Lenten Bible Study Day 11; Luke 11

 

Luke, Chapter 11 (NRSV)

In the 11th chapter of Luke we begin with a private conversation between Jesus and his disciples as he teaches them to pray and then promises that God will hear their prayers. And then the action turns to the growing external opposition from the religious authorities which Jesus is gaining as he teaches and heals - and critiques and condemns.

This opposition, recorded in all four of the Gospels has always, as a religious leader, given me pause. I'd like to think that I would - that we would - get right what Jesus' contemporaries got wrong, but there's not much in the Gospels upon which to base that hope. It's telling that Jesus quotes the scriptures to the people who are meant to be the leading students of the scriptures and they don't understand either his words or the scriptures. And worse than not understanding, they reject what they can't understand - attributing God's actions to Satan, rather than admitting that they need to rethink, repent of what they think they understand.

When people ask Jesus for a sign, a prophetic sign so that they will know that he is indeed a prophet sent from God, Jesus tells them that they will have a sign but they will not recognize it for what it is. He says specifically that the people of this particular generation will receive the sign of Jonah but that they will not receive it.

What does he mean by the sign of Jonah? Jesus doesn't get swallowed by a whale. What is his meaning?

Ephrem the Syrian, a deacon, hymn writer and theologian of the 4th century taught that the point Jesus was making that Jesus, like Jonah, was going to die and that death was going to be cause of the "rising and falling of many". Some people would believe in God as a result of Jesus' death and his subsequent resurrection (like Jonah's who burst forth from the whale). Some people would reject Jesus because of his death - I imagine arguing that the Messiah could not die. (Shades of yesterday's meditation on the parable of the Good Samaritan.) In Ephrem's thinking, the Queen of the South, who signifies the Queen of Sheba who traveled to see Solomon and believed in God, represents the calling of the Gentile nations who see Jesus and also believe in God. (Ephrem's thinking is echoed in the writing of St. Ambrose by the way so it appears this was a widespread reading of this passage in the early Church.)

So what does that mean to you? What does Jonah signify for us?

Jonah, the reluctant prophet flees from God, is given up to death by being tossed into the stormy sea, lives for three days in the belly of the whale and is returned to life to call the fiercest enemy of the Israelites to repent, turn to God and live. In Jesus day, who are the enemies of the people of God? And who is it that ultimately turns?

Who would that be in our day? Because I think that's the point for us. We need to think about who it is that we believe is opposed to God's will in the world. How you and I might be asked, as Jesus' followers to be a sign for them - to show our own new life discovered in the teaching of the Messiah - so that they, the ones we imagine are God's enemies might turn and live too.

Who is it that God is calling us to give ourselves up for so that they might live? I don't think Jesus means for us to quote his words to them. I think Jesus means for us to take our own crosses and follow him so that by our actions, they might recognize Jesus too.