Second Sunday in Lent - Sunday, March 17, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josép Reinaldo Martínez-Cubero, OHC
Second Sunday in Lent - Sunday, March 17, 2019

Genesis 15:1-12,17-18
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35

Click here for an audio version of the sermon.

In my preparation for this sermon, I had the happy experience of coming across a picture, and a poem. The picture, I had never seen. The poem, I knew but had not seen in a very long time. They became my inspiration and meditation on the gospel lesson, and I will attempt to connect all the dots.

There is a small chapel situated on the western slope of the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem. The chapel is called Dominus Flevit, which means “The Lord Wept”. It was designed in the shape of a teardrop to symbolize Jesus’ tears. Dominus Flevit was constructed at the place that according to tradition, Jesus wept over the city that had refused his ministry. On the front of the altar, is a mosaic medallion of a white hen with a golden halo around her head. Her wings are spread wide to shelter the little pale yellow chicks that crowd around her feet. There are seven of them, and they look happy to be there, protected by the mother hen. The mosaic does not pretend that the scene ever happened. There is a rim all around the scene it depicts with Latin words in red letters that translated into English read: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the 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 were not willing!" The last phrase is set outside the circle, in a pool of red underneath the chicks’ feet: you were not willing.

Luke’s first readers were urban, for the most part economically secure, well-educated Gentiles at the end of the first century. These circumstances put them at some distance from Jesus and the earliest Christian groups. They needed an imaginative leap in order to make the story of Jesus and his ministry their own. The main objective of the gospel’s author is to give and example to readers of how they ought to live their lives, and of what God called them to be and do. Luke’s Gospel begins and ends in the temple in Jerusalem. Zechariah learns in the temple that he and Elizabeth will have a child. Mary and Joseph bring their own child there when the time comes. Simeon and Anna deliver their prophecies there, and Jesus returns with his parents when he is twelve years old and ends up among the teachers of Israel.

Jerusalem is mentioned 139 times in the entire New Testament, and 90 of those times are in the Gospel of Luke. Clearly the city, so rich in history and symbol, was important to the author. Jerusalem is the dwelling place of God, the place where, according to the prophet Isaiah God’s glory would be revealed (Isa. 24:23). It is also the place where, according to the prophet Micah, God is betrayed by those who hate the good, and love what is evil (Mic. 3:2). Jesus is headed there, the historic seat of Jewish power where both kings and priests have their home. Prophetic ministry in the face of power is dangerous business for those who would speak the truth of God’s kingdom to the powers that be. Jesus characterizes the city as killing prophets and stoning those who are sent to it. His response is mercy. The words of the Trisagion, which we chanted at the beginning of the Eucharist today, are a plea for God’s mercy. “Holy God, Holy and mighty, Holy immortal one, Have mercy upon us.” Mercy is the theme of the collect for this second week in Lent. Mercy is God’s gift to us, but it is also a gift we are called to show others, even those we don’t like or we see as our enemies. We have a part in it for which we are meant to take responsibility, and that part is not just asking but giving forward.

Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem is the example of the mercy we are meant to show in the world. He envisions Jerusalem as a city filled with a brood of little pale yellow chicks and at least one fox. There is a white hen with a golden halo around her head across the valley. That white hen with a golden halo around her head is clucking away with the desire to protect her little pale yellow chicks. But they cannot hear her, and the ones that do have forgotten who and whose they are, so they pay no attention because they can no longer recognize her voice. All she can do is spread her wings. Jesus, who is always turning things upside down, so that widows, children, and peasants are at the top while kings and scholars are at the bottom, identifies himself with a hen, not the eagle of Exodus or the leopard in Hosea or the lion of Judah. Oh no, Jesus is the hen.

The beautiful poem by nineteenth century English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins goes like this:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Christ—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

 The kingfisher is said to “catch fire” as the light brings its feathers to a bright radiance. Similarly, the wings of the dragonfly reflect small flashes of light with a flame-like beauty. The tinkling sound of pebbles tossed down wells, the plucking of strings on a musical instrument, and the ringing of bells, each of these objects represent what life as a gift is all about. Everything has a way about it, and gives itself fully in its true essence. In the same way, every “mortal thing” is meant to express the essence that dwells inside of it. It “selves.” “What I do is me: for that I came.” Christ inhabits those who express their true, innermost selves. And Christ, in turn, does this as an offering to the Mother.

Through our baptism we have been clothed with Christ, and are a new creation, called to be an offering- to give ourselves fully, in love, as Jesus did. We are to justice- to enter into injustice with our whole being, so we can transform it. That requires the vulnerability of that white hen with a golden halo- no fangs, no claws, no muscles, just the willingness to shield her babies with her own body. It seems to me that the example for us is quite clear: we can live by wielding power and licking our chops or we can live with wings spread wide open in mercy and love, and act in God’s eye what in God’s eye we are- Christ. Tall order! ¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+