Focus on the Goal

Focus on the Goal Luke 13:31-35

Entering a church on Ash Wednesday, a person met a friend who asked what she was giving up for Lent. The friend replied, “Anne’s giving up drinking, Terri’s giving up chocolate, and I’m just giving up.”

Do you ever feel like “just giving up”? You find yourself in a world where everyone wants more of you than you think you have to give. Your boss wants more work with less support. Your spouse wants more time. Your children want more freedom. Your in-laws want more access. Your doctor wants more tests. Your creditors want more money. Your yard needs more attention. Your tax preparer wants more documentation. Your church wants more volunteers.

In the face of all this “wanting more,” you may feel like you have already given all that you can, and that you may even be working at a deficit. When faced with this, it can seem that the only sane, responsible, life-saving answer is “to give up.” And if we don’t come to that conclusion for our self, there are often people around us who will suggest it for us. They will suggest we give up because it will make their life with you better for them.

“Just give up” seems to be the Pharisee’s advice to Jesus in today’s scripture reading. Their message is clear and to the point: Herod is after you. He has you marked for death. Get out of town while the getting is good. Give up your mission, abandon your disciples, and make your new goal in life to save yourself.

The Pharisees obviously think their lives will be better if Jesus were to just give up his ministry. The question, then, is “how?” How will their lives be better if Jesus isn’t healing the sick, feeding the hungry, forgiving the sinful, and proclaiming that the kingdom of God has come near to the people?

It may be that their lives will be better if they know that Jesus is safe and secure. They knew of a threat made by Herod against Jesus. They knew that Herod had a history of carrying out his threats. If Jesus takes his ministry to a region where Herod doesn’t have authority, then they will have a clear conscience that they did what they could to keep Jesus safe.

Or, it may be these Pharisees’ lives will be better because if Jesus leaves, the crisis level can be reduced from “red” to “yellow.” They knew that the Romans could be a benign presence, as long as no one tried to remove the Romans from power. With all that Jesus had said about bringing the kingdom of God near to the people, it was certain to make the Romans take notice. And when the Romans noticed someone threatening their power, they had only one solution – the Pax Romanus, the Peace of Rome. This was a policy of wiping out all perceived threats with extreme prejudice. If Jesus gives up and goes away, the Romans won’t have a reason to kill everyone associated with him. If Jesus goes away, they might not become collateral damage.

Or, it may be that their lives will be better if they don’t have to deal with Jesus’ inevitable death. Whether it was Herod, or the Romans, or the religious establishment, or some messy combination of those three, someone was going to finally object to the ministry of Jesus. And if the Bible and history are clear about anything, it is this: prophets have a predictably short life expectancy. If Jesus gives up or goes away, he will be someone else’s problem and the Pharisees won’t have to deal with his death. Quite likely, it was a combination of these and perhaps other reasons. The result was the same: some wanted Jesus to give up; others just wanted him to go away. There was just one little problem with their request – Jesus wasn’t giving up, and he wasn’t going away. We know this because of the response Jesus made, but there is more to his response that some supposed name-calling bravado and posturing.

Before we get to that, I need to give you some background information. You might even call this “deep background,” because what I am going to share is not in the text, and probably can’t be proved. It’s just information that fits. It bothers me that this passage seems to have Jesus calling someone a derogatory name. And even if it didn’t bother me, it would go against what Jesus himself taught in the Sermon on the Mount. What I am going to share with you I think explains why Jesus called Herod a fox.

Herod, while ethnically a Jew, acted more like a Roman leader, and served at the pleasure of the Romans. As such, we can assume that he had at least some education in the ways of Rome, and in the thinking of the Greeks. It is almost certain, then, that he would have known some of the teachings of Archilochus. We may not recognize that name much today, but back then, Archilochus was huge.

Archilochus was a Greek philosopher-poet-warrior in the 7th century BC. He wrote before Aesop told his fables, and before Aristotle taught Alexander the Great how to be a warrior. Archilochus was a memorable teacher because he basically invented lyric poetry as a means for sharing his wisdom in how to conduct war. One of his most famous sayings was: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” This is sometimes translated as “The fox knows many tricks; and the hedgehog only one; but that is the best one of all.”

This is a bit of warrior wisdom. The hedgehog is a slow moving, seemingly vulnerable animal that a fox would seem to hold every advantage over. The fox is faster, stronger, and smarter. The fox has bigger teeth, faster legs, stronger muscles, and sharper claws. But there is one thing a hedgehog can do that the fox cannot overcome. It can roll up into a ball. Instead of making the hedgehog even more vulnerable, it raises its over 7000 quills into an undefeatable defense around its body. Whatever the fox tries to do to the hedgehog when it is rolled up into a ball will only result in the fox being harmed.

We don’t know for sure if Jesus had any training in Greek thought, but it is certainly possible that he would have been familiar with this saying of Archilochus. The Roman city of Sepphoris is within walking distance of Nazareth, and it was built during the time Jesus was working as a carpenter. He would have had a lot of interaction with Roman soldiers while the city was being built.

So now we are ready to go back to our question: how does Jesus respond to this warning, to this suggestion that he just give up and go away?

Jesus begins by calling Herod a fox. Herod may have armies, and political power, and Roman backing, and a ruthless spirit, but Jesus knows one big thing – and it is the best of all. And because of this one big thing, Herod’s threat is of no concern to Jesus.

That’s what Jesus tells the Pharisees. Jesus will do what Jesus came among us to do. He will cast out demons. He will perform cures among the sick. He will proclaim the word of God. Jesus is going to do all that, and there is nothing Herod can do about. And then, in keeping with God’s time and will, Jesus will die as the paschal lamb for the sins of the world. The one big thing Jesus knows is that death cannot stop the mission of Jesus. The warnings of the Pharisees cannot derail the will of God. The threat of the Romans cannot change the work of Jesus. Jesus will not give up his mission, because Jesus will never give up on us. And that is good news for us, because even our shortcomings and failures cannot keep the kingdom of Jesus from coming on earth as it is in heaven.

This is good news because our world is so insane, so demanding, and often so threatening, that we are tempted to just give up, and to give in to the hopelessness. We want to give up on self-sacrifice and give in to selfishness. We want to give up on loving relationships that involve us, and give in to self-serving relationships that consume us. We want to give up on fighting the good fight, and give in to fighting the limits of our mortality.

The world warns us that resistance is futile. The world warns us that there is danger at every turn and that we must give up being naïve about the problems facing the world, and that we must go away from our core belief in the redemptive power of God’s grace through Jesus Christ. The world offers us its hard-won wisdom that we should save ourselves and forget the rest, particularly those who are lost sinners who can pull us down and make us vulnerable. The world is a fox, with many tricks, so the smart money is to be afraid and to do what the fox says.

But Jesus has the one big trick – and it is the best of all. Instead of using the image of a hedgehog, covered all over with deadly spines, Jesus gives us the image of the mother hen, ready to die to protect her chicks. That is the big trick – it is the love of Jesus, willing to die for us, that will save us. If Jesus gives up his goal to get to Jerusalem, then we are all lost, and the fox wins.

Jesus didn’t give up for that one simple reason – Jesus loves us. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the church at Rome, gave words to the power of this love when he wrote, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That is how much Jesus loves us still.

Our next hymn, once considered quite scandalous for its imagery of Jesus as a lover, is actually a hymn written from the view point of one of the chicks protected by the mother hen. The story is that Charles Wesley was preaching in the fields of the parish of Killyleagh, County Down, Ireland, when he was at- tacked by men who did not approve of his doctrines. Charles sought refuge in a house located on what was known as the Island Barn Farm. The farmer’s wife, Jane Lowrie Moore, told him to hide in the milkhouse, down in the garden. Soon the mob came and demanded the fugitive. She tried to quiet them by offering them refreshments. Going down to the milkhouse, she directed Mr. Wesley to get through the rear window and hide under the hedge, by which ran a little brook. In that hiding-place, with the cries of his pursuers all about him, Charles Wesley wrote this hymn.

As we sing, may we know that same urgency to fly to Jesus for salvation, and may we know that same assurance as those who are saved!

UM Hymnal 479 “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”