Brooding

Sermon by Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist
Second Sunday in Lent

Genesis 1:1-3

Luke 13:31-35  

“No bird sang in the sky,” when Christ, the author and the giver of life, through whom all things were created—including you, including me—finally falls victim to Herod. That cruel ‘fox,’ as Jesus calls him in our Gospel reading from Luke. When Jesus finally falls victim to the Roman Empire with which Herod has colluded all his life, and to which the healing and liberating and life-giving non-violent Christ has been such a terrifying threat.

No bird sang in the sky, perhaps because in that moment of his death the earth returns to the formlessness of its early origin. Devoid of the life that gives it meaning. And the waters of chaos reign once more. And darkness re-covers the face of the deep. And just for a moment the violence of that chaos has won . . .

So instead of singing, the birds start cawing, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem. City of peace. Why do you keep doing this to your prophets?’

It has become an article of faith, in the two thousand years since the tragic death of Jesus on this cruel instrument of Roman torture and terror, to say it is the will of God for this particular child of God to die in this particular way. It has become an article of faith to say, in fact, that God intends the cruel torture of the cross because we are all such awful people, and we all deserve such an awful punishment.

My favorite way of phrasing this common understanding of the cross is to say. “We all deserve a big old whooping, but Jesus took the whooping for us.”

It’s what we think, isn’t it? It is what we have been taught to think. That our sins are so bad they require a violent act from a violent God to satisfy God’s violent rage.

But what if it isn’t true?

What if it just is not true?

What if this violent rage of a violent God exacting a violent vengeance is an understanding of the cross that has its roots in the eleventh century and not in the time of Jesus?

What if, as our Luke text suggest, God sent Jesus to Jerusalem not to die for us but to live for us. Like a mother hen gathering her beloved chicks back into the brood.

What if the whole point of Jesus is to give physical form to the ‘mother hen’ Spirit of God that swooped over the chaotic waters of Genesis when God was beginning to create the earth? That brooded over the chaos. And calmed it. And incubated it. And gave the chaos a generating darkness so that God could speak light into it. And so the darkness of violent death could not ever overcome it.

What if the whole point of Jesus is to show the children of God a way to waddle—without fear—right back home to God’s nest. Nestled beneath God’s wings. Resting along the cool calm waters of our baptism. With room enough for us all. Even those other “chicks” we’d really rather not have as siblings. But whom are still God’s beautiful, precious, pleasing children.

Whom God loves with all her soul.

It is, after all, the ‘mother hen’ Jesus who swoops across the countryside from one chaotic village to the next. Casting out demons and performing cures. Today, tomorrow, and the next day. Until the work is finished.

Now the language of ‘demons’ in this story may sound strange or even scary to us, but for the first century follower of Jesus it just means any kind of internal or external force of feeling or disease or social condition that rips through our bodies and spirits beyond our ability to control it with our cognition. It means something like the violent rage that can well up within any of us without warning when we feel threatened. Or the terror that gets triggered in a time of post-traumatic stress. Or the mental illness that overpowers us even when we try so hard to tamp it down. Or the racism or sexism or homophobia that ripples through our common life even when we think  we have already overcome. 

And these demons can come to define us, can they not? We can forget who we really are. Trading the font of identity for the waters of chaos. But Jesus does not. He knows our demons are more like a fox in the henhouse when the madness takes over. He knows the true font of our identity is formed by the hovering, brooding, life-giving ‘mother hen’ Spirit of God. Not the chaos. And he wants to heal us. And restore us. His brood of beloved children. Not condemn us. And so he does. With the love of a God who created us good. And in us is incredibly pleased.

It is part of our denomination-wide Lenten Journey of Peace Discernment on this Second Sunday in Lent to consider why we in the church keep on clinging to violence—even in our most treasured teachings of the tradition about the cross—when the clear witness of Jesus and the early church lead us on the path of nonviolent love instead.

And as far as I can tell, our ‘brooding’ over our love of violence must begin with this fundamental question: can we who are human fully receive the unqualified, unquenchable, unconditional, universal, ‘mother hen’ steadfast love of God deep in our soul. Literally ‘bred’ into the fabric of creation. Calling us home to an all-affirming shalom. Through the waters of our baptism. Calming the chaos?

Can we really believe God just wants to love us? And love one another? Not because of something we do. Or don’t do. But just because God loves God’s children!

Or must we instead keep insisting on our inherent sinfulness. And your inherent sinfulness. And their inherent sinfulness. Whoever “they” may be. Worthy only of a great big whooping. And thereby attacking one another over and over and over again in a constant pecking order based on that sinfulness that lands us right back where we started in the beginning. With the earth as a desert wasteland. And the waters of chaos raging. And no bird singing. Because we keep on killing the beloved children of God.

The truth is that Jesus really does show us a different way. Right here in Luke’s gospel. When the fear of Herod really could stop him in his tracks, he says no, I am still God’s beloved child and God is still very pleased with me. And I am healing the demons that rage in our midst through the steadfast love of God. And I could flee this threat, or I could fight this threat, but instead I will love this threat and lament this threat with the clucking of a mother hen. Who keeps on calling the chicks home to a loving all-affirming shalom through the waters of our baptism.

The choice Jesus makes—to love and lament the threat, instead of fighting or fleeing it—is the one available to us all in our Lenten Journey discerning God’s peace. It is literally “bred” into the fabric of creation, according to Genesis, through that hovering, swooping, brooding Spirit of God that comes upon the waters of chaos and finds a way to calm them. Slowly. Steadily. Patiently. With care.

Yes, the threats of chaos will always come to us. In ways large and small. From within our own families and from around the globe. And even—dare I say—from within our very selves. And the demons get stoked and the chaos starts to swirl and the font of our identity starts to fade. But the brooding ‘mother hen’ love of God remains. Present with us from the dawn of time. And we get to return to the shadow of its wings if we want to. And I think we really want to.

“In what ways does the church today practice—or fail to practice—Jesus’ message of nonviolence?’ the Peace Discernment question asks of us. What legacy might we reclaim in our 21^st century context?

Many of you met Janie Spahr when she stood trial here one year ago for her ministry of blessing the marriages of same-gender loving couples as a Presbyterian minister. Nowhere in the church have I seen the brooding ‘mother hen’ love of God, in the face of violent threat, more actively proclaimed in word and in deed than through Janie’s ministry, and others who follow in her footsteps.

For decades Janie has served on the front lines of the movement for lgbt equality in church and society, healing and casting out demons of hatred and despair. And for decades the great ‘foxes’ of Herods have threatened her way. And the Pharisees in their fear encouraged her to flee the wrath, urging her not to “divide the church” with her ministry.

But she never gave in. She didn’t flee, but she also didn’t fight back. At least not on their terms.

Instead she has stood firm in her identity as the Beloved Child of God, saying simply, “I am healing in God’s name. And so should you. I am gathering all of God’s beloved children into the brood. And so should you. I am blessed to come in the name of the life-giving Spirit of God. And you can be, too!”

It has taken a long time. It has taken too long. And we sometimes feel we still have too long to go. But because of the nonviolent ‘mother hen’ Jesus love of Janie—and so many like her throughout the centuries in the civil rights movement and the women’s movement and all the peace and justice movements of the tradition—we are closer to living as the beloved community of God’s children than we ever have been before.

This, my friends, is what the Jesus ministry looks like.

The brooding, ‘mother hen,’ beloved community. Facing our own demons. Loving onward and upward. Changing hearts and minds and spirits along the path. Even in the face of fox that threatens the way.

And it is what we mean at Madison Square when we say, “welcome home.” You beautiful, beloved, fabulous brood.

May every one of you live in peace.

Amen.