Genesis 15; Luke 13:31-35
Two life-long friends have felt tension growing between them. Late one night, the tension explodes into yelling and throwing things, running away from each other, brokenness, isolation.
How often have I desired to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings….
Claudio Rojas is awakened in the middle of the night and taken from his home to an ICE detention center. The Infiltrators, a documentary featuring this man’s story of life in a for-profit detention center in Florida, aired at South by Southwest in Austin and at Sundance. But before he can see the film of his story, Rojas is again taken by ICE and threatened with deportation by the end of March. His family and lawyers are frantic. Rojas has lived in the United States for 20 years, has never been convicted of any crime and has been a contributing member of society. His first grandchild is soon to be born.
How often have I desired to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings….
William Singer figured out how to use his contacts and influence to sell college admissions to the rich and famous. What does this desperation, even from those who can afford to pay for education, say about what we value, and what we will pay for privilege? Does being admitted to one college mean a greater sense of belonging than a different college?
How often have I desired to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings….
A shooter opens fire on people gathering to pray at their mosque. It happens halfway around the world in New Zealand and our hearts are broken! 50 dead, dozens wounded. What more can we say of a Pittsburgh Synagogue, a high school in Parkland Florida, a music festival in Las Vegas, a gay night club in Orlando, a one-room Amish school house, and hundreds more mass shootings in the United States alone! What has become of our species?
How often have I desired to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings….
Jesus has told his disciples that he is headed for Jerusalem – the capital city of a rural Roman outpost. Tensions are high. There is rebellion afoot. And the Romans are having none of it. This too, will end in violence and death.
How often have I desired to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings….
How can God love us? How can God want us?
I’m not sure we very often think of God as desiring us, longing for us – broken, guilty, fearful as we are. We are more likely to see God as judging us or correcting us or punishing us or testing us or condemning us. Or maybe we see God as distant and disinterested. Up there, out there, far away from where we live. But not God wanting us, seeking us out at every turn.
But this text shows that, in Jesus, God is close and God is desiring us. Somehow it seems as if it is part of who God is to be in relationship with us. Jesus’ yearning words seem to express the length and breadth of God’s relationship with human beings. How long? How long?
God’s longing is not just seen in this single verse. It is a great theme of Scripture: In the Garden of Eden it is God who goes seeking Adam and Eve. Why? Because they were the image of God, created to correspond and be in relationship with the Holy One. From the beginning, we have been marked by God in an intimate way. Perhaps it is our identity as bearers of God’s own image that attracts God to us.
God seeks out Abraham too. Calling him out of his homeland. Promising him a land of his own and decendants as numerous as the stars. In Genesis 15, we see God sealing that promise with a legal covenant. In normal covenant-making, it is both parties who agree to equal penalty if they break the covenant. Today, we would say that both parties sign the contract. But even here is it God who takes all the risk. God, in the image of the smoking fire pot, is the only one who walks between the animal parts. The only one who signs the contract. God does it all.
Generations later, Moses was sent to get the people out of Egypt. The judges were sent to rescue the people from their own messes. The prophets were called to protect and guide and inspire, evidence that God is always pursuing people, to hold, rescue, protect.
Then there is the shepherd of Jesus’ parable who leaves ninety nine sheep to go after one who is lost. Or the father waiting every day for his son to return, running out of the house to embrace, not to punish, when he appears in the distance. He throws a party; he does not sit in judgment. God is looking for us, claiming us, desiring us, reaching out and gathering in. That is the whole story of the Bible!
This passage is all about longing. In these five verses, the word for desire is used 3 times. First, we hear that Herod desires to kill Jesus (v. 31). Next, Jesus tells us that he desires to gather Jerusalem under his wings (v. 34). Finally, Jerusalem is described as a city that did not desire to be gathered (v. 34).
The poignancy of this passage lives in these desires.
First, power desires to eliminate all potential threats. Herod wants to kill Jesus. Like his father before him, who tried to kill the infant Jesus, this Herod, too, saw Jesus as a threat. Herod wanted to preempt any revolution among the people sparked by this powerful healer and preacher. Squash him, to prove to Caesar that he can rule this unruly people.
So often our violence is driven by fear. The powerful are just as susceptible to fear as the rest of us. In some ways, they have more to lose and more to fear. We see this in Herod.
But Jesus doesn’t seem effected by this threat. He speaks of his own desire, instead of responding to the warning. He wants to embrace this people. Herod’s threat doesn’t seem to move Jesus. But the thought of this scurrying brood of chicks does move Jesus deeply. Jesus yearns to collect these people and give them shelter.
And Jesus yearns to gather us. Jesus seeks to gather us to himself, to bring us close, hold us, shelter us, keep us. The heart of Jesus is broken as he sees the violence and discord which marks our existence. Jesus wants to build bridges for embrace, rather than walls and defenses for dividing.
It reminds me of our outreach vision: “We are a bridge-building congregation, here to… to create connected community.” Our year of peace is following the heart of Jesus. He yearned to gather and connect. We, too, try to find ways to speak and act so that we can gather and connect in a world that seems like a brood of chicks scurrying in fear. “Shhh… Come here. Be warm. Be at peace. The sacred presence is here and embraces you,” we say.
I had the privilege of witnessing the healing brought by gathering this week in the stories of two women from Pacific Northwest Family Circle. This is a new nonprofit formed in response to the suffering of families who have lost loved ones in police shootings. Their stories are complicated and tragic, and no one who has not been through it can quite stand with them. Jesus stands with them. God, as Jesus’ father, knows the experience of losing a loved one to police violence. And so, in the name of Jesus, our presbytery is coming alongside, to help them help themselves toward healing. Perhaps one day, you will hear their stories and your hearts will be broken open too.
And in the end, Jerusalem is a city which does not want to be gathered. Again and again, Jerusalem turns to the rich and powerful, forgetting that their safe haven is under the wings of their beloved.
What is it about us humans? We hide. We resist. We flee. We follow our own way, embrace our own truth, live our own lives. Still God seeks us out. How often have I desired to gather you and you were not willing? Still God longs for us. Why?
Maybe God knows who we truly are, how beautifully we’ve been made, how deep is our capacity for goodness and blessing. Maybe God knows that love is at the core of our being. Maybe God longs for us to see our true selves, to see the image of God we bear.
How deep is God’s longing for us! We can hide, resist or flee. We can fill our hearts with fear and anxiety. We can fill our lives with the message that we don’t have enough, that we don’t do enough, that we have failed. But God’s desire for us remains. We cannot deter it.
Let God gather you into an embrace this Lent. Open your hearts and eyes to see that God’s love is always reaching out to hold you, to offer you company in whatever encounters your path. One of the most healing truths is to know that we are not alone.
And… We are not alone.
