2 Lent Yr C Feb 21 2016

2 Lent Yr C Feb 21 2016 Audio

During the season of Lent, we are challenged by our memory of what is to come. We know that Good Friday is ahead and that crucifixion comes before resurrection. We know what is to come because we already have been this way. Nonetheless, we are called to care for one another, just as a mother hen cares for her chicks. Just as God cares for us. And we are called to respond to that love through action toward others, reciprocating that love. Jesus challenges our notions of who God is and our visions of God’s kingdom. We are also challenged to expand our understanding of God to include images of a strong, nurturing presence.

We know what is to come because we already have been this way. Isn't that the truth. The pattern that is shown forth in the stories of the Old Testament shows God's creation, blessing, humanity's turning away from God, God calling creation back to healing, wholeness, and reconciliation. In the midst of pain and sadness, Abraham needed God to remind him who is was and what his role would be and that God was with him. In the midst of the wandering in the wilderness and certain death, the Israelites had to be reminded at every junction that God was with them. 

And that is the pattern of our lives. Each one of you has experience personally and with your friends and family of this truth. The reality of life is death, the reality of love is loss. But the reality of life is also resurrection, that's what the pattern shows us, that's what God's love tells us. What makes that so hard is that what the world counts as death, what the world counts as loss, is not at all to God. Every where we look, we are encouraged to change the way we act and feel and look to keep away our wrinkles or our sagginess or to increase our stamina or virility. Those things may be well and good and help us feel better, but God's kingdom is about being fully human, fully alive, knowing full well these bodies of ours will die. 

Death is what happens when we are trying so hard to stay alive, life is what happens when we live in the reality of resurrection, when we live in the reality that Love wins. And that is the new life that is gift, and to which we must respond yes! 

Yes, Lord, in the midst of this pain and loneliness I will continue to love, because it is love that wins. Yes, Lord, in the midst of this heartache I will continue to love, as a mother hen loves her chicks, as you lord, love me, because it is love that wins. Yes, Lord, in the midst of the joy and gladness of my life and my heart, I will spread your love and mercy and compassion to those who have lost hope, because I am grateful. 

In this passage, Jesus’ use of the mother hen image is a wonderful reminder of God’s love for all of us. It expands our imaginations. It is a mother’s love that is revealed here. And it is also a love that might seem unjustified. The people Jesus was reaching out to were known to “kill the prophets and stone those sent to you.” We may say they were unworthy of Jesus' love, that they didn’t deserve it. And the truth be known, they didn’t deserve it, none of us deserve it. But that is the truth of God's kingdom, it is not about what we deserve, because it is not about us at all. It is about God's amazing and abundant love for all of us, and for each of us, just like that mother hen and her chicks.

This passage from Luke shows us what God's kingdom looks like. Indeed, we are called to care for one another as God cares for us, as the mother hen cares for her chicks. That is God's kingdom. God's kingdom is not necessarily something waiting for us at the end of our time or the end of all time. God's kingdom is what God yearns to create with us right now, in this place, in this time. God gathers us in, cares for us, brings life to us. God's kingdom welcomes all, cares for all, nurtures all, regardless of whether or not we deserve that amazing and astounding love. Can we do any less? 

During Lent we are particularly called into relationship with Jesus, just like that mother hen calls her chicks to herself so she can care for and nurture them. We are called into relationship, not because we are deserving, or wonderful, or perfect, we are called into relationship because we are loved.

I really like to listen to unaccompanied singing. I am impressed by voices that are lovely, and beautiful, and fun. Voices that sing complex arrangements, the only way that happens is by listening to one another. My music professor in seminary would give the lecture as each new class began. He would remind us that each of us comes from a place in which we were the leaders. And when you get a pile of leaders together, they tend to try to out do, or out sing, each other. But beautiful music ever happens by listening to each other. No one voice is more important, or less important, better than or worse than, any other. It is about all the voices, blending and soaring and supporting, that make beautiful music. The relationship of all the voices made the music even possible. I think that is a glimpse of God's kingdom. I think that is God's call into relationship. I think that is what Lent is about. 

Listening to God, listening to one another, building something beautiful that not one of us can do alone. That is the journey we take with Jesus. I was watching the Grammy's the other night, listening to Adel, and even in that very professional setting, with all the technology available, her microphone went out. And on she went. You see, it's not about perfection, it's about what we do in the midst of the reality of the journey, and how we lift one another up. It's about how we listen to each other, those we blend with well and those whose voice may be hard to hear. It's about how we listen to Jesus, whose deepest desire is to call us into himself, so that we know in the depth of our beings, that Love wins. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of The Lord. 

2 Lent Yr C

If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus' lament. All you can do is open your arms. You cannot make anyone walk into them. Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world --wings spread, breast exposed --but if you mean what you say, then this is how you stand. In this story from Luke, Jesus is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm, in this story that is Herod, who is the fox. She 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; which he does, as it turns out. He slides up on her one night in the yard while all the babies are asleep. When her cry wakens them, they scatter. She dies the next day where both foxes and chickens can see her -- wings spread, breast exposed -- without a single chick beneath her feathers. It breaks her heart, but if you mean what you say, then this is how you stand. It is terribly foolish for a hen to stand in such a vulnerable position. The world looks on this vulnerability as weakness, but it is this very vulnerability that saves the hens, that saves us.
(Excerpts taken from Barbara Brown Taylor, Christian Century 2/25/86.)

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killer of prophets. In the midst of this image of the mother hen with her wings spread wide and her vulnerability fully exposed, is this lament. This is a terribly tragic story, but it is not a hopeless story. Tragedy is not the antithesis of hope, tragedy just is. Tragedy is part of our human existence. Tragedy and death are part of life, love and joy are part of life, but they are not opposites, they are merely parts of a whole. We are not saved from tragedy; you and I both know the reality of tragedy. Ice storms down power lines, a wreck on I-90 kills mothers, fathers, children, a hurricane devastates a city, an earthquake levels a country, a gunman goes to work one day and shoots people.

What we have today is this story of Jesus, the mother hen, who guards the chicks behind her wings and puts herself in between the fox and the hens, in full knowledge that the fox will kill her. This is tragedy, but tragedy is not the end of the story. This is the story of Jesus, who puts himself between the principalities and powers, and each one of us, because of love, and for the Kingdom, his way of peace.

The power of this story is that it shows us what Jesus does on the cross. Jesus puts himself in our place. It is so difficult for us to wrap our minds around, we want to ask why. Why would Jesus do such a thing? Why would Jesus put himself in between us and the principalities and powers? For love. Not a sweet, syrupy, romantic love, but a gritty, tough, and resilient love. It is very much like the love you have for your own children. Which one of us would not put ourselves in the way of sure and certain death for our child?

The problem is that the world counts death as failure. The words we use to describe disease and death invoke battles that are won and lost. We see in obituaries things like she lost her battle with cancer. This idea even sometimes directs our health care decisions. We are afraid that if we don’t wage a courageous battle, somehow we are not good enough. And Jesus’ dying on the cross looks to the world like failure. Jesus suffered, Jesus died. But Jesus did not fail. Jesus redefined death and life. Death does not have the final word; death does not have the victory. The Word of God has the final word.

What Jesus did on the cross was to make it possible for us to have new life, a life that our words cannot begin to describe, a life that our minds cannot begin to imagine. What Jesus did and does is to make it possible for us to be transformed.

Winning and losing have no meaning in Jesus’ Kingdom; love and forgiveness are gifts. Success and failure have no meaning in Jesus’ Kingdom; sharing and walking together are gifts. Isolation and alienation have no meaning in Jesus’ Kingdom; relationship and connection are gifts.

And as those chicks for which the hen gave her life, what is our response? The prayers for our Stations of the Cross say, Lord, teach me, help me learn. When I would snap at those who hurt me with their ridicule, those who misunderstand, or hinder me with some misguided helpfulness, those who intrude upon my privacy—then help me curb my tongue. May gentleness become by cloak. Lord, make me kind like you. This is a prayer of transformation. Lord, make me like you.

But are we serious when we pray a prayer like this, a prayer of transformation. Lord, make me like you. Make me like the hen that puts herself in between the fox and the chicks. Lord, make me like you. The implications of this prayer are enormous. Lord, make me like you who eat with tax collectors and sinners. Lord, make me like you who protect all those who are vulnerable. Lord, make me like you who clothe the naked, feed the hungry, welcome all who come our way. Lord, make me like you who says, love one another, as I have loved you.

It is for love that God came and comes into this world. It is for love that Jesus hangs on the cross, it is for love that Jesus suffers. It is for love.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him.