Homily for The Second Sunday of Lent, Year C
February 24, 2013 All Saints Anglican Church Springfield, MO
Father Micah Joel Chisholm
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” ~Luke 13:31-35
When conflicting and competing desires collide trouble frequently follows. This past week our daughter Miriam has been actively expressing her independence – especially when it comes to bed time. Stephanie and I, as her parents, have determined the time she needs to be in bed in order to get the rest she needs and we go through the routine of feeding her and changing her and saying her prayers so that she is ready to sleep for the night. Our desire is that she goes to sleep and stays asleep until morning. Miriam has a quite different desire: stay up and play as late as possible and wake up to play some more as often as she can. As a result of these conflicting desires night time can be pretty rough in our household.
The story about Miriam is cute, but it illustrates a reality that is common to each of us and is really no cute matter at all. As human beings we have the capacity to desire – this in and of itself is not a bad thing, in fact it can be quite good. Trouble sets in when we desire things that we shouldn’t or that are in conflict with what others, either people or God, desire from us. Then the battle is on.
At its heart, our gospel lesson this morning is about desire. It may not seem obvious at first, but in the midst of the story that Luke is telling is a head on collision between three conflicting and competing desires.
The gospel lesson this morning has three main characters: Jesus, King Herod and the city of Jerusalem. Each of them represents a particular mode of operating. Now, there is something significant in Luke’s record that is lost in our English translations and without going too much into a language lesson I need to draw our attention to it in order for the full weight of the passage to impact us. In the English translation that was read we heard the following statements:
Some Pharisees came and said “Get away from here for Herod wants to kill you”
Jesus said “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often I would have gathered your children”
And finally, referring to Jerusalem’s response Jesus said “you would not.”
What is significant is that in each of those statements Luke repeats the exact same word in the original language, while our English Bibles translate it three different ways. The word that Luke uses carries with it a sense of loving desire and delight. With that in mind, let me re-read those verses with the word translated the same in each case:
“Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, ‘Get away from here, for Herod desires and delights in killing you.’”
And Jesus said to them “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often I desired and delighted to gather your children”
And Jerusalem responded by “not desiring or delighting in it”
It is now that we can see that what Luke is illustrating is what happens when conflicting desires meet. So let’s look at the essence of each characters desire.
Herod stands as a representative of those whose desire is for worldly power and prestige and wealth. Herod aligned himself with the power structures of the world, namely the Roman Empire, in order to elevate himself, even at the cost of trampling on his kinsmen and those who were powerless to defend themselves. In grasping for his own personal gain, Herod allowed himself to be controlled for his desire and was threatened by anyone who he thought might challenge his power and authority. Jesus was quite popular among the people and Herod saw him as a threat needing to be neutralized. Herod’s desire for power and personal advancement gave birth to a new desire: kill Jesus, and anyone else, who might get in the way. Herod represents for us what we might call the obvious temptation to let wrong desires lead us down destructive paths. We must be careful though to not think that the downfall of Herod is the only thing to be aware of. Yes, sin happens in dark alleys and sinister plans, but it also happens every time we walk away from God’s desires for us, even if we think we are walking in a way that is good and upright on the surface. This leads to our next character study.
Next we have Jerusalem, which stands as the symbol of the nation of Israel, the people of God, chosen and beloved with a special part to play in God’s plan of salvation. The deep desire of a faithful Israelite was to fulfill the Law and thus be righteous before God. On the surface this sounds good – the problem occurs when the means become the end and the Law becomes a heavy burden that man is enslaved to. This is precisely what had happened within the people of Israel at the time of Jesus. Israel had become so preoccupied with things that were not of God – sometimes outright sin and idolatry, sometimes misguided pursuit of good things – that she was no longer able to perceive when God was moving in her midst. Israel was supposed to enjoy a special, privileged relationship with God yet had unwittingly begun desiring things that looked good on the outside but were actually a barrier between Israel and God. Jerusalem stands as a reminder that we can easily slip into a mode of thinking and believing that becomes burdensome and oppressive and are actually damaging to our relationship with God. Jerusalem also serves as a warning to not allow ourselves to claim some sort of superiority or privilege because “we’re the special ones.” Israel was God’s special possession, yet she failed to fulfill her purpose because of her blindness.
Finally, we have Jesus and his deep desire. Jesus employs some of the most tender language in the New Testament when he says “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” Jesus is displaying the heart of God for a lost and wayward people. The picture is of a hen protectively, lovingly placing her wings around her young. The young are safe from harm beneath the wings, nestled close to the heart of their mother. The mother is susceptible to harm – her wings may be the only barrier between her chicks and the teeth of a fox, but it is a risk she is willing to take for love of her young. Jesus’ deep desire is that the people of Israel would come “under his wings” so to speak and find in him their protection, their provision and their purpose – rather than in the political systems of the world or in legalistic observance of the Law. Both options ultimately bring harm – Jesus’ desire is to bring life – and he will stop at nothing to achieve his desire – something he alludes to when he says “I must go on my way…for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.” Jesus is communicating that he is willing to die for those he loves. Luke concludes the passage by writing that Jesus said “I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Ironically that is exactly what the people will shout as they welcome Jesus to Jerusalem days later, only to reject him and hand him over to death later. Seeing Jesus rightly requires coming under his Lordship, under his reign. His desire is that people come to him for he is the source of life, he is the way of entering into the kingdom. In John’s gospel we find Jesus saying “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” But responding to his desire challenges the desires that we have that are contrary to his Lordship. This is the conflict that Luke records, and it is a conflict we still experience in our daily lives.
For all that has changed in the past two thousand years we still find ourselves caught in a struggle between conflicting desires. On the one hand, we still have the same temptation that Herod gave in to. We are told that the way to get ahead in life is to possess power, to seek personal gain, regardless of the cost and who may be harmed in the process. If we wrongly desire power, prestige, money and possessions we become enslaved to them. We center our lives around them and eliminate anything that threatens our personal gain. In the process we may be tempted to lie, to cheat and to cut corners to feed our desire. As a result we often to great damage to ourselves and to those around us.
On the other hand, we also have the same temptation as Jerusalem and the people of Israel – we can get really busy doing all the right things. We can pray more than others, give more, fast more, read our Bibles more and convert more people to the faith. We can have all of the right answers and possess the moral high ground and think pretty highly of ourselves, especially if we compare ourselves to those who don’t believe quite rightly, don’t live quite rightly and quite frankly just aren’t as good as us. We can become enslaved to the things that are supposed to bring us closer to God instead of falling more and more deeply in love with God himself.
Jesus weeps when people follow either of these desires because he knows the harm that will come to them. Jesus still stands before us and says to each one of us “How often I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her young under her wings and you would not.” Jesus’ deep desire is that we would come under his protection, his provision and his guidance. The wings represent life and safety from the harm that comes from all that opposes life. Jesus desperately desires to be the place where we find life because he knows that he is the only source of true life. Jesus was willing to endure injury and even death in order to spread his wings over us yet so often we refuse to come beneath them. We may say “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” yet so often we refuse to actually come under the lordship of Christ. Our desires come in conflict with his desire for us. This is the great struggle that we are engaged in.
We are now two weeks into our Lenten journey. Last week we began by recalling the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness and we are reminded that we are assaulted by temptations, big and small, every day. Jesus’ victory over temptation led to his ultimate victory over sin and death and as a result we are able to share in that victory. We no longer have to be enslaved to sin. This week builds on the previous one as we are called to examine the desires of our hearts. Are we seeking fulfillment in life in the wrong places or in the wrong ways? Are there good things that we are desiring or using wrongly? Are we merely paying lip service to the Lordship of Christ or are we daily allowing ourselves to come under the protection of his wings?
Christ desires you and me. He has paid a high price. When our fleshly desires conflict with his, who will win? Amen.
Welcome His Spirit
If you have received Jesus as your Savior…God is living in you. By the Holy Spirit he has joined himself to your spirit. Your spirit, the very inmost part of you, is alive, and not only alive, but filled with all the wonderful joy, and love, and peace, and glory of God himself. ~Dennis Bennett, The Holy Spirit and You, (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1971), 16.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. ~Galatians 5:16
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. ~1 Corinthians 6:19-20
The Holy Spirit is the very life of Jesus himself within us. From now on, we are never alone; following Jesus need never be something we do in our own strength. No, we find we have a new engine inside: his powerful Spirit. Peter Walker, The Jesus Way, (Grand Rapids: Monarch Books, 2009), 48.
Daily Readings For the Week:
Monday – John 16:1-15
Tuesday – Romans 8:1-17
Wednesday – Ephesians 4:1-13
Thursday – Galatians 5:16-26
Friday – 1 Corinthians 12
Saturday – 1 Corinthians 13
Meditation For the Week:
Friend, it is a wonderful thing to witness the power of God as it reaches to the heart and demonstrates to the soul the pure way of life. Surely the person who partakes of this power will be favored by the Lord. Therefore, we ought to wait diligently for the leadings of the Holy Spirit in everything we do. Thus we will be able to travel through all that is contrary to God and into the things that are of God…you must press your spirit to bow daily before God and wait for the breathings to you from his Spirit…by his secret working in your spirit, giving you assistance from time to time, you will advance nearer and nearer towards the kingdom. ~Isaac Penington, Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups, (New York: Harper One, 2005), 207.
Prayer For the Week:
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy Your consolation. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.
This post is actually a couple of days late...I should have posted it this past Sunday, the First Sunday of Lent. Below are a number of tools to aid you in your Lenten journey toward Pascha.
I will post a new weekly formation resource guide each Sunday for the rest of the season.
God Bless!
Micah+
Accept His Forgiveness
In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. ~John Wesley, Journals – May 24, 1738
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ~ 1 John 1:9
I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. ~Isaiah 43:25
Jesus’ true followers, then, are those who take seriously Jesus’ own teaching about his cross. We accept this vital link between his death and our sins. We do real business with God, repenting of our sins, and asking truly for his forgiveness. And the Good News is that those who ask truly receive. It is a message about forgiveness – in other words, God really does forgive us. God has done everything that is necessary…Jesus himself wants us to enjoy what he died to achieve. Peter Walker, The Jesus Way, (Grand Rapids: Monarch Books, 2009), 35.
Daily Readings For the Week:
Monday – Leviticus 16
Tuesday – Hebrews 9:11-22
Wednesday – Hebrews 10:1-10
Thursday – 1 John 1:1-10
Friday – Matthew 6:5-15
Saturday – Colossians 3:5-17
Meditation For the Week:
[The Apostle] Peter…describes his readers as having been ‘ransomed…with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot’ and even as having been ‘sprinkled’ with his blood(1 Pet 1:2, 18-19). Both expressions allude to the original Passover sacrifice at the time of the Exodus. Each Israelite family took a lamb, killed it and sprinkled its blood on the lintel and side posts of the house. Only so were they safe from the judgment of God…Peter boldly applies the Passover symbolism to Christ. His blood was shed to redeem us from the judgment of God and the bondage of sin. Sin had separated us from God; but Christ desired to bring us back to God. So he suffered for our sins, an innocent Savior dying for guilty sinners. ~John Stott, Basic Christianity, (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006), 121.
Prayer For the Week:
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. ~Collect for Ash Wednesday, 1979 Book of Common Prayer
And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing in those days; and when they were ended, he was hungry.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”
And the devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours.”
And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.’”
And he took him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; for it is written,
‘He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you,’
and
‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”
And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
~Luke 4:1-13
This past Sunday was the First Sunday in Lent for the Western Church and we were called to meditate upon the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. There are several key themes that emerge from this text, including affirming Jesus' humanity, his ability to understand temptation, and his knowledge of "being in the wilderness." Each of those are important but there is a deeper mystery being revealed in this passage, that reaches back far in time and returns us to the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve were placed by God in the Garden of Eden - lush, beautiful and in it they communed with God and lacked nothing. They experienced Paradise. God placed on them one injunction: do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The evil one came and tempted - at its root the temptation was to reject the rule of God and to be a god unto oneself, to reject Divine authority and take life into one's own hands, to operate outside of the God ordained parameters. Adam and Eve were ensnared by the temptation - they gave into it, they disobeyed, they ate and the result was death because their disobedience severed them from the source of Life, God himself. They were cast out of the garden into the wilderness and humanity has been in a wilderness place ever since: grasping, struggling, diseased and dying.
Enter Jesus.
Jesus was placed into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit (Mark's Gospel actually uses the phrase "was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness"). Jesus entered into the reality of humanity - he went to the place where the sick and dying were in order that he might provide the remedy. Just verses before Luke records the baptism of Jesus - the affirmation both of Jesus' divine Sonship and also of his full participation in human life, his standing with fallen humanity. In the wilderness Jesus experiences an aspect of our humanity we are all to familiar with: temptation.
The temptations that Jesus faced were an attempt by the evil one to get Jesus to trip up in the same way that Adam and Eve had - to grasp at power and authority in a way that was not God pleasing, to operate outside of the parameters ordained by God. At the root of the temptation of Jesus was an attempt to subvert the role of the Messiah, to tempt Jesus to be a different kind of Messiah than he had come to be.
Jesus' time in the battle was truly a time of doing battle with the evil one, the devil. It was a time of undoing the defeat that Adam and Eve experienced in Eden.
Ambrose of Milan comments on this reality when he says:
“It is fitting that it be recorded that the first Adam was cast out of Paradise into the desert, that you may observe how the second Adam [Jesus] returned from the desert to Paradise…Adam brought death through the tree. Christ brought life through the cross... Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, is led into the desert for a purpose, in order to challenge the devil. If he had not fought, he would not have conquered him for me.”
Praise be to God that Jesus, in his battle, was victorious. Jesus did not succumb to the temptations laid before him and this led ultimately to an even greater battle with the evil one, which appeared to end when Jesus was killed on the cross, yet ultimately God was shown to be victorious when he raised Jesus from the dead, defeating the power of sin and death and making victory and new and unending life a reality that is possible for you and for me.
Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be
tempted by Satan; Come quickly to help us who are assaulted
by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of
each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through
Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Grace & Peace to You,
Micah+
Penitential Prayer of St. Ambrose of Milan
O Lord, who hast mercy upon all, take away from me my sins, and mercifully kindle in me the fire of thy Holy Spirit. Take away from me the heart of stone, and give me a heart of flesh, a heart to love and adore Thee, a heart to delight in Thee, to follow and enjoy Thee, for Christ's sake, Amen
Today is the final day before the great fast of Lent for the Western Church (the East will observe this season beginning in mid-March). The season of Lent is a forty day period of preparation for the celebration of Christ's Resurrection, his victory over sin and death, by which he frees us from bondage to sin and death and makes new and unending life in him possible.
The goal of this season is not to beat yourself up for all the wrong things you have done. The purpose of this season is not to win points with God. It IS a time of seeking God and denying oneself - but for the purpose of having our hearts softened and shaped by God. Our awareness of sin and our shortcoming are intended to humble us and draw us closer to the heart of the Father - a heart that is filled with compassion and mercy as revealed in the coming of Jesus Christ into the world to live and die and rise as one of us, giving us hope of freedom, life and the resurrection from the dead.
May we all keep a holy Lent. Lord have mercy.
Grace & Peace to You,
Micah+
Below is a link to the sermon I preached this past Sunday at All Saints Anglican Church in Springfield, MO.
The Gospel lesson was Luke 4:14-32
http://www.allsaintsspringfield.org/sermons-adult-ed-/sermons.html
Grace & Peace,
Micah+
