March 4, 2007

Welcome. We are in the Second Sunday of Lent, the Christian season of self-examination and self-denial, discipline and devotion, repentance and penitence, in preparation for Easter. I am glad you are here.

Lent One found Jesus out in the wilderness, 40 days and 40 nights, tempted, but not turning, to the devil. Instead, Jesus denies the devil and commences his ministry in Galilee. Lent Two finds Jesus concluding his ministry in Galilee, we are moving along quickly.

It is one year later when Jesus turns his face south to Jerusalem, to take his last trip to the Holy City. Fear not, there is still much teaching to impart along the way, for the few faithful who follow. But already the shadow of the cross is casting its color upon our crew.

Gone are the glory days of Galilee, where miracles and crowds were many, and laid-back Bible lessons were lapped up upon lily-bedecked hillsides. It was lovely. But gone. Now the plot thickens, though largely unbeknownst to the followers, who fail, as usual, to comprehend. For Jesus, his heart grows heavy.

Some Pharisees approach Jesus along the road and enjoin him against his journey to Jerusalem, warning him Herod is hot on his trail. Appreciate, not all Pharisees, let alone Jews, are villains. Do not judge a person by his title, or creed, or ethnicity. These friendly Pharisees are trying to save Jesus. "Don't go," they implore, "for your life is in danger."

Jesus responds, "Tell the old fox I'm going anyway." This was Jesus pet name for Herod, "the old fox." It was not a compliment for the king. By the way, this is Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, with whom Pontius Pilate would later consult regarding Jesus' crucifixion, and whose Mel Gibson's Passion image is forever imprinted on my mind as a soft, fat lipped, effeminate looking guy, which probably isn't at all true, but who knows? Not Mel.

The point being, this is not Herod the Great who ruled at the time of Jesus' birth and slaughtered babies. This is Herod's son, Herod Antipas, who is no improvement over his dad. "Tell the old fox I'm going anyway." And with this, Jesus' destiny is dealt There is no turning back, as Jesus adds, "Besides, a prophet should not perish outside of Jerusalem." In other words, Jesus knows his days are numbered, and they are going to expire in Jerusalem.

So Jesus stops on his road to calvary, and in anticipation of the cross to come, laments over Jerusalem, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Killing the prophets and stoning those who have been sent to you. Would that I had gathered you as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not."

There is a chapel on the Mount of Olives called Dominus Flevit (Leviticus: "the Lord wept"), said to be the spot where Jesus wept over Jerusalem. It may not be any more accurate than Mel's portrait of Herod Antipas, but it is a lovely spot, cold and drizzly the day we visited. I have a photo of a neat mosaic in the chancel of the chapel of a hen with wings over her chicks, as well as one of the chancel cross framed in the window that looks out over the temple mount of Jerusalem which Don LaBar suggested. We'll want to include those photos in this week's sermon, Donalee. Are we having fun yet?

Jesus' lamenting over Jerusalem, not singing sorrow for himself, mind you, but weeping for the people he came to save, and could not. A lamentation, "O Jerusalem," and ironically, an affirmation. An affirmation in that Jesus' lament implies we have the power of choice. It says we can choose to join Jesus, "the hen would gather her brood," or we can choose not to join Jesus. In other words, we can choose life, or we can choose death. Jesus' lament says our destiny is not yet dealt.

As the Deuteronomist says so well, "Choose this day whom you will serve." We have choice.

Please appreciate this affirmation was in contrast to the prevailing philosophies of Jesus' day. Philosophies which continue to lurk and smirk about in our day. Philosophies that preach we are shaped by powers beyond ourselves, of which we have no control. "The devil made me do it." Philosophies that bow to the temples of tragedy, and fall to fatalistic views of life.

The other religions that existed in biblical times were fatalistic faiths. We were at the mercies of mercurial and capricious gods. Que se ra, se ra. There was nothing we could do about it.

Judaism and Jesus stood adamantly against these hopeless theologies. The Bible says God created this world to be good, not evil. God created us to have nothing less than the fullness of life. As Jesus preached, "I have come that you might have life, and have life abundantly." (John 10:10)

Furthermore, God gave us the power to achieve this. For God gave us "dominion." In the Bible, dominion does not mean we can do whatever we desire. Dominion means we can rise above our desires, and become the people of God, God intends us to be.

To have dominion means we are in charge of our life, and responsible for other lives. We have the power to choose. This is the essence of what it means to be human. We can choose life in ways snakes, snails and crickets cannot.

We have dominion. We have the power to choose and to give life. And when we do not choose life, for we can be petty and mean, cruel and, yes, even evil, when we do not choose life, then Jesus, son of God, weeps, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem...would that I had gathered you as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not."

Biblical religion was the only religion in the ancient world that believed the world is good, and God is on our side. It was the only faith that affirmed God is offering us life in all its abundance, and calling us to choose life with the freedom and responsibility that has been given us.

Sometimes we make bad calls. And then God calls to us again, through Christ, to break loose the bondage we create as a consequence of our bad choices, that we might be free to choose again.
It depends on how we view the world. Our problem is many of us see the world the way the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians, the old Romans and Greeks, saw the world. We see life as being tragic, fatalistic, as if there is nothing I can do about the station of my life and status of this world. We say we are victims of circumstance, programmed by our heredity or products of our environment, in either case stuck just as we are.

The biblical viewpoint opens us to possibilities. It holds before us opportunities for ourselves and our world. It frees us for the future, even if we have made mistakes in the past. The biblical viewpoint encourages us to choose this day how we will live.

God gives us the gift of life. Our purpose is to respond to the gift in grateful, generous, creative, and moral ways. This is how we are to live in response to what God has given us.

The father had been working hard all day, and had come home seeking rest and relaxation. His young daughter, delighted to see him, wanted something more. She kept angling for his attention, grabbing his legs and crawling underneath the newspaper across his chest.

The father came upon a strategy to keep her preoccupied. In the paper was a map of the world, accompanying an article. Ah, he thought. So he cut out the map, and then he cut it into many little pieces, thus creating a puzzle for his little girl. He settled back to enjoy his newspaper, figuring to have purchased a good twenty-minute respite.

Less than five minutes later the daughter proudly presented her completed puzzle. "How did you get the world together so quickly?" stammered the stunned father. "It was easy," she replied. "I just turned the pieces over, where there was a picture of a man on the other side. When I had put the man together right, the world was right."

If only it were that easy. But this is a good start. When we put the people together right, the world is a much improved picture. Bear in mind, being right does not mean having all the answers. But it does mean being responsible with what God has given us. Which surely shows how highly God regards us, for God trusts the world and all of its creation to our care.

There was a funeral in New York City a couple of years ago. It could have been in Gaza or Baghdad, Dafur or Dublin, but it was New York City. A boy had been shot and killed by another youth. What we refer to as a senseless killing. As if there is any other kind of killing.

The preacher made the point that what was happening to our children would have been unthinkable in the not too distant past. Now we don't even think about it. An evening blib on the TV screen, a back page article in the newspaper. It happens twelve times a day in the United States, one youth murdering another youth with a gun. Call it super-Nintendo.

"Who is responsible?" the preacher barked from his pulpit. "Who will take responsibility for this senseless killing?" Nobody stepped forward.

Then he shares a provocative image. "Ian has gone to be with God," he told the congregation. The kind of thing clergy say when a child dies. "Ian has gone to be with God."

Not particularly helpful to the bereaved at the moment, but true enough. But then he added this twist. "I find this frightening," he confessed. "I find this frightening that Ian has gone to be with God... for what is Ian going to tell God about us?"

A good question on this second Sunday of Lent, season of self-examination and penitence. The Church is here to take responsibility for Ian's death, even if others do not. Because we believe in God's gift. We believe God is always offering us opportunities for new life and renewed creation. As surely as spring rolls around and the crocus are born anew from their frozen tombs in the soil, so we are risen from the abyss of apathy to new days with new vision by the grace of God.

The Church is here to lead the way, to take responsibility in a world of indifference, to be the tears of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem wherever sorrow is felt and to be the comforting arms of Christ stretching out to a weary world with the message, "Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest."

So "choose this day whom you will serve... and heaven and earth will witness to the choice we make." (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Amen.