Lamentation

In our passage today from Luke, Jesus evokes a very old form of ritual prayer, a prayer of lamentation.  A lament is an expression of sorrow, a psalm or prayer of deep grief.  So Jesus in our passage laments over Jerusalem, expressing deep grief and sorrow that the city of Jerusalem has rejected, and still rejects, the prophets of Israel.  We read this lament over Jerusalem in Lent to remind all of us that the ways of humanity are not God’s ways, and that during Lent we are called to look inside our souls for how we have fallen away from the path of following Jesus.  But why is Jesus crying over Jerusalem?  What is Luke telling us in this passage, and why?

Let us join our hearts in prayer.  “Holy One, mighty eternal ruler of Jerusalem, we lament that we have fallen away from you.  In this season of Lent, create in us clean hearts, giving us the courage to live humbly and honestly before you in your grace and unconditional love.  Amen.”

Our passage today in Luke starts with the strangest twist.  Did you catch it?  The Pharisees come to Jesus warning him that Herod Antipas wants to kill Jesus, and they urge him to flee.  Really?  The Pharisees who have been trying to corner Jesus and trap him?  These same Pharisees?  The same ones that helped try to kill Jesus in our passage two weeks ago?  Yes, those Pharisees come to Jesus and say, “Flee from Harod, Jesus!  Run to the hills!”  Just days before, they had tried to kill Jesus, and now they are on his side?  Not likely.  These Pharisees are up to something deceitful and treacherous.  Jesus has just told the parable of the mustard seed, the parable of the yeast and the teaching of the narrow door into God’s Kin-dom, all parables calling for repentance, then ending with the exhortation that in God’s Kin-dom the last are first and the first are last.  And the Pharisees come up to Jesus to warn him Herod wants to harm him?  How very strange.

Jesus responds to the duplicitous Pharisees in three ways.  First, he reminds everyone that God’s kin-dom and the kingdoms of earth are very different.  Jesus calls Herod a fox, and then Jesus says he will continue his healing work anyway, continuing toward Jerusalem.  God’s Kingdom is first, Jesus says, not Herod’s kingdom.  Jesus says he will continue toward Jerusalem because that is where prophets must go to prophesy to Israel.  And what will Jesus prophesy?  Well, this is where the lament comes into play, and Jesus invokes an ancient lament that every Jew understood.

Jesus laments that Jerusalem kills those who prophecy God’s word.  This is a reference to Jeremiah and Micah and so many other prophets that were rejected by Jerusalem.  Whenever the city and nation of Israel fell away from following God, the prophets would cry, or lament over Jerusalem.  This is a plea to the Jews to turn from following Herod and the Romans, and turn back toward God.  This is exactly what Jeremiah and Isaiah and all of the prophets had also plead—Zion, Israel—return to the path of God, turn your face back to Jerusalem, the holy city of God.  Search your hearts, purify your life, rethink where you are going.  Jesus is pleading with Jerusalem to enter a period of Lenten reflection, “Examine your hearts, O Israel!  Turn back toward God!”

Then Jesus uses this beautiful image of Israel being gathered under the wings of a brooding mother hen.  I love this gorgeous image.  The word “brooding” here is the same word used in Genesis when the Holy Spirit brooded over the waters of creation.  Jesus invokes the stories of origin for the Jewish people.  And make no mistake here, Jesus’ illustration of Herod as a fox, and God as a mother hen, and Israel as baby chicks reminds those listening to Jesus that things are not what they seem to be.  The foxy Herods in life are usually first in the barnyard pecking order, but in God’s realm, they are last.  The Hebrew chicks, usually at the bottom of earthly pecking orders, are first in God’s loving heart.  Hearing this, every Jew would remember our passage today from Genesis, which reminds every Jew that they are people of the covenant of God.  God promised the Jews they would inherit the land and be as numerous as the stars of the summer sky.  You see, beginning with Abraham, the first will be last, and the last will be first.

The pattern of Jesus’ lament here is actually the ancient pattern of all laments, the most famous of which is Psalm 22, the Psalm of Lamentation quoted by Jesus on the cross.  That lament begins “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  And Jesus, sensing the terrible fate that is building for him in Jerusalem just a few weeks from now, Jesus begins to lament over Jerusalem, which is rejecting yet another prophet.  Jesus clearly sees Jerusalem turning away from God.  And he cries deeply for his nation and people, reminding them that he will be entering Jerusalem shortly on Palm Sunday, and they will initially greet him in hopeful celebration, singing, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  But as we all know, Jesus will not give Jerusalem what it wants, which is military victory and political freedom, and Jerusalem will turn its back on the prophet Jesus for a final time.

In the past few weeks, we have looked at Jesus’ inaugural statement of purpose in the beginning chapters of Luke.  Jesus came declaring the Gospel of God’s unconditional love to everyone, and also declaring the year of Jubilee of justice and equality and fairness for everyone.  In our very compressed Lenten story of Jesus, we now have come to Jesus lamenting over Jerusalem for rejecting him and the Gospel.  Jerusalem prefers instead the comfort and security of Rome rather than God’s Gospel of sharing love. 

This is a startling way to tell the story of Jesus, but also a way to enter into our time of Lent, to carefully re-consider the message of the Kin-dom of God.  Here, Jesus calls Herod, the symbol of Rome, a fox.  Jesus contrasts the government and power structure of Rome to the Kingdom of God, which Jesus presents as a barnyard hen protecting her baby chicks.  What an astonishing image.  Instead of God being a powerful lion or devouring fox, Jesus turns the image completely upside down by comparing the Kingdom of God to a mother hen’s protective love, and then imagining the members of the Kingdom even more vulnerable as silly scurrying chicks looking for mama’s protective wings.  What could this image possibly mean?

Well, as we journey to Jerusalem with Jesus, this upside down image of God’s Kin-dom of love contracts vividly with Rome’s kingdom of force and power and human economic slavery.  Jesus did not engage his antagonists with force and sword and power.  Instead, Jesus engaged those who fought him and hated him and wanted to kill him with truth and gentleness and peaceful resiliency.  Jesus lived the image not of a fierce fox or lion, but the image of a mother hen’s protective brooding love.

Throughout the history of Christianity, Christ followers have struggled with this image of love as our center-point.  Christians easily forget Jesus’ gentle peaceful teaching of who we are.  Instead, we have fought wars and killed countless enemies, all in the name of the cross or God.  Crusades and Inquisitions and countless religious wars have all been fought claiming the fierce fox or lion as the Christian ideal.  But here, saddened almost beyond words, Jesus preaches a barnyard parable of peace.  Jesus preaches love.  Jesus teaches the first as last and the last as first and waiting on the Lord, even when it came to the ruthless Romans.  Even when it came to the Temple soldiers, who captured Jesus even as Jesus forbade his disciples to fight.  We are baby chicks under the wings of mother God.  We are to go to God for security, go under God’s wings, Jesus says, and God will protect us from the fierce foxes and lions of life.

Now, I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking Jesus was naïve, and of course we should fight back.  Of course we should build a huge wall and build a fortified nuclear chicken fortress armed to the teeth.  Well, that is fine if that is what you want to promote, but that is not what Jesus teaches here.  As God’s people, we are chicken-littles in a barnyard full of foxes.  And Jesus taught the first shall be last and the last shall be first in God’s Kin-dom.  And we are to wait upon the Lord.

So, thinking of Jesus’ lament, what would our modern day lament be?  What would we cry over or grieve over if we were modern day prophets crying out into the wilderness?  Have we forgotten the message of the prophets who plead with us to care for the widows and orphans, caring for the least among us?  Are we ignoring the words of the prophet Micah,

‘With what shall I come before the Lord,
   and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
   with calves a year old? 
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
   with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
   the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ 
God has told you, O mortal, what is good;
   and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
   and to walk humbly with your God?  

Our modern-day Jerusalem in Washington DC is focused on other priorities of empire-building, just as Rome was focused on empire-building and wealth and power.  Washington is forgetting to care for the least among us, for the poor, the veterans, the widows, the disabled, and the children—just like Rome forgot, just like Jerusalem forgot.  Washington forgets to care for the last in the world, those last and least who are first and greatest in God’s kin-dom.  Tell those Washington foxes that we are lamenting for them and us, and that we, like Jesus, cry out in lament for the least among us.

Our Lenten journey reminds us that Jesus is weeping and lamenting over us today, just as he wept over Jerusalem 2000 years ago.  Jesus pleads with us to search and cleanse our hearts, to turn back toward God as we journey with Jesus toward Jerusalem:  People of God turn around!  Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God!  Amen.