At That Very Hour

“Kairos and Chronos: At That Very Hour”

Second Sunday of Lent

Luke 13:31-35

31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ ³²He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. ³³Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” ³⁴Jerusalem, 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! ³⁵See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” ’

The Greek phrase En aute te hora is, fortunately for me, fairly straightforward: At that very hour (In same the hour).

This introductory clause is interrupting, it’s jarring. It is making a point of emphasis – if I was telling a story and I got to a point that I would want you to pay attention to, I’d say something like “at that very moment.” Linguistically, it gives us time to pause, rhetorically you can draw it out – at. That. Very. Moment. – to cause suspense, to make your listener anticipate what exactly happens at. That. Very. Hour. You could also be telling a story and speed through the phrase and at that very moment continue the story but at that very moment you are simultaneously moving to a new and dramatic event while giving your listeners a brief break from deciphering every single word because “at that very hour” just simply lets them know to pay attention to what happens next.

En aute te hora. At that very hour.

Jesus was preaching. He was traveling, speaking with people, teaching. The passage immediately before this morning’s, at that very hour, we’re told that Jesus went through one town and one village after another, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. The passage continues when

Someone asked him, ‘Lord, will only a few be saved?’ He said to them, ²⁴‘Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. ²⁵When once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, “Lord, open to us”, then in reply he will say to you, “I do not know where you come from.” ²⁶Then you will begin to say, “We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.” ²⁷But he will say, “I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!” ²⁸There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out. ²⁹Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. ³⁰Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.’

Jesus says to this questioner “yes, only a few will be saved…but it won’t be the few that you think.” He describes the house of the Lord, but he’s describing it at a future time when the owner of that house has got up and shut the door. Jesus tells them that this will confuse the people – they will remember eating and drinking with the owner of the house. They will remember their confidence that they would be welcomed in to the house that they had envisioned but when the actual owner of that house returns, he’ll say “I do not know where you come from.” The people who thought they were so familiar with the house would weep and gnash their teeth when they are thrown out of the house and they watch people from east and west, from north and south, when they watch those who they thought would be last eating in that house, eating in the kingdom of God. We aren’t told how that crowd reacted to this story. Maybe they took this as a call to repent, to re-envision the way they thought God’s house worked. Maybe they joined Jesus in caring for those who came from east and west, from north and south, Maybe they joined Jesus in serving the least. Maybe they didn’t.

En aute te hora. At that very hour.

            Jesus says that some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last, some who have power will lose it and some who have no power will eat in the house and at the table of the Kingdom of God and at that very hour the Pharisees said “get out.” Get away from here because Herod wants to kill you. Now this isn’t Herod the great from the Christmas story. That Herod is the one who sent Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus fleeing to Egypt when he wanted to get rid of Jesus. That Herod died sometime shortly after Jesus’ birth and Augustus Caesar divided up the territory among Herod’s three sons, Archelaus, Philip, and Antipas. When the Pharisees tell Jesus to "Get away from here, Herod wants to kill you," they are referring to Antipas, Herod the Great’s son. The gospels don’t tell us a lot about Antipas. If we were trying to write a history of Antipas, that would be problematic – the Gospels don’t seek out to provide a comprehensive history of Antipas, they seek to tell the story of Jesus. So we may not know a lot about Antipas, but we are told, Jesus is told, the crowd around Jesus is told that Antipas wanted Jesus dead.

 En aute te hora. At that very hour.

            Jesus says “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day, I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” Jesus then turns his attention to Jerusalem, saying “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, but you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. See your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed it the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

En aute te hora. At that very hour.

            There’s a proverbial fox in the henhouse. Herod Antipas is ruling the house. Jesus wants his children to escape from that house: like a mother hen, Jesus wants to gather his children away from that house but they are unwilling. So that house, Herod Antipas’ house, is left to them. In response to the threat of death? At That. Very. Hour. Jesus responds by saying I will not stop curing the sick. I will not stop casting out demons. I will not stop doing God’s work.

But at that very hour, his work is dangerous. Despite the threats coming from a house built to keep him out Jesus keeps doing his work. Publicly. In defiance of a house that stones those who are sent to it. This house will be left to them. But Jesus has told them that their house isn’t the final house, it’s not the kingdom, it isn’t what things will look like when “thy will is done on earth as it is in heaven.” Their house is a false house. Their house is a temporary house. Like Jesus taught them at that very hour, many who are first in that house will be shocked, angry, saddened, bewildered, when they find that the house they built didn’t stand the test of time. “²⁵When once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, “Lord, open to us”, then in reply he will say to you, “I do not know where you come from.” “

En aute te hora. At that very hour.

Jesus defies the dominant house that has been built, the house that has ignored the sick, the poor, the refugees, the captives that Jesus spent so much time caring for. Jesus also tells us that a different house is not only possible, it’s coming.

In this very hour we are also building houses.

            On Friday, we woke up to the news that there had been a mass shooting in New Zealand where (as of Friday at 12:25 PM) 49 people (51 as of Sunday Morning at 8:25AM) were killed during salat al-jumu’ah (Friday prayer services) at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Mosque in the city of Christchurch.

At that very hour, Herod Antipas was the figurehead of the house that threatened Jesus whenever he taught, whenever he healed, whenever he prayed.

In this very hour, it’s a house of white supremacist nationalism.

The house of white supremacist nationalism is not the only house that we have built that leads to violence. But it is a house that we have built.

The house of white supremacist nationalism is not the only house that we have built that kills prophets and stones those who are sent to it. But it is a house that leads to violence.

The house of white supremacist nationalism is not the only house that we have built that looks nothing like the kingdom table.

But the house of white supremacist nationalism does foster a set of relationships, an outlook, a framework that rewards worshiping the false idol of an imaginary perfect person, an imaginary perfect citizen of an imaginary perfect nation. And this network of actions and attitudes makes for a very dangerous house.

Like a mother hen, Jesus wishes to gather his children from this harmful house. But Jesus also defies the house of Herod Antipas. Jesus doesn’t stop healing and curing and preaching and teaching. Jesus doesn’t stop caring for his neighbor. And neither should those of us who are dedicated to the kingdom house that looks nothing like the house of Herod.

The last time I preached about the house of white supremacist nationalism was the day after a shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh a few months ago. I talked about Bartimaeus the blind beggar who cried out to Jesus for healing. I wondered where God was at work in a crowd that sternly ordered Bartimaeus to be quiet, I wondered where we were called when the tragedies of our time, the noise from the crowd, seems deafening. In that story, the disciples told Bartimaeus “take heart, get up, Jesus is calling you.”

            En aute te hora. At that very hour. I said that when we aren’t crying out for mercy ourselves, we have to be the faces in the crowd extending our hands to the helpless. We have to join and we have to be the voices saying “take heart, get up.”

            In this very hour, I find myself looking again for God in the aftermath of a white supremacist nationalist attacking a place of worship because that place of worship doesn’t fit a gathering of imaginary perfect citizens within his imaginary, perfect nation.

            I hear echoes of the Pharisees’ warning to Jesus in the threats of the house of white supremacist nationalism. “Get away from here. That house wants to kill you.”

            But I also hear the resilient voice of Christ who calls us to stand with our Muslim brothers and sisters against the house of Herod, against the house of white supremacist nationalism, and to stand up for and work towards the house of the Kingdom. We are called to imagine something better. We are called to keep teaching, and serving, and healing, and praying with our neighbors. All of them.

            On Friday, as the news reports were coming out, Professor Najeeba Syeed, an associate professor of interreligious education at the Claremont School of Theology said

“[I] have to teach at my mosque this month and speak at our annual dinner. We keep moving We keep doing this work for the love of our creator For the love of all Creation For our children And to serve the good of all humanity. Hate will never win.”

She continued, describing what last Friday, last jumu’ah, would look like:

“Muslims all over the world will be praying our Friday congregational prayer. Part of our healing as a community is to offer Janaza, the funeral prayer in absentia for the New Zealand victims. Most will do so after the Friday prayers. Their souls are our precious kin.”

At that very hour, Professor Syeed reminded the world why she gathers.

“Mosques are the places where we educate our children, marry one another, play basketball, serve the hungry, hold parenting circles, teach Quran, have potlucks, open to interfaith friends. We gather. We celebrate. We build community. And today we mourn.”

Here, today, at this very hour, in the face of the threats of the house of Herod, we also continue to gather. We also continue to celebrate. We also continue to build community. And with the congregations of Al Noor and Linwood, and those hurting across the world, today, at this very hour, we also mourn.

            Amen.