Luke 9:1-9
April 6
David A. Davis
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“Now Herod the ruler, the tetrarch, heard all that had taken place, and he was perplexed.” Herod was perplexed. Herod was confused. A possible translation of the Greek is that Herod “was at a loss.” These few verses go on to explain that he was perplexed because some were saying John the Baptist had been raised from the dead or Elijah or some other ancient prophet had appeared. “Now Herod the tetrarch heard all that had taken place.” Herod the most powerful man in the land heard all that had taken place. One should assume that hearing it all means hearing it all. Indeed, back to John the Baptist. Luke chapter 3: “So with many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by John because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.” Oh, yes! Herod heard it all.
He heard about a man named Jesus standing up in a synagogue in Nazareth and reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Herod heard about Jesus sitting down and saying “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” and how they tossed him out of his hometown trying to hurl him off a cliff. He heard about Jesus teaching on the sabbath, healing people tormented by demons, and his followers catching great hauls of fish. Herod heard about people healed of their diseases, lame folks walking, a tax collector leaving his job to go with Jesus, and Jesus plucking grain on the Sabbath. Herod heard it all.
That sermon from Jesus was full of blessings and woes favoring the poor and the hungry and the weeping. Threatening the rich and all who had so much. He heard about that too. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…Give to anyone who begs…do to others as you would have them do to you…Be merciful just as your Father is merciful…The good person out of good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evo;; for it is out of abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.” Herod heard about the healing of the centurion’s servant and the widow of Nain. The scandal of the woman anointing Jesus’ feet in the Pharisee’s house. The parable of the sower. The stir Jesus caused in the country of the Gerasenes by healing a tormented man and sending all the pigs to their death in the sea. Jesus stopping to heal the woman who touched his outer garment. They raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead. And yes, Jesus sent the disciples to the villages “curing diseases everywhere.” The most powerful and feared man in the land had the sources, the resources, and the connections to have heard it ALL. And he was perplexed. He was confused. Herod was at a loss not just because of the rumors surrounding John the Baptist, Elijah, or a prophet. Herod was perplexed by it all.
Jesus gathered the twelve and bestowed on them the power and authority to do what he had been doing. To do what Herod heard Jesus was doing. Send out demons. Cure diseases. Proclaim the kingdom of God and heal people. Jesus sent them out on the journey to the villages with nothing: no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no change of clothes. Find a house where folks will take you in and stay there. Stay in their home until you leave the village. If no one welcomes you, move on. Shake the dust. It’s their loss. The gospel is not something to be imposed, mandated, forced, legislated, ordered, or nationalized.
Take nothing. The evangelism, the mission, and the ministry of those who follow Jesus begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in God and God alone. The ministry of those who follow Jesus also begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in the hospitality of others. The only way this was going to work was if others offered the disciples a place to stay in their homes. If others gave the disciples something to eat and drink. If others offered to share some extra clothing with the disciples. The disciples could not have done anything with their Jesus-gifted power and authority without the help of others. According to Luke the twelve were “bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere.” It never would have happened without the others. A divine miracle story all its’ own that begins with bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing acts of hospitality and kindness. The ministry of those who follow Jesus is defined by, dependent on, not possible without a reliance on and a relationship with others.
A few days ago, I went over to the Seminary Chapel to hear our resident guest preacher Jess Winderweedle preach at daily morning worship on campus. As you would expect, Jess preached a powerful and memorable sermon. After chapel, I told Jess she is the most subtly subversive preacher I have listen to. There was one riff I kept coming back to in preparation for this morning. As I pondered Jesus telling the disciples to take nothing. Jess was preaching about Paul ending up in prison after sending a spirit of divination out of a slave girl who was likely then in great danger since her owners made lots of money off her and that spirit. “Here in this chance encounter” Jess proclaimed, “their precarities- his perhaps unexpected and hers a tale as old as time—their precarities were revealed to be inextricable from one another….I want to imagine” Jess went on, “that Paul, there in prison couldn’t stop thinking about liberation, and about how getting free isn’t always as simple as we want it to be, nor is it ever an individual endeavor…There is no way of salvation that any one of us can walk alone, and no real liberation in which we can be preciously selective about who will walk with us.”
Our life in Jesus and our way of salvation and the first disciples’ journey, it doesn’t happen alone. As Carol Wehrheim notes in our Lenten study guide “Recognizing and accepting our interdependence might not be so easy for a nation that claims to be built on rugged individualism”. As Nate Stucky has been teaching all these Sundays in Lent, the idolatry of autonomy is struck down again and again in scripture. The beginning of ministry in Jesus’ name here in Luke strikes a blow to the myth of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. It forever slays the go-it-alone, self-made human success narratives. Serving in Jesus’ name can’t be any more different than all the rich and powerful with such influence in the world who start on third base and think they have hit a triple. The gospel we learn from the lips of Jesus and the testimony of his life is so perplexing to the world and its powers and principalities. The world and its tetrarchs and tyrants.
Which brings us back to Herod. Herod was perplexed about the one whom he was hearing about. He had beheaded John. The conjecture among the crowds about whether it was John, Elijah, or another one of the ancient prophets. That conjecture is messianic conjecture. That’s wondering about whether this person saying and doing all that Herod heard was indeed the Messiah. What Herod is hearing is messiah talk. And as Luke writes “he tried to see him.” Herod tried to see Jesus.
It might be a no-brainer but it seems to me that if Herod, the most powerful man in the land with all the sources, resources, and connections wanted to see Jesus, it would not have been all that difficult to arrange. Have your people contact his people. Send some armed guards with face coverings to go round him up off the street. Tell your staff to go hang out the next time there is a crowd gathered and bring the one doing all the talking and healing back to your fortress. Before the disciples hid in the Upper Room after Herod’s empire tortured and murdered Jesus, Jesus, and his disciples were hardly staying under the radar. Send a Zoom invitation for goodness sake. If Herod wanted to physically see Jesus, there is little doubt he could work something out to see Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son, Mary’s child.
“He tried to see him” It has to be more than getting a meeting. Herod was perplexed, confused, and lost. He couldn’t wrap his head or his heart around ALL that Jesus was teaching and ALL that Jesus was doing. Herod couldn’t see the Messiah and the messianic world he was painting. Like Pharoah before him, his heart was hardened. Herod was never going to see a messiah who was a servant. A messiah who claimed the great must become the least to follow him. Herod would always be perplexed, confused, and lost when it came to the gospel teaching about caring for the poor, the orphans, and the widows. Herod was always going to be perplexed, confused, and lost when it came to a journey of proclaiming and healing that depended on acts of love and kindness. Herod was always going to be perplexed, confused, and lost when there was “no way of salvation that any one of us can walk alone and no real liberation in which we can be preciously selective about who will walk with us.” Herod tried to see Jesus but he was incapable of seeing Jesus and the way of the gospel.
The tetrarchs and tyrants, the forces of empires, the powers and principalities of the world’s darkness are incapable of seeing Jesus and the kingdom he brings. They have no vision for a world where the last will be first, the poor will have favored status, and the common good that builds community will be prioritized. They can’t look at the most vulnerable in the world and see the face of Jesus. They can’t see a world where love is stronger than hate, where welcoming the stranger is an act of faith and gives glory to God. Where doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God is an aspirational way of life. Where justice can roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
It is still true. The witness of those who follow Jesus begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in God and God alone. The witness of those who follow Jesus begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in the hospitality of others. The only way the powers and principalities of this world are going to see Jesus and the kingdom he brings, the beloved community he intends, is when disciples, when followers, when simple folk like you and me, find a way to show them. I’m in. You?