The extraordinary thing about Jesus is this capacity to recognize the frailty of others, because he is acutely aware of his own human frailty.

He has looked upon, existed within it, and knows it, as we saw last week in the desert. Today we see that he has the capacity to look on the folly of Jerusalem, for he realizes just what is being lost. Sure, he is angry at the injustice meted out on the poor and marginalized… but the reality is that he knows the authorities are cooking their own goose. He knows that ultimately, injustice and oppression lead to self-destruction. He knows that power breeds greed breeds division breeds destruction. And that has been the story of Jerusalem from that day to this. It is the story of the politics of church.

But there must be something more than politics and power that can unite, heal, restore. And that has to do with this picture of a man who discovers a clarity about who he is in God that can name reality as it is, aware that it will have a dramatic outcome for himself, but who also knows that he is part of a larger picture of the love of God that needs to find expression in the world. There is a perspective that acknowledgment that God’s expression transcends the bounds of establishment and reaches to the margins… right out, indeed, to where we are at. The Lenten story must be taken into our own story, where we can recognize Jesus in our world, walking the walk of integrity, walking along those who have been marginalized and wounded.

If we don’t do that, it is at our peril. If we don’t listen to the dissonant voices of the prophets, then we are deaf to what is going on around us. If we don’t look beyond to the plight of others, if we don’t become advocates for the marginalized, if we get too busy to cook a meal for the hungry, or close our door on an artist who is too much trouble, or refuse to take the risk to let someone in, if we forget that the bush is struggling with the worst drought in history and that farmers are being pushed off the land, if we close our eyes to the needs of our global village, then we will shoot ourselves in the foot. Our empty words will become the bullets. It’s a big challenge. But it is a challenge that will keep us honest.

Anne