Philippians 3:17:4:1; Luke 13:31-35
Like perhaps many here this morning, I have struggled to get the encounter between President Trump and President Zelensky in the Oval Office a few weeks ago out of my head. I think what stuck in the gullet so much was how the Ukrainian leader was humiliated by a President who has never had to fight a war nor face armed conflict. Zelensky, on the other hand, set the tone in the first hours of the war back in February 2022 when, according to reports, he turned down the offer of safe passage out of Ukraine. ‘The fight is here’, a US official reported him saying, ‘I need ammunition, not a ride.’
It was not a surprise that some people thought he might take the easy way out. It was what leaders often do then they are under military pressure and their own safety is under threat. Only a few months ago Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad did exactly that as the militias approached Damascus. He and his family fled to a comfortable suburb outside Moscow.
There is something of this dynamic in the opening exchanges from our gospel reading this morning. While we cannot be sure of the Pharisees’ motivation when they tell Jesus of Herod’s plot to kill him, I think they were hoping that Jesus would abandon his now high-profile journey to Jerusalem and return to Galilee, where he would be safe, and the Pharisees would not have to worry about what would happen when he reached Jerusalem.
Jesus is having none of it. His words of rebuke to Herod are also aimed at the Pharisees. He is determined to go to Jerusalem even if he knows that that city of peace will in fact be the place where he will meet a violent end. His objective is not his own comfort but the future which the Father has for him. As we hear him say ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem’ we can sense the pain and perhaps even see his tears.
There are similar motivations at play in our first reading from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Paul warns that young church in what is now northern Greece of the danger of the ‘enemies of the cross of Christ’, people who both live for their own comfort and pleasure (‘their god is their belly’) and also focus on the present rather than the future (‘their minds are set on earthly things’).
Whereas Paul is not afraid to hold himself up as an example of a different way, a way that is consistent with the way of the cross. His tears point us to a life which has been lived not in the service of himself but in the service of others. Earlier in the letter he spoke of his chains; his path has led not to his own comfort but his imprisonment in the service of Christ.
And Paul sees his present in the light of God’s future. ‘Our citizenship is in heaven’ he says, affirming that it is in God’s sphere that his identity is to be located, and his hope found. He looks forward to a future where Christ transforms bodies of fragility into bodies of the new creation.
As I surf occasionally the waves of social media, it strikes me that there are two recurring lies we are told about our lives today. The first is that it is all about me. We are invited to discover ourselves, curate ourselves, love ourselves, promote ourselves, celebrate ourselves. This is selfie culture that puts me in the foreground. The second lie is that it is all about now. Life is lived just in the moment, with communication instant and judgements snappy. The past and the future are largely irrelevant.
The examples of our Lord Jesus and the apostle Paul encourage us to see these lies for what they are and invite us into a different and more joyful way of living this Lent.
First, in following and serving Christ we are invited to take the focus off ourselves and seeing everything through the lens of our own comfort. One of the spiritually helpful things about giving up things for Lent is how it both affirms and nurtures the sense that our god is not our belly. Yes we need to eat, of course, but fasting from what we have chosen reminds us that our desires do not rule us. Jesus is Lord. What is more, in this season we are explicitly reminded that we are followers of Jesus in the way of the cross. It is not all about us. We are not the main event. We are not serving ourselves. First and foremost, we are servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we discover that, that is when we really find out who we really are and what life is really about.
Second, in walking with Jesus to Jerusalem, we look to a future which lies beyond the grave. Yes, Jesus will be killed but as he says his work will not be completed until the third day, when, as he already promised in Luke’s gospel, he will be raised from the dead. And this resurrection power will not just be able to transform our bodies of humiliation into bodies of his glory, it will also make all things subject to himself.
To put it simply, for all leaders like President Trump likes to think they are in control like some master of the universe, they really aren’t. The future is in God’s hands, not Donald Trump’s or Vladimir Putin’s. Yes, they some agency for now, but if we cast our eyes forward to the empty grave of Easter we will see where power really lies.
It’s not all about us, and it’s not all about now. Lent invites us to see the bigger picture, to see ourselves for who we are – servants of Christ – and to see today in the perspective of God’s resurrection future.
As we gather around the Lord’s table today, we come not as individuals first and foremost but as a community of people centred on Jesus Christ. We share in one bread and we receive from one cup, because more importantly than being Philip and Margaret and Timothy and Maureen we are members of the body of Christ. And we look beyond today, back to Jesus’ sacrifice once for all upon the cross, and forward to a heavenly banquet made possible by his resurrection life.
We are not about the easy way out. But the way of the cross we are walking is also the way of life and peace. May we walk in it this Lent and find it so. Amen.