The Outsiders | Waiting in Jerusalem

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who were sent to you! How often I wanted to gather your children together in the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you didn't want that. Look, your house is abandoned. I tell you, you won't see me until the time comes when you say, Blessings on the one who comes in the Lord's name." 

Luke 13:34-35 (Common English Bible)

Jesus had a complicated relationship with Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the holy city, the place where God's presence dwelt, the center of Jewish religious life. Jesus taught in the Temple. He celebrated Passover there. He went to Jerusalem for the major festivals. Jerusalem mattered to Jesus.

But Jerusalem also rejected Jesus. The religious leaders in Jerusalem plotted against him. They challenged his authority. They eventually arranged for his crucifixion. And in this passage, Jesus mourns over Jerusalem because the city refused to recognize what God was doing.

Jesus says, "How often I wanted to gather your children together in the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you didn't want that." Jerusalem had every opportunity to recognize the Messiah. The religious leaders knew the scriptures. They knew the prophecies. They had all the right knowledge. But when God showed up in their midst, they missed it. They missed it because Jesus didn't fit their expectations of what the Messiah should be or how God should work.

And there's a warning here for us. Because we can be so invested in our Jerusalems, the places and ways we expect God to work, we completely miss what God is actually doing.

We can be so focused on attracting people to our church buildings that we miss the kingdom work happening in our neighborhoods. We can be so concerned with creating impressive worship experiences that we ignore the people right outside our doors who need love and justice. We can be so committed to defending our theological positions that we fail to notice when God is moving in ways that challenge our categories.

This is the danger of waiting in Jerusalem. We can be so convinced that God will show up in the ways we expect, through the people we recognize, that we completely miss what God is doing at the margins.

But while we're waiting in Jerusalem, insisting that God should work the way we think God should work, people are encountering Jesus in Galilee. Lives are being transformed. Communities are being healed. Justice is being done. The kingdom is advancing. And we're missing all of it because we refused to look beyond our expectations.

Jerusalem rejected Jesus because he didn't fit their picture of what the Messiah should be. The religious leaders were so invested in their understanding of how God should work that they couldn't recognize God working in a different way right in front of them.

And we do the same thing. We reject what God is doing in Galilee because it doesn't fit our picture of what God's work should look like. We dismiss kingdom work because it's happening through the wrong people in the wrong places in the wrong ways. We wait in Jerusalem, convinced we're being faithful, while God is working in Galilee.

So here's the question we need to ask ourselves: What are we so convinced about regarding how God should work that we might be missing what God is actually doing? What expectations are we holding onto so tightly that we can't recognize God working in unexpected ways? What Jerusalems are we waiting in while God is working in Galilee?

Because the danger isn't just that we'll miss what God is doing. The danger is that we'll actually work against what God is doing because it doesn't fit our expectations. The danger is that we'll become like the religious leaders in Jerusalem who rejected Jesus because he didn't match their categories.

Prayer:

God, we don't want to be like Jerusalem. We don’t want to be so invested in our expectations that we miss what you're actually doing. We don't want to reject your work because it doesn't fit our categories. Help us let go of our insistence that you work the way we think you should work. Give us humility to recognize that your ways are not our ways. And help us pay attention to what you're doing in Galilee instead of waiting for you to show up in Jerusalem. Amen.