I don't know how anyone living in the world right now isn't walking around with a broken heart. There are people fleeing Ukraine...joining the ranks of so many others fleeing countries where they are under attack. And here in Florida, our state legislature and Governor have gone off-the-chain with their attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, voters...they even have decided only people with an interest in agriculture can serve on the various state Water and Conservation Boards. If I were a pessimist, I would throw in the towel. But my trust in God tells me that all the hellscape we are in right now is not the only version of reality. And I will continue to press on to find that path that leads toward light and love.
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Text:
Gen. 15:1-12, 17-18; Luke 13:31-35
Prayer:
O God, may your Spirit be present as we open our hearts and our ears to reflect
upon your word, so that we may be rooted in your love and grow in your
likeness. Amen.
One of my favorite things to do at night is to look up in the sky
and marvel at the moon and the stars.
It’s harder to do when you live in a city with all the light
pollution. But when I’m in a place where the stars are visible, I find it to be
just one of the coolest things to stare at these small dots of light and get
lost in the wonder of what might all be up there in the sky.
I’m not a skilled astronomer. I don’t know all the names of the
constellations. I just enjoy seeing these beautiful, bright patterns in the
darkness.
I was thinking about that as I read through our passage today in
Genesis. What an image for Abram…who is not yet renamed Abraham…to see the
stars and hear that he is about to have a lineage that far out numbers even
these. And back in his time…before Thomas Edison gave us lightbulbs that
interfere with seeing the stars…he must have seen thousands and thousands of
them. Can you imagine what that must have been like for him? Up until now, he
has had no children and thinks his only heir is going to be one of his
servants. Now he’s hearing that he will not only have a child of his own…he’s
going to have descendants that rival the number of stars! And Abram believed
God. He didn’t ask for proof or say, “Gee, are you REALLY sure about that?” He
accepted this promise. He trusted God. And we hear that God took this as a sign
of Abram’s faith and righteous commitment to the covenant God was making with
this patriarch.
This scene gets mentioned throughout the New Testament as a call to
keep one’s faithfulness to God. Paul cites it a couple of times…as well as
James as he talks about our faith being the fuel in the engine of whatever
works we do in the world.
Fast forward now several centuries from Abram…and we are on the
journey with Jesus toward Jerusalem. And in our Gospel, we hear that deep ache
in Jesus’ heart.
“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!”
(Luke 13:34).
Jesus knows he’s walking into a dangerous situation. He knows that
his politics of Love are going to clash with the politics of power, and greed,
and indifference that have taken hold in the city of David. Centuries of war,
exile, and oppression have taken a toll on the hearts and minds of those who
are the people of the covenant made with Abram. And the Roman Empire doesn’t
take kindly to anyone who challenges its authority. Jesus laments what has
happened to people. But unlike his opponents…he isn’t heading to Jerusalem
breathing fire and vengeance and destruction. Instead, all he wants to do is gather
the people…like a mother hen bringing together her chicks…under a protection of
love.
It's interesting that he describes himself as a hen while slamming
Herod as a fox. We know the saying about “foxes guarding the hen house,” so he
must have had it in mind that this fox…and his fox pups who’ve come to tell him
to turn back…are planning to rip him to shreds.
We can imagine that this only compounds his sadness about what’s
happened to Jerusalem…and how the people are unwilling or maybe so defeated in
spirit that they won’t trust and believe that God really loves them?
We ought to lament with Jesus. And not just for the time in which
he was living…but over what has happened and is continuing to happen in our own
time and place.
It’s hard for anyone to accept…much less believe…in a God of such
deep and abiding love when our lives testify to a version of reality that is so
different.
Every day, we are seeing images of war in Europe…the wanton and
reckless attacks on places such as a children’s hospital. Soldiers are dying in
the snow and cold. The forced migration of millions of people dodging bullets
and bombs to reach safety. And that’s just in Ukraine.
We’re not even considering the mass exodus from Syria…or the
refugee crisis in Ethiopia…or those displaced Rohingya in Myanmar. And there
are still people fleeing their homes in Central America because of gang violence.
In this country…we’ve seen growing anger and distrust. The
hardening of hearts became a visible structure in Washington, DC. I was the
seminarian at St. Monica and St. James in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. I used
to walk the eight blocks from the Metro stop to the church, passing by people
pushing baby strollers or taking their dogs out…or picking up groceries at the
supermarket. Capitol Hill is not just the seat of government; it’s a place
where people live and raise their families.
After the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, I
decided to go back and see my old parish neighborhood, and I was deeply
saddened by the tall fencing with barbed wire…the blocked access to certain
streets, and the National Guard troops patrolling the perimeter. There wasn’t
the same feeling. I remember standing on the sidewalk and sighing deeply and thinking,
“What have we become?”
The same dismay swept over me this past week as I exited the
elevator on the fourth floor of Florida’s capitol building. The fourth-floor
rotunda area between the House and Senate chambers is usually loud and somewhat
raucous bustling with activity as lawmakers and legislative aides, lobbyists
and tourists or people lost in the building, move around outside the doors of
the two legislative chambers.
There’s a hallway to one side of the Senate doors that is a quick
way to get over to the Senate Office Building. This was also the place where
reporters could intercept lawmakers to seek out information about hotly debated
topics before Senators walked onto the floor of their chamber.
Now, not only are reporters apparently barred from using that
hallway; the public is prevented from taking the shortcut. People gathering in the rotunda area between
the chambers are told they must keep their voices down. Capitol police officers
are ready to deal with anyone who doesn’t comply.
This normally very loud area of the Capitol… wasn’t.
A place where people of differing opinions mixed in a free-flowing
river of humanity…now feels as if it’s been levied and controlled so as not to
upset the powerful. It was discouraging to witness.
I could imagine Jesus lamenting over this ordering…and the way in
which we have allowed the first to remain first and shoved the least and the
last by the wayside.
On Ash Wednesday, I talked about how Jesus is looking for us to
break our hearts. Today we have Jesus standing as a witness to what it means to
be brokenhearted. We hear his desire to bring us back together… and to remind
us of the promise that God is with us and desires for us to be as beautiful and
numerous as the stars in the night sky.
God is calling us to do this work in our own world…in our own
families and communities…. allow ourselves to enter into compassionate
relationship with people who are in need. We see that happening with this war
in Europe. The Polish people living in bordering towns are not only opening
their homes to refugees; they’re waiting at the border with hot tea and food
for the traumatized victims of war. If only all people fleeing violence could
be welcomed with such kindness.
We’re here to see the heartbreak of the world and in our
communities…and pray for the courage to respond in love to the comfortless
while confronting those powers working to demean and destroy the people and
things of God.
We come here to this table for the strength to do this work by
remembering Christ’s love and efforts done for us. This is the reality
of God…the same God who called Abram to count the stars.
May we have the faith of Abram…and the loving desire of Jesus…to
help us live closer to God and respond to our challenges with love.
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