Surrender if you want to live: a reflection for Day 4 of Lent

 


“At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.” (Luke 13.1-3)

     Jesus and the disciples continue to journey towards Jerusalem.  Jesus’ teaching has a harsh, prophetic tone; indeed, the notion of repentance is emphasized.  What precisely is Jesus calling his contemporaries to repent of?

     Jesus’ mission was, simply put, the kingdom of God.  And yet, Jesus’ vision of the kingdom didn’t square with any of the other visions on offer.  Jesus was constantly clashing with the Pharisees over questions of law-observance (e.g. Lk. 5.17-26; 11.37-54); unlike the Zealots, Jesus advocated non-violence and love of enemy (Lk. 6.27, 35); unlike the Essenes, Jesus insisted on inaugurating the kingdom, not in the tranquility of the Judean desert, but rather in the midst of the rough-and-tumble of Galilean village life (cf. Lk. 13.22).  Everything Jesus did was an implicit critique of other kingdom-visions.  Jesus’ vision was one of compassion and mercy (cf. Lk. 10.25-37), of peace and wholeness (= “shalom”).  Through Jesus, the kingdom of God was indeed present (cf. Lk. 11.20, 17.20-21), albeit subtly (Lk. 13.18-21).  Only those with “healthy eyes” could see it (Lk. 11.33-36).  Jesus has undertaken a prophetic kingdom-mission among a “generation” who doesn’t want to listen to God’s messengers (cf. Lk. 11.46-52; 13.33-35).  Jesus’ generation lived under foreign oppression, and assumed that the arrival of the kingdom of their God would result in political emancipation and “glory” for God’s nation.  Seems reasonable enough – Israel belonged to Yahweh, after all; she had been chosen from among all the nations of the earth (cf. Ex. 19.5-6).  What could the kingdom mean if not liberation for Yahweh’s people (cf. Lk. 2.25, 38)?

     There had been a prophet who had lived out his vocation six centuries earlier, in somewhat similar conditions to those of the time of Jesus, and after whom Jesus seems to have modeled his ministry – Jeremiah.  A member of a priestly family from the village of Anathoth, near Jerusalem, Jeremiah had been called by God to the prophetic life before he could take up his father’s priestly mantle (Jer. 1.1-8).  Once the Babylonians defeated the Egyptians at the battle of Carchemish in 605 B.C., this near-eastern empire began to exert pressure on the kingdom of Judah.  Despite several attempts by Judahite kings to resist Babylonian hegemony, Jeremiah spent 40 years preaching in Jerusalem that the people of God should not resist, but rather submit to Babylonian rule.  Indeed, Jeremiah proclaimed that Babylon was Yahweh’s instrument of justice, and that whatever the Babylonians did to Jerusalem was to be understood as God’s just judgement against his wayward people (cf. Jer. 7.1-34; 25.1-14).  Jeremiah put a stark choice before “his generation” (cf. Jer. 7.29) – either surrender to Babylon and live or resist Babylonian rule and die (Jer. 21.1-10).  Needless to say, this message didn’t make Jeremiah many friends, and his life was in almost constant danger (cf. Jer. 11.18-23; chapters 37 – 38).  Amazingly, not only did Jeremiah survive to see his prophecies of Jerusalem’s destruction come true, but he survived the catastrophe and would eventually die in Egypt, after having been “kidnapped” by the survivors of the sack of the Judean capital (cf. Jer. 43).

     Like Jeremiah, Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, within “one generation” of his prophecies (Lk. 19.41-44; 21.5-36).  Unlike Jeremiah, Jesus would not “live” to see his oracles fulfilled; however, Jesus seems to have described his own fate as a precursor of the fate that would soon befall the nation (cf. Lk. 23.26-31).  So, when Jesus called his contemporaries to “repent” of their kingdom-vision (Lk. 13.1-5), he was doing precisely what Jeremiah had done before him.  Jesus was calling “his generation” to abandon their program of violent resistance to Rome, to “repent” of that kingdom-vision which had as the desired outcome the destruction of their enemies.  Like Jeremiah, Jesus said that if the people of God took up arms against Rome, the end result would be the total destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (cf. Lk. 13.34-35; 19.41-44, etc.).  Sadly, Jesus’ prophecies came true in the year AD 70, when the Roman legions sacked the Judean capital during the First Jewish War (AD 66 – 73).[1]

     Like us, Jeremiah and Jesus lived during times of unrest, of empires and attempts to resist them – times rife with fear and hatred.  What does it mean to work for the kingdom of God at such times?  Jesus says to us again: “Love your enemies, ‘see’ people as God sees them, act with compassion and forgiveness and, along with others who share this kingdom-vision, pray for the strength to endure the consequences” (cf. Lk. 11.1-4).  Amen.


[1] The historian Josephus had been the commander of the Jewish troops in Galilee until his capture by the Romans, at which point he became the “court-historian” of general Vespasian, who had become emperor during his campaign to quell the rebellion in Palestine.

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