The Yearning of God
Lent II; March 4, 2007
Luke 13:31-35
We all have our lenses through which we read the Bible. I will tell you about mine. In the Book of Genesis, we read the story of Adam and Eve. After they eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they learn certain things about themselves and so hide themselves. They hide from each other and from God. Then God goes for a walk in the Garden, looking for them. God calls out, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9) I read the whole Bible as echoing that cry from God to humanity: Where are you? Why are you hiding from me and from each other?
These poignant words of Jesus, addressed to Jerusalem, echo that old call. “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 words of Jesus voice the yearning of God, the yearning that is first expressed by the cry, “Where are you?” This time it is Jesus expressing the yearning, and focusing it on the city of Jerusalem.
Here’s something strange to consider: Why does God want to bother with us? You ponder it, but I can’t answer it; I simply give thanks that He does! It’s easy to understand why human beings would yearn for God, why we would wander sacred places to look for God, places such as the Mount of Olives or the Western Wall in Jerusalem; the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet; Mt. Fuji in Japan; Iona in Scotland; or the Ganges River in India. But God yearning for us? What a notion!
Yet God walks the paths of the Garden, crying out, “Where are you?” And pushed against a wall, the Son of God laments, “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!” At one level, of course, Jesus is simply describing the destiny he anticipates: that he will be executed in Jerusalem. Because of that, he’s not so worried about Herod Antipas, who has no authority in Jerusalem. Jesus indulges in a bit of imagination, of course; it is not the case that prophets were killed only in Jerusalem. John Calvin points out that no one was harder on prophets than Queen Jezebel, and she was Queen of Samaria, not Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah was killed in Elephantine, Egypt. But he spent a lot of time in trouble in Jerusalem, and it is certainly true that some prophets were killed there: one of Jeremiah’s contemporaries, named Uriah, was killed in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 26:20-23) and the prophet Zechariah was stoned to death in the court of the Temple (II Chronicles 24:20-22) in Jerusalem.
It is no surprise that prophets would get in trouble in Jerusalem; it was the center of government and of religion. When the prophets speak, who are their usual targets? The government and established religion. Imagine Rome and Washington combined into one and the prophets crying out for faithfulness to God against the interests of the established priesthood and the self-interest of the government and you can understand why they were constantly in trouble in Jerusalem. And it will not surprise you that Jesus anticipates being executed in Jerusalem.
Yet God yearns to protect the people of the very city that is so hard on his chosen. Add this to your mental pictures of God: a mother hen, gathering her brood under her wings. Psalm 91 (which we know best as the wonderful song “On Eagle’s Wings”) begins:
You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress;
my God, in whom I trust.”
And God yearns for the people of Jerusalem to abide in the shadow of the Almighty, to say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,” but the best that people seem to be able to manage is to say those words ritually or sing the beautiful song, while actually abiding in the shadow of the government and saying to the Army, “My refuge and my fortress.”
Can it be any other way? Who knows; who has ever tried it?
Jerusalem continues to be the focus of the yearning of God, the conflict of nations and the death of prophets. Part of the problem is set up in the Bible itself, as described in our Old Testament reading (Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18). God says to Abram, “I give you this land.” Well, what about the other people living there? This land is for you and the Palestinians can just get out? That is certainly one strand of tradition in the Bible. Yet there is another tradition in the Bible, which is that God yearns not just for the descendants of Abraham and Sarah but for all the peoples of the earth. That strand of tradition states that all who live in the land of promise have the rights and responsibilities of God’s chosen, including the Palestinians.
Jerusalem focuses the attention of Jews, Christians and Muslims, and the State of Israel and Palestinians. God yearns to take the people of Jerusalem under the shelter of her wings, yet so long as people continue to fight over Jerusalem it does not happen.
The name “Jerusalem” is symbolic in the Bible, as well, symbolic for the whole people of God, not just for those who happen to live in that embattled city. How often would God have wanted to take us under the divine wings and shelter us, while we preferred our own plans and our own means of protection? God’s Church is in a difficult way these days, at least in the prosperous parts of the world, and the electrons flow and the ink is spilled by the experts who know exactly what we need to do. Take a poll to see what people want, market yourselves properly, buy this program, do this stuff on Sunday morning and on and on it goes.
In the midst of all this noise a couple of voices come through to me. I hear the simple words of Evelyn Underhill: “God is the interesting thing.” I have no problem with the advice of experts on marketing and outreach, but they will not save us. I prefer to take our refuge in God through the simple proclamation of the Gospel, celebration of the sacraments and divine worship. The other voice that comes through, of course, is the voice of God as spoken by his Son the prophet Jesus, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
Finally, I don’t for a moment believe that God yearns only for the Jews or for the Church, but that God yearns for the entire creation and for the faithfulness of the entire human race. After all, when God calls out to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” he doesn’t ask if they are Jewish or what Christian Church they belong to. All of us have a hard time taking refuge under the wings of God; we prefer to do things our way. Hard-line Islamists in Gaza use threats and intimidation to force businesses to close that do not conform to their idea of faithfulness and fundamentalist Protestants use the power of government to enforce their view of righteousness in our country. If we can’t invite people to respond to the yearning of God for them, perhaps we can at least force them to behave in the ways we think they should.
Jesus voices the warning that goes along with the refusal to take refuge in God, which is simply, “Your house is left to you.” I studied that for a while – it’s a pretty weird sentence – and I’m convinced it means simply, “I will leave you to your own devices.” God is not going to force himself upon us; if we don’t want to take refuge in him but would rather use the same old tactics that we have used throughout history – and that have made the world the paradise of peace and harmony that it is (for the humor-impaired, that was sarcasm) – then God will let us.
Yet Jesus goes on to Jerusalem, anticipating what awaits him there. When God invites us to take shelter under her wings, will we ever accept? When God cries out, “Where are you?” will we ever come out of hiding?
Give us faith to trust you, Lord God, our mother hen, and to take shelter under your wings, along with all your children. Amen.
Robert A. Keefer
Westminster
Presbyterian Church
Clarinda, Iowa