You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus’ observation on the outskirts of Jerusalem – often depicted as taking place on a hillside overlooking the city – is seen by many as a compassionate lament for the great city which had been for many centuries the center of Israel’s religious life. Maybe it’s that repetition of “Jerusalem,” and the hen thing, that make it sound that way.
But when we look at what he actually says, and what’s going on at the time, we detect a more forceful, thwarted, even angry tone. Jesus is passing judgment on the ancient city, which he says has always excelled in missing the point, often violently so. After noting – with sarcasm? –that “it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem,” he goes on: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you.”
Israel’s history was replete with stories of prophets whose dire warnings of judgment to come went unheeded, who were rebuked, imprisoned, tortured and sometimes killed by the powers against whom they ranted. Prophets were considered holy men who spoke for God – unless their message was too harsh or unpopular, or perhaps conflicted with the message of another self-acclaimed prophet. Who’s to know who to believe? People will generally stay with the one whose message is most palatable, much in the way we can now choose which media from which to get our news, and what friends’ opinions are likely to show up on our social media feeds. We didn’t invent the closed feedback loop.
It’s awfully hard to know who is a true prophet until after the fact. But we have been given a fullness of revelation in Jesus Christ, and it’s not so hard to know him. Some who knew him in the flesh ultimately turned away from him, rejecting, betraying, even condemning him. What would we have done? Would we have recognized him as a true prophet or rejected him as one more disappointment, one more person out of touch with how the world really is, one more would-be prophet distorting God’s word?
Go back and read the words of Jesus in the Gospels this week. What is he really saying? Do we accept his hard teachings, or dismiss him?
Jesus may have been uttering judgment upon Jerusalem, so soon to repeat its pattern of death-dealing, but we would be foolish if we thought this lament doesn’t apply to us too. Jerusalem was and is a place with a particular history and customs, but in the Bible it is also a symbolic place where God and humankind meet. The Book of Revelation speaks of the “new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.” Jeru-salem, the word “peace” embedded in its very name, represents the hope of reconciliation, of fidelity and obedience, of that mystical place where God himself will dwell, “and they shall be God’s people and God himself shall be with them.” (Revelation 21:1-4)
We can choose which Jerusalem we will be – the one that kills its prophets and stones its messengers, or the new Jerusalem where heaven and earth can truly meet. That is a place of courageous truth-telling and peace-making.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label prophets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prophets. Show all posts
1-23-25 - Already Fulfilled?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Many people have trouble understanding what they read in the Bible. Scholars have developed many lenses through which to approach the task of interpretation: who the writer or writers were; the people to whom they were writing; their historical and/or theological concerns and emphases; what was going on in the time and place in which the writing originated; the literary style used. And there are other layers, such as the concerns of the communities who collected these writings and included them in the canon of scripture; the angle taken by translators; it never ends.
And the “meaning” we draw out can vary according to the society in which the scripture is being read, its assumptions and preoccupations. We read passages on slavery or the role of women very differently than did communities one hundred or thousand years ago, or even today in some places. We don’t have those writers here to ask, “What did you mean by this?” We have to guess, using clues from history and theology, geography and archaeology, similar literature, and church tradition.
Among the most difficult parts of the Bible to comprehend are the writings attributed to the prophets. Some of these are very specific, dealing with historical events that have clearly come and gone – or have they? Others seem more cosmic and apocalyptic, dealing with the end of time and final judgment – or do they? There’s a lot of “eye of the beholder” in what we perceive when reading the prophets.
So imagine how shocking it must have been in the synagogue in Nazareth that day, when Jesus finished reading this part of Isaiah’s prophecy, sat down to comment on it, and said simply, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” A more definitive interpretation could not be. “This is what this meant, and now that I’m here, it has been fulfilled. No more waiting.” Did they find that good news?
How do we hear these words? As Good News, that redemption has been proclaimed, and secured in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? I hope so. And let's go deeper than the face value of these words, to the simple “Today this has been fulfilled.” That “Today” encompasses every day, the eternal present in which God lives and works. In fact, all of God’s promises have been fulfilled today, because they have been fulfilled in Christ, and their power is available to us through his Holy Spirit.
It requires faith to proclaim, in the face of injustice, that the promise of justice has been fulfilled; to believe, in the face of brutality, that evil has been vanquished; to claim, in the face of hunger, that enough has been provided; to declare, in the face of death, that life is ours forever. Yet that is what it means to live by faith – to live in the “already” future life of God that is all around us, and becomes more accessible the more we believe and proclaim it.
Today these promises have been fulfilled in our hearing. In one sense, that is the “correct” interpretation of any piece of Scripture. The promises of God are already revealed. It is up to us to help make them fully known.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Many people have trouble understanding what they read in the Bible. Scholars have developed many lenses through which to approach the task of interpretation: who the writer or writers were; the people to whom they were writing; their historical and/or theological concerns and emphases; what was going on in the time and place in which the writing originated; the literary style used. And there are other layers, such as the concerns of the communities who collected these writings and included them in the canon of scripture; the angle taken by translators; it never ends.
And the “meaning” we draw out can vary according to the society in which the scripture is being read, its assumptions and preoccupations. We read passages on slavery or the role of women very differently than did communities one hundred or thousand years ago, or even today in some places. We don’t have those writers here to ask, “What did you mean by this?” We have to guess, using clues from history and theology, geography and archaeology, similar literature, and church tradition.
Among the most difficult parts of the Bible to comprehend are the writings attributed to the prophets. Some of these are very specific, dealing with historical events that have clearly come and gone – or have they? Others seem more cosmic and apocalyptic, dealing with the end of time and final judgment – or do they? There’s a lot of “eye of the beholder” in what we perceive when reading the prophets.
So imagine how shocking it must have been in the synagogue in Nazareth that day, when Jesus finished reading this part of Isaiah’s prophecy, sat down to comment on it, and said simply, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” A more definitive interpretation could not be. “This is what this meant, and now that I’m here, it has been fulfilled. No more waiting.” Did they find that good news?
How do we hear these words? As Good News, that redemption has been proclaimed, and secured in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? I hope so. And let's go deeper than the face value of these words, to the simple “Today this has been fulfilled.” That “Today” encompasses every day, the eternal present in which God lives and works. In fact, all of God’s promises have been fulfilled today, because they have been fulfilled in Christ, and their power is available to us through his Holy Spirit.
It requires faith to proclaim, in the face of injustice, that the promise of justice has been fulfilled; to believe, in the face of brutality, that evil has been vanquished; to claim, in the face of hunger, that enough has been provided; to declare, in the face of death, that life is ours forever. Yet that is what it means to live by faith – to live in the “already” future life of God that is all around us, and becomes more accessible the more we believe and proclaim it.
Today these promises have been fulfilled in our hearing. In one sense, that is the “correct” interpretation of any piece of Scripture. The promises of God are already revealed. It is up to us to help make them fully known.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
12-6-24 - A Good Rant
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Today is St. Nicholas Day – a day of cheerful giving in the tradition of the great Bishop of Myra. Yet, though he was known for generosity, lending his name to the jolly figure we now know as Santa Claus, St. Nicholas could be fierce and combative when he felt Christian belief was being attacked. One of the many legends about him has him slapping the Egyptian theologian Arius in the face at the Council of Nicea over whether or not Jesus the Son was the equal of God the Father. (The Council eventually came down on the side of the full equality of all three persons of the Trinity, and Arius has gone down in history as a heretic…)
Old Nicholas, like anyone with a social media account today, was no stranger to the rant: an impassioned articulation of support or denunciation, fueled by indignation, righteous or otherwise, sometimes punctuated by biting wit. A good rant can leave you feeling somewhat singed, or slightly sick. John the Baptist, like many a prophet in Israel’s tradition, was a master of the good rant. As we will see more next week, he let the crowds who’d come out to see him know just what he thought of their sight-seeing curiosity and trendy repentance, calling them a brood of vipers, warning them of the coming judgment.
The prophets we meet in the Hebrew Bible didn’t mince words either. Their prophecies veered between doom and promise, and were often terrifying. A prophet doesn’t have to be frightening, but the prophet does have to honestly say what she or he believes God wants the people to hear. That’s the tricky part – to speak for God, and not just out of your own sense of right or wrong – or grievance. John’s essential message, if we take out the scary bits, was that people were to bear the fruit of repentance, not just say the words. If they were genuinely sorry for the way they had been living, conducting business and relationships, there should be a visible effect in changed lives and behaviors.
We are not to stop calling out injustice and untruth when we see it. We are to work for equity and access to resources and security for all people, and if necessary to speak against those who would deny those basic rights. Sometimes that speaking out will include ranting. More often it will entail a steady, relentless process of forming relationships in which communication can happen in humility and honesty.
Jesus could get up a good rant too – yet usually he brought transformation by drawing people into a relationship of love. A good prophet speaks the truth; a good leader fosters relationships to bring about outcomes that reflect that truth. That is our mission, transformation in Christ’s love.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Today is St. Nicholas Day – a day of cheerful giving in the tradition of the great Bishop of Myra. Yet, though he was known for generosity, lending his name to the jolly figure we now know as Santa Claus, St. Nicholas could be fierce and combative when he felt Christian belief was being attacked. One of the many legends about him has him slapping the Egyptian theologian Arius in the face at the Council of Nicea over whether or not Jesus the Son was the equal of God the Father. (The Council eventually came down on the side of the full equality of all three persons of the Trinity, and Arius has gone down in history as a heretic…)
Old Nicholas, like anyone with a social media account today, was no stranger to the rant: an impassioned articulation of support or denunciation, fueled by indignation, righteous or otherwise, sometimes punctuated by biting wit. A good rant can leave you feeling somewhat singed, or slightly sick. John the Baptist, like many a prophet in Israel’s tradition, was a master of the good rant. As we will see more next week, he let the crowds who’d come out to see him know just what he thought of their sight-seeing curiosity and trendy repentance, calling them a brood of vipers, warning them of the coming judgment.
The prophets we meet in the Hebrew Bible didn’t mince words either. Their prophecies veered between doom and promise, and were often terrifying. A prophet doesn’t have to be frightening, but the prophet does have to honestly say what she or he believes God wants the people to hear. That’s the tricky part – to speak for God, and not just out of your own sense of right or wrong – or grievance. John’s essential message, if we take out the scary bits, was that people were to bear the fruit of repentance, not just say the words. If they were genuinely sorry for the way they had been living, conducting business and relationships, there should be a visible effect in changed lives and behaviors.
We are not to stop calling out injustice and untruth when we see it. We are to work for equity and access to resources and security for all people, and if necessary to speak against those who would deny those basic rights. Sometimes that speaking out will include ranting. More often it will entail a steady, relentless process of forming relationships in which communication can happen in humility and honesty.
Jesus could get up a good rant too – yet usually he brought transformation by drawing people into a relationship of love. A good prophet speaks the truth; a good leader fosters relationships to bring about outcomes that reflect that truth. That is our mission, transformation in Christ’s love.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
10-2-23 - Kill the Messenger?
You can listen to this reflection here.
Another week, another vineyard. In this week’s parable, Jesus continues the conversation he was having with the priests and Pharisees we looked at last week. After putting them in their place with the tale of the two sons, he says, “Listen to another parable.” This time, he borrows from Isaiah 5:1-7, starting his story almost the same way.
A landowner plants, fences and equips a vineyard, and then leases it to others to run. As rent they owe a portion of the harvest. At picking time, he sends collectors – but the tenants won’t pay: “But the tenants seized his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.” They do the same to the next delegation, so the owner decides to send his son to collect the rent, “…saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
Jesus is laying another trap for the religious leaders. In not-so-thinly-veiled language, he alludes to the reception which Israel’s leaders had traditionally given God’s prophets. Most often, when they didn’t like what the prophets had to say, they tried to silence or even kill them. And what were the prophets usually saying? “God doesn’t want your sacrifices and your legalistic rituals. God doesn’t want your lip-service about holiness while you cheat the orphan and the widow and dishonor God’s Sabbath. God wants your heart, your repentance, your compassion.” Or, as Isaiah says of the vineyard, “When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?”
It is human nature to turn away from messages that challenge us to change. As we observe unprecedented devastation from climate change we are reminded of the failure over the past sixty years to get people to take seriously the risks to human, plant and animal life of a rapidly warming planet. On a smaller scale, think how hard it can be for an addict to take that first step in recovery, or for people to begin a weight-loss program. Often we wait until we see the effects of what we’ve been warned about – and then it can be too late. And sometimes, seeing the danger we’ve feared come to pass drives our heads further into the sands of denial and over-consumption.
Are there messages you have you been trying to ignore? Messages from God, from the Bible, from friends, from your own gut? Take some time in quiet today and ask that question of yourself and the Spirit, and see what emerges. “What am I pretending not to know?”
Are there issues on which you feel called to speak prophetically – i.e., messages that you believe God wants you to deliver? Are you offering them? How are they being received? Is there another way to communicate them?
This parable was a direct condemnation of the religious leaders of Israel in Jesus’ time. But its imagery resonates for us in many ways today, as citizens of the world and citizens of God’s realm. Isaiah tells us,
"For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,
Another week, another vineyard. In this week’s parable, Jesus continues the conversation he was having with the priests and Pharisees we looked at last week. After putting them in their place with the tale of the two sons, he says, “Listen to another parable.” This time, he borrows from Isaiah 5:1-7, starting his story almost the same way.
A landowner plants, fences and equips a vineyard, and then leases it to others to run. As rent they owe a portion of the harvest. At picking time, he sends collectors – but the tenants won’t pay: “But the tenants seized his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.” They do the same to the next delegation, so the owner decides to send his son to collect the rent, “…saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
Jesus is laying another trap for the religious leaders. In not-so-thinly-veiled language, he alludes to the reception which Israel’s leaders had traditionally given God’s prophets. Most often, when they didn’t like what the prophets had to say, they tried to silence or even kill them. And what were the prophets usually saying? “God doesn’t want your sacrifices and your legalistic rituals. God doesn’t want your lip-service about holiness while you cheat the orphan and the widow and dishonor God’s Sabbath. God wants your heart, your repentance, your compassion.” Or, as Isaiah says of the vineyard, “When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?”
It is human nature to turn away from messages that challenge us to change. As we observe unprecedented devastation from climate change we are reminded of the failure over the past sixty years to get people to take seriously the risks to human, plant and animal life of a rapidly warming planet. On a smaller scale, think how hard it can be for an addict to take that first step in recovery, or for people to begin a weight-loss program. Often we wait until we see the effects of what we’ve been warned about – and then it can be too late. And sometimes, seeing the danger we’ve feared come to pass drives our heads further into the sands of denial and over-consumption.
Are there messages you have you been trying to ignore? Messages from God, from the Bible, from friends, from your own gut? Take some time in quiet today and ask that question of yourself and the Spirit, and see what emerges. “What am I pretending not to know?”
Are there issues on which you feel called to speak prophetically – i.e., messages that you believe God wants you to deliver? Are you offering them? How are they being received? Is there another way to communicate them?
This parable was a direct condemnation of the religious leaders of Israel in Jesus’ time. But its imagery resonates for us in many ways today, as citizens of the world and citizens of God’s realm. Isaiah tells us,
"For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!"
God’s call to us to be people of justice and righteousness still sounds. May we not leave those cries unheard.
he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!"
God’s call to us to be people of justice and righteousness still sounds. May we not leave those cries unheard.
3-27-23 - To Jerusalem
You can listen to this reflection here.
How to focus Water Daily the next two weeks? The Gospel appointed for Palm Sunday is the whole Passion story, and the following week it’s Easter. But who wants to explore the empty tomb while we’re still in Holy Week; that’s like peeking at the last page while you’re still in chapter 5. This week let's do the “other” Gospel story for next Sunday, the story of the palms for which the day is named, which occupy only the first ten minutes of the service.
So… onward, to Jerusalem, where the week begins with Jesus riding in triumph lauded by crowds, and goes horribly, horribly wrong, ending with his brutal crucifixion. Jesus had been saying for some time that he must go to Jerusalem, where he will be arrested, tried and executed. Earlier, Pharisees had warned him to avoid Jerusalem, because Herod wanted to kill him. Jesus responded,
“Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.” – (Luke 13:32-33)
The people of Israel had a funny relationship to their prophets. They revered them – and frequently sought to have them killed because they didn’t like their messages. Those messages veered between, “You’d better, or else…” or “It’s too late; you’re in trouble...” Amidst those, however, we hear another divine theme: “I love you. I want so much for us to be together. If you might only do what you promised, honor me, honor each other…” But the people never could. How could they relate to such a fearsome God?
Philip Yancey offers an analogy to the incarnation in his book The Jesus I Never Knew – he talks about how the fish in his fish tank regarded him with terror, even though he fed them faithfully, and kept their water clean and chemically balanced. His interventions seemed to them like destruction, and they fled to their hiding places whenever he came near. “To my fish I was a deity. I was too large for them, too incomprehensible.” He thought one day, “I would have to become a fish and ‘speak’ to them in a language they could understand.”
Only, it turned out that even when God came among us in a form like ours, speaking our language, those who were deeply invested in the old ways, who had gained power by fostering people’s fear of God, weren’t any more receptive. This prophet, too, must be silenced, eliminated.
How do you think you would have regarded Jesus in his earthly time? Would you have been drawn to his miracles and messages, or put off? Would you have gone to him for healing or forgiveness? Would you have been unsettled by the threat to good order he represented, or thrilled that at last deliverance from oppression might be at hand? With what aspect of Jesus do you most easily connect? Least?
Knowing how we most naturally connect to Jesus can help us strengthen the relationship, and balance it. And there’s no wrong answer, even if we identify with the Pharisees. We know Jesus forgave them too.
How to focus Water Daily the next two weeks? The Gospel appointed for Palm Sunday is the whole Passion story, and the following week it’s Easter. But who wants to explore the empty tomb while we’re still in Holy Week; that’s like peeking at the last page while you’re still in chapter 5. This week let's do the “other” Gospel story for next Sunday, the story of the palms for which the day is named, which occupy only the first ten minutes of the service.
So… onward, to Jerusalem, where the week begins with Jesus riding in triumph lauded by crowds, and goes horribly, horribly wrong, ending with his brutal crucifixion. Jesus had been saying for some time that he must go to Jerusalem, where he will be arrested, tried and executed. Earlier, Pharisees had warned him to avoid Jerusalem, because Herod wanted to kill him. Jesus responded,
“Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.” – (Luke 13:32-33)
The people of Israel had a funny relationship to their prophets. They revered them – and frequently sought to have them killed because they didn’t like their messages. Those messages veered between, “You’d better, or else…” or “It’s too late; you’re in trouble...” Amidst those, however, we hear another divine theme: “I love you. I want so much for us to be together. If you might only do what you promised, honor me, honor each other…” But the people never could. How could they relate to such a fearsome God?
Philip Yancey offers an analogy to the incarnation in his book The Jesus I Never Knew – he talks about how the fish in his fish tank regarded him with terror, even though he fed them faithfully, and kept their water clean and chemically balanced. His interventions seemed to them like destruction, and they fled to their hiding places whenever he came near. “To my fish I was a deity. I was too large for them, too incomprehensible.” He thought one day, “I would have to become a fish and ‘speak’ to them in a language they could understand.”
Only, it turned out that even when God came among us in a form like ours, speaking our language, those who were deeply invested in the old ways, who had gained power by fostering people’s fear of God, weren’t any more receptive. This prophet, too, must be silenced, eliminated.
How do you think you would have regarded Jesus in his earthly time? Would you have been drawn to his miracles and messages, or put off? Would you have gone to him for healing or forgiveness? Would you have been unsettled by the threat to good order he represented, or thrilled that at last deliverance from oppression might be at hand? With what aspect of Jesus do you most easily connect? Least?
Knowing how we most naturally connect to Jesus can help us strengthen the relationship, and balance it. And there’s no wrong answer, even if we identify with the Pharisees. We know Jesus forgave them too.
3-10-22 - Stoning the Prophets
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus’ observation on the outskirts of Jerusalem – often depicted as taking place on a hillside overlooking the city – is seen by many as a compassionate lament for the great city which had been for many centuries the center of Israel’s religious life. Maybe it’s that repetition of “Jerusalem,” and the hen thing, that make it sound that way.
But when we look at what he actually says, and what’s going on at the time, we can detect a more forceful, thwarted, even angry tone. Jesus is passing judgment on the ancient city, which he says has always excelled in missing the point, often violently so. After noting – with sarcasm? – that “it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem,” he goes on:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you.”
Israel’s history was replete with stories of prophets whose dire warnings of judgment to come went unheeded, who were rebuked, imprisoned, tortured and sometimes killed by the powers against whom they ranted. Prophets were considered holy men who spoke for God – unless their message was too harsh or unpopular, or perhaps conflicted with the message of another self-acclaimed prophet. Who’s to know who to believe? People will generally stay with the one whose message is most palatable, much in the way Americans can now choose which media from which to get their news, and what friends’ opinions are likely to show up on their Facebook feeds. We didn’t invent the closed feedback loop.
It’s awfully hard to know who is a true prophet until after the fact. But we have been given a fullness of revelation in Jesus Christ, and it’s not so hard to know him. Some who knew him in the flesh ultimately turned away from him, rejecting, betraying, even condemning him. What would we have done? Would we have recognized him as a true prophet or rejected him as one more disappointment, one more person out of touch with how the world really is, one more would-be prophet distorting God’s word? Go back and read the words of Jesus in the Gospels this week. What is he really saying? Do we accept his hard teachings, or dismiss him?
Jesus may have been uttering judgment upon Jerusalem, so soon to repeat its pattern of death-dealing, but we would be foolish if we thought this lament doesn’t apply to us too. Jerusalem was and is a place with a particular history and customs, but in the Bible it is also a symbolic place where God and humankind meet. The Book of Revelation speaks of the “new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.” Jerusalem represents the hope of reconciliation, of fidelity and obedience, of that mystical place where God himself will dwell, “and they shall be God’s people and God himself shall be with them.” (Revelation 21:1-4)
We can choose which Jerusalem we will be – the one that kills its prophets and stones its messengers, or the new Jerusalem where heaven and earth can truly meet. That is a place of courageous truth-telling and peace-making.
Jesus’ observation on the outskirts of Jerusalem – often depicted as taking place on a hillside overlooking the city – is seen by many as a compassionate lament for the great city which had been for many centuries the center of Israel’s religious life. Maybe it’s that repetition of “Jerusalem,” and the hen thing, that make it sound that way.
But when we look at what he actually says, and what’s going on at the time, we can detect a more forceful, thwarted, even angry tone. Jesus is passing judgment on the ancient city, which he says has always excelled in missing the point, often violently so. After noting – with sarcasm? – that “it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem,” he goes on:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you.”
Israel’s history was replete with stories of prophets whose dire warnings of judgment to come went unheeded, who were rebuked, imprisoned, tortured and sometimes killed by the powers against whom they ranted. Prophets were considered holy men who spoke for God – unless their message was too harsh or unpopular, or perhaps conflicted with the message of another self-acclaimed prophet. Who’s to know who to believe? People will generally stay with the one whose message is most palatable, much in the way Americans can now choose which media from which to get their news, and what friends’ opinions are likely to show up on their Facebook feeds. We didn’t invent the closed feedback loop.
It’s awfully hard to know who is a true prophet until after the fact. But we have been given a fullness of revelation in Jesus Christ, and it’s not so hard to know him. Some who knew him in the flesh ultimately turned away from him, rejecting, betraying, even condemning him. What would we have done? Would we have recognized him as a true prophet or rejected him as one more disappointment, one more person out of touch with how the world really is, one more would-be prophet distorting God’s word? Go back and read the words of Jesus in the Gospels this week. What is he really saying? Do we accept his hard teachings, or dismiss him?
Jesus may have been uttering judgment upon Jerusalem, so soon to repeat its pattern of death-dealing, but we would be foolish if we thought this lament doesn’t apply to us too. Jerusalem was and is a place with a particular history and customs, but in the Bible it is also a symbolic place where God and humankind meet. The Book of Revelation speaks of the “new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.” Jerusalem represents the hope of reconciliation, of fidelity and obedience, of that mystical place where God himself will dwell, “and they shall be God’s people and God himself shall be with them.” (Revelation 21:1-4)
We can choose which Jerusalem we will be – the one that kills its prophets and stones its messengers, or the new Jerusalem where heaven and earth can truly meet. That is a place of courageous truth-telling and peace-making.
12-6-21 - Holy Ranting
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here. Scroll down for info about an upcoming online Advent Retreat this Saturday.
Today is St. Nicholas Day – a day of cheerful giving in the tradition of the great Bishop of Myra. Yet, though he was known for generosity, lending his name to the jolly figure we now know as Santa Claus, St. Nicholas could be fierce and combative when he felt Christian belief was being attacked. One of the many legends about him has him slapping the Egyptian theologian Arius in the face at the Council of Nicea over whether or not Jesus the Son was the equal of God the Father. (The Council eventually came down on the side of the full equality of all three persons of the Trinity, and Arius has gone down in history as a heretic…)
Old Nicholas, like anyone with a social media account today, was no stranger to the rant: an impassioned articulation of support or denunciation, fueled by indignation, righteous or otherwise, sometimes punctuated by biting wit. A good rant can leave you feeling somewhat singed, or slightly sick. John the Baptist, like many a prophet in Israel’s tradition, was a master of the good rant. He let the crowds who’d come out to see him know just what he thought of their sight-seeing curiosity and trendy repentance.
John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’
Wow. In a few short words, he’s called them a nest of poisonous snakes and warned them of wrath, fire and axes. He’s told them their history as “God’s chosen people” will not protect them from God’s righteous judgment. Is this the kind of preaching that fills churches?
It didn’t seem to hurt John’s numbers… nor did he care. Like the prophets of old, he had a message from God to deliver, and he delivered it without concern for the outcome. He was there to tell them what they needed to hear, and to offer them a ritual that made visible the internal repentance to which he called them. What people did with that message was between them and God.
The prophets we meet in the Hebrew Bible didn’t mince words either. Their prophecies veered between doom and promise, and were often terrifying. A prophet doesn’t have to be frightening, but the prophet does have to honestly say what she or he believes God wants the people to hear. That’s the tricky part – to speak for God, and not just out of your own sense of right or wrong – or grievance.
John’s essential message, if we take out the scary bits, was that people were to bear the fruit of repentance, not just say the words. If they were genuinely sorry for the way they had been living, conducting business and relationships, there should be a visible effect in changed lives and behaviors.
We are not to stop calling out injustice and untruth when we see it. We are to work for equity and access to resources and security for all people, and if necessary to speak against those who would deny those basic rights. Sometimes that speaking out will include ranting. More often it will entail a steady, relentless process of forming relationships in which communication can happen in humility and honesty.
Jesus could get up a good rant too – yet usually he brought transformation by drawing people into a relationship of love. A good prophet speaks the truth; a good leader fosters relationships to bring about outcomes that reflect that truth. That is our mission, transformation in Christ’s love.
Today is St. Nicholas Day – a day of cheerful giving in the tradition of the great Bishop of Myra. Yet, though he was known for generosity, lending his name to the jolly figure we now know as Santa Claus, St. Nicholas could be fierce and combative when he felt Christian belief was being attacked. One of the many legends about him has him slapping the Egyptian theologian Arius in the face at the Council of Nicea over whether or not Jesus the Son was the equal of God the Father. (The Council eventually came down on the side of the full equality of all three persons of the Trinity, and Arius has gone down in history as a heretic…)
Old Nicholas, like anyone with a social media account today, was no stranger to the rant: an impassioned articulation of support or denunciation, fueled by indignation, righteous or otherwise, sometimes punctuated by biting wit. A good rant can leave you feeling somewhat singed, or slightly sick. John the Baptist, like many a prophet in Israel’s tradition, was a master of the good rant. He let the crowds who’d come out to see him know just what he thought of their sight-seeing curiosity and trendy repentance.
John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’
Wow. In a few short words, he’s called them a nest of poisonous snakes and warned them of wrath, fire and axes. He’s told them their history as “God’s chosen people” will not protect them from God’s righteous judgment. Is this the kind of preaching that fills churches?
It didn’t seem to hurt John’s numbers… nor did he care. Like the prophets of old, he had a message from God to deliver, and he delivered it without concern for the outcome. He was there to tell them what they needed to hear, and to offer them a ritual that made visible the internal repentance to which he called them. What people did with that message was between them and God.
The prophets we meet in the Hebrew Bible didn’t mince words either. Their prophecies veered between doom and promise, and were often terrifying. A prophet doesn’t have to be frightening, but the prophet does have to honestly say what she or he believes God wants the people to hear. That’s the tricky part – to speak for God, and not just out of your own sense of right or wrong – or grievance.
John’s essential message, if we take out the scary bits, was that people were to bear the fruit of repentance, not just say the words. If they were genuinely sorry for the way they had been living, conducting business and relationships, there should be a visible effect in changed lives and behaviors.
We are not to stop calling out injustice and untruth when we see it. We are to work for equity and access to resources and security for all people, and if necessary to speak against those who would deny those basic rights. Sometimes that speaking out will include ranting. More often it will entail a steady, relentless process of forming relationships in which communication can happen in humility and honesty.
Jesus could get up a good rant too – yet usually he brought transformation by drawing people into a relationship of love. A good prophet speaks the truth; a good leader fosters relationships to bring about outcomes that reflect that truth. That is our mission, transformation in Christ’s love.
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Advent Spa for the Spirit - Saturday, December 11
Taking the Advent theme of awakening, we'll explore how we can wake to the still voice in our own spirits, to the lives of others, and to the Life of God all around us.
We'll gather on Zoom at 9 and be done around noon. You can register here - more information and the link will be sent. Please invite others who may like to come.
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