs to gather us rebels under His wing, like a mother hen her chicks, even though we are unwilling, He will go and suffer and die for us in our Holy City, by our hands, because this is the only way you save the unwilling! And saving the unwilling is His best trick!

And this, this alone, is what turns us unwilling rebels into willing servants and friends of the King. The Death of the Prince of Peace gives us the inheritance we fought so long to take by force, restores us freely as heirs of the King. End of the Road.

Still, Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople, Canterbury, St. Louis are stoning the prophets, killing those sent to her. The regicide goes on, and it goes on at the very heart of the Church! But the victory has been won, by the Crucified One, the King we crowned with thorns and killed 2,000 years ago on a spring Friday afternoon in Jerusalem. By the Word of His cross, by His body and blood, you are reckoned sons and daughters of the King. You can’t understand it, but He grants you to believe it, that believing you may have Peace that surpasses all understanding, that guards your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Pastor Kevin W. Martin