2 Lent : Love Answered

The Ven Richard I Cluett
March 4, 2007
Genesis 15:1-12,17-18 + Philippians 3:17-4:1 + Luke 13:31-35

One of the great gifts of time that I have received was a three-week visit in Israel and Palestine. I had the pleasure of traveling with Dean Lane on a fact-finding mission given to us by Bishop Paul. It was my first visit there. For Dean Lane, Jerusalem is almost like a second home, he has been there so many times. Bishop Paul wanted a report on the condition of the Christian church there. How was it doing in these dark days?

And so we went. While there we spent an entire day on the Mount of Olives. For me, one of the most moving places was on the western slope where there is a small chapel named Dominus Flevit, which is Latin for “The Lord Wept”. It is the place where Jesus wept over Jerusalem.

When you face the altar you look through a window, out over the Kidron Valley to the city of Jerusalem – both old and new. I have a photograph in my office that I took looking through that window.

On the front of the altar is a hen with her chicks, and the inscription, “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!”

One cannot stand or kneel there without being moved in the depths of heart, soul, mind and body by the power of God’s love for his people. Moved by the extent God would go to reconcile with his creation.

One other thing you need to know about that scene is that the hen pictured on the altar is not some sweet old biddy of a mother hen. Instead it is a rendition of the fiercest kind of mother love. One that says, “Do not dare to hurt even one of these my beloved.” Perhaps you have experienced a mother hen or a mother of another kind who is in full-blown “protection-of-her-young” mode. “Do not dare to threaten…”

And even so, the city rejected him and the love offered of God. And Jesus weeps for Jerusalem and for all who were not then, and are not today, willing to be gathered into God’s love. And one can do no other than to weep with him.

It must also be noted that he not only wept over Jerusalem, he went to the cross for Jerusalem. Could one do that with him?

That is the kind of love that would enfold us. That is the kind of protection being offered us.

Every parent knows what it is to love a child whom finally you can no longer protect. All you can do from time to time is to open your arms wide when needed. The arms of love spread wide. A stance of love, of welcome, of offering; and a stance of vulnerability with body exposed.

One morning collect reads, Lord Jesus Christ you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace…

This is the nature of the God who seeks us because he loves us and seeks an answering love in return.

Another image of this God who loves us is found in the poem The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson. It begins and ends with this:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat - and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet -
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!

What is it that makes us turn and run? Why is it we hesitate to fully commit ourselves in heart, body, mind and spirit to this God who craves a relationship with us?

Even Abram found it difficult to trust, to commit to a new relationship with God. We heard it in the first lesson this morning. He finds all kinds of problems with what he perceives as the lack of God’s ability to follow through, to keep his side of the covenant. He complains, he whines. He is scared. He is without child. He is without a home. God has provided none of what he wants, and he is ready to walk away, when God engages him one more time.

I don’t know what it is with us. Maybe it is an unwillingness to give up the illusion of control over our lives. Maybe it is a fear of disappointment. I don’t know.

I do know that I have never been able to walk straight and continually in a God-ward direction. I know that in this Lent I will not be able to walk straight toward the cross, I have never been able to do that. Jesus did, but I can’t. And that’s all right. All that is being asked is my willingness to try. All that is being sought is my desire to know and be known, to trust and be trusted, to love and be loved.

We were reminded this week in a NY Times op-ed piece that “God writes straight with crooked lines,” I take comfort in that.

And I also know that any time we are ready to turn to those open arms they will be there to receive us. Jesus has shown us that in his life and death and resurrection.

That morning collect in its entirety reads, Lord Jesus Christ you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace; so clothe us in your spirit that we reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your name.

So, along with our own turning to God, we have some Lenten work to do on behalf of others as well, don’t we? Amen.