Second Sunday in Lent (Year C) - March 17, 2019

Second Sunday in Lent
Year C
March 17, 2019
Luke 13:31-35

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.”

This is now the second time I have preached on this text. And this is the second time I have had to rework and rewrite a sermon because tragedy struck. The Revised Common Lectionary is a three year cycle of texts. Three years ago, I was a field ed student, working seven hours a week, a Zion Lutheran Church in Tinley Park, a southern suburb of Chicago. It was my one and only sermon during my time there. Not long before the Second Sunday in Lent in 2016, tragedy struck that community. There was a double-murder/ suicide that resulted in the deaths of three members of our congregation. There I was, a second-year seminarian. I barely knew them; I had just started there after being moved from my first field education site. I had a sermon written - I think I had focused on the feminine imagery that Jesus chooses to use for himself. Yet I couldn’t not talk about what was affecting us so deeply. 


Three years later, I had a sermon written - complete with a light-hearted reference to A Knight’s Tale. And Friday morning, tragedy struck again. I woke up to news that 49 of our Muslim siblings were murdered in a terrorist attack in their mosques in New Zealand, worshipping and praying in their congregations, as we do every Sunday. One incident so local and so personal, and the other so far away yet it still shakes me to the core because of my own friendships with our Muslim siblings. In the wake of both, I hear Jesus’ words to us today a bit differently. They hit me deeply. And I find myself again realizing that I cannot not say something about what has happened. Thankfully, today, Jesus doesn’t remain silent about the state of this world. 

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.”

Today, I hear Jesus’ pain, frustration, even agony at the state of Jerusalem (and by extension - the world). Jesus lamenting over the Jerusalem – the city that was supposed to be the shining light of the world, the city that was supposed to show the rest of the world how to live and be with God. It was supposed to be the city upon the hill. But that’s not what it had become or what it had ever truly been. Jesus’ pain rings loud and clear. Jesus, like a mother hen, loves his children and wants to protect his children, pulling them close in an affectionate embrace. What a beautiful image! Think about it for a moment: the wings of the hen, wrapping around her chicks - drawing her chicks together under the safety of her wings… But Jerusalem is broken by sin. This world as it is leads the city away from that love that Jesus has for his people. The world as it is keeps Jerusalem - and the wider world - from accepting Jesus’ love and protection. 

Jesus laments that Jerusalem and its people are ensnared by the Fox - by Herod and the Roman Empire - by the ways of this world as it currently is - this world that seems entrapped by sin and death. When Jesus calls Herod a “fox.” It is in no way a “compliment.” In the ancient world, foxes are seen as cunning, distrustful, and yes, insignificant. This is not playful language. This is strong language against the not just Herod, but the Empire that Herod represents. Jesus is not intimidated by Herod. He insults him. The “fox”, Herod and his kingdom represent everything that is wrong with this world as it is. It is control through fear. Rome keeps peace through violence - peace at the end of the sword. Rome lifts up the powerful and the wealthy at the expense of the lowly. In short, The Roman empire is deceitful, distrustful, and, for Jesus, Rome and its empire are insignificant because Jesus brings with him a new Kingdom - the Kingdom of God. 

Jesus comes to bring about the light of the Kingdom of God, yet the people reject it - choosing the ways of this world instead of the ways of God’s Kingdom. Instead of being the beacon of light in the world, this city kills the prophets sent by God to save it. Instead, this city has gotten caught up in the Roman political system and in the need for power. Instead, this city and its people are caught up in the ways of this world - in the desires to define “us” vs “them,” in the temptation to demonize people not like themselves (such as the Samaritans), in the ways in the ways they resort to violence out of fear, in speaking for God, deciding who God loves (and doesn’t love). 

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”

Jesus wants to draw us all - all of humanity - under his wings - his ways of non-violent, all encompassing, unconditional love. Yet we are surrounded by this world as it is. The fox still finds its way into our world and into our communities. And we still push away Jesus’ protection and love. We are living in a world ruled by fear - a fear causes us to divide the humanity - divide based on skin tone, based on religion, based on nationality and ethnicity, of country of origin. We are living in a world where fear and hatred still infect the hearts and minds of people and lead them to horrible acts that we just cannot comprehend. Today, while the Gospel - the good news that Christ proclaims - invites us into a way of seeing and being in the world that matches what God intended for it, we’re faced again with the reality that this world as it is falls so short of God’s intentions for the world.
The hate that we saw on Friday did not come out of a vacuum. It is hate that is sown by fear of the other, the stranger, those not like us, fueled by the myth that some of us are more worthy of God’s love than others. The hate is fueled by seemingly “innocent” jokes, by social media, by memes, by propaganda that spread negative and harmful stereotypes, grounded in fear rather than in our shared humanity. This is the very same hate that led to the murders of our African American siblings in Charleston in 2015. It is the very same hate that led to the murder of a woman in Charlottesville in 2017. And countless other events. It is very same hate that led to Jesus’ execution on a cross.

Today, We’re faced again with the reality that we need Jesus to keep bringing God’s kingdom into this world here and now. Just as I did three years ago as I mourned with Zion at the loss of their members, today, as I mourn with my Muslim friends, I hear Jesus saying these words again. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” In the wake of yet another tragedy, I hear Jesus’ pain as he sees the pain that humanity inflicts on each other. God not only hears our cries, but today, God in Jesus cries with us. God in Jesus mourns deeply with us and mourns deeply for us. 

The good news today is that, in the face of tragedy, as Jesus faces the realities of the state of Jerusalem and the world, Jesus doesn’t quit. Jesus does not back down. Jesus says, “Go and tell that

fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.’” Jesus goes into the heart of this world as it is, casting out the demons of fear and hate. Jesus goes into the heart of Jerusalem knowing that he will go to the cross. Jesus hunkers down with humanity - in tragedy, in evil, in death - to show God’s love and God’s solidarity with humanity. In Jesus, we have a God that is committed to us - and to all of humanity. Jesus will not turn his back on the world that God so loved, and will not stop until he finishes his work - until the world is transformed into what God intended it to be. And with the gift of God’s loving grace and mercy, we are empowered to see and counter the foxes of the world. We are empowered to be agents of Christ’s love and light in the world, meeting hate with love and mercy, building bridges and relationships where the world as it is tries to build walls that divide God’s people. With Jesus’ help and God’s vision, may we all be drawn together as one united humanity under Jesus’ loving wing.

Amen