Genesis 15.1-12,17-18, Luke 13:22-35
The Second Sunday of Lent, 21 February 2016
Austwick, Clapham
As he turned his face towards the place and time of his trial and execution, Jesus said, ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 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 would not.’
This is a sermon about scattering and gathering: the careful way a mother hen gathers her own, contrasting with the violent way an attacking fox scatters a field of chicks. And the place on which we focus is that conflicted city, that ultimate arena of gathering and scattering: Jerusalem.
Have you ever visited Jerusalem? Countless pilgrims gather in Jerusalem today, in awe and wonder at the sights of the special spiritual places they see. The pilgrims of three faiths - Jews gather to pray at the wailing wall, Muslims congregate to pray in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Christians together walk the Via Dolorosa. The holy city of Jerusalem gathers the tribes. [2]
But within this gathering there is the sad sense of scattering, for these pilgrims travel not together, but as separate groups. It was the same in the Jerusalem Jesus looked out on, whose pilgrims were all descendants of Abraham and the twelve tribes of Israel. But now, as then, the tribes keep apart from each other, each praying in their own place, each staying in their own rooms, huddling together to secure their identity against the others, whilst each mirroring the other’s intensity of belief and devoutness, and each mimicking the others’ desire to claim Jerusalem as their own.
The disunity of that city reminds us that this is the way in which human beings have always gathered - together in tribes, their backs turned against all other tribes. This is the way that the world gathers: under a religious sign, under an ideology, under a flag. It has the appearance of being unifying; but it is divisive. It is why Jerusalem is split apart by security walls and checkpoints today, and why in Jesus’ time Herod always had his forces on alert at pilgrimage time.
This is the way of the fox, whose way is always to divide, isolate, attack. Whenever we gather under the sign of a crucifix, or a crescent, or a star, in opposition to others, the fox stalks among us. [3] So as the world gathers in tribes identifying ourselves in hostility to other groups, being prepared to kill the prophets who question this way of gathering, and stoning those who go to them trying for unity, as the world adopts the way of the ruthless fox, Jesus models a different way of gathering.
For Jesus is no fox, but rather the mother hen who gently lifts her wings so that all of Jerusalem can snuggle under them - the high-priestly, politically conservative Sadducees, the pious and morally conservative Pharisees, the contemplative Essenes and the revolutionary Zealots, the Herodians and the occupying Romans - ‘How I desire to gather you all together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…’ he said.
Now, if you have ever seen a mother hen gather chicks you’ll feel the power in Jesus’ metaphor. For a mother hen gathers her chicks easily; with an economy of motion and a few well-chosen clucks of comfort and guidance she draws them to herself. They come to her, gladly, for they know that under her wings is love, warmth and protection. This is how Jesus longs to gather us, away from the lure of the fox. Jesus values the uniqueness of each person, of each pilgrim party, of each tribe, and longs to shelter each one just as we are, united in our diversity, under his wings.
There is a longing in Jesus’ voice for the scattered tribes of Jerusalem to gather together: the Sadducees fearing that any unity with others would compromise their social standing; the Pharisees fearing for their religious purity, the Essenes fearing losing their precious separateness; the Zealots fearing being accommodated to the system they aggressively opposed, the Herodians and the occupying Romans fearfully holding on to their power in the region. [4]
Sadly the way of Herod the fox, the way of all empires, prevailed, in the end, all the way to Calvary. And sadly seems to still prevail in Jerusalem - and in all our Jerusalems - today.
For Jesus spoke of Jerusalem killing the prophets, and Folke Bernadotte, Swedish diplomat, wartime rescuer of thousands of Jews, postwar United Nations Middle-East mediator, was killed in West Jerusalem by militant Zionists for his advocacy of a Palestinian settlement. [5]
And Jesus spoke of Jerusalem stoning those who are sent to it: and Mounir Kleibo, a senior United Nations official in the Palestinian Territories, sustained serious injuries to his jaw after coming under attack by Palestinian rock throwers in East Jerusalem. ( ‘Allah will forgive them’, he is later reported to have said). [6]
Today, Jerusalem is at the epicentre of the world’s conflicts where young Palestinian men continue to hurl stones and young Israeli soldiers continue to fire bullets and the mothers of them both weep over their graves [7]
So in our splintering world today the gospel passage invites us to desist in gathering only in our tribes, posturing behind the comfortable dogmas of our peer group, clinging to our social certainties, aggressively waving our flags - following the way of the fox, whilst vulnerable to the attacks of the fox. The invitation is to be drawn to the way of the mother hen. Jesus invites us to celebrate our common ties with all the children of a God who goes by many names, for, whatever shade of skin we are, we are all God’s vulnerable chicks, and equally loved by our creator.
The Psalmist said it three thousand years ago, and it’s just as true today: if we pray for the peace of Jerusalem we pray for our own peace. Yes, if we pray for the peace of Jerusalem we pray for the peace of Christchurch, New Zealand. If we pray for the peace of Jerusalem we pray for the peace of multi-racial Bradford, Keighley, Skipton… ourselves ….
So let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they prosper - all Jews, Muslims and Christians, who love that place. Peace be within her walls, for the sake of all pilgrims of the earth, so that God will continue to dwell among us. Let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Let us seek her good. [8]
Notes
[1] An edited version of Scattering and gathering: brooding over Jerusalem first preached in Somerset in 2016. I am indebted, as ever, to Paul Nuechterlein whose notes and references on this passage have been invaluable in preparing this sermon: Girardian Lectionary, Lent 2C.
[2] Patrick Woodhouse, Life in the Psalms: Contemporary Meaning in Ancient Texts: The Mowbray Lent Book 2016, p.38.
[3] This section inspired by Sydney Carter’s song ‘The devil wore a crucifix’, sung here by Franciscus Henri.
[4] This section was inspired by part of Jesus the Mother Hen, a Sermon on Luke 13:22-35, posted on the Holy Ground Holy Space Facebook page, 25 February 2013. It is unclear, but the author of this particular passage seems likely to be Barbara Brown Taylor.
[5] Wikipedia: Folke Bernadotte.
[6] UN official hurt in stoning: ‘Allah will forgive them’, Times of Israel, October 12, 2015.
[7] Patrick Woodhouse, Life in the Psalms, p.39.
[7] Patrick Woodhouse, Life in the Psalms, p.39, adapting Psalm 122, and further altered by me, March 2019.
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