Jesus says that it is impossible for a prophet to die outside of Jerusalem. This is a bit of rhetorical flourish, isn’t it? It has to be!
I suspect our mind gets caught on the notion of impossibility. And I can hear the responses now. Let’s fact check this statement for accuracy. I bet we can find evidence it isn’t true. There have to be deaths of prophets outside of the city we can find in historical records.
Jesus is our great reorienter. He knows that we are thinking of things in one way, so he helps us see it another way. Here, he draws us away from thinking of the death of prophets as something neutral, passive, even accidental. It isn’t. It is so very much the will of kings or the state to shut them up. One way or another.
We night think of MLK’s assassin, perhaps, and think it is “outside Jerusalem,” but neglect the FBI’s intentions to kill him. Or fail to also consider the assassinations of Malcolm X and Fred Hampton. The bombing of MOVE in Philadelphia. These are the results of state machinations — desire to remove and silence. To kill.
The will to kill prophets doesn’t come from a deranged lone wolf from a random small town. That is the convenient cover offered by dangerous ideologies bent on murder and death. It begins and ends with the capital of power and the desire of monarchs to maintain control — always seeking a permanent majority and perpetual power.
The warning Jesus offers the Pharisees is not that the prophet is the source of any danger, that any of them can flee it. They are hens and the fox is in their house.
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