Luke 13.31-35
“A GRACE HARDER THAN ANY JUDGMENT”
Many of us know the sting of devout religious types who run roughshod over the lives of others, sometimes even in the name of a loving and compassionate God. We have stories about the liturgical church that turned us out because of a failed marriage despite our family being a pillar of our home parish for generations. We have stories about Bible thumpers consigning us to the outer darkness because we didn’t become Christians exactly in the way they did or because we won’t subscribe to their version of heaven and hell. Despite their silly clumsiness, these harsh verdicts rendered over our lives have power to grip us and stick with us in surprising ways. Let’s face it, we don’t forget being consigned to outer darkness.
Admit it or not, intimidation works on us. It could be the IRS dangling the threat of an audit or the psychotic boss telling us we will never work in that field again. We feel like we have finally gone and messed up so big that we’ll pay for rest of our lives. Intimidation can seem funny in retrospect. Like my many anguished nights worrying about the tag dangling from my mattress—do not remove under penalty of law—wondering when the authorities would be checking my mattress. Or the time my 8th grade Spanish teacher sent me to the office for holding hands with Laurie Potter. Assistant principal Ferl Thomas waved a file in my face and told me this public display of affection would go down on my permanent record. None of that was funny at the time. I wonder what Ferl Thomas is doing today?
Today’s Gospel lesson brings good news: that we need not fear intimidation—religious or otherwise. We are free as we realize that God—the God we know and trust and not some interloper--has the last word over our lives. We need not fear God’s judgment any more than we fear his grace. Or, better put, maybe we should fear judgment less and fear God’s grace more; and maybe God’s grace and judgment are really two sides of the same coin. Ah but I get ahead of myself.
In Luke we heard how unusually friendly Pharisees came to Jesus to warn him that Herod planned to do to him what he did to his cousin, John the Baptizer: served him up on a platter. Nothing strange in this: power brokers engaged in works of darkness will always seek to stamp out sources of light. And Herod was as dark as Jesus was bright. How does Jesus answer this threat on his life? Does he cower and cringe? Does he doubt his return to Jerusalem and waver in his purposes? Does he at least delay and rethink everything? No, no, and no.
“I must go on my way,” Jesus says. “I am healing, teaching and changing lives, fulfilling my purpose. All of this will move a step up to the next level right beneath Herod’s nose in Jerusalem, believe it or not.” Here we get a glimpse of what will follow in Holy Week where Herod nails Jesus down, but he can’t keep him down. We talk a lot about human freedom. But I wish we thought as much about God’s freedom. That freedom is at play here in Jesus bowing to no threat, no intimi-dation, and no coercion. God endows every last one of us with this same freedom. It overrules every constitution, every court, every manifesto, every charter. Rather than threaten Herod back, Jesus answers the face of deranged violence with tears of mercy and longing, pangs of tenderness and compassion. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, when will you ever learn, murdering prophets and ston-ing God’s very own? How many times would I have taken you into my arms?”
There will always be Herods, Khomeinis and Hitlers. Should they intimidate us? Well, yes, they can hurt us big time in one sense. But in another way they can’t touch us. The accent here is on Jesus’ power as chosen of God, resolved in his purpose. Frankly, for me, more intimidating than the harangues of tyrants is the grace that responds to such hateful bluster with embracing forgiveness. That’s real power. That is where the real revolutions happen, the most shocking rever-sals of power. That is where lies the biggest threat to the status quo of the world as it is today, to the business as usual of living my life as though its all about me.
You heard right. I fear God’s grace more than any tyrant’s judgment. That is not just because I know that God’s nature is not to reject and discard. It is because God’s grace stands the world as we know it—our familiar way of doing things—on its head. And since the results of Easter are in, we also know that this grace cannot be defeated. It is not just vicious empire-proof, tyrant-proof, and religious crackpot proof. This grace is even death-proof. It cannot be stopped. This grace is not soft and gauzy, it is rock-ribbed and steel reinforced. Ah, a story is in order.
Nicaragua is one place where intimidation and suffering have been visited far too much upon the people. Perhaps you have heard before the story of Tomas Borge, the freedom fighter who helped overthrow dictator Anastasio Somoza.
During the darkest days of the revolution against Somoza, Borge was captured and thrown in a dungeon. Chained helpless to a wall, he was forced to watch soldiers take advantage of his wife. Then his captors turned to mutilate him also.
When the revolution succeeded, Tomas Borge was released from prison. He was paraded before cheering crowds in Managua as a national hero. As he marched, he noticed in the crowd the face of one of his captors, one of the men who had taken advantage of his wife not so long before in the depths of prison.
Borge broke from the ranks of the parade, ran to where the man was standing, grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him, and yelled in his face, “Do you remember me? Do you remember me? Do you remember me?” The trembling man professed to never having seen Borge before. But Borge persisted and screamed, “I will never forget your face! I will never forget it!” Then he asked, “Now do you know what this revolution is all about? Do you understand this revolution?” The trembling and confused man could only stutter out of fear, “Yes, yes.” Borge responded, “No! You don’t understand what this revolution is all about.” Then he embraced the man and shouted, “I forgive you! I forgive you! That is what this revolution is all about.” I was not a fan of the new government that Borge came to represent, but there is no denying the power of his message.
I am at a time and place in life where the Ferl Thomases, Herods, and Somozas no longer scare me as they once did. But the gentle power of God, represented in the emblems and events set upon this table, that makes my knees knock every time. For this power will catch up and carry away every form of selfish manipula-tion and lying for personal advantage and intimidating people to keep them down. And that’s the axis upon which this scarred and warring world has always turned.
So carry these images with you, Jesus grieving for Jerusalem upon the threat of murder, Borge forgiving the torturer who did unspeakable things to his beloved wife, Jesus washing the feet of his followers before sacrificing everything. I could explain God deciding to wipe out the whole bloody lot of us. But I have no real grasp of a love and forgiveness so great that they could absorb all of the evil in the world and still come out on top. It is a fearful thing, friends, to fall into the arms of a loving God. Fearful in the best possible sense—awe, wonder, majesty. Amen.
