Second Sunday of Lent
February 24, 2013
What to do when there is no peace
by Marilyn Zehr
Texts: Genesis 15, Luke 13, Philippians 3
We have great scripture texts this week and in some ways I call them great because they stretch me in ways I don’t always like to be stretched.
The texts for this week include passages from Genesis, Philippians and Luke, besides Psalm 27.
In Genesis 15: Abram complains to God that despite God’s promise that he will be the father of many generations he has yet to have a son and that a slave in his household will inherit his land and God’s blessing and promises.
Philippians 3: 17 and following, Paul is in fine form, harshly warning the Philippians about those who mutilate the flesh (early in the chapter), and in the verses we are assigned today, with tears he warns them of the enemies of the cross whose end is destruction, their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. It’s hard to avoid the directness of his concern. He’s not mincing words.
And moving on to Luke: 13
The Pharisees warn Jesus about Herod, knowing that Jesus’ life might be in danger. Jesus response is also direct. He also doesn’t mince words. He calls Herod a fox and says, “Don’t you know that a prophet is not killed outside of Jerusalem? I have work to do – casting out demons and healing. I’ll get to Jerusalem where I already know I will be killed.” And then we hear one of the most plaintive cries of Jesus that we hear in the gospels outside of his words in the garden and on the cross.
“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!”
Plaintive cry after plaintive cry, each of these texts remind us that all is not right with the world.
First, Abram: My God, I don’t have an heir – how will your promises be fulfilled?
Second, Paul: See these enemies of the cross. They should be ashamed of their thoughts and actions and are not.
And finally, Jesus: Oh children of Jerusalem, you participate in the work of the fox by killing the prophets who are sent to you instead of recognizing the safety that you could have if you come to me.
Why do these texts stretch me? They stretch me because I wish they could be softened. And I would love to say peace, peace when in each of these examples the primary speakers, Abram, Paul and Jesus are not experiencing peace. I want to say, “Peace, peace where there is no peace,” to quote a famous passage in Jeremiah. (6:14).
It reminds me of the times when my three sons would get into a fight and I’d say, take it downstairs or outside to settle it. I don’t want to witness the mess as you work it out. In the case of their fights, of course, I wasn’t necessarily trying to impose peace, but I also didn’t want to witness the strife. But as I let these texts work in me this week they wanted me to witness to their strident voices and not to be afraid of the mess. In fact the strident complaint and deep longing expressed in them made it difficult for me to hear the “Peace, peace,” that our Lenten worship resources were trying to promote. As I read the Lenten worship resources I heard them say, “Just wait, trust God, be patient and everything will work out.” And while all of that is ultimately true we shouldn’t go there too quickly. We should not say, “Peace, peace where there is no peace.”
What does it mean to take seriously the voice in each of these texts that cries out into a world that is not all right, that is not at peace? What benefit is there in doing this? I invite us to try it and see.
So let’s pause to hear the longing in these voices and their accurate observation of all that is not right with the world.
Beginning with Abram, what is the gist of his complaint? He and Sari are barren. They are unable to have children in a world where fruitfulness ensures survival of your family, your clan and your name,
and where fruitfulness is viewed even as a command of God. And God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it…” (Genesis 28a) In addition to that Abram has heard more than once by now the assurance of God and promises of God that he will in fact become a father of many nations. The lack of evidence that this will be so, must have caused him to begin to doubt the very goodness and faithfulness of God. In contemporary terms we could say that Abram was in the midst of a deeply personal spiritual crises. The kind of crises that asks, “God, if your promises are real than why are things the way they are?” Beyond complaint, this is a deep and Holy Longing. God, if your promises are real why are things the way they are? Why can’t I participate in your promises of fruitfulness, even as you have commanded me? I suspect that many among us have asked this same question at various times and in varying ways.
Let’s move on to Paul. In Philippians 3 Paul is at his passionate best. At the beginning of the chapter he slams those who promote circumcision as dogs and evil workers who mutilate the flesh. Then he launches into a defense of his own qualifications, “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet, whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ…(Philippians3:2-7) He goes on and as his rhetoric continues to build by the time we get to the verses for today he is at the point of tears for those who are enemies of the cross, “their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.”
What is Paul’s deep and holy longing – this longing that is way beyond complaint? That those who have something to be ashamed about might feel some shame and that his own humiliation, verse 21, because of the message he preached, would be transformed by Christ in the new creation. In case we doubt the source and reason for Paul’s passionate longing, 4:1 reads: “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.”
And now turning to Jesus’ plaintive cry for Jerusalem and her children “who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to it.” It is hard to miss the Holy Longing. It is hard to miss the compassionate longing. “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Jesus’ compassion will soon lead to his death. If we truly hear the depth of this cry it is almost impossible to say, “peace, peace.”
These are the stories in this book that are part of the foundational narrative for our own journey and our own longings. These are the ones in whose light we need to hear our own holy longings – sometimes stridently expressed among us. And if we don’t deliberately find ways to express our holy longings, they will find ways of getting our attention and at the same time the attention of others around us.
For those of you who have been participating in the Adult Ed class right now, Walter Bruegemann reminds us we need the strident poetic voice of the prophet. We need this voice to break through our denial – the denial that wants to send the mess downstairs or outside to resolve itself because we can’t deal with it.
I would like to read a poem from a modern day prophet/poet entitled, “What did you do?” by Drew Dellinger.
It is 3:23 in the morning and I’m awake
because my great great grandchildren, won’t let me sleep.
Because my great great grand children ask me in dreams,
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
What did you do when the earth was unraveling?
Surely you did something when the seasons started failing,
as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying.
Did you fill the streets with protests when democracy was stolen?
What did you do once you knew?
And like the apostle Paul who wants those who should feel shame to feel ashamed, Drew Dillenger’s prophet like poetic voice has the potential to make us feel ashamed. We might feel ashamed and for good reasons as we imagine the questions of our great great grandchildren who wonder what we did or could have done to change the course of our plundered planet. But the experience of shame for sins of commission and omission is not where we can stay. After we have allowed our contemporary prophet poet’s wedge like voice to penetrate any denial we might have about our complicity in the current state of things we need to wonder how to respond. One of the problems with shame in and of itself, even if it is warranted, is that it can be demoralizing and paralyzing. So, how are we freed to move beyond shame?
The narrative reflected in this book has something to say to us about shame and release from shame. Stories like Abram’s crises of faith, Paul’s passionate cry and Jesus’ compassionate longing can help us.
I would like to read another poem because in it another contemporary prophet/poet whose life and musings have marinated in this biblical narrative helps us to see how to cross the bridge between shame and release from shame. He starts where Drew Dillenger starts and then goes farther. This poem is by Wendell Berry.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.
For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry does not gloss over his temptation to despair for his own life and the lives of his children – the things we can all feel implicit in or shame about, but moves quickly to what he does about it. He goes to a place within God’s good creation where his peace is restored, where wood drakes rest and the great heron feeds.
And you can hear within his description of this place, “I come into the presence of still water,” an allusion to Psalm 23, that he knows something of the creator behind the creation.
and with his description
of the day-blind stars waiting with their light
he shows us that at the heart of things
there is waiting
with his “peace of wild things” he reminds us that
there is peace,
and with his “for a time, I rest in the grace of the world,” he reminds us that there is grace.
As a prophet and poet, Wendell Berry can do what the Biblical narrative can do: point to all that is wrong and all that is right – sometimes in the same breath.
And so getting back to the texts for today, Abram’s spiritual crises, Paul’s passionate cry and Jesus’ compassionate longing – this book, our bible, is a real story of longing and of shame and of resisting the wings that long to gather us in, but it doesn’t leave us there. God meets Abram over and over again regularly renewing the covenant; Paul is confident that God transforms shame and humiliation into a new creation, and Jesus does go to Jerusalem and embraces all of humanity with his self-gi
ving love. “For a time we can rest in this grace and be free.”
ving love. “For a time we can rest in this grace and be free.”
So, what to do when there is no peace? Immerse ourselves in the whole story, let it in, let it resonate with every part of our lives. There’s nowhere that we’ve been that this text hasn’t also gone.
There is despair, there is waiting,
There is shame and there is freedom from shame
there is unrest and there is peace
and most of all there is grace.