Herod The Fox And Saying No To Those In Power

Part 1 of The Courage to Stand Up to Harm

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Our reading this week is from the gospe of Luke:

At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.”

He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Luke 13:31-35)

Our reading this week starts with a threat on Jesus’ life. This gives me pause in my own understanding of what Jesus and his gospel was all about. People don’t get killed for preaching a gospel that God loves people. People don’t get killed for passing out free tickets to heaven or assurance about the afterlife. These kinds of gospels rarely ever threaten the status quo or the powerful whom the status quo benefits.

In the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition, prophets were killed when they stood up to exploitative systems by speaking truth to power. John the Baptist was standing squarely in that tradition and was beheaded by Herod. Now, in this week’s reading, Herod’s sights are set on Jesus. And Jesus is boldly standing in the same prophetic justice tradition: a Galilean, Jewish prophet of the poor speaks truth to power once again.

One element that keeps the Jesus of this story relevant for me today is the courage we see here.

“Go tell that fox, ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’”

Jesus calls Herod a fox. It makes me think of a fox in the hen house. Herod was a client king of Rome who exploited the population to enrich himself and the elites and powerful who, in exchange for their allegiance, were also being enriched. Speaking of a fox in the hen house, Jesus uses this imagery further when he says he wants to protect the people of Jerusalem as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings when the fox circles. The Temple State centered in Jerusalem had become deeply complicit in the harm that Rome was committing against the economically powerless and vulnerable. Jesus states that although he is working in Herod’s region, his ultimate aim is to go to Jerusalem and stage his protest there. We’ll pick up there, in Part 2.

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