Jeremiah 31.27-34: There's Nothing Good About Sour Grapes

No longer will one generation suffer for what their ancestors did. In the days that are surely coming, self-responsibility is the name of the game. If your teeth are on edge it's because YOU ate sour grapes (Jeremiah 31:27-34) not because one of your ancestors did. That seems fair.

But another cultural take on sour grapes has to do with not eating the grapes. Aesop's fable about the fox and the grapes gives us the contemporary meaning of "sour grapes." In the fable, the fox sees a bunch of beautiful grapes hanging from a vine that is intertwined with tree branches. The grapes look delicious, so the fox jumps to grab the bunch in his mouth. He wasn't even close. So he stepped back, ran toward the tree and leaped at the last minute. Still nothing. A third attempt. No grapes. So the fox sat and looked again at the bunch. He walked away from the tree and the grapes saying (in paraphrase), "You know, they are probably sour anyway." It's easy to despise what you can't get. That's the moral of the fable.

The Fox and the Grapes. Watercolor. For the artist's Etsy shop, click here.

So is it getting the sour grapes that sets teeth on edge? Or is it not getting the grapes that sets your teeth on edge? Either way, there doesn't seem to be anything good about sour grapes. 

For thoughts on Jeremiah 31:31-34, click here.

For thoughts on Luke 18:1-8, click here.

Luke 9.51-62: Where You're Looking

Most state DMVs will tell you the same story: drivers tend to steer in the direction they are looking. If the driver's eyes move to the right, they will subconsciously turn the wheel to the right. Same is true for the left. We tend to go in the direction we are looking. So when Jesus' face is set to go to Jerusalem, well, that's where he is going (Luke 9:51-62). Nothing will stop him...not even the knowledge of what will happen in Jerusalem.

Thomas Hart Benton, Planting (Spring Plowing), 1939, lithograph on paper mounted on paperboard. 

Smithsonian American Art Museum.

So imagine if you are plowing a field. You walk along behind the horse or ox or mule and hold on to the plow. What do you think happens if you let your eyes drift off to the right. Yep, your plow will begin to drift to the right because subconsciously you'll pull the horses to the right.

No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. If you're looking away from the kingdom of God, then you're going to drift away from the kingdom of God. The American Civil Rights Movement song had it right:
                                                     I got my hand on the gospel plow

                                                     Won't take nothing for my journey now
                                                     Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

                                                     (lyrics attributed to Alice Wine)

This week on Facebook, a look at another part of Jesus' comments in Luke 9:51-62.

For thoughts on II Kings 2:1-12, click here or here.

Luke 13.31-35: Get the Picture?

Jesus makes, well, not a joke because there's nothing funny about it. But Jesus, speaking two thousand years ago reminds us that some things never change. In the gospel reading for Lent 2C (Luke 13:31-35) Jesus uses symbols in a way that rings familiarly in ears today. He puts a fox in the hen house.

"You tell that fox for me..." Jesus says. Herod (Herod Antipas to be specific) is the fox. Jesus continues that he has long wanted to gather the people of Jerusalem together "as a hen gathers her brood under her wings." Fox. Hen.

The pictures tell the story. Neither of the first two works here are "religious" works and yet when we see them through the lens of the gospel reading, it is clear that Jesus fully understood his animal symbols as individuals and in relation to one another.

In the top picture a fox sneaks into the picture space in the lower left corner, biting down on the hindquarters of an unsuspecting hen in its jaws. [Christian Luycks. Farmyard Scene with Fox Attaching Bantams. c. 1645. Private collection.]

The bottom picture is more graphic. Jean-Baptiste Huet's Fox in a Chicken Yard [1766. San Francisco: deYoung/Legion of Honor Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. http://art.famsf.org/jean-baptiste-marie-huet-elder/fox-chicken-yard-50558] shows a fox that is the center of the carnage, not sneaking in from the side. The fox devours one of the chickens and bares its teeth at a bird attempting to distract the fox and perhaps save the chicken. Young chicks scurry out from under the chicken's wings, trying to get away. At the right are three eggs, cracked open with both the yolks and whites leaking onto the ground.

Herod Antipas fits the caricature very well. The son of Herod I (the Great), Antipas is the ruler reproached by John the Baptist for his marriage to his sister-in-law. Antipas built the city of Tiberias on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and was the official to whom Jesus was sent in the course of his arrest, interrogation and crucifixion.

It is this same Herod who ordered the children of Bethlehem killed after the visit of the magi to his court. Frightened at the prospect of a King of the Jews being born, he resolved that it should not happen. As the fox does in Huet's picture, Herod, too, made sure to destroy future generations. Euan Uglow's rendition of the Massacre of the Innocents is modeled on an earlier work by Poussin [1979-1981. Private collection, UK].

Jesus had it right. Herod was a fox in the henhouse.

For thoughts on Genesis 15:1-18, click here.