{"id":5908,"date":"2014-08-23T21:03:40","date_gmt":"2014-08-24T01:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/?p=5908"},"modified":"2014-08-23T21:03:40","modified_gmt":"2014-08-24T01:03:40","slug":"facing-toward-jerusalem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/facing-toward-jerusalem\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing Toward Jerusalem"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Replace<\/a>When Jesus of Nazareth came riding into Jerusalem on his mule, a small group of radicals, illiterates, and ne\u2019er-do-wells hailed him as the Messiah, the Christ.\u00a0 Everybody else suggested that you had to draw the line somewhere and advised a public and unpleasant execution so nobody would fail to get the point. \u2013 Frederick Buechner, in Wishful Thinking.<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

When he told his friends he was going to go to Jerusalem, they knew it was going to be horrid.\u00a0 Peter begged him not to go.\u00a0 His reply was fierce.\u00a0 He called Peter Satan, and told them all they would have to take risks like this , be ready to lose their lives, if they were going to follow him.<\/p>\n

\"Reign<\/a>Whether you believe Jesus always knew it would come to crucifixion, or whether, like Jesuit theologian Jon Sobrino, you believe this was a hinge moment, when his awareness of his mission changed and he knew he was going to have to walk into the hell-hole Jerusalem had become (Christology at the Crossroads<\/em><\/strong>), or whether, like me, you believe he kept his heart fixed on the slim possibility that somehow he might survive, still, you know what it means when he sets his face toward Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Setting your face toward Jerusalem<\/em> has become a trope.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t just facing hard times.\u00a0 There has to be something huge at risk:\u00a0 your life; your honor and reputation; the possibility of disastrous failure, and the responsibility for it resting on you.<\/p>\n

All of us face hard times, defeats, losses.\u00a0 But the order of magnitude is nowhere near this kind of act.<\/p>\n

\"Pentecost<\/a>Still, there are some I can think of who have truly set their faces towards Jerusalem:<\/p>\n

George Bell, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral<\/strong> throughout WW2, personal friend of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and signer of the Barmen Declaration that founded the Confessing Church, went before Parliament after the fire-bombing of Dresden to denounce this as a heinous act.\u00a0 He made his views on the immorality of area bombing known publicly on several occasions.\u00a0 These actions cost him dearly, as he became unsuitable in the eyes of Parliament to become Archibishop of Canterbury.<\/p>\n

Abraham Lincoln<\/strong>, whose support for Emancipation took all his considerable skill to enact and cost him his life.\u00a0 It may be the single greatest action of any President.<\/p>\n

\"Replace<\/a>Franklin Roosevelt,<\/strong> whose support for US involvement in WW2 made him a wartime President, the strain and exhaustion of which may well have shortened his life.\u00a0 He died while Commander in Chief during an ongoing war.\u00a0 He was a savior for the nation, bringing it through the Depression and the War, reimagining the economy and introducing such programs as Social Security.<\/p>\n

Eleanor Roosevelt<\/strong>, who bore her husband six children and nursed him through polio,\"Pentecost<\/a> only to discover he had been carrying on an affair with another woman.\u00a0 Still, she agreed to be his First Lady, creating her own space and life in that role, taking on the education of the American public on a number of issues, standing for civil rights, women\u2019s rights, and human rights.\u00a0 For countless American women of her era, she has been a beacon and a role model.<\/p>\n

\"Replace<\/a>Mother Teresa,<\/strong> who left the convent life of school teaching in India to move into the slums alone and collect up the dying from the public streets, beginning a new order of nuns and a new form of service.\u00a0 Nominated for Sainthood, she is also now a deity in the Hindu temples around Calcutta.<\/p>\n

James Foley,<\/strong> a journalist who grew up here in NH, who worked as a war correspondent, and who returned to Syria, knowing the dangers yet believing in the importance of telling this story to the world.\u00a0 Captured and imprisoned, he was beheaded a week ago.\u00a0 His friends remember him as a consummate journalist and a profoundly caring human being.\u00a0 Here in NH, our weeping is not yet over for this good and honorable man.<\/p>\n

Faith, according to the Letter to the Hebrews, \"Replace<\/a>is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. <\/em>It is in the strength of this, which is the utter strength of Jesus, that he proceeds toward Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Frederick Buechner writes, Faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession.\u00a0 It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all.\u00a0 Faith is not about being sure where you are going, but going anyway.\u00a0 A journey without maps.\u00a0 Tillich said that doubt isn\u2019t the opposite of faith;\u00a0 it is an element of faith.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Pentecost<\/a>Paired with this reading from Matthew is the story of Moses at the burning bush, able to hear the will of God that directs him into the living hell of Pharoah\u2019s court, a place from which he has fled.\u00a0 In terror, Moses pours out his fear of failure, and God assures him he will not be alone.<\/p>\n

And so it is for Jesus.\u00a0 They do go with him, his friends, and even though at the very end many flee in fear, a few are with him till the end.\u00a0 He is not alone.\u00a0 He himself said two or three were enough for him to be alive.\u00a0 Even in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

And this is where I find myself in the story.\u00a0 I know I am too chicken to\u00a0choose danger on my own, I am a lot more like Peter, wishing we could just stay home where life is safer.\u00a0 But if you have my heart, you have my feet, walking along with you, as Peter did.\u00a0 And Jesus has managed to tug my heartstrings to approach a lot of suffering.\u00a0 Even, now and then, my own. \u00a0I remind myself that The Way isn\u2019t supposed to be easy, that The Way can be dreadful, and worse than that, at times.\u00a0 And that even one friend makes two of us, and we are a place where Christ is.\u00a0 And whatever happens, that is enough.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Illustrations:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Reproduction of the 6th cent. A.D. Madaba map mosaic showing the cityscape of Jerusalem<\/strong><\/em> (this is a detail of the map.) \u00a0Image from Wikipedia page for Old Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0In the Garden.<\/strong> <\/em>\u00a0He Qi. \u00a0Nanjing, China 2000. \u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library, Art in the christian Tradition.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0George Bell,<\/strong><\/em> Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, 1929 \u2013 1958. \u00a0Image: \u00a0Brittanica.com.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0Franklin Roosevelt.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0Image from Wikipedia page.<\/p>\n

5. \u00a0 Eleanor Roosevelt.<\/strong><\/em> \u00a0Google bio photo.<\/p>\n

6. \u00a0Mother Teresa.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0 Image from her Wikipedia page.<\/p>\n

6. \u00a0James Foley.<\/strong> <\/em>\u00a0Image from his Wikipedia page.<\/p>\n

7. \u00a0Moses at the Burning Bush.<\/strong> <\/em>\u00a0Dura-Europos Synagogue, Syria. circa 250. \u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library, Art in the Christian Tradition.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Jesus of Nazareth came riding into Jerusalem on his mule, a small group of radicals, illiterates, and ne\u2019er-do-wells hailed him as the Messiah, the Christ.\u00a0 Everybody else suggested that you had to draw the line somewhere and advised a public and unpleasant execution so nobody would fail to get the point. \u2013 Frederick Buechner, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2483,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bites"],"yoast_head":"\nFacing Toward Jerusalem<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When Jesus of Nazareth came riding into Jerusalem on his mule, a small group of radicals, illiterates, and ne\u2019er-do-wells hailed him as the Messiah, the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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