An Opportune Time
The Second Sunday in Lent, March 13, 2022
Genesis 15:1-12,17-18 • Philippians 3:17-4:1 • Luke 13:31-35
Since Jane’s sermon last week I have been haunted by the Gospel passage that described the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness. After the Devil is intellectually and theologically bested by Jesus, the moment of triumph, which seems like it should be a pretty big deal, is short-lived. Do you remember how the Gospel ended? “When the Devil had finished every test, he departed until an opportune time.” Talk about a chill down your spine!
The path through Lent which started just 10 days ago with a reminder that we are but dust, is inching us closer to the physical death of the Prophet, and our spiritual death represented by our complicity to betray him, as we all draw towards Jerusalem. I find myself this year dragging my feet more than usual. Don’t take me to that place that “kills its prophets and stones those who are sent to it.” Yet, Sunday by Sunday through Lent, we are pulled into the vortex of Holy Week and Good Friday.
I’m with Jane, we’ve had enough Lent in the last two years to last us for a while. Yet, I believe in the calendar of the Church, in the annual cycle of creation, sin, judgment, and redemption. There’s power in being carried along to Jerusalem this year. There’s a lesson to be learned.
Jesus is playing a game with Herod as he approaches Jerusalem. It was one thing when the Son of God was in the countryside, but now Jesus is in Herod’s backyard, drawing crowds, performing miracles, inviting people to follow him. Herod may be a fox, but he is also a fox trapped into a corner. Rome has him on a short leash, and his one job, aside from massively increasing his and his family’s wealth, is to keep the crowds docile. Rome is permissive so long as commerce and production and peace are in place. The more the crowds agitate, the more Rome worries. Herod doesn’t want Rome to crack down, for it will lead to him losing even more power in his puppet regime.
Herod might be a wiley Fox, but Jesus just outsmarted Satan, right? And we have read the parables, we know Jesus has a quick wit. Herod, Rome, Satan are all sitting back, watching: an opportune time approaches.
The opportune time needs two things in order to be realized: It needs a conflict, and it needs willing participants. So, let’s go back to our Lenten journey for a moment, specifically why I am dragging my feet as I am led to Jerusalem this year. We know what happens on Palm Sunday; how we go from cheering supporters to accusing mob within an afternoon. I know that, when the opportune time presents itself again, I will be tempted to be the willing participant in Satan’s plan for us. It isn’t just a one-time, single grand gesture that Satan will use to bring downfall, it’s many, frequent, small assaults on dignity and justice.
So then I ask you the question I am asking myself: what are the ways that make it possible for me to be a willing participant in the opportune times that confront us over and over again? How does my sin join with yours to allow evil in the world? A little white lie, a small fudge on our tax return; using privilege to my advantage, or worse yet, not using my privilege to advocate for those without; counting my retirement account while others sleep on the streets. What is my part in being a willing participant? What is yours?
Now, given that we’ve had a lot of Lent, I am not going to leave you there with that question, mired in a rut on the way to Jerusalem, because we have more information about the story and how it will play out. Even so, I am going to ask you to forget, just for a moment about Easter. Pretend you haven’t flipped ahead in Luke’s Gospel to see how this story ends.
Draw hope from a more ancient source: the most ancient of our stories, the Covenant. How do we know this story will end well? Because it was always going to. It was the promise that God made to our forebears.
When God drew Abram and Sarai out of Ur, away from their language, culture, and their altars, Abram was continually surprised that wherever he was, God was there. Not confined to a temple or an altar or to their priests, God was everywhere. Not only was God everywhere, but God listened, answered, led. “Your descendents will be uncountable as the stars. This land will be yours.” This was the first Covenant between God and the people of God, and it will be restated over and over again as Israel makes its way toward its own opportune time.
We know what happens to the people of God along the way, how over and over again they depart from the Covenant and almost come to an end before they are brought back by prophets from the brink. Even losing their home, their temple, their king is not enough to break them, and they come back. Each of these opportune times could have been enough to end them, but it is the assurance of the Covenant that will bring them back together and keep them moving forward.
It will turn out well, because it was always going to turn out well. In the end, wiley foxes and sword-bearing centurions will not be able to keep the Good News of the Law and the Prophets, or the subsequent covenants that will hang from it, from triumph.
We know that a new opportune time will arise, but this one will not herald victory by Satan, rather it will be God’s reign. The Kingdom of God, the new opportune time - a time for justice, mercy, peace, the counter-cultural values that subvert oppression, poverty, dominance, and deceit.
As we arrive in Jerusalem, we hear Jesus’ hope-filled wish for us: “How often have I desired to gather your children together, and you were not willing. See, your house is left to you, desolate!” (As a note, I included the word “desolate” here, which is not in the NRSV translation used by our lectionary, but which is used in every other translation before or since. It is unclear why the NRSV left out this word, as it changes the context of Jesus’ expression.)
For those of us who have followed the ancient Covenant, or those who have just joined Jesus in the last three years of his ministry, we understand the hope and warning that Jesus is expressing. This is the moment - cue: an opportune time! If I have to pass through Jerusalem in order to get to this next part of the journey, then maybe I will quit dragging my feet this year. I invite you to answer for yourself the question I ask myself: How will you be a willing participant in the opportune time of the Kingdom of God?