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February 28, 2010 Sermon

A Pharisee's Pilgrimage (Joel 2 selected verses, Luke 13: 35-35)

Rev. Sally Harris

O Holy One, come now to this place.
Make your presence known.
Give to us eyes to see your mystery.
Ears to hear your Word.
And a heart to weep with you. Amen

I am a Pharisee and today I want to share my pilgrimage of being a Pharisee that saw and heard and wept. I know that in terms of the Christian story we haven’t gotten good press and if you were listening carefully to the gospel this morning you might have even wondered what a Pharisee was doing warning Jesus about Herod. After all most of the time it seems that it is Jesus vs. the Pharisees and for the gospel writers Jesus always wins the gold!

I admit we make great targets. We can be somewhat nit-picking legalists who for the most part rejected Jesus' teaching because, well because he kept breaking our rules. Rules we have been following for a long time. We are not bad people thought, in fact, in the scheme of things we are some of the best people around. We are serious about our faith, concerned about doing things right, devoted to pleasing God by living, to the best of our knowledge, honorable lives. And somewhere along the road I saw Jesus trying to do the same thing. He just wasn’t very politically wise. He did not understand the religious and political arena he was playing in… I mean there were certain ways of getting things done, certain rules to follow… to nudge the system this way or that but Jesus… Jesus didn’t have a clue or he didn’t care or well what I discovered later was he actually was playing by a whole different set of rules – rules of the heart not of the law.

So I went to find Jesus, to do him a favor really, to feel good about myself too… I was trying to love my neighbor as myself and I sure would want to know if I was reading the signs wrong. I would want to know if there were rumors of my demise. So I went to warn him that the talk of the town was his assassination. Herod was serious about keeping the peace at all costs. He wanted to maintain the status quo and Jesus was starting to draw attention to a system that was showing some cracks. So the best way to deal with such disturbances was certainly not to listen to but to get rid of the agitator. It had worked for centuries.

And Jesus thanked me for my generous advise and took measures to realign himself with the religious and political rules of his day… right? No. Jesus said:

“Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem".

I suspect that Jesus knew exactly what he was doing in calling King Herod “that fox.” On the one hand, he was acknowledging the reality that Herod could, with a simple decree, put a halt to Jesus’ ministry. Already he had brought John the Baptist to a quick and ugly end. But calling Herod a “fox” was also placing him in the category of the annoying petty thief — clever and capable, but in the end not terrifying.

Jesus is headed to Jerusalem — shorthand for a showdown with the powers of evil. And in the mean time, he is preaching, healing, eating with outcasts and proclaiming that the kingdom of God is near. . Jesus knew that the greatest danger is not the one Herod brings, no the real danger is being diverted from the mission for which he was called.

The mission to preach that God’s love is available to all, including those society has written off: widows, outcasts, tax collectors and little children. His devotion to his mission is in fact a fierce maternal love for those who most need to hear this message. If sticking to his brood, these lost and little ones, makes him more vulnerable to the likes of foxes like Herod, so be it.

Like you, we lived in an age of fear and anxiety. Whether it be terrorism or further economic uncertainty, we continued to be a people assaulted daily with the message that everything might fall apart at any minute. And in some cases, the messengers were right. We became so accustomed to the daily litany of what might destroy us that we did not even notice the way fear seeped into our consciousness as we locked our doors, held our purses closer on the street, and never let our children out of our sight. Until finally we were stuck in our “safe” zones, limiting our activities and actions. We spent so much time guarding our safety that we missed the point of traveling this life at all. And then I saw Jesus. I mean I finally saw him and heard him and wept for and with him. For Jesus the safe path was not the faithful one. Jesus was not lamenting for himself but for his inability to reach the people, to reach the powers that be to say… I am not against you I just want you to see God; to know the way of God’s heart.

In my studies I remember hearing a story that when God, the Holy One, gets up in the morning, God gathers the angels of heaven around and asks this simple question: “Where does my creation need mending today? Theology consists of worrying about what God worries about when God gets up in the morning. And Jesus seemed to have some intimate knowledge on what God was most worried about… like the ones who are not seen or heard. The ones who cry themselves to sleep from hunger – hunger for food, for justice, for shelter, hunger to be heard, hunger to be understood, hunger to be taken seriously, hunger for right relations.

Sometimes to hear, to really hear you must weep like Jesus did, like I did. Weeping opened my heart to understand that God is about the rules of the heart not the law. But I don’t think people know how to talk about tears. We are taught to be strong and stoic; not mushy and weak. And tears seem weak. Most people are uncomfortable with tears. I know I am. I don’t know what to say, when on those rare occasions I see someone weep. Actually as a Pharisee I didn’t even know if we really knew how to weep anymore, until that day I came to warn Jesus. The day I saw Jesus’ longing turn to weeping and I knew something spiritual was going on… something strong was going on. Can tears be a strong, spiritual act? The prophet Joel seemed to think so. Joel knew that the only way to return to God with all our hearts was to rend our hearts with weeping.

Our tears can be as transforming as the spring rains, washing the wounds of numbness from our souls so that compassion for all, including oneself, can flourish. Jesus knew he had to be on his way. He knew the risks, the dangers of seeing the world clearly through tears. Yes Jesus knew how to live because he knew longing. Jesus knew how to love because he knew how to weep. Our tears break open our hearts so that we can re-discern the reality of God, seeing the world clearly through our tears. Where does God’s creation need mending today? [resource: Pam Fickenscher]

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