Hespeler, March 16, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18, Psalm 27, Philippians 3:17-4:1, Luke 13:31-35
Listen up, you church people. Don’t you know that the church is doomed within our society? It has been on the decline for decades now. The church has been aging in its demographics and has failed to attract a new generation.
What’s more, it is increasingly viewed with hostility by society in general which sees it, at best, as irrelevant and, at worst, as toxic and destructive. If trends continue, chances are that they will seek to kill the church by removing things like tax deductible status and faith protections.
Don’t you realize that this is a bad situation? If you were wise, you would just give up now and get out of here before you have to deal with such a defeat.
A Warning We Might Receive
Okay, let me be clear here. I am not saying that. I wouldn’t say that, and I don’t agree with much of it. But I hope you’ll forgive me for voicing to you something that some people would say about the church. If you hang out in certain internet forums, you can read people who say it all the time. If we were to invite such people in, they would definitely be happy to say it to us.
And I just wanted to give you a moment to reflect on what it would be like to hear that. How would you feel about someone who told you that? There is some truth in it, of course, so, if someone said it to you would you take it as a friendly warning and assume that they were just trying to help you come to terms with reality?
Not Really Friendly
Probably not. It certainly doesn’t do that for me. I immediately suspect that they have an agenda. They may have some truth behind what they are saying, but they are definitely couching that truth in self-serving ways. They are not trying to save you but perhaps maybe even trying to hasten your demise.
But, whatever they are trying to do, the real question is how are you going to respond. Do you take their warnings and decide to give up? Or do you reject their warnings and try to fight against whatever truth is in them?
A Fragile Hour
There are problems with both of those responses. The church seems to be in a fragile hour right now. And so, if we were to receive such a warning, we might just overreact by giving everything up or perhaps by becoming so obsessed with survival that we lose sight of everything else and we lose any sense of what we are supposed to be doing. How are we supposed to respond to a warning like that?
Jesus’ Fragile Hour
Well, Jesus got a warning like that one day. The Gospel of Luke begins the story like this: “At that very hour.” And that is, let me tell you, a bit of an odd way to start the story. Because I looked at the passage before that, and there’s absolutely no indication what “hour” we are talking about. Jesus has just been traveling around Galilee teaching and telling parables like he does throughout most of this part of the story. There is no particular hour referred to. So, what is Luke talking about?
Maybe the hour is not related to an external event going on at a specific time. What if it refers to something going on internally. “The hour,” I suspect, just happened to be an hour when Jesus was feeling particularly vulnerable, kind of like what we might be feeling these days in the church.
The Pharisees
And “at that very hour,” we are told that, “some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” Now, does that sound a little bit suspicious to you? The Pharisees are not really the good guys of the New Testament. They are often the ones who oppose Jesus and his message. They argue with him and accuse him of doing the wrong things. In the Gospel of Matthew, there is a whole chapter-long diatribe where Jesus goes on and on about how bad the Pharisees are.
The Pharisees are sometimes portrayed a little more sympathetically in the Gospel of Luke, but still, when they show up like this at this vulnerable hour, we don’t immediately jump to the conclusion that they are there because they mean Jesus well.
They Do Not Lie
But here is the issue. Whatever their intentions, they do not lie to Jesus. “Herod wants to kill you,” is likely the truest thing they say in this gospel. Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee had multiple reasons to kill Jesus.
Jesus was stirring up the populace by teaching people that their first allegiance was to the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of Herod. He was telling fishermen to leave their nets and follow him, which was causing Herod to suffer revenue loss from all of his taxes and fees on fishing. He was feeding people bread and fish in the wilderness, the trade of which Herod was trying to monopolise.
Yes, Herod had all kinds of reasons to be mad at Jesus and, as he had proven in the case of John the Baptist, he was quite capable of killing the people who upset him. Yes, the Pharisees were doubtlessly correct that Herod wanted to see Jesus dead.
Their Motivations
But, even though they were telling the truth, we’ve got to wonder why. Do they want to save Jesus’ life? Or do they just want him to go away so that they don’t have to deal with him. I suspect that it is the latter, don’t you?
In fact, they have probably come because they figure that whatever happens next, it will be a win for them. They wouldn’t really mind if Herod did kill Jesus. They would be pleased to see him go away. But even if neither of those things happen and he refuses to leave, they figure that their warning is going to make him so cautious and paranoid that he will be totally ineffective in his ministry.
It is the oldest trick in the book. They present a danger and expect that Jesus will respond with base animal instincts – with either fight or flight. And they figure that either response benefits them. They can’t lose!
Dealing With Jesus
Ah, but they have forgotten who they are dealing with, haven’t they? They may think they have the perfect way to neutralize Jesus, but they are wrong. It is not smart to bet against Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t respond the way they expect. He doesn’t run and he doesn’t give into fear and paranoia. Instead, he responds with words that I’m going to admit have always puzzled 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.”
Think about this, they are talking about life and death decisions. They are talking about an enemy who has power to bring to an end everything that Jesus has accomplished. They are trying to provoke that classic animal response of fight or flight. And what does Jesus say?
Today, Tomorrow and the Next Day
“Today, tomorrow, and the next day.” That is the essence of his response. It is so important, that you will notice that he repeats it twice. They are talking about this existential threat, but Jesus talks about what he is doing today, tomorrow and the next day. They think they’re talking about whether it’s time for fight or flight, but Jesus talks about what he’s doing today, tomorrow and the next day.
This is a masterful response for a few reasons. First of all, he understands that they want to put him off of his game. They want him to focus on matters of survival or escape. But he knows he has to hold close to what his mission is. And his mission is all about what he is doing today, tomorrow and the next day. It is about what he is doing right now, and if he hasn’t got that figured out, what does it matter what happens beyond the next day?
Carrying Out His Ministry
And what is Jesus doing today and tomorrow and the next day? He is carrying out his ministry. He is reaching out with healing and care toward those around him who are struggling. He is seeing the needs in the community around him and responding according to the ability that God has given him. He is declaring that, so long as he is he is doing what he has been called to do, he does not need to fear beyond that.
And I think that the church needs to learn from that. Yes, there will always be things going on in the wider world that disturb us. Your country may be in the midst of a trade war. Somebody always seems to be threatening to turn your country into the 51st state. The church may be feeling irrelevant and threatened. And of course these things are significant and they are having terrible effects on people’s lives.
Focussing on What We have to Do
But while all this is going on around us, we have a way to stop it all from overwhelming us. We just have to focus on what we need to do today and tomorrow and the next day. We can focus on the tasks that Jesus has put before us.
And central to that task is doing what we can to care for those of this world who are marginalized and victimized. It includes giving food to the hungry and clothing to those who need it. It means offering a word of hope and healing to those who find no peace in such a world. We, like Jesus, will find our way through hours of threat and danger by focussing on what we need to do today and tomorrow and the next day.
Herod is Not the Threat
Jesus is also saying something else in his response to the Pharisees. Once he declares that he intends to focus on what God has given him to do today and tomorrow and the next day, he goes on to say this. “I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.”
What is he saying here? He is declaring that he knows that Herod is actually not a true threat to him. This is not because Herod Antipas is not powerful, he is. This is not because Herod is not a narcissistic, transactional and completely self-interested ruler who is quite capable of killing Jesus on a whim, he is.
Jesus Knows Who Holds His Fate
Herod is a danger to him and perhaps the whole world, but Jesus knows that Herod can ultimately do nothing to him. Why? Because Jesus knows that his fate is not in the hands of Herod, it is in the hands of God. And God has decreed that no prophet needs to fear being killed outside of Jerusalem. And Herod’s territory of Galilee is a long way from Jerusalem.
So, what is Jesus saying? He’s saying that Herod can’t kill him because he’s got to go be killed somewhere else. I’m not scared of you because that guy down there is going to kill me. It is an odd sort of comeback when you think about it. But it is one that I think can help us to deal with our threats.
Our Threats
It is true that there are all kinds of things that seem to threaten us and our continued existence. That actually seems more true today than it has been in a while, and it is true for the church and for us as individual believers.
But what this example of Jesus teaches us is that, when we have a firm sense of our destiny and when we know that that destiny is in the hands of God, we actually don’t need to fear the Herods of this world. The disruptions in the economy or political systems may come and go and we will deal with them of course, but knowing that our destiny is secure and all that we are required to do is remain faithful, gives us a very different perspective on those ups and downs of life.
There are threats and dangers out there; warnings you hear may be true. But Jesus has shown us what to do. Let us remember always what Jesus has called us to do today, tomorrow and the next day and that includes continuing to do the work that we do offering food to those who are hungry and clothing to those families who struggle in these times. And let us never forget who controls the destiny of our personal lives and our church.
Don’t let them scare you.