Sermons

This morning’s scripture is a lament. That was the conclusion I finally came to after more hours of reading and thinking on this scripture that I’ve done in quite a long while. Just four verses, that’s all it is. You would think it would be simple. But each commentary I read went in a completely different direction form the next, usually, there’s a common theme among them but not for this passage. And finally, this conclusion. Jesus is lamenting….vs 34- Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 

How often I’ve desired to protect you, to love you, to keep you away from all harm….but you choose another path. That’s familiar words to the parents in the room who wish nothing more than to protect their children from the foxes of the world, only to watch them choose another path and roam away into danger. 

The four verses begin with some Pharisees warning Jesus that Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, is onto to him and that Herod wants to kill him and they tell Jesus he better get out of there, but Jesus tells them he still has work to do. “Tell that fox,” Jesus says to the Pharisees that I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. And follows that by essentially saying…besides… I’m in no danger here, but I will be when I reach Jerusalem… it’s in Jerusalem, that prophets are killed…And that’s where this lament comes in….In thinking about where he’s heading…The place where the temple mount sits, the place he will be crucified… 

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

And this isn’t the only time Jesus laments over this city.

At the end of chapter 19, Jesus has come into the city of Jerusalem, his disciples have shouted Hosanna, blessed is he who has come in the name of the Lord. just as Jesus predicted they would.

And it’s there, that the Pharisees show up again, this time urging Jesus to stop his disciples…and then….another lament….Jesus weeps over Jerusalem…

vs 41-As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

The things that make for peace. Peace is prevalent in Luke’s gospel. Only in Luke’s gospel as Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem, do the disciples say this; Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” And if that sounds familiar it’s because you heard it at the beginning of Luke’s gospel at the birth…

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a great multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying: “Glory to God in  and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests!” 

And Zechariah, is his song about his son John.. talks about Jesus, the one who his son is preparing the way for…He sings this about Jesus….he will guide our feet in the way of peace…

And so in light of all the hopes and dreams for peace, especially in Luke’s gospel… this prince of peace laments over this city….not once but twice, over Jerusalem… whose name is peace...Jerusalem…Salem, shalom, shalom, a form of the word for peace…

Biblical peace is different than the way we tend to think about peace. It’s much more than peacetimes times when we are not at war…it’s a divine blessing, one that we participate in, one that we seek for the good of the whole. A kind of harmony, where all the players have their own notes but harmonize into one whole song. Wholeness includes forgiveness and reconciliation. The pursuit of peace is the obligation of the individual but also the goal of social regulations and structures.^[1] 

Again, Luke reminds us…at the cross this time…when women who are witnessing his crucifixion wail and beat their chests,…Jesus says, daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me but weep for yourself and for your children…. 

The same children who will not allow themselves to be gathered under his maternal wing will, in turn, have children and Jesus passes on his lament to the mothers who will continue his weeping for him. 

This is Lent. This is the season we take time for moral inventory, of all the ways we resist being gathered together as one under the protective wings of a mothering God who knows what’s best for us….and is offering us the way if only we would follow… 

So how are we doing? As a city of our own, as a society, a nation? How are we doing in choosing between the Herod’s of the world and the divine grace of God who manifests in Jesus Christ? The prince of peace who calls for us to reconcile? 

Are we making progress? In a world of fragmentation and division, we are placing our identity into factions based on race, gender, sexuality, and politics? Placing our identity in what divides us instead of what unites us is just one piece of what is worth weeping over. Religion is not immune to what is used to divide us. Jesus laments….How often have I desired to gather your children together…and you were not willing!

Are we aligning ourselves with the foxes of our world who dehumanize the other in language that’s become so commonplace we’ve become immune to its harm? Or are we working to align ourselves with those who hold a sense of moral obligation towards understanding the world in terms of wholeness and peace? If lent is a time for moral inventory are we asking the tough questions of ourselves? Are we asking to learn more about what it means to be privileged? And the ways that keep us from living peacefully in harmony with those who don’t benefit from privilege? Are we asking ourselves about our history? And the ways we’ve gotten it wrong in the past so as to be sure never to repeat our mistakes; Are we reconciling and asking forgiveness for the sins of the past, the ways our country was built at the expense of those who were here before us, or the people we enslaved in order to make what we call progress? 

This is Lent. Jesus laments? Do we?

We’re immune to violence and to language that dehumanizes the other. How our complacency as a society contributed? A city where the media rules over peace, by perpetuating division through fear. Jesus lamented the city, wept over it. Are we? 

If we are to find our voice as children of God’s, it means taking a moral inventory of our whole life,

This is lent, this is the season we ask the hard questions by asking ourselves, how are we living? 

We have forgotten our identity, our name, the one given to us at our baptism, the one that lives at the core of how we are called to identify as followers of Jesus Christ, we are children of God’s- Children of this earth called upon to create peace alongside one another for the good of one another….Because God loved us first, and because Jesus loved us enough he was willing to expose all the ways we get it wrong from the cross.

And every time we’re tempted to use language that separates us from them..from those people, try naming them in language that reconciles and brings us into wholeness. Children of Gods who follow the prince of peace. We don’t hear the military refer to enemies referred to as children of God’s. You don’t hear people calling for immigration policies that take children away from our sisters and brothers in Christ. If 12-year-old boys are drawing Nazi symbols before they’re old enough to understand what it means, how far into complacency have we fallen? The worst thing Jesus can think to call Herod, the man who wants to kill him, is a fox….and as Barbara town Taylor says… 

“The mother hen has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles.
All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her own body.
If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first.” 

Jesus is calling for us to come to the place where he will fight for us, if only we are willing.  I’m not entirely sure we will ever be fully safe from your own choices. And he knows that. Which is why we are left with a call. A call to repentance, to redemption, to learning from our past to meeting go of the shame and allowing the mistakes of our past to feed us into places of compassion, and wholeness and healing… Roam free from fear of the powers that would have us believe we are somehow superior as nation, or as a county, or as a church based on anything more than the love we share. Roam free from the powers that would have you believe you have to afraid. Roam freely into the unconditional love of a Christ who weeps for us…..weep alongside him and let lead you into forgiveness and reconciliation. Choose your way into wholeness, into the feminine love of a mother who is willing to die for her children. Choose paths that lead to peace.

The older we become
We must become more like a child
Believing there’s a land that lies beyond
All the things that we’ve seen
Make my mind free from fears
You know I can’t do it on my own
The way is high but we could fly over
When you heal our wings

~~~~~~

 

^[1] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/shalom/