On the Road Again - Making Divine Music

Luke 13:31-35

There is an old Willie Nelson song that goes, “On the road again.

Just can’t wait to get on the road again.

The life I love is makin’ music with my friends.

And I can’t wait to get on the road again.”

Well, I don’t know if Jesus was as anxious to get on the road as Willie Nelson apparently was, knowing what would come at the end of the journey.

Still, Jesus might as well have been singing that song at this point in the gospel of Luke,

because Jesus is “on the road again.”

He’s on the road with his friends.

The music he is makes delivers the good news of a God

who loves the world so much,

that, despite the cost, God’s wills this journey

to continue to its destination.

Jesus has been making music,

delivering this good news along with

          a new imperative that God desires the salvation of all people;

                   that in God’s economy, grace and mercy abound

                             for those who trust in the goodness of Our Lord.

The road Jesus is on is the road to Jerusalem.

It is the road of his divine destiny.

Enrique Simonet Lombardo Jesus journeys to Jerusalem

It is the road to his passion, to his death on the cross,

                   and ultimately, to his resurrection.

Yes, Jesus is on the road again.

And not everyone is happy about it.

In this gospel text, Jesus reveals that by God’s will, “it is necessary”

 – this road,

this journey,

this story –

it is the fulfillment of the divine plan,

the purpose for which he came,

to be on that road.

The journey that Jesus makes to Jerusalem,

reveals that Jesus is committed to fulfilling God’s will.

But he is not without opposition, traveling down that road.

Along his journey, Jesus clashes with one opponent and obstacle after another.

Despite the danger, despite the warnings,

despite his rejection by the Jewish leadership and elders,

          Jesus is “on the road again.”

And in today’s gospel text, he faces down Herod Antipas, “that fox,”

who, unlike our conventional characterization of the fox

is not an emblem of wisdom, but rather a figure of cunning deception.

In Jesus’ context, the word he chooses for “fox”

Would have been understood as someone more akin to a weasel –

an animal that steals the food of others,

as Herod once stole his own brother’s wife.

Later in the gospel of Luke, we learn that Herod participates in the event to steal

the very life from Jesus,

and attempts to steal any semblance of hope

away from those Jesus came to embrace.

Along his journey and on that road, Jesus clashes with the Pharisees time and again,

that group of men who pretend in these verses to be looking out for Jesus’ welfare,

but who secretly and not-so-secretly plot to be rid of him.

As we see in the parables, Jesus and the Pharisees

clash time and again.

The clash between Jesus and the temple leadership

often takes the form of debates and disagreements over the

meaning and scope of God’s love

and God’s agenda for humankind, as Jesus sings a new song of inclusivity even as the Pharisees cry out for the continuance of the exclusive, preferential following of Law.

Jesus reminds us in this text

that there is a clash between Jesus and Jerusalem as well,

as Jesus calls to mind the Old Testament stories

that reveal the many times God has sheltered the people of Israel

under God’s protective wings,

and yet has been rejected by this stubborn and recalcitrant people.

Their rejection has led to the slaughter of prophets God has sent.

If nothing else,

this story reminds us that it takes courage to be a prophet and disciple of God.

Prophets tell us news that we really don’t want to hear.

The world doesn’t want to hear God’s cry for repentance and divine justice.

Jesus’ ministry, teaching and life call for a radical reorientation

of our lives, - that is what repentance is all about.

It is this call for repentance that we observe and pursue during Lent,

that we might prepare to be transformed by the love and mercy of God.

Repentance demands a radical reorientation of thought –

 what should we consider important, who do we welcome, encourage and embrace?

          How do we view our time, talent and treasure – what and who is it for?

This kind of radical reorientation of priorities and being upsets the status quo –

No longer can we hide behind a “it’s just the way it is” philosophy or excuse for falling short of the mandate of God to love our neighbor as ourselves and to make love our primary objective in life.

No longer is following tradition an acceptable excuse for ungodly behavior that has little to do with God’s desire and character and more to do with selective interpretation and application of the law to benefit and uphold a status quo that marginalizes and excludes others.

The evangelist Luke reveals throughout his gospel how, on and all along the road,

Jesus demonstrates a radical reorientation that raises up the weak and lowly.

Like a mother hen, through Jesus, God seeks

to draw, embrace, include, and welcome God’s children into the family

of humanity that God has desired and intended from the dawn

of creation itself.

Luke’s Gospel identifies the priorities and inclusiveness of God’s love from early within the evangelist’s narrative of the life of Jesus.

We remember that it is to the shepherds that

the good news of the Messiah’s birth is first told

 – shepherds – themselves considered among the lowest of the lowly.

They were not considered nice, respectable people.

Rather, they were considered undesirable, dishonest, dirty,

despicable people only suited to life out in the fields with stupid sheep,

not acceptable within the social networks of the village or town.

Even before the shepherds in Luke’s narrative,

we meet Mary,

the peasant teenage girl who,

 Freskenzyklus im Dominikanerkloster San Marco in Florenz

chosen by God to deliver unto the world the messiah, sings a song of revolution:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden,” she sings out, words that we have come to know of as “The Magnificat” – (My soul maginifies).

In Luke, we will soon read of a prodigal son and his reckless father, of a Samaritan who is not only good, but who, by his actions is more righteous than the “proper” Jewish passersby who refuse to give aid where it is needed.

 The song Jesus sings along this road is consistent with the love of God that reaches out into a world so far beyond redemption

that it takes a radical reorientation of God’s own design to save it.

It takes the incarnation of the Son of God, Jesus Christ,

who gives heart and voice and power to the powerless,

          and calls his disciples to do the same.

Of course, you can’t raise the status of the marginalized without

affecting – even lessening –

the power structures of the powerful.

And so, radical reorientation demands courage, too.

It means allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, as Jesus became vulnerable

understanding that following God’s will

does not guarantee a happy ending

          or our personal safety or our own comfort.

As we heard in last week’s gospel story of Jesus in the wilderness,

following God’s will sometimes mean testing

– not from God –

but from the forces that resist God’s will.

Our experience not only of the world but even of the church today

demonstrates the distance that we are from God’s divine imperative to love

and welcome all people.

The rhetoric in our media, in our speech, in the political arena,

in our schools, on social media, in the workplace,

and in our social networks often belies our claim

that we are doing better at this than in the past.

We live in a world obsessed with status and power – not unlike Jesus’ own world –

and consequently, our world is rife with political machinations

-         Again, not unlike the world along the road that Jesus walked.

Too often we make excuses for the resulting waywardness

of our hearts.

Radical reorientation in our gospel text today points to the reality

that there will be winners and losers in the clash between Herod’s will

and God’s will, or between God’s will and Jerusalem’s will, or God’s will

and the will of the “powers that be” within the world today.

The overarching story of Jesus reminds us, however,

that what the world deems “winning” is often not winning at all.

Because this radical reorientation also points to the presence of the kingdom of God

that is at work and loose in the world, which

does not measure success or victory in worldly terms.

Rather, it measures the value of each person as beloved, prized, and worthy

of God’s sheltering wings simply because God declares it to be so

through Jesus, Our Lord.

Researcher and storyteller Brené Brown studies human behavior and sense of being.

She looks at things like what makes the human being anxious, and stuck in place. Perhaps you’ve seen T.E.D. talks she’s done on the power of vulnerability.

She states that “You can’t get to courage without walking through vulnerability.”

For Brown, “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.

Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable,” she says,

“But they’re never weakness.”

Jesus allowed himself, in fact he made himself vulnerable

in ways that make us uncomfortable;

 in ways that we really don’t understand,

in ways that the world sees as weakness.

We don’t understand why Jesus had to go to the cross.

We don’t understand this divine imperative that required such a sacrifice.

As disciples of Christ we are also called to make ourselves vulnerable.

We don’t like placing ourselves in positions of vulnerability.

          We don’t like opening ourselves up to ridicule, pain, or worse.

Perhaps that’s what makes it so hard for us

to follow Jesus on this road as faithful disciples.  

The Good News for us, this day,

is that Jesus understands our reluctance,

and through the love of God forgives us,

and sets us on our disciple feet over and over again,

willing us to learn through our own journeys what the honest vulnerability of faith can do.

God gave Jesus the courage and ability to get on the road, to live the kind of life he lived, in obedience to the will of God; to sing the song of hope for the ages as he goes on, “making music with his friends.” “Blessed,” Jesus declares as he calls those who need shelter under his wings, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Let us pray,

You call us to a radical reorientation of our lives. Turn us away from that within us which causes us to resist the deep, broad, compelling call to love others as you have first loved us. As we journey on this road with Jesus, shelter us from evil doers, from evil thoughts, and from the reluctance, born of fear, to make ourselves vulnerable for your sake. Grant, O Lord, that we may ever sing with you, that the music we make is pleasing to you, and that trusting in you, we will not stray from this road with you. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.