Sermon for 2nd Sunday in Lent
Courage and Vulnerability
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
Another mass shooting of people at worship, once again by a white supremacist, a person who apparently got his inspiration from white supremacists in Canada and the USA. As our ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton has written, “Hate-filled violence knows no bounds – whether a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, a Christian church in Charleston, a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh and now two mosques in Christ Church, New Zealand.”
I found these reflections from ELCA Pastor Katie Hines-Shah helpful as she related today’s Gospel text to this most recent hateful act:
Pastor Hines-Shah writes - “Any keeper of chickens knows – a fox is a special kind of threat to the flock. The fox does not just kill because he is hungry. A fox kills to wreck havoc, to scatter the flock, leaving behind dead and injured chickens in distain.
“Herod would like to believe that he kills with precision, for the good of the people, Herod would like to believe that the elimination of a few troublemakers, like John the Baptist, like Jesus, will satisfy his fears and the fears of the Romans. But Jesus knows better. Jesus knows that the killing Herod will start will keep on going. That the Romans will not be satisfied with the death of one prophet – or even those that sent him. They will kill and keep on killing, the better to control through fear.
“Jesus rejects such wanton violence and hate.
“It is clear to us in the wake of the Christ Church Mosque shootings that God rejects mass murder. This is obvious even to the most casual of believers. What is more important for us to realize is that these acts of violence do not spontaneously emerge. This is not the act of a madman or even an isolated hate group. This act of violence reflects back on all of us.
“Hate does not come out of a vacuum. Hate speech, often couched as political commentary, and institutionalized discrimination against those who come from primarily Muslim countries, and even jokes that belittle those whose religion differs from our own, these are all acts of sinful violence. They are the acts of foxes. They are dangerous and deadly and do harm to the innocent.
“We who call ourselves Christians must reject acts of hate just as Jesus did. We must reject the hate we experience against our brothers and sisters of the Muslim faith and root it out – even if we find it in our own hearts. Jesus will not give in to terrorism, - he shows us the way. Jesus has work to do – namely the work of the chicken, the mother hen. As do we.”
Those are Pastor Hine-Shah’s reflections that I found resonated so well with my own.
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Yes, Jesus, you and I, we have work to do. Today’s Gospel lesson from St. Luke can help us in this work. This text is about Jesus’ courage in the face of opposition.
Some Pharisees have come to Jesus to warn Jesus, to suggest Jesus disappear because they have heard that Herod is out to get Jesus – Herod wants to kill Jesus. We are not told who these particular Pharisees are or why they have come to warn Jesus. We just know that they tell Jesus to “run for his life,” so to speak. And we also know that Jesus refuses to do this.
Instead, Jesus plans to stay on the “road” he has taken, traveling to Jerusalem to meet his death there. This commitment to embrace Jesus’ dark and difficult destiny for the sake of humanity, for the sake of you and me, this is the very embodiment of courage.
And, Jesus’ courage is a different sort of courage, it is a vulnerable kind of courage. The kind we might associate with a mother’s kind of courage, hence Jesus’ use of the Mother Hen as an image of God.
As a culture we do not often associate vulnerability with courage and strength. We may associate vulnerability with care, love and concern, perhaps, but not often with courage and strength. And, we even, at times, may associate vulnerability with weakness, something to be avoided at all costs – How often have we seen any displays of vulnerability among political candidates, for example? At best, we may recognize the need to be vulnerable to those we care about most deeply. But we do not often see vulnerability as part of a courageous life.
And yet, in this passage, Jesus demonstrates that vulnerability is essential to courage and stands at the core of the Christian life. And, by displaying his vulnerability to us, Jesus invites us to discover the strength that lies in being open to the needs of others.
Think of that image of God as a Mother Hen – it is an image of protection more than vulnerability if there ever was one. And an image of God that Jesus embodies and invites us also to attribute to God – God becomes vulnerable to all of the ups and downs of human life and becomes one with God’s children through God’s son Jesus Christ. Jesus continues on to Jerusalem not to prove himself fearless or a hero, not to make a sacrifice for sin to a judgmental God, not even to combat death and the devil. No, Jesus marches on to Jerusalem and embraces the cross that awaits him there out of profound love for the people around him, just like a mother’s fierce love that will stop at nothing to protect her children.
And, in this march, Jesus calls us also to embrace our vulnerability and to love those around us, to live whole-heartedly, owning our vulnerabilities because we know that God has already given us sufficient resources – including one another – not to simply endure the challenges that are before us but to flourish as we discover that God meets us most reliably in our own places of deepest vulnerability.
This week let’s name our vulnerabilities and weaknesses and remember that God is with us in these places and that God can use our vulnerabilities and weaknesses to connect more deeply with those around us, just as Jesus did for us all as he followed the road to Jerusalem and the cross.
Courage. Vulnerability. Perseverance. Love. Jesus’ road. God’s call to us. And, as the events of this past week show us once again, we all have work to do to combat hate in this world.
Today is also St. Patrick’s Day. One of my favorite prayers is called “St. Patrick’s breastplate” (as in armor). It is too long to repeat here in full, but I do love its closing words. As we are called to do the hard work of rooting out hate in ourselves and others, they are hopeful words. In the hard work of combating hate, Christ will be with us.
From St. Patrick’s breastplate prayer:
“Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”
Amen.
(With thanks to the Rev. Dr. David Lose).
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sunday, March 16-17, 2019
