Luke 13:31-35
March 13, 2022
She
asked us to lament.
Lie
down on the floor
weep,
wail, wring our hands
learn
suffering’s sound.
Unsure
of this teacher
permitting
us grief
we
tentative students
persisted
at blind happiness.
O!
To reclaim that
blessed
invitation.
Now
my cry,
“My
God, my God,
why
have you forsaken us?”
would
swallow the silence,
Subdue
the void
left
by that absence.
I
would give heartbreak its voice,
sing
agony’s crooked tune.
I
would gnash my teeth
fashion
sack cloth
drench
my head in ashes.
If
remorse could
stop
Death from cradling
babies
in his unrelenting arms,
if
sorrow could melt
weapons
like wax;
repentance
dry the eyes
of
every parent
of
every child lost,
no
sense, nor reason,
then
I proclaim my remorse.
Shout
apologies to the heavens.
I
turn back, turn around,
change
direction,
heed
the prophet’s call.
Only
Comforter, speak comfort.
Cry
hope.
Soften
stony hearts.
Reshape
new from old, living from dying.
Teach
us life, teach us love.
My
God, my God, hear our lament.
A favorite professor of mine, Gwen
Hawley, was the teacher referenced in this poem. I was a student in her
advanced group processing class, and the goal of advanced group processing was
that we – the students – were to become a group. That sounds deceptively easy.
Trust me, it is not. At one of our meetings each of us came to class feeling upset,
despairing, worried or anxious. Our emotions were based on different events in
our lives, but we were all feeling just plain bad. Gwen took stock of the
emotional climate in the room and declared that we needed to lament. We greeted
her words with anxious silence.
“I’m
serious,” she told us. “You need to lament.”
She
urged us to sit down on the floor and lament, wail, and gnash our teeth;
whatever was necessary, whatever we needed. We all looked at her like perhaps
she had lost it just a little bit. None of us could do it. No matter how much
we may have needed to express our feelings, we were all too self-conscious and
too uptight to vent them in such a dramatic and overt way. Gwen realized her
suggestion was not going to take so she dropped it. But there have been many
times since when I have wished to go back in time and take her up on her offer
to publicly lament.
I realize that it’s probably
self-serving to use my own poetry in a sermon, and I apologize for that. But I
wrote this poem when refugees fleeing from the war in Syria were trying to
cross the ocean in small boats and dying in the attempt. I wrote it when I saw
pictures of a little one washed up on a beach, and whole families lost to the
sea. These last two years with Covid and seeing such dramatic pictures of the
people fleeing the war in Ukraine reminded me of this poem. We are living in
uncertain and difficult times. The circumstances of the world today give us
plenty of reasons to lament. Lament features prominently in our story from Luke
this day.
Although lament is the overall theme
of this story, in the first two verses Jesus sounds more irritated than
mournful. Some helpful Pharisees came to him and warned him away from entering
Jerusalem. “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”
But Jesus refused to be scared off
by their warning.
“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. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must
be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of
Jerusalem.’”
“Go and tell that fox for me.” Jesus
swatted away their warning as you would an annoying fly. I’m sure his response
would have surprised, if not shocked, the Pharisees and probably anyone else
privy to that conversation. Herod was a dangerous man and a dangerous ruler.
This was the same Herod who to save face in front of his guests and to placate
the desires of his wife and stepdaughter, had John the Baptist – whom he liked
– beheaded. He was not a tyrant whose bark was worse than his bite. His bite
was pretty darn bad.
Some scholars question the motives
of the Pharisees who warned him. Perhaps they understood that Jesus going into
Jerusalem would cause more trouble for them than they could handle. So, if they
could keep Jesus out of Jerusalem by warning him about Herod, then it would
make life easier for them as well. But Jesus could not have cared less about
their warning or Herod for that matter. He was not going to be bullied into
staying away from Jerusalem. Jesus had kingdom work to do. He had a ministry
and a mission and a purpose to fulfill. He would not be kept out of Jerusalem
because Herod was breathing threats against him.
His words, “because it is impossible
for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem,” makes it clear that he knew
the dangers the city held for him. He knew where his path would lead. He had
been trying to make that clear to the disciples for some time. Ahead lay the
cross and his death. Herod’s threats
meant nothing to Jesus. He had work to do, and he was going to do it. I must be
on my way.
Yet as he pondered Jerusalem, Jesus’
irritation and annoyance gave way to lament.
“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!”
Jesus’ poignant lament for Jerusalem
tears at my heart every time I read these verses. The imagery Jesus used to
describe himself paints a vivid picture of the people in that great city. They
were like chicks, lost and vulnerable. The mother hen was there, waiting to
take them under her wing, to protect them, and love them, but they were
unwilling to be sheltered.
I don’t know much about raising
chickens. I remember visiting a farm of close family friends when I was a very
little girl, and I didn’t like to get close to the hens because they pecked at
your hands when you tried to gather eggs. But I went looking for pictures of
hens and their chicks when I was writing this sermon. When a predator comes
near, the hen puffs herself up, looking bigger and fiercer than normal. The
chicks are pulled under her wings for protection, and the hen, though not so
ferocious a creature as a mother bear or lioness, is willing to put up a fight
to protect her babies. What’s more, she is willing to sacrifice herself to save
them.
I must be on my way.
Jesus knew what awaited him in
Jerusalem. He was under no illusions that Herod or any of the other powers that
be would not see him as a threat to their power. Jesus was determined to do
what he had to do. He was determined to continue his work, his ministry. He was
faithful to his call. And this was no passive faithfulness. Jesus would be
faithful, no matter what the cost, and the cost would be great indeed. Like a
mother hen, he was willing to sacrifice himself for the chicks that needed his
protection.
I must be on my way.
Jesus knew that safety in this world
was not the same thing as being safe in God. When it came to the world, going
into Jerusalem would guarantee that he had no safety. Violence awaited him in
Jerusalem. Execution awaited him in Jerusalem. But Jesus was not about safety.
He was about being faithful. It seems to me that he knew that while the world
could do its worst – and it did – he had, as the psalmist declared, a
stronghold in God. The tyrants of the world may take his life, but they could
not take God’s light and salvation away from him. They could not take that.
In this season of Lent, we are
called to repent and reconsider the ways in which we are living our lives,
following God’s call or not. I think we are also called to lament as Jesus
lamented. We are called to lament the pain and suffering we cause ourselves and
one another. We are called to lament that the Herods of the world do not easily
give up or go away. And as we lament, we are also called to acknowledge our
vulnerability. Jesus could have used a different image when he looked down on
Jerusalem. He could have declared himself a mother bear or a lion, willing to
fight to the death to protect his little ones. But he chose a mother hen
instead; a creature not large or fierce, but one that even in her vulnerability
would lay down her life to protect her chicks.
Jesus knew that in earthly terms, he
was vulnerable. But he also knew that he was sheltered in God’s love and care.
And that was better than any protection found in this life. That was better
than any worldly power he might have claimed. God was his light and his
salvation, and because of that he had nothing to fear. He must be on his way.
And so must we.
Let all of God’s children say,
“Amen.”
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