March 17th,
2019 “Mother Prophet” Rev.
Heather Jepsen
Luke 13:31-35
We continue our Lenten season with
stories of Jesus in Luke’s gospel and today we find our Lord in conflict. This isn’t a big surprise as Jesus is often
in conflict. After all, his big mouth
will eventually get him killed. Today he
is up against the church and the state, the very forces which will bring about
his demise.
Lectionary readings always take things
out of context so let’s take a moment and center ourselves in the text. Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem,
knowing that the time for his suffering and death is drawing near. As he travels the highways and byways of
Israel he has been busy. He is teaching
and preaching, healing and praying. Just
before our reading he healed a woman in a synagogue on the Sabbath, a big
no-no. He’s been teaching his followers
about who will be saved and saying crazy things like “strive to enter through
the narrow door” and “people will come from east and west and north and south
in the kingdom of God.” (Wait, is it
some of us, or all of us?) He’s been
busy telling people there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” when they
realize they aren’t getting in, while others who have been last will suddenly
be first.
None of these teachings are popular so it’s
no wonder that the Pharisees are suddenly asking him to get out of town. “Get away from here for Herod wants to kill
you.” This is no surprise really as
Herod wants to kill everybody. The Herodian
family is known for its violence, from the slaughter of the innocents to the
beheading of John the Baptist. Jesus
isn’t threatened and he won’t back down.
“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.” “I’m busy man; I don’t have time
for your nonsense.” “I must be on my
way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside
Jerusalem.” Jesus knows his time is
coming, and he knows it is not yet.
As usual, we are missing the background
and context here. We need to know who
Herod is and we need to know who he represents so we can understand what Jesus
was talking about. To understand this,
we need to go way back to Moses, remember that guy? Moses wandered in the desert with the Israelites
for 40 years and the whole time God was wandering with them. God was there in the pillar of cloud and
fire, and God was also there in the tabernacle.
It was a special tent God told Moses to make and in that tent God
resided with the people. God moved, God
was on the go, and God wasn’t tied to a geographic place.
Now fast forward to David who gets this
great idea to build God a house, a temple.
God isn’t into it with David but decides to allow David’s son Solomon
take on the project. This seems like a
great idea because now we have a temple for God. But of course, we are human and it doesn’t
take long for us to mess this up. Now
that God is in a place God is in a specific city, and those who are in charge of
this city will start confusing their power with the power of God. Now politics are in the mix and nothing good
can come from that. And so we have the
history of Jerusalem and the prophets.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that houses God and kills the
prophets. Prophets who, since the time
of Isaiah, have always warned about the dangerous marriage of church and state.
In the context of our reading, Herod is
the child of a church and state marriage.
The Herodian family are Jews who have signed on to the Roman program of
power and oppression. They have signed
away the rights of their own people in order to gain favor with the Roman
Empire. They have vast power and wealth
and they are puppets of the Romans. They
are everything Jesus, the prophet speaks against. Of course Herod is an untrustworthy fox who
wants to kill Jesus, and of course he is in league with the Pharisees. How else could they report back to him what
Jesus says? None of this comes as any
surprise.
After declaring he doesn’t have time
for such silliness Jesus then laments over the city itself. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills
the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I have desired to gather your children
together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not
willing!” Oh how Jesus loves the city of
God. Like a mother hen he just wants to
cluck on down and cuddle those little chicks in his feathers. Isn’t that precious?
We don’t very often find mothering
imagery for God but it is there. In
Hosea, God speaks of her protection for Israel using the imagery of a mother
bear and her cubs. In Isaiah, God speaks
of Israel as a child of God’s womb who has nursed at God’s breast. “Can a mother forget her nursing child?” the
prophet asks. Any mom who has nursed
knows full well your body doesn’t let you forget your child. The prophet tells us that so too God will remember
us, God cannot forget us. In Isaiah we
also read a passage similar to Jesus’ voice here in Luke, “As a mother comforts
her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”
And so Jesus is our mother hen, all feathers and cluck, all bluster and
beak, like the mommas on our children’s sermon video today. And like those mommas Jesus is all cluck in
the face of danger. He’s speaking truth
to power and telling it like it is. He’s
not afraid of Herod; he doesn’t have time for that. He’s too busy preaching, teaching, and
healing. He’s too busy crying out as a
Mother Prophet, telling the people to reject the marriage of church and state,
telling people to turn back to God, telling the people to make way and make
room. Just as the momma hen gathers all
the chicks, Jesus is bringing them in from north and south and east and west,
and we who have been first better get ready to be in the back of the line.
As always we want to know what this
scripture reading has to do with us, and this morning I am thinking about the
church itself. I think that the church
itself, when it is being the true church, is a lot like Jesus the prophet and
mother hen. When the church is daring to
be prophetic, when it is willing to speak truth to power, than it is the true
church.
This is a fine line to walk as no one
really likes a prophet. There is a
reason prophets always manage to get themselves killed. No one likes to hear what a prophet has to
say because a prophet calls us out for all the things we have done wrong. And no one wants to agree with or side with
the prophet because to agree with the prophet is to agree with your own
condemnation. And yet, the church is
nothing if it cannot be prophetic.
In our world today we have the same
desire to marry together church and state that the Herodians did. And it is just as dangerous a proposition. As much as we would love it if we had more
people, if we had more power, if we were more popular, that just can’t be the
way that it is. We can be speaking out against things like racism or for things like saving the
environment. The most important thing is
that we are speaking out. The job of the
church is to be the Prophet Mother speaking truth to power in our world.
Like Jesus though, this is not the
church’s only job. The church also has
to be willing to be a mother hen, clucking here and there and gathering all the
little chicks in. This means the church
has to be a welcoming place. We are
nothing if we are not open to everyone; we are nothing if our doors are
closed. The church should be a big
fluffy hen, gathering everyone in and standing up for the littlest and weakest
members.
Today in this particular church we get
to fulfill both of these roles as we welcome new members into our midst. We get to declare the truth in the world as
we speak the words of our faith. We are
turning away from sin and turning toward the love of God in our world. And we get to express that love by welcoming
a few more chicks under our wings. This
is a place of shelter and safety; this is a place that has room for everyone. This
is a place for people of all ages to grow in their faith and understanding, and
to grow in their love of God. This is a
church that is a mother prophet, welcoming all in the continuing struggle and
journey for truth in our world.
Jesus conflict with Herod in our
reading can be a confusing thing for us to understand, but like many of our
scripture readings, there is room for grace.
As Jesus laments over the city he allows that they may come to ruin “See
your house is left to you.” But he also
allows space for them to come back to the mother hen instead “You will not see
me until the time comes when you say ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of
the Lord’.” If the city will say that
when they see Jesus then they just might get it after all for some will surely
believe as they cry “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Today, as we welcome new friends
through reaffirmation of faith and baptism, let us remember what the church is
called to be. We are not called to be
married to government; we are not called to be followers of this age. Instead, we are called to be prophetic, to
speak the truth to power, and to seek God’s kingdom of justice and
righteousness. And we are also called to
be a place of profound welcome. Like a
mother hen gathering in all her baby chicks, may the church gather all into her
sanctuary. Thanks be to God for Jesus
the mother prophet, and thanks be to God for the church that is modeled after
his mission and ministry. Amen.
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