16 Mar Sermon – SUNDAY, MARCH 16, 2025
Jesus frames time and the activities therein using three qualifiers: today, tomorrow and the day that follows. Today, tomorrow and the day after that comprise the extent of his concern for now. What is of utmost significance must take place in order.
His workload entails casting out demons and performing cures, doing all the good that he can for as many people as possible, today and tomorrow. The day after that he will be finished and on his way to Jerusalem. Motivated and goal-driven, Jesus has purpose, is clear-eyed, focused, confident and calm.
For years, he has been communicating with his clutch of fertile eggs, the nation of Israel. Gently he warmed and tried to turn them. Constantly he emitted sounds with which his developing brood might have identified themselves as his own.
And like a mother hen, Jesus has taught by demonstrating necessary and desirable behaviors. Up until the end, he devotes himself to their well-being, continuing to cluck, scratch and peck as onlookers like the Pharisees warn or threaten his existence.
By this point in the Book of Luke, Jesus appears tired and frustrated. After an intense period of incubation where Jesus expends much effort, he longs for results. Jerusalem had been chosen to become the nesting box of a new breed, a prime roosting spot for people reborn with a new type of religious faith, a relationship with an approachable God who need not be feared or avoided, but run toward as a mother hen who protects her chicks.
Can’t we all identify with feelings of longing such as Jesus, Abram and Sarai have? Longing for what might be, but hasn’t happened yet, longing for what may have been, but no longer is, longing in the form of the unseen, if only that which we hope for might actually come true.
Longing can be all consuming, it can be a painfully acute or chronic condition which causes the heart to ache and sometimes break. As a child, we long for certain toys, a pet or adventure. As youth, we long for freedom, special attention or independence. As adults, we long for successful relationships, employment, leisure and security. As elders, we long to stay relevant, remain connected and among the living. Take a moment to silently name what you long for.
Listen to how the Lord responds to a longing heart. With Abram, he came with words of encouragement through a vision saying, “Do not be afraid. I am your shield; your reward shall be great.” Except to Abram, the words didn’t count for much. Abram replied, “What will you give me? For I continue to live without the thing you promised so the thing I most dread happening seems bound to happen.”
That’s exactly how I think. If I don’t see proof, I have doubts. It doesn’t matter what someone has promised. I won’t believe it until I see it. I prepare myself for disappointment by accepting it in advance and consoling myself before time’s up. Like Abram, I need the Lord to show up and say, “No. Your conclusions are wrong. Believe what I told you. Remember what was said. Then I need to see a sample and be shown specifics, exactly how things will come true.”
God reminded Abram of promises already kept, but Abram still doubted and questioned God by saying, “How do I know that what you say is true? How do I know that it’ll last, that someone won’t come along and undo the thing or take it from me, that things won’t revert to as I fear?” That’s the crux of Abram’s argument. He’s anxious, afraid and consumed by thoughts of, “What if?” He knows that what he wants is totally out of his control just like most of what we worry about having or losing is out of ours.
Perhaps performing the work of today and tomorrow were ways that Jesus consoled himself in a show of divine power and influence. If he couldn’t change people’s hearts and minds to believe he was the Son of God who was able to give them eternal life, at least he could heal them today and tomorrow of disease, cast out demons and perform cures for them. He longed that they would receive him fully and benefit from all that he had to offer, not only what temporarily plagued them in their day to day lives.
If today and tomorrow were all that we had, what could we accomplish that might instill faith or bring about wholeness in the people around us? In the short term for the sake of posterity, how might we successfully exert power or influence? Before we begin, we first have to hear how God responds to quell our anxiety.
Note that God will give us something to do, a task or ritual within our capability.
It won’t be just busy work, but what will give us a sense of accomplishment, a guarantee of sorts that our efforts are not in vain, that there is surety and security in God’s plan. After all, God has both foresight and hindsight regarding every person’s life. God knows what will happen the day after today and tomorrow, just as Jesus does.
What is ours to do is what we know enough to do. For Abram that amounted to preparing animals for sacrifice: killing them humanely and guarding their flesh from predators. Then a deep sleep befell him while terrifying darkness descended upon him. That happens to me several times a week. I don’t understand why all hell seems to break loose just before the Lord solves my biggest problems. Can anyone else relate?
When the sun goes down and it’s dark, that’s exactly when a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch will pass between all that you have done by following God’s instruction and what God himself will do. At that time of darkness is when God makes a covenant which delineates all that will be.
As Psalm 27 shares so accurately, it’s human nature to fear or be afraid, to feel threatened by destruction or of being overtaken by forces working against our flesh and property. That’s why it behooves us to remind ourselves that “The Lord is our light and salvation, the stronghold of our lives,” so that our hearts don’t fear and our trust not be shaken.
We are given permission to seek God and ask the Lord’s permission to dwell in his house all the days of our lives and to gaze upon the Lord’s beauty. To ask that in the day of trouble for God to provide shelter, to hide you in a hidden place of sanctuary and raise you high upon a rock out of danger.
Then we are to claim that our head is lifted up above danger which surrounds us and to make a sacrifice of thanksgiving with joy, song and music. Without a hint of complacency, the psalmist continues to plead for the Lord to hear his voice when he calls; to have mercy and be answered. The psalms are great formulas for prayer, for working through feelings of fear, for building confidence in God’s faithfulness, and for building faith in God.
We then appeal to God’s parental nature by saying, “I seek your face, O Lord.” By remembering how God has been our helper, both mother and father to us, taking us in, teaching us his way, leading us like a hen brooding over her chicks, spreading her wings to defend, hide and comfort us as needed.
We don’t hear how Abram responds in today’s reading, but we do know that for a span of time, over a period of twenty plus years, both he and his wife continued to doubt. They tried to become parents through means they figured out for themselves might work, but didn’t. Unlike the psalmist, they couldn’t hold onto the belief that they would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living or wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart and wait because that’s hard if not impossible to remember and to do.
I suppose that’s why Paul wanted company in misery, because misery loves company, as they say. Paul would also say that misery is a form of temporary humiliation working to conform us to glory by the same power which enables our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ to make all things subject to himself. But on earth, Jesus chose to not make everything subject to himself. He was subject to having no choice except those which led to the cross.
When Steve and I went to Puerto Rico on a mission trip we were warned not to walk along roadsides because car traffic could prove deadly. Yet there were chicks and chickens everywhere: in most people’s yards and side yards, along embankments and even walking down the center of bike and business access lanes. As they do here in Halifax, they scratched and pecked without seeming to care. Chickens everywhere have an enhanced type of chicken sense which makes raising their young possible anywhere.
In order to be gathered as Jesus longs to gather us, chicks must realize their vulnerability and have sense enough to not stray far and wide. They mustn’t claim independence until receiving a clear sign such as when one night the mother hen chooses to fly onto a tree branch rather than remain below. What we do know is that chicks aren’t meant to fear or suffer anxiety as they grow.
Let us pray. We are your peeps, dear Lord, who long for your shelter and protection, your guidance and loving care. Help us to hear the sounds you make and to observe all that you do on our behalf, to believe and to grow beneath the ample shadow of your outstretched wings. In your holy name we pray, Amen.