March 13, 2022

Psalm 27

Luke 13:31-35

 

Brian Zhand is one of those reformed evangelical church leaders whose Twitter posts and other writings I enjoy reading.  Last week he said, “If I could say one thing to Putin it would be this: ‘We will all come before the judgement seat of Christ.’”

Generally, I’m not a big fan of the eternal condemnation threat.  But, here it struck me as an invitation for Putin to view the destruction and devastation he’s causing from God’s perspective.  Regardless of any punishment that God might dole out, seeing Putin’s invasion as God sees it, feeling it as God feels it, – every burned life and shattered dream, every cry of displacement and desperation, all the ripples of pain and hardship that will extend out into the years to come – seeing it that way, might just be a torturous kind of hell in an of itself.

But, in this case I think Zhand is a bigger man than I.  If I had an audience with Putin it’s not words that I would want to use.  I’m not a violent person, but I’ve actually prayed for his death.  And I took some comfort in a colleague’s comment that she’s never felt so militaristic in her life, and she’s a pacifist!  I’m the same way.

The Psalm for today seemed apt, given our current context.  I imagined us saying it in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.  And, I imagined us hearing it too as an invitation to take shelter in the love of God when all kinds of “adversaries,” “foes” and “wars” rise up against us – when life turns harsh and hard and even when the worst we can imagine happens.

It’s an invitation to take shelter in the love of God, which is imaged in the picture Jesus gives us of a mother hen gathering her brood in its wings.  This is God’s desire: to gather us into a different kind of shelter, a different kind of community than what the world so often offers.

Our gospel passage begins with the words, “At that very hour,” which should immediately make us want to look to see what’s led up to this moment.  If we go back just to verse 22 we learn that Jesus has been going from one town to the next, teaching and healing at every stop, as he makes his way to Jerusalem.  He concludes his latest lesson with the jarring proclamation of the divine reversal of the world’s ordering of things, saying, “Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

And, it’s at this moment that the Pharisees come and tell him that his life is under threat.    Knowing the context kind of helps us understand the reason.  Initially, it seems odd that a man who is walking around, teaching and healing, would be wanted dead by Herod.  But, that last line tips us off to the bigger thing that is happening.  Jesus isn’t wandering aimlessly; he’s on his way to the capital city, to the very seat from which Herod rules.  And, he’s not willing to be stopped. “Tell that fox that I’ll be working today and I’ll be working tomorrow.”  Jesus does not for a minute believe that he or anything he stands for is subject to the control of Herod.  As Jesus sees it, Herod is among the first who will soon be last, and as Herod sees it, that’s not okay.

What is marching to Jerusalem is a different kind of kingdom than the ones that humans are inclined to build.  Its priorities are laid out in Luke back in chapter 6: “Blessed are you who are poor.  Blessed are you who are hungry.  Blessed are you who weep.  And, Blessed are you when people hate you on my account.”  As we said a few weeks ago when we read this passage in church, it’s not a matter of glorifying hunger or justifying the subjugation of the poor.  It’s a laying out of God’s priorities for the faithful.  It’s a way of ordering life and ministry for those who would be Christ’s disciples.  And, it’s a way of offering the world a powerful alternative to what the powerful often offer.

Lucy was telling me the other day about the short story she read.  It was psy-fi, not a genre I love, but she was captivated.  It was a really challenging thought that caught her attention too: the thought that humans are the problem; the thought that Could it be that once we’re no longer around – doing cruel and destructive things to creation and to our neighbors – the world will return to its natural balance and beauty?  I immediately thought of the movie, The Matrix.  Remember how the bad guy tells Neo (Kiannu Reaves) how humanity is a virus – how we just go around infecting and destroying everything in our path?

Not a cheerful thought, I know.  And, we should counter it with signs of human goodness too.  Like last week Caroly lifted up Poland’s open boarders to all the Ukranian refugees, and we talked too about Chef Andre’s awesome efforts to feed so many people in places of disaster.  Somebody told me the other day of a family that showed up at a Poland train station with a sign that said, “We can take a family of 8.”  Now, that’s pretty cool and to be fair there are plenty of those stories.

But still, I go back to the fact that given the chance I would certainly shoot Putin.  And, even knowing that his soldiers are young and conscripted, not told the truth, certainly not calling the shots, or wanting to be there, still when a tank is blown up or a fighter jet downed I feel encouraged because the invasion in thwarted.

I guess I think that humans in general make a mess of things.  We just don’t know how to be, which is why today’s passage is so important.  “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” Jesus says, “The city that kills its 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.”

This is God’s desire for a people who just don’t get it.  This is God’s desire for a broken people intent on the wrong things.  And yet, right into Jerusalem Jesus goes nonetheless.

Despite our rejection of God and God’s ways we human beings are invited to be gathered anew into God’s brood.  We’re invited to say “yes” and to take shelter in God’s alternative.  And, even if we can’t fathom the slightest love for Putin, maybe we can begin by fathoming love for lesser enemies.  And if that’s not an option we can certainly commit to a greater love for one another, and if for one another why not our neighbors, and if our neighbors why not the stranger too?

It seems crazy that God’s holy alternative to a violent and broken world would be to gather imperfect people like you and me and grant them a Spirit in which to find strength in love and strength to love, but it seems that that is what God has done, and who is any of us to argue with God?