The Pharisees and Jesus - Reflections on Luke 13:31-35, Lent 2, Year C
by John C. Holbert on Thursday, February 6, 2025
As a long-time lover of and commentator on the Hebrew Bible, and one Christian who holds the deepest appreciation for ancient and contemporary Judaism, I want (once again!) to point out the inarguable fact that the Pharisees, as often portrayed in the New Testament, are the rankest and most dangerous of caricatures. There are two facts about this 1st-century Jewish group that must always be kept in mind: they were the religious liberals of their time, seeking ways to adapt their rich traditions to the ever-changing realities of their everyday lives and also many, if not nearly all of Jesus’s first followers were Pharisees. When Jesus is portrayed as in some argument or debate with a group of Pharisees, and that group is depicted as narrow-minded or hypocritical or unwilling to see Jesus’s side of the matter, one can almost bet that the New Testament author is engaged in a pernicious attempt to make them out to be evil antagonists of their hero, Jesus. Such dangerous portraits have instigated the most vile commentaries on Pharisaic life and practice and have led to the horrors of anti-Judiasm, and ultimately anti-Semitism, down the tragic centuries of Christian-Jewish relationships.
It thus comes as a possible surprise when we read Luke 13:31: “At that time, some Pharisees came up to him and said, ‘Go away. Leave this place. Herod seeks to kill you.’” This admonition is offered to Jesus right after he has announced to his listeners that the way to God is “narrow,” and while “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets (are) in the kingdom of God,” “you are thrown outside, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth” (Luke 13:28). Then, “some Pharisees” urge Jesus to leave here because Herod wants him dead. Do they do this out of some fear for Jesus? Are they really trying to save his life? Given what Luke says of Pharisees in the rest of his story, I cannot believe that these Pharisees genuinely have Jesus’ interests in mind.
Luke has consistently pictured Pharisees as opponents of the prophets and of Jesus in particular. He has made it abundantly clear that the Pharisees have a deep resentment and almost a personal grudge against Jesus. Luke 11:53 is a verse rife with animosity and bitterness: “When he had left there, the scribes and Pharisees formed a deep resentment against him (or “began to be very hostile toward him”—NRSV). They began to draw him out on many issues (or “cross-examine him on many things”—NRSV), lying in wait to trap him in something he might say.” These hardly sound like persons who are interested in the well-being of Jesus!
When they tell Jesus to “leave this place,” rather than warning him about the danger he faces, perhaps they mean to go even faster away from here, from this particular village. In other words, get out of our hair, because your presence among us is little short of a disgusting irritation. Or even more may be in their minds, according to Luke. These Pharisees are anxious that Jesus not fulfill his prophetic destiny in Jerusalem, where he will, like all prophets before him, find a martyr’s death. Thus, what they mean, says Luke, is something like, “Be quiet, stop making waves, keep yourself safe.” A safe and quiet Jesus is far better than this preaching, powerful, prophetic figure who is riling up the populace, and making the lives of the Pharisees extremely difficult.
Furthermore, when the Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him, they contradict the narrator’s continual claim that Herod, though he certainly has John the Baptist murdered (Luke 9:9), has no such desire for Jesus. Rather, Herod wishes merely to “see” Jesus, and more specifically, wants to “see some sign done by him” (Luke 23:8). When Herod has the chance to kill Jesus, he does not do so but instead returns him to Pilate for adjudication (Luke 23:11). In short, the Pharisees’ claim that Herod wants Jesus killed is belied by the story the Lukan narrator is telling. The Pharisees in Luke 13:31 are thus the same caricatured Pharisees that dot the New Testament gospels, angry, envious hypocrites who are in constant battle with Jesus for the souls of 1st-century Jews.
Jesus’ response to these Pharisees in vss. 32-35 is to charge them to tell “that fox” (Herod) that his ministry of healing and exorcisms of demons will continue until he “finishes his work on the third day,” plainly a reference to his resurrection. He then offers a famous image of Jerusalem like a brood of chicks under which Jesus has desired to shelter them like a mother hen, but they have refused, because the city has long been a place that “kills the prophets and stones those who come to it.” Despite Jesus’ desire to protect Jerusalem and its people (see Deut.32:11 and Ps.91:4 for similar avian imagery of protection), it rather stones those who come to it. And these Pharisees, claims Luke, will themselves “throw stones” (i.e. jeer and reject him) at Jesus, though he will in future come to Jerusalem, entering the city in the manner of Ps. 117:26 (in the Greek version—LXX), announcing that “the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” It is these Pharisees, says Luke, who are prominent among “the builders” of the city, among those who will reject Jesus.
What are we to make of all this? Jesus’s desire is to “gather the chicks of the city” like a mother hen, but instead the chicks will be his death. Luke has portrayed the Pharisees as murderers, driven by envy and anger against Jesus. As I have said, not all Pharisees should be seen in this dangerous and cankered light. This second Sunday in Lent, may we give up our absurd and non-historical view of 1st-century Pharisees and move toward a fuller embrace of those who have been unfairly depicted in the stories we claim as central to our faith.