Lent Day 11: Lament!

"As a Hen Gathers"  Cara B. Hochhalter, 
 http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58926

The following is (more or less) the sermon preached on Sunday March 16 at Union Presbyterian Church, Endicott, NY. upcendicott.org 

Scripture           

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “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.’ 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! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
~Luke 13:31-35  

Sermon           

When have you engaged in lament? By which I mean, when have you sat down with God for a conversation in which you told God exactly what you think of some terrible thing that has happened?

Notice I didn’t ask, “Have you?” I asked, “When have you?” because, I think we do this, knowingly or not. We read the news and say, “How can this be?” and whether we’re aware of it or not, we are asking God that question. Or we collapse on the couch and ask, “Why is this happening to me?” after we have been fired, or transferred hundreds of miles away, or left by someone we loved. Or we weep on the pillow after we turn the lights out and ask, “How am I going to get through this?” after we’ve heard a diagnosis we did not want to hear.

When have you engaged in lament? In today’s passage from Luke’s gospel, we hear Jesus lament, but it is tucked into a conversation with some witty one-liners. But it’s in there. And of course, Jesus laments—he grew up in a tradition in which psalms were everyone’s prayerbook. Guess what proportion of the psalms are laments? The answer is about one third. Approximately one third of the time the singers and harp and lyre players were making music in the temple in Jerusalem, they were singing songs of lament.

Jesus is in Jerusalem; he has made his way there, teaching and healing in towns and villages along the way. But this is not yet Passover, and Jesus is not here for the last week of his life. Almost as soon as he gets there, Pharisees come to find him, to give him a warning: Herod is planning to kill him. 

It’s good to remember that Jesus and the Pharisees had more in common than they had disagreements. The fact that the Pharisees seek him out to save his life isn’t highlighted enough in our study of the gospels, so I’m highlighting it now. As it happens, Herod believes that Jesus may be John the Baptist reincarnated—his killing of John in the middle of his birthday party is weighing on him. What if the prophet is back?

Jesus’ response to the Pharisees is somewhat hilarious. Listen, he says: You tell that fox that I am busy. Look at me. I’m casting out demons. I’m healing people. I’m teaching people about the kingdom of God here, and my calendar is quite full, thank you, for at least two more days. But then… I guess I have to go, because Jerusalem is definitely the place where prophets get killed, and I’d like to avoid that this week, anyway. 

Then Jesus stops being flippant, and a true lament comes forth from his mouth. 

Jerusalem, Jerusalem. City that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings for safety. But you would not have me as your mother hen… 

Jesus does not envision himself as a mighty lion or as a soldier on a warhorse in opposition to Herod. Instead, he identifies with a vulnerable mother, desperate to save her babies. He identifies with the prey of foxes. He does not make any moves to retaliate, or to threaten. He simply names the truth: He will not fight back. He will die a prophet in Jerusalem, if that is what God is calling him to do. 

Jesus names Jerusalem as a city that kills the prophets, and scripture confirms that both Isaiah and Zechariah ben Jehoiada were killed there, both at the orders of kings. And Jesus names this piece of Jerusalem’s history, not because he is angry, but because he is heartbroken; not because he hates the city, but because he loves it.

For Jesus, as for his fellow Jews, Jerusalem is the center of the world, and the temple is at the center of Jerusalem. At the center of the temple is the holy of holies, where the Ark holding the Covenant resides, and therefore, where the true presence of God resides in this world. Jesus has spent his life traveling to Jerusalem with his family and the other families of his community for the great festivals of their faith. He has gone there for Yom Kippur each year, the day of atonement for sins. He has gone there for Passover each year, the joyful celebration of liberation from enslavement in Egypt. He has said prayers and sung psalms there. In fact, I wonder whether Psalm 27, didn’t come into his recollection at this very moment: As he, the hen, is under threat from Herod, the fox, isn’t it possible that Jesus would sing, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” Isn’t it possible that Jesus would have the same kind of longing as the psalmist, singing 

One thing I asked of the Lord; this I seek:
to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.
~Psalm 27:4

Even the singing of this psalm could be a lament.

Have you lamented someone or some place you love? Have you told God how very unhappy you are with the way things worked in for a particular situation? Have you been angry with God and gotten it off your chest?

Theologian N. T. Wright said in an interview that engaging in lament is actually an experience of the glory that is revealed in humanity.[i] In Romans 8, Paul writes,

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us…We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies… Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words… ~Romans 8:18, 22, 26

The prayers of lament we pray, the songs of lament we sing, we never sing or pray alone. The Holy Spirit is with us, muttering incoherently, just as we are—the Spirit, groaning with us. And all of it is witnessed and held in love by the one who has lived and died all the suffering right along with us, and before us, and for us. Lament is glorious, because in it, we are so intimately held and accompanied by Jesus Christ, and by the very Spirit of God. 

Jesus goes on with his lament: “See, your house is left to you.” Jesus is talking about the temple. This is one of those moments when the timelines of both when Jesus was being warned to flee and when the writer of this gospel was recording the story are important. The temple has changed. The leadership of the country—all puppet leaders, beholden to Rome—have changed. The temple may no longer be able to fulfill its central role in the people’s lives, and Jesus connects its corruption with Herod. For the writer of the gospel, writing somewhere between the years 80 and 90 CE, the temple is already gone. It was destroyed during the Roman crackdown that leveled Jerusalem in the year 70 CE. Jesus’ worry for the city he loves is prescient: Jerusalem will be completely destroyed in fewer forty years after he speaks these words. 

As his lament ends, Jesus throws in a “be back soon.” “And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’” That will be the day we call Palm Sunday, and it will be the beginning of the week we call Holy Week.

Jesus sees so much wrong with the world he is living in. He sees that he is heading toward the ultimate confrontation with the evil human beings can do. And yet, he still holds dear the roots of all he loves: The temple. The holy of holies. The covenant of God with God’s people. And most of all, the people, whom he longs to gather in his arms—or under his motherly wings. And he is gathering them together—every time he heads out to teach, or heal, or cast out demons. He is offering people the very same love of God that we are called to offer one another, through good times and through bad. And one of the ways Jesus offers this love is through his lament.

There is power in lament. In naming the things that are wrong, we speak with God with great honesty and clarity. In creating spaces where we can lament together, we strengthen the body of Christ by our openness and our shared love and support. 

When was the last time you engaged in lament? When was the last time you participated in the glorious and utterly human act of groaning together with the Spirit, held in the love of Christ, our Savior?

Thanks be to God. Amen.

[i] N. T. Wright in “The Mystery of God,” October 10, 2023 in Everything Happens, presented and produced by Kate Bowler, podcast, 48:03, https://katebowler.com/podcasts/the-mystery-of-god/.

Lent Day 11: Mother Hens and T. Rex

This week's Sunday text from the gospel of Luke was Jesus' lament over Jerusalem, in which he gives us a startling image of himself.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem... 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 

A chicken is not exactly an august, stately, lordly image for Jesus Christ, whom the Church confesses to be truly human and truly God. Chickens are rather... silly. They make silly noises. They are ungainly, inelegant, and graceless. 

Still. A friend's daughter sits in the henhouse with their chickens and holds them on her lap, and finds great comfort in them. There is something soft and vulnerable about them. They are lovable.

And maybe an inelegant, ungainly, homely image of Jesus is good for us. A large percentage of those who claim the Christian label have bought into an image of a buff, muscular Jesus, looking very much as if he's gone overboard with steroids, and who vaporizes nonbelievers with X-ray vision... or something like that. (I confess: I couldn't get through three chapters of the first book, the writing is so bad... but I digress.)

But news flash: The incarnation is not about God coming as The Rock, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, circa 1988. The incarnation is about God taking on human flesh, becoming, not like us, but one of us. Maybe the image of Jesus as a slightly silly bird, who nevertheless has strong protective instincts towards her young, and who gives of herself prolifically... maybe that's not the worst image of Jesus we could have. Maybe it's an improvement on Royal Jesus, and Buff Jesus, and X-ray Vision Jesus.

But, also, there's this: 68 million year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex DNA was compared with the DNA of 21 modern species, and guess which modern species was the closest match? Read about it here.

Most of us non-DNA experts might have assumed rhinoceroses and alligators would be stronger candidates for a direct lineage to the T Rex.  (I'm imagining at least some DNA experts would have expected something similar?) But no. The most direct lineage comes to the humble, not very impressive chicken. The large and, apparently, terrifying (if Steven Spielberg is to be believed) carnivore to whom scientists assigned a name that included Tyrannosaur (Latin for "Tyrant lizard) and "Rex" (Latin for "king") was displaced by the little, feathery, and, apparently, cuddly bird. Nature rejected the tyrant, and went with the protective mom.

(I know. I might not exactly have the clearest picture of natural selection here... but work with me...)

But back to Jesus... and his selection of the mother hen for an image of his loving protectiveness. The more I meditate on it, the more it delights me. The more I ponder it, the more I welcome it as an image for God's love. 

Jeffrey Vallance, Divine Mother Hen (2018), Stained glass

Lent Day 19: Yeast

And again he said, “To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”  ~ Luke 13:20-21

Yeast.

My first experience with it was in college: I bought something called the Tassajara Bread Book, and taught myself how to bake bread. This was in an era when I was buying books about holistic health practices and imagining my life to be taking a kind of hippy-ish turn. Earthy, crunchy granola girl. Goals.

I was a junior in college, in a six-person suite, and my friend Jean was witness to my efforts. I'd grown up in a household in which my mother was self-described as being "NOT a baker." She sent me to her friend, Cecily's house at Christmastime, to learn how to bake cookies. She never made cakes or cupcakes; why should we, when there was Minos bakery in Atlantic City? The one thing I remember my mother baking was an apple pie, that was hot and fresh one day when I got home from school. But bread? Never. Not in a million years. You could buy bread anywhere.

But there I was, 19 years old and learning how yeast "proofs," or gets activated. It needs fluids and food to bring it alive-- like anyone, I guess. So, I provided, as the book instructed, lukewarm water and honey, and mixed in the tablespoonsful of yeast and watched as it spread, and bubbled, and declared: I'm ready.

Same baking book, thirtysomething years later. 

What followed was work, a kind of work I still love. Measuring and stirring, sure. But what makes bread is the kneading, and kneading is a whole-body experience. You do it with your hands, and elbows, and shoulders, and back, and hips. You put your whole self into kneading, and it is an exquisite workout. Kneading is what gives the bread its texture. Kneading helps the bread to rise by ensuring lots of air is also mixed in with what by the end of the 15 minutes (prescribed by the book) must be a thousand layers of dough folded in upon itself, again and again.

The work the yeast does is to help the bread to rise. By the time I was finished with my four fragrant honey-whole-wheat loaves, it was three in the morning and Jean and I were both delirious, me giddy with baking and the prospect of sitting down to cut into a loaf; and Jean, with French reflexive verbs.

"I've had a vision," Jean said. "The verbs are little ferrymen."

And we sat together, laughing, dipping hot bread in honey, and ate.

Jesus tells this tiny parable, only 24 words in the Greek (35 in English), and, as in so much of Luke, a woman features as the main actor in the miniature story. In the original Greek she "hides" the yeast/ leavening in the flour, until it all is leavened. Maybe "hides" because ancient people weren't so comfortable with leavening. It freaked them out. It was alive in an unpredictable way, and so it actually, for most people, symbolized something insidious, something uncontrollable, that could make mischief or even mayhem.

But Jesus doesn't use it that way.

Because now, bread is possible-- bread, the staff and stuff of life; bread, the word we use to indicate all sustenance; bread, the very least that every human being has a right to have, because no one in a civilized society should be denied it.

That, Jesus says, is what the reign of God is like.

Something unexpected, done by someone unexpected, makes something good.

Not only good, needed.

Not only needed, loved.

Not only good, needed, loved: but a source of life itself.