Evensong - Second Sunday in Lent

We have a lot of references to animals in the reading from the Gospel according to St. Luke; Firstly, we had the ‘sly fox’ and then we had the caring hen with her brood of chicks.

We have Herod the FOX and Jesus the HEN – and of course, like CAT and DOG, these are old adversaries. Luke’s recollection and retelling of this event is a witty way to mix the two images. Herod the fox, the creature who likes nothing better than chicken for lunch. Jesus is the mother hen, who loves her chicks even though they run around in a fairly disorganised and dangerous way. Jesus the mother hen, wants to protect her chicks, and to keep them safe from all things that would seek to destroy or devour them.

FIRST THE FOX – although he makes few appearances in Luke’s Gospel, HEROD ANTIPAS has an important role. He asks the question that is the whole point of the GOSPEL, indeed the Christian faith – “Who is this about whom I hear such things?” – This, of course is the question that all people ask when they start reading the Gospels – the Good News is like a detective story, we want to skip to the end, but it is in the journey that we find the real message, and real purpose – the job of the MOTHER HEN.

Herod the FOX is still wondering who he is, when JESUS is brought in front of him at his trial – but HEROD knew because he had heard the GOSPEL from JOHN the BAPTIST, who he had had executed. Although we are told that HEROD washed his hands of the decision – I wonder if he really did want JESUS dead – like the Pharisees claimed.

For JESUS, the advice to lie-low for a bit, it taken with a pinch of salt, and advice such as this will be rejected later, when JESUS has the opportunity to avoid the cross. This isn’t part of the mission (sadly) – it must end in tragedy - suffering and pain.

The way in which LUKE attributes sayings to JESUS are really quite complicated. When Jesus says “‘I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day” we might be thinking about a long weekend – but JESUS isn’t - this is the span of eternity – with no end. TODAY and TOMORROW are the days when we care for others – sharing the love of GOD with them – building and preparing the Kingdom. The ‘Day After Tomorrow’ is meant to mean ‘the future’ – then – manana – the Sabbath – the day of rest when all is done and we are sitting around the table with the poor the lonely the depressed and persecuted. The ‘day after tomorrow’ is the end of time.

So here we are back with the MOTHER HEN – Jesus. I don’t suppose we like the image of JESUS as a HEN that much – it was much better when we had the image of the LION and the LAMB, but here we have it. We are the chicks and Christ is the HEN – no more likely to be able to save itself from slaughter than the lamb – all uncomfortable stuff. This is ‘of course’ the Christ that was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness and came through! This was the man who turned all that water into wine, walked on the other water, and healed lepers, raised the dead and all the other stuff! NOT A CHICKEN! I had chicken for LUNCH!

Doestoevsky made the temptations of Christ the centre-piece of his famous novel the brothers Karamazov. The Cardinal, in the novel, suggests that Jesus was wrong to turn down the three greatest powers, “miracle, mystery and authority” in the wilderness. He says that it made Jesus too easy to ignore.

But that’s not the JESUS I know and love – JESUS is manly and tough! I remember hearing a sermon by a fundamentalist preacher in North America, he spent the best part of half and hour suggesting that the ‘liberal’ wing of the church had made Jesus too effeminate, and he wanted JESUS the ‘all action hero back’…I don’t know.

This LENT it is important that somewhere along the line, you see an image of JESUS that speaks to you directly – whether it’s through our Sunday services, the Stations of the Cross, the Mission Action Planning or even your own reading of the scriptures and prayer! IT is a race to find Christ so that we too can see Him more clearly and understand what ‘faith’ really means.

This week, we are well into our LENTEN journey with Christ in the wilderness. We are all taking stock of what it means to be a member of the body of Christ, and wondering why we never seem to be able to do enough to build the Kingdom of God. Why all our plans sometimes come to naught, and how we can lack direction and purpose in our lives.

The readings this week are appropriate for the second week of LENT because they challenge us to think about GOD’S COMMITMENT TO US, and OUR COMMITMENT TO GOD. In a sense, we are being encouraged to visit the old friends of our faith. We may know that they are safe and well, and getting on with life, however, we need to visit now and again, to be certain that things are really the same – we need to spend time reading the bible and in prayer, to remember that God is with us, however distant he may seem sometimes.

It is popular in many circles to speak of a personal and private faith, even though the New Testament speaks of bringing us into Christ’s life. The entire thrust of the New Testament is the new creation, the new humanity of Christ, the building up of the body of Christ, the coming to the fullness of God. Being en Christo or ‘in Christ’ is so important that the phrase is used 164 times in Paul’s letters alone. It is something we cannot do alone. It is a shared task.

As we look around and see tragedy in the world, earthquakes, train crashes, outbreaks of disease; we need to be reminded of God’s promises of Glory – because it is plainly clear that the kingdom is not here on earth yet. We are being told that if we look to God, we will be spiritually fed and sustained, to purposefully share the promise of God with others.

We are called to live out our faith standing alongside those who suffer for whatever reason. We are called to be strong for those who cannot. We are called to pray for the seemingly impossible, we are called to share in joy and grief…. trusting in God all the while.

I suppose we should ask ourselves; is God like our neighbour whom we see every day, someone we share a cup of coffee with regularly; or is God like the relative or friend that we would rather not visit, but take comfort that they still send a card at Chistmas!

The race is not yet over, and there is much work to be done.

SERMON - Second Sunday of Lent - Morning

An man moves into a  small village, he walks into the

pub and promptly orders three beers. 

The bartender raises his eyebrows, but serves the man three beers, 

which he drinks quietly at a table, alone.

An hour later, the man has finished the three beers and orders three

more.

This happens yet again.

The next evening the man again orders and drinks three beers at a time,

several times. Soon the entire town is whispering about the Man Who

Orders Three Beers. 

Finally, a week later, the bartender broaches the subject on behalf of 

the town. "I don't mean to pry, but folks around here are wondering why 

you always order three beers?"

'Tis odd, isn't it?" the man replies, "You see, I have two brothers,

and one went to America, and the other to Australia. We promised each 

other that we would always order an extra two beers whenever we drank 

as a way of keeping up the family bond."

The bartender and the whole town was pleased with this answer, and soon

the Man Who Orders Three Beers became a local celebrity and source of

pride to the hamlet, even to the extent that out-of-towners would come

to watch him drink.

Then, one day, the man comes in and orders only two beers. The bartender

pours them with a heavy heart. This continues for the rest of the evening -

he orders only two beers. The word flies around town. Prayers are offered

for the soul of one of the brothers.

The next day, the bartender says to the man, "Folks around here, me first

of all, want to offer condolences to you for the death of your brother.

You know-the two beers and all..."

The man ponders this for a moment, then replies, "You'll be happy to hear

that my two brothers are alive and well.

It's just that I have decided to give up drinking for Lent."

It is long overdue that I catch up with my friends that live away. Since the baby and moving and settling in here, I have neglected my friends a bit. I think that after Easter we might have few days traveling around just to see the people we haven’t seen for some time. When I visit my friends from long ago, it is as you might expect, a relaxing few days. However, there is something else to it.

In a sense, I represent the fact that nothing has really changed, to them I AM JUST ABOUT THE SAME. I am still here, I may look a bit older, but rest assured I have the same old jokes and bad habits that I had before, there is a comfortable normalness about me. Of course I am living in WALES too, so I bring greetings from the land of their fathers, I bring glad tidings from the ‘green green grass of home’, to all the ex-pats working over the border.

We all need some point of reference in our lives. We need to be reminded from where we came from, and where we are going. We need to feel the comfort of certainties, from friends and family. In no small sense, we need to know that someone loves us, however infrequently we see them, and we need to love them too.

Grief happens when our reference points change. I have seen a lot of grief this week, and I have prayed a lot for those who feel that they are floating-free, without an anchor to keep them steady. Many of us will have been in that position, and it isn’t nice, it is horrible.

This week, we are well into our LENTEN journey with Christ in the wilderness. We are all taking stock of what it means to be a member of the body of Christ, and wondering why we never seem to be able to do enough to build the Kingdom of God. Why all our plans sometimes come to naught, and how we can lack direction and purpose in our lives.

The readings this week are appropriate for the second week of LENT because they challenge us to think about GOD’S COMMITMENT TO US, and OUR COMMITMENT TO GOD. In a sense, we are being encouraged to visit the old friends of our faith. We may know that they are safe and well, and getting on with life, however, we need to visit now and again, to be certain that things are really the same – we need to spend time reading the bible and in prayer, to remember that God is with us, however distant he may seem sometimes.

The readings show us that there is a TWO way relationship between US and THE ONE WHO CREATED US – and that relationship is one of love, care, comfort and exasperation sometimes. I can just imagine God looking down saying “I forgave him for doing that last week, and now he’s doing it again!!!!!”

From the Gospel reading this morning, I could have talked about what Jerusalem does to prophets, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem”, but that is for somewhere else, in a few weeks. The image in the Gospel of Luke that stands out for me today is a powerful image indeed. Christ says;

“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing”

This is the image of God, watching us run around aimlessly as chicks, staying close to the hen, but ultimately being disorganised and weak. We, in turn, take comfort that God is always with us, forgiving us feeding us, but we rarely care about what we can do in return. He still loves us, and waits for us. Today on the Second Sunday of Lent, we think about coming back to what we know, bringing others with us.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians’ continues with the theme of the relationship between us and God. Paul (in his own inimitable style) is telling his readers to SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE, to consider the heavenly as well as the earthly.

He seems to be telling us that in our running about like chicks we could be ‘enemies of the cross’, with our ‘end in destruction’, because our ‘minds are set on earthly things’. Scary stuff, Paul is asking us are we for Christ or against him? He is being harsh in the extreme. Whatever our purpose for running around like a chick, we all need to accept, that when WE are ready, GOD is waiting for us. He is waiting for us to realise that our salvation is to be found hanging on the cross, and that is the start of God’s commitment to us. A commitment that we cannot hope to comprehend, it is too glorious.

There is a caveat here for all those who are seeking some kind of spiritual tonic. The task is not to grow into a big strong hen from a little chick, but to grow together with the rest of the brood, looking to the hen for care, love and nourishment. It is popular in many circles to speak of a personal and private faith, even though the New Testament speaks of bringing us into Christ’s life. The entire thrust of the New Testament is the new creation, the new humanity of Christ, the building up of the body of Christ, the coming to the fullness of God. Being en Christo or ‘in Christ’ is so important that the phrase is used 164 times in Paul’s letters alone. It is something we cannot do alone. It is a shared task.

As we look around and see tragedy in the world, earthquakes, train crashes, outbreaks of disease; we need to be reminded of God’s promises of Glory – because it is plainly clear that the kingdom is not here on earth yet. We are being told that if we look to God, we will be spiritually fed and sustained, to purposefully share the promise of God with others.

We are called to live out our faith standing alongside those who suffer for whatever reason. We are called to be strong for those who cannot. We are called to pray for the seemingly impossible, we are called to share in joy and grief…. trusting in God all the while.

I suppose we should ask ourselves; is God like our neighbour whom we see every day, someone we share a cup of coffee with regularly; or is God like the relative or friend that we would rather not visit, but take comfort that they still send a card at Christmas.

(Pause)

The race is not yet over, and there is much work to be done