Lent 2 - In the City

Here's a link to Luke 13:31-35, this week's Gospel text:

http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary/CLent/cLent2.htm

When I was in high school I played basketball with a kid named Jonathan Brooks. He was tall and quick, and his Slinky-like spiky hair would fall back and forth across his head as he ran up and down the court. He'd average something like 18 or 20 points per game, and when he'd shoot a jump shot, he'd expect to make it, and everyone else would expect him to make it, too.

In the early days of my high school basketball career, before I'd grown into my body and when I found simple tasks like jogging to be plagued with pitfalls of coordination, Jonathan took me under his proverbial wing and tried to teach me how to play the game. Though he had very limited success, Jonathan never gave up and, until he left our team, was more or less my teacher in a master/padawan sense.

When he was a senior and I was a sophomore, Jonathan left our team to attend a premiere prep-school in our league. I didn't hear much about him, except that he was captain and that he was thinking about going into the Air Force. But about halfway into the season, our teams met on the court.

I walked to the center of the floor right before tip-off, taking my position next to a referee. I hadn't talked to Jonathan yet, but he stepped across the circle to shake my hand. I reached out and moved to speak with him, to catch up for a few seconds about how he was doing, what he was up to, the usual long-time-no-see exchange. Instead of sticking around, however, he gave my extended hand a quick squeeze and muttered "good luck" before resuming focus on the tip-off. He probably figured he couldn't socialize with the enemy.

I'm not sure what I was expecting. A conversation, a hug, a few kind words - something familiar from someone I thought I knew well. But the familiar failed me, and I what I found instead was, well, hostility.

We've walked with Christ into the desert, and have wandered with him through temptation and reflection. Now we look to the city, to Jerusalem, to Seattle. There's a great sadness in our text, a deep regret for the "safe" that fails. What do we do when we come upon what we expect to be an oasis in our journey, but only find conflict? How do we live in the tension between comfort and hostility?