One thing have I asked of the Lord;
one thing I seek; *
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life;
For in the day of trouble he shall keep me safe
in his shelter; *
he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling
and set me high upon a rock.
Last week Pope Francis, leader of the Roman Catholic Church stepped to the concrete edge of the Rio Grande River, the potent border between the United States and Mexico to pray for compassion toward immigrants. Walking slowly up a sloped memorial built for his visit to remember those who have died trying to cross the Mexican border, Francis stood before a large cross overlooking the border fence, made the sign of the cross and prayed before laying flowers on a small table. The crowd of more than 200,000 awaiting his message in Mexico and a small group of people from the Roman Catholic Diocese of El Paso stood silently watching.
Pope Francis has used his power and visibility as the leader of an estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, to focus attention on the most vulnerable. He has spoken out on the desperate migrants trying to escape North Africa and on the plight of the Palestinians living behind walls that partition them from their land in Israel. In his way, he tries to give voice to those who are voiceless in the face of overwhelming power, faces to those who often are reduced to mere statistics.
Later during the Mass he said, “We cannot deny the humanitarian crisis which in recent years has meant the migration of thousands of people. Each step, a journey laden with grave injustices: Being faced with so many legal vacuums, they get caught up in a web, that ensnares and always destroys the poorest.”[1]
Because cameras and news media follow him, he has taken all of us along as he travels to prisons, homeless shelters, border fences, and impoverished neighborhoods compelling us to see our brothers and sisters who suffer on the margins. But Francis does not stop with simply lamenting the tragedy that is violence and poverty, he also uses his time meeting with those of great power and wealth to rebuke them for their complicity in causing this chaos through their negligence and their concern only for their own power and welfare and to urge them to work for justice and peace. Pope Francis is showing us all about what it means to follow Jesus.
In our reading today from Luke’s Gospel we find Jesus as he moves toward Jerusalem in the last weeks of his life. He has been traveling from village to village healing the sick, teaching about the kingdom of God, and raising up disciples to continue his work. Great crowds are following him as his acts become wider and wider known. But Jesus knows that all is not well or safe for him. That he is vulnerable to those who will use every violent method to protect their power and control. He knows that he is journeying toward the same end as that of other prophets who faithfully spoke God’s word. In fact, verse 31 opens with a very serious warning. A group of Pharisees come to him urging him to leave the city because Herod is seeking to kill him. This was no idle threat.
Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, was a powerful figure who was known to kill opponents to protect his authority. He has demonstrated his taste for violence by imprisoning and beheading John the Baptist. Herod would have heard about Jesus’ following and his teaching about the kingdom of God and this notice does not come without danger.
But Jesus will not stop his mission. He responds to the warning by telling the Pharisees to pass on a message to Herod, “the fox”, that he will continue to heal and teach until his work reaches its completion. His sacred journey will not be stopped until it has found its final destination in God.
And it is then that Jesus looks toward the city of Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets. The city that is holy and yet so vulnerable. The city that is everyplace and the ultimate place—the conflicted city of continual warfare and destruction and the hoped for heavenly city of promise.
It is to Jerusalem that Jesus laments his rejection by the very ones to whom he has come bringing the news of God’s promised kingdom. Jesus’ heartbreak can only be understood by those who have loved someone so much and yet could not protect them.
For Jesus, God’s passionate dream is to gather all of God’s children into God’s embrace and love. This is at the center of Jesus’ mission. In Jesus, there are no divisions, no one considered outside the saving grace of God. Like a mother hen, God seeks to welcome, to draw in, to care for all God’s children.
Luke’s Gospel in particular sees a constant desire of Jesus to reach out to those who are discarded, to raise up those who have been beaten down, to restore those who have been cast outside the bounds of human compassion. Jesus sees this as the heart of his mission.
From the very beginning when a young girl in Nazareth sings a revolutionary song, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.”
To the shepherds, marginalized managers of livestock, to whom God first reveals Jesus’ birth, bringing them “good news of great joy for all people.”
To the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Nazareth, where he identifies his work with the prophecy from Isaiah in the time of the Jewish exile. That prophecy where the Spirit of God brings good news to be proclaimed, lives to be transformed, and life giving freedom to all. This is the very essence of Jesus’ work. And now he compares his desire to bring all into the kingdom of God through a metaphor of a mother hen who opens her arms wide to welcome in all, sheltering them in love, hoping to protect from the fox who through cunning and deception, tempts them into oppression.
Knowing that this is what the mother hen must do and yet knowing that she will not be able to force anyone to walk into them. Barbara Taylor Brown says, that this is “the most vulnerable posture in the world—wings spread, breast exposed—but if you love, this is how you must stand.”[2]
We live in a world steeped in division. Though in many ways we are more connected than ever in history through the Internet and the ability to travel across the world, we remain separated by our ever-vigilant establishment of categories that segregate, exclude, and scapegoat. Rather than marginalizing and blaming, by listening and working together, we can create a world that will lift up every life.
We follow a Savior who left no one on the side of the road. We follow a Savior who tells a story of a person who throws away all his gifts of grace and yet, rather than being scorned, is welcomed unconditionally by his loving parent. We follow a Savior who uses the example of a marginalized person of his time, a Samaritan, to be the example of what generosity and compassion looks like. Jesus throughout his ministry, sees those the world sets aside, and welcomes them into the very heart of God, seeking their healing, recognizing their faith, and empowering them to go and tell others of God’s good news.
In Lent, we are invited to look at what it means to follow Jesus. We are given a space of time to look carefully how we live out God’s love in our lives.
We do not have the power and visibility of Pope Francis and we are certainly not Jesus, but each of us are called to be disciples, each of us are commissioned to go into the world and share the love that God has given us with others. And it is particularly important that we offer this to those who need hope, to those whose lives are vulnerable in this time of heightened hostility, to not stand idly by as God’s children are disparaged.
As a hen gathers her brood under her wings, we who live in the security of God’s love are invited to seek the protection and nourishment of the one who seeks to heal us, to help us learn and grow, and to be set free from the evil that can hold us back— that can block our way and frustrate our desire to be followers of Jesus. We can trust in God’s protection despite the challenges, the menacing threats, and the obstacles that surround us. Like Jesus we can say, God has given us love and compassion and grace and with this we will share with others and find ourselves free in the security of God.
We have jumped ahead in our reading from Luke’s Gospel from last week. Perhaps we have this passage today to remind of us of the urgency of Jesus’ message. On this second Sunday in Lent we should remember where Jesus is headed: to Jerusalem, the place that kills prophets.
Jesus will continue on to Jerusalem, not as a fearless lion or a cunning fox, but as a mother hen, who places herself between her chicks and the ones who would do them harm. She has no fangs or claws, only her willingness to shield those she loves with her own body. Jesus will travel to Jerusalem and accept his place on the cross because of his profound love for the people, a mother’s fierce love that will stop at nothing to protect her children.
This is the one we follow and through his life and through his actions we know that we are to see every person as God’s precious child and to respond in compassion and love. We are to stand firm in the name of the humble and faithful Lord, the one who will let nothing stop the love of God, not even a cross in Jerusalem.
O tarry and await the Lord’s pleasure;
be strong, and he shall comfort your heart; *
wait patiently for the Lord.
[1] Jim Yardley and Azam Ahmed. Pope Francis Wades Into U.S. Immigration Morass with Border Trip. New York Times, February 17, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/world/americas/pope-francis-ciudad-juarez.html?emc=edit_th_20160218&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=26286965&_r=0
[2] Barbara Brown Taylor. As a hen gathers her brood. Christian Century, February 25, 1998, 201.