Lent 2C 2007

Genesis 15:1-12,17-18

Psalm 27

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Luke 13:31-35

Wasn’t it beautiful outside this past week? The fresh white snow, the trees sparkling like crystal sculptures?

Beautiful. Until you looked closer and saw all the damage. Broken limbs, trees bent in half. Beautiful. Until you heard of entire communities without power. Beautiful. Until you saw the pictures of cars in the ditch and tornado damage down south.

So much of our world is like that. Beautiful. Until you look close.

I remember the time I lived in Wilmington, Delaware. Everyday I drove to my volunteer job at the Delaware Food Bank located in the midst of the projects. On the way I would pass the historic Old Swede’s Church. This beautiful brick church dates back to 1699. It so happened that the year I was there, the Queen of Sweden was coming to visit the United States and this historic site.

So a high wall was built between the projects and the road going to the church. And it was painted very nicely. So the route would be beautiful and the Queen would never see the subsidized housing buildings that lay on the other side of the fence.

There are a lot of ways we try to make things look beautiful. Waxed fruit. Fresh paint. Botox.

Sometimes we intentionally look only at the surface, then glance away before we see too much…too much pain, too much hurt, too much longing.

Sometimes we are the ones sending out the message that everything is okey dokey hunky dory when we are the ones in pain, hurting, longing.

Like being at a funeral visitation when the conversation in the room is about everything and anything except the one lying in the coffin.

Jesus looks at Jerusalem, the Holy City. It is a happening, popular place. The temple gleams from the hilltop, covered in gold. The priests where the finest robes made of the finest linen and accept only the finest offerings.

Jesus looks at this city on a hill and sees past the gold. Past the regal appearances…past the elaborate rituals…

Jesus sees inside, like being able to tell the shiniest red apple is rotten at the core.

Jesus sees the abuses, the superiority, the stoning of the true prophets.

Jesus sees and does not turn the other way. Jesus sees and does not flinch. Jesus sees and does not shut his eyes.

Jesus sees the inside of the holy city and laments. Publicly.

“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 laments. Grieves over the city of God turned into the city of greed.

Jesus calls it like it is. The city run by the type of folks Paul is talking about…”whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, whose glory in their shame…”

Jesus laments over the land that abuses, or simply ignores the poor. The nation that turns a deaf ear on the struggling. Jesus laments when we build more prisons instead of social services. Jesus laments when we try to control each other with the threat of weapons instead of the promise of food.

Jesus laments when we seek to be entertained by violence and consumerism. Jesus laments when we cover up our pain with a happy face or another coat of paint.

Jesus laments when we run around like little chicks, each going our own way, at risk of being eaten by the fox. “How often I desire to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”

Barbara Brown Taylor says, “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 position in the world—wings spread, breast exposed—but if you mean what we say, then this is how you stand.”

When we join the lament, when we are honest about our weaknesses, our pain….when we are honest about the weaknesses and pain of our world…we are joined with Christ in true prayer.

Until we lament, we grieve…we cannot move forward and help change the world. Until we are honest with ourselves we can’t be honest with each other. Until we are honest about our world, we can’t change the system.

Yeah, it’s easier to put on the happy face and the rose-colored glasses. But it doesn’t make the apple less rotten. Or our lives easier in the end. The season of Lent is the season of honesty. A time to qive up keeping up appearances. A time to take on, to lament the pain of the world.

Jesus is warned off by some Pharisees…don’t go there…Herod wants to kill you. But Jesus must go. He laments, then he goes there. Willingly, boldly, eyes wide open. A hen facing off against the fox. Taking on the pain of the world.

Not exactly a fair fight in our world. The little defenseless hen against the sly fox.

But in God’s world there is a surprise ending. The vulnerable, lamenting, gathering hen wins out in the end. Not without struggle, not without pain, not without grief.

But in the end, God sides with the vulnerable, honest ones.

In the end, God sees through the coats of paint and the veneer of wax and the layers of sparkling ice. God sees the cracks and the breaks and the softness.

God laments with us and over us. Then moves in to change the world.

Not with physical force or threats of destruction. Not with arm twisting or saber rattling.

But with the gathering, loving, vulnerability of a mother hen. With love and mercy and forgiveness and compassion.

It would serve us well to practice compassion, to live lives of mercy, to take a good look at the world around us and then, together, enter the dark places…bringing with us the light of Christ.

Lament is a part of life…we must grieve our losses, our pain, our brokenness...the losses, pain and brokenness of the world…for only then can we, like Christ, move forward. Only then can we truly be open to healing, transformation, resurrection.

Only then do we see the real beauty of the world, of our mother hen God, and of each other.

Amen. May it be so. Amen.