As a Hen Gathers Her Brood

"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, but you were not willing!"

--Luke 13: 34

On the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem you’ll find the Church of Dominus Flavit, the Church of the Lord’s Weeping.  It’s in the shape of a teardrop and overlooks the city; in fact, if you look at my Facebook page you’ll see that my cover photo is taken from inside the church, looking through a window behind the altar and out onto the city, where the remains of the Temple, the Dome of the Rock, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are visible.  

Behind the altar of The Church of Dominus Flavit.  The Temple Mount can be seen in the background.

The site commemorates this moment, when Jesus weeps over the city and laments, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.  Actually, there is a mosaic on the alter of Dominus Flavit showing a hen gathering her chicks, piercing her breasts so that they can feed on her blood. 

There is so much pain in Jesus’ voice, so much disappointment that the very people to whom he has come preaching forgiveness and love have rejected him.  That pain runs deep, as prophet after prophet has been denied or killed by the same people.  It is a pain that is still visible when you look just outside the Dominus Flavit Church and see barbed wire, used to keep unwanted folks out, or when you look to the west and see Bethlehem far off in the distance behind the separation wall.  Amazingly, it is this place, a place that has never truly known any kind of peace, that God chose as a dwelling place and keeps coming back to, and over which Jesus weeps. 

Barbed wire just outside of The Church of Dominus Flavit on the Mount of Olives.

Why did he weep?  Maybe because Jerusalem served as a microcosm of the whole world—since in ancient times it was actually believed to be the geographic center of the world; there is still a marker inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  Jerusalem was the place where all folks--not just Jews gathered.  It was diverse, but it was also full of pain.  Jerusalem had corruption, it had violence, it had oppression of the Other.  It still has all of those things.  So does the world.  When Jesus weeps for Jerusalem he doesn’t just weep for the city God loves, he weeps for the whole world that God loves, a world full of sin, where people worship their own needs and pay more attention to what the world values than what God values.  These are the kinds of folks of whom Paul says in his Letter to the Philippians, "their god is the belly," meaning that they honor only those appetites of the flesh, instead of the higher purposes that God has for them.

We have, all of us, been enslaved by sin. Some of us can casually shake them off, treat them as if they’re no big deal, but for others they can weigh pretty heavy on us.  This is especially the case for those of us coming from traditions that focus more on our own wretchedness and sinfulness, rather than God's abounding love and mercy.  Maybe we made a decision years ago that has affected where we are today, and that decision haunts us.  Maybe we find ourselves stuck in a rut, and we think it’s because God is punishing us for something we did.  Maybe we hurt someone we care about, and we don’t know how to ask for forgiveness.  Maybe we just don’t believe that we are loveable, that God could possibly love someone like me. We’ve all been there, weighed down by sin in all of its twisted forms.  And if we say we haven’t, we’re lying. 

But there is good news in all of this.  Paul reminds the people of Philippi that “our citizenship is in heaven.”  Philippi was a Roman colony.  All around those folks were reminders of the power and prestige of Rome, but Paul reminds them that it is not Rome that is the great power and authority over this world, and it is not Rome to whom they belong.  They belong to the place where the King of Kings rules with sacrificial love, not wealth and military might.  That is where they belong. 

It’s where we belong too.  And it’s all because of the love that Jesus has for each and every one of us.  It’s the same kind of love that he showed when he wept over Jerusalem, wanting to bring the whole city, and the whole world, into his loving arms.  He has, in fact, done just that.  Like the hen with her chicks under her wings, he has brought the whole world into himself--those who believe in him and those who do not.  For those of us who know him as our Lord, he has fed us with his own blood, as that hen fees her chicks.  His blood has nourished us, brought us forgiveness, and given us hope that, too, are citizens of something so much bigger than this world.   

We can easily dwell on our own sins and beat ourselves up.  It is especially easy to do so during Lent, a time when many of us feel like all we are meant to do is beat our breasts and wail and lament.  We could hold on to our sins and let them eat away at us.  We can hold others’ sins against them and refuse to show compassion toward them.  Or we can hold on to the truth that Jesus loves us.  You, me, them.  Everybody.  Yes, the world is full of sin, and yes we will fall over and over again.  In our baptismal vows we say that we will promise to repent and return to the Lord, not if we fall into sin, but when. But just as God kept coming back to Jerusalem, so Jesus keeps coming back to us.  He does not quit on the people he loves.  And he asks us not to quit on him, nor on one another.  To forgive even unto "seventy times seven."  To keep coming back.  As he keeps coming back.  

It goes against all logic.  Who could possibly come back over and over again?  Who could love THAT much?  Wouldn't Jesus, at some point, just say that he's done with us miserable, horrible sinners?  It doesn't make sense. But that’s the gospel, brothers and sisters.  It turns the world on its head, and while it may not make sense when we really think about it, it is the hope that we cling to.  No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done,  you are more than the worst thing you have done.  You are more than your sins.  You are beloved.  Beloved children of God.  And for that reason above all others, Jesus loves you.  All you have to do is live your life like you know it’s true.  

The mosaic on the altar of Dominus Flavit showing a hen feeding her chicks with her blood.

Driven Into the Wilderness

"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil."

--Luke 4: 1-2a

I was out to dinner with a group of people in a non-church setting a few nights ago and got asked one of those priestly questions.  Out of the blue one of the folks I was with blurted out:  so Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness…why did it happen after his baptism?!  This is what I like to call a coffee hour question:  it’s a clerical question that you get asked in a social setting, and it usually catches you off-guard.  I gave this person an answer, but I wasn't sure whether or not it was the right one. After sitting with this gospel through the week, however, I’ve decided that the same answer I gave to that person at dinner is the same one I’m going to give y’all.  

An eastern mural's depiction of the Temptation of Jesus.

We find Jesus having just been baptized by John. God has declared him as God’s Son, and he is driven into the wilderness, filled with the Holy Spirit.  It is out there in the wildnerness that he encounters the devil.  The word here is diabalus, which is used for devil, demon, enemy, or accuser.  It’s not capitalized, so this is not meant to be the end-all-be-all devil with a vibractated tail and carrying a hay fork.   This is an enemy of God, whose sole purpose is to stand between Jesus and God, to distract him from what God wants him to do, and to entice him to follow, not God’s will, but the will of mortals. 

So Jesus is presented with three temptations:  the first is to always have his fill.  Jesus has been fasting out there in the desert and is no doubt famished.  Turn the stones to bread, the devil says, and you’ll never be without.  Jesus refuses.  The next temptation is to have authority over nations. The devil takes him on a mountain and brags that all of these kingdoms are his and could be Jesus’ if only Jesus worships him.  Jesus refuses.  And lastly the devil uses Scripture—Psalm 91 to be exact—to convince Jesus that if he tests God and jumps off the pinnacle of the temple that God will save him.  Jesus refuses.  Three temptations:  to always be filled, to have authority over others, and to put God to the test. 

Brothers and sisters, these three temptations, these three devils—if you will—are still very much alive in the world.  We experience them regularly.  We are often tempted by a consumer-driven society that tells us we need more and more, and that if we get more, we'll finally satisfy our hunger.  Get just the right amount of money and material possessions, and we won't hunger for anything anymore, including God.  We see the temptation to power and prestige, as well, especially in our presidential candidates. Just look at what that ambition for power has done to these folks!  Meanwhile, we are tempted to look out only for ourselves, for our own family, friends, and church brethren, and to forget everybody else.  That's a temptation to lord over others.  And every single one of us has given in to the temptation to test God. We've all prayed to God to give us something, and we've all tried making a deal with God (“if you give me this, I’ll do that for you.”).  These temptations haven’t gone anywhere.  They’re still here, they’re still lurking, they’re all around us, constantly poking and prodding at us, doing anything possible to turn our attention away from God, away from God’s promise of love and mercy. 

This, I believe, is why Jesus was tempted after his baptism.  Jesus’ baptism was his first public act in his ministry—at least in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  All three of them say that he went immediately into the desert to face these temptations.  Why now?  Why not when he was younger and may have been more prone to give in to the devils’ offers?  Perhaps it is because baptism—that public action—was the agent that drove him out there, and that Spirit that filled him was the same Spirit that rested on him as a dove and called him “My Son.”  Jesus was tempted after his baptism because this sequence of events in his life mirrors our own. 

We are baptized not for the purpose of staying in the church where it is safe and friendly.  We are baptized for the purpose of being driven out by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness of this world.  It is a world that is full of temptations, full of devils that seek to undermine the love and mercy of God in our lives.  It is a world that offers us a quick fix for our problems, a world that says we should gain power for ourselves at the expense of others, and a world that tries convincing us that it understands the mind of God when, in fact, it’s as bad at interpreting the meaning of Scripture as that devil was to Jesus when he missed the point of Psalm 91.  In spite of those temptations, though, we, like Jesus, have been filled with the Holy Spirit.  We, like Jesus, face temptation after temptation everyday.  The devils, they come and go-waiting for an opportune time to return—but they do not succeed.  They cannot succeed.  Not so long as we are led by the Holy Spirit, who calls us God’s Sons and Daughters, and empowers us to face those devils head-on.  

This occurs, though, when we see church for what it really is:  the dress-rehearsal for the rest of our lives!  Church is not a country club that occasionally mentions Jesus.  It's not a gathering of like-minded individuals who've all be baptized and saved and who come together to sing songs and have pot-lucks.  Church is a collection of the broken, yet redeemed Body of Christ, called to go out into the wilderness and offer the message that will satisfy the hunger this world faces, so that we may bring the broken into our communities of faith.  But this can only happen if we let the Spirit drive us out.  It is scary to step out of our comfort zone, but I suspect Jesus was scared by it, as well.  With him as our guide, and with the Spirit driving us, we can, in fact, face that scary world and transform it!

Jesus had choices. He could have stayed put and gone back to Nazareth after his baptism.  He could have given in to those devils and put his own needs ahead of those of God.  He could have sought only his own power and prestige, but he chose to live out there in the wilderness, to be a man without a place to lay his head,  and to take the position of a servant, so that we might know what real leadership looks like.  We have those choices, too.  Do we stay cooped up in our cozy church and look out only for ourselves?  Or do we let the Spirit lead us into the cold, frightening wilderness, into the unloving and unforgiving world, so that, like our Lord, we can share the Good News of our all-loving and all-forgiving God?  The choice is ours. 

Welcome to Lent

"Jesus said, 'Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.  So, whenever your give alms, do not sound the trumpet before you...But when you give alms do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret...And whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret...And when you fast put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret.'"

--Matthew 6: 1-6, 16

Several years ago, when I had just entered the ordination process and was working as a youth minister, I learned that there are two days in our Episcopal calendar in which we are encouraged to fast:  Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. So I decided I would fast on Ash Wednesday, thinking it would bring me some kind of spiritual clairvoyance. My rector asked me that day if I wanted to go to lunch, but I said, 'No thanks, I'm fasting.'  I expected her reaction to be, 'Good for you,' or something to that effect.  Instead she cocked her head and said, 'Why would you do that?!' I didn't have an answer for her.  'All its gonna do, ' she said, 'is make you sick.  'God doesn't want you to make yourself sick.'

What a wonderfully prophetic voice she was!  It had not occurred to me that fasting would give me headaches, make me tired, and leave me unable to do the work God had called me to do.  So if I wasn't going to fast from food all day, what WAS I going to do?  It was then that I realized I had this fasting thing--and by extension, Lent itself--all wrong.

The season of Lent is so very different from the rest of our liturgical calendar.  In the sanctuary of Good Shepherd we can actually see the difference:  we wear the solemn purple, our baptismal bowls are emptied and turned upside-down, while our Christus Rex is veiled for the season.  We take up new postures during the liturgy and put ashes on our foreheads.  It is easy to see why Lent can sometimes leave us feeling like we have to beat ourselves up.  That was what I had thought Lent was about, after all. 

The Christus Rex is veiled and the baptismal bowl turned upside-down as we begin our Lenten journey.

In the years since I have found Lent to more than a somber, sad, and drawn-out season.  Rather I've come to see it as a wonderful, if not joyous, time.  You may be asking yourself how that is possible, given that we spend more time on our knees and speak with the voice of penitence with greater regularity during this season than any other.  I think it's because Lent, as I have experienced it, is meant to be a time in which we intentionally shift our focus.  For a relatively short time--just 40 days--we are asked to turn from our own selfish ways and shift our focus toward God.  And when we shift our focus, and we turn our attention toward God, we find that we are, in fact, beloved children of God, crafted by a loving Creator, whose very life resides in each of us.  We mark ourselves with ashes at the start of this holy season as a reminder that these bodies, these temporal artifacts, are not all that there is.  God created us from the dust of the earth, and while these bodies of ours will one day return to that dust, the breath, spirit, and love that God poured into us at our creation will endure forever and will one day return to the Creator.

As we intentionally turn our focus toward God we are reminded of the things that really matter in our lives.  And the things that really matter really aren't things at all!  This is where the practice of fasting comes in.  Fasting is not about seeing how long we can go without food in some kind of mystical attempt to pay better attention to God, as I had thought.  Fasting is about realizing that God provides for our every need.  What we choose to give up is generally something that, quite frankly, we didn't need in the first place.  We give something up so as to remember that our dependence is on God alone.  And God does not ask that we give something up willy-nilly.  Are you fasting from chocolate?  Why chocolate?  Are you fasting from Facebook?  Why?  In what way does giving a particular thing up bring you closer to God? 

Still, I wonder if we really consider the things we're giving up?  Most of us give something up--chocolate or Facebook--that we know we'll pick back up at Easter. What if our fast was something deeper?  Gregory of Nyssa, one of the guys who wrote the final version of the Nicene Creed in 381 AD said:  "there is a kind of fasting which is not bodily, a spiritual self-discipline that affects the soul; this abstinence is from evil....for Judas himself fasted with the 11, but since he did not curb his love of money, his fasting availed him nothing." 

Saint Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa and co-author of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.  Kind of a big deal!

 So what if ours is a fast from the habits and behaviors that we hope to rid ourselves of for those days outside of Lent?  What if we gave up gossiping about folks behind their backs?  What if we gave up being indifferent and ignoring the needs of the people around us, especially those with whom we disagree?  What if we gave up triangulating and bullying each other?  What if we gave up the casual, everyday racism , misogyny, and homophobia of which we are all guilty? What if we gave up the greed, the bitterness, the jealousy, the self-loathing, and the hardness of heart that weigh us down and take over our lives and cut us off from the goodness of God and prevent us from seeing that goodness in each other?  What if our fast was about being in right relationship with God and each other?  I'm not so sure giving up chocolate or Facebook will have the same impact as giving up those destructive behaviors.

This is why Jesus gives the instructions that he gives.  He does not just say to give alms, pray, and fast, three great pillars of Jewish religious life.  Instead, he says to be intentional when we do them, to go deeper, to make what we do not about us but about God.  When we give alms, don't brag about it.  When we pray, do it in secret, behind closed doors.  When we fast, don't contort our faces, but wash them and smile, so that nobody knows we are fasting.  The point is not to just do these things but to open ourselves up to an experience with God, a deeper, more intentional experience in which we see how God's life is blooming in and around us during this holy season, so that what blooms on Easter will enrich our lives from that day onward.  This is what Lent is about.

 For centuries this intentional period has been used for deep discernment, particularly those seeking the sacrament of baptism.  It is during Lent when catechumens--those who desire to be baptize--pray, listen, and study as they prepare to commit their lives to Christ.  The 40 days of prayer and reciting of the ancient Creeds come to its fulfillment at the Great Vigil of Easter.  It will be the same for us at our Easter Vigil this year when we baptize the newest members of Christ's Body.  It is that very moment toward which we are all journeying this Lent--the moment of Easter's dawn. For some that journey will culminate in Holy Baptism, while others will find renewal in the resurrected Christ.  But for all of us, we are journeying toward something new, something greater than ourselves. We are invited, as we observe this holy Lent, to a time of intentional refocusing, of listening, feeling, and looking for God.

Lent is a marathon, not a sprint.  We may start out giving something up with great enthusiasm, only to find that by the third or fourth week we've hit a wall.  It can be grueling, but only if we allow it to be.  If we look at the lectionary and its longer-than-usual readings with dread, or lament the loss of some of our favorite hymns, or if we groan and complain about our fast, then yes, Lent can and will be a downer.  But if we look at Lent for what it really is, an opportunity to intentionally turn our focus to God, and in so doing recognize our dependence upon God alone and open ourselves up to a new, deeper experience with God, then we might find this season to not be so gloomy.  We might actually find it to be a a joyful and holy tide. Welcome to Lent!

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

I Am Is With You

"Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.  I consecrated you.  I appointed you a prophet to the nations.'  Then I said, 'Ah, Lord God!  Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.'  But the Lord said, 'Do not say, 'I am only a boy," for I am with you to deliver you.'"

--Jeremiah 1: 4-8

Do you remember your first day of school?  I had four.  I remember JW Adams Elementary, Pound High School, Centre College, and General Seminary.  A lot of emotions were running through me those four days, but the biggest was fear.  I was afraid mostly of the unknown, of whether or not I was actually ready for this next big step.  Do you remember those days?  Did you feel afraid, unprepared? 

I imagine that is how Jeremiah felt.  I love this passage and have come back to it so many times! We don’t know how old Jeremiah is in this opening passage of the book that bears his name, but we can assume that he’s pretty young, maybe not even a teenager.  So God suddenly speaks to this boy. That’s terrifying enough.  And what does God say, “Before I formed you I knew you…I consecrated you…I appointed you a prophet.”  This would be a monumental task for anyone, let alone someone so young and inexperienced; so Jeremiah’s response is understandable, “I don’t know how to do such a thing, I’m only a boy.” 

How many times do we utter those two words?  "I'm only..." It's so easy to give in to those fears of our own limitations.  I can’t do this because I'm only...whatever.  I can’t do this because I’m not the right age, not the right gender, not the right color.  How many times do we, out of some sort of fear of the unknown, shut someone else down, don’t even give them the chance to undertake something, based on those kinds of characteristic?  She can't do it, she's only a girl.  He's only a kid and doesn't have the experience.  Fear is a pretty powerful thing.  It even tries to hold Jeremiah back.

Yet God does not allow the fear to get the better of Jeremiah.  God tells him not to dwell on his age and those fears of his—you will go, and you will speak, and you have no need to be afraid, because I am with you.  I AM is with you.  God is with you. 

It was true for Jeremiah.  And brothers and sisters, it is true for you, as well.  No matter where you are in life right this moment, no matter what big transition is on the horizon, no matter how much fear is in your heart over the unknown, over starting something new, or facing some kind of tremendous challenge, God will be with you.  God is with you right now.  Do you know that?  Really, truly, do you know that?  Deep down in your heart do you believe it?  There are a lot of things about being a Christian, or being an Episcopalian, that are tough to understand, tough to believe, even.  But I hope you believe that one thing, if nothing else.  Because that is a promise.  It was true for this boy in the 6th century before the birth of Jesus, in a time when his people were about to be overrun by a foreign power and taken into exile, and it is the strongest, most sustainable promise there is.  Do you know why that promise is so sustainable?  Because it is grounded in love.

God loved Jeremiah.  Jeremiah loved God. That is how Jeremiah knew that God would not leave him, even as the Babylonians were besieging Jerusalem.  It’s the same kind of love St. Paul sings to us in that hymn in I Corinthians 13.  That kind of love is patient, it is kind, it is not boastful, it bears all things, and it believes all things.  It believes in hope.  It believes in a better world.  It believes in you, that you are more than your fears because it is a perfect love, and perfect love casts out all fear. 

Pierce Pettis, one of my favorite songwriters has a song called 'That kind of Love' in which he sings a type of love that, in my opinion, is the same type about which Paul writes Pierce sings:  'Love triumphant, love on fire, love that humbles and inspires; love that does not hesitate, with no conditions, no restraint. That kind of love.'   Oh, brothers and sisters,  they will know that we are Christians by that kind of perfect love--for God and for one another--because that kind of perfect love is what casts out the fears of our hearts and transforms those hearts, so that we may transform this world and make it look a little more like the Kingdom.

You want to know to hear a confession of mine?  I was really scared of being a priest.  I even said to God in the days beforehand that it was too big.  But I did it.  Yeah, I was scared of being a priest, but I was terrified of being a rector.  Terrified!  I swore after my ordination that I would never want that kind of responsibility.  Who would?!  There's always someone mad at you, no matter what decision you make!  Yet I am here because God called me here, just as God called Jeremiah, and like Jeremiah I have chosen to hold on to that ever-sustainable promise that God will be with me. I hold on to it because I know God loves me.  I don't know much else, but I know that much.  And knowing that one fact has allowed me to face my fears of the unknown and take those terrifying first steps out in faith. 

 My parish has shown what that looks like.  The folks of Good Shepherd, Asheboro took a chance and chose not to give in to their own fears.  No doubt they heard things like, "He can't do it, he's too young.  He's never been a rector.  He'll come in here and change everything!" Still, they said yes to what God put before them.  They discerned and prayed and made that call because they knew God was with them. Sure, we don’t know exactly where God will call us, and yes, I will make some mistakes along the way; I already have.  But through it all we know God is in it.  We know love is in it.  Knowing that promise will get us through whatever life throws at us, and the possibilities of what God may do in us and through us are endless!

Is God calling you to get ready for something new?  Are you afraid, unsure of what’s in store, like you did on that first day of school, or my parish did when they called me as rector?  Be not afraid.  Because God loves you.  Your brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ love you.  And for what it's worth, I love you.  And if you know that kind of perfect love, all your fears will be cast out, you’ll know God is with you, that God will never leave you, and that God will do amazing things in you. Hold fast to that promise God made to Jeremiah because God has made it to you, as well.  For you, for me, and for us all, that is Good News indeed!