Mothering Care for Our World

2  Lent C      March 13, 2022      
Gen.15:1-12,17-18   Ps. 27
Phil.3:17-4:1   Luke 13:22-35 

Lectionary Link

Let's begin with a lesson about words and language.  Words are abbreviations for entire experiences, so words are very reductive.  They're symbolic.  They are exaggerations.  Let me illustrate.  Long after Jesus had been a prophet killed in the city of Jerusalem, the writer of the Gospel of Luke who knew that Jerusalem had been destroyed, presented Jesus mourning over the city of Jerusalem.  "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets..."  I don't think that the tourist bureau of Jerusalem has that on their welcome sign as a motto of their city, though they certainly want people to come and visit sites of tragic killings.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets....that cannot be literally true.  Why?  Jerusalem is the name of a geographical location, and locations cannot kill because they are not people.  But you say, by Jerusalem, the words of Jesus don't mean the location, Jerusalem refer to the people of that location.  But that is not literally true either.  Not all of the people of Jerusalem killed prophets.  And in fact, not that many prophets actually died in Jerusalem in its history.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, one cannot find the record of many prophets who were actually killed in Jerusalem.  Yes, the prophets often incurred the wrath of kings of Israel and Judah who did not like their rebuking words, but to say that the main thing about Jerusalem is that it has always been a place with people who killed prophets is not literally true.

The Jerusalem which killed Jesus was the Jerusalem controlled by Roman authorities who got involved in the dispute between warring groups in Judaism because there were insurrection passions involved when Jesus or anyone was referred to as rival to Caesar and his puppet King Herod.

The Greek word for city is "polis" from which we get political.  Jerusalem is like any city, which has politics which can lead to good and righteous people getting killed when they speak the truth to power.

We could say today that when any invasion has occurred and innocent people are killed, "that a city of people with political motives of power and greed, kill the prophets and the innocent."  I think that these words about Jerusalem could be said throughout history of almost any nation or country when power and greed in people resulted in the innocent deaths of good prophets, innocent people, subjugated people, and children.  One might hear today, "Moscow, Moscow, the city that kills the innocent people far beyond its border in the nation of Ukraine," even though we know that is not literally true for all people in Russia.

The words of Jesus almost sound helpless in face of the freedom that people of power and greed have to try to kill innocent and good people of this world, especially those who are brave enough to speak truth to power on behalf of those who are treated the worst.

Mother Julian of Norwich wrote about Jesus as being a mother, and this image was inspired by Jesus wishing to be like a mother hen for Jerusalem gathering all the vulnerable under her wing.  Jesus came to teach this world that God is like a devoted mothering presence for us to embrace us and unite us and protect us as one human family of faith, as heirs of the promise to Abraham to be people of faith. 

But over and over again, we refuse the mothering of God to unite us, and the politics of greed, power, and even religion, all become complicit in killing prophets and innocent people.  Even now, the Russian Orthodox Church, a church which gave us the lovely icons, veneration to Blessed Mary, contradicts the mothering of God and their church leaders are blessing the invaders and the killing spree.  We too, know that religion in our country has often blessed wars that surely have not fit the requirement of being just actions to defend the innocent.

The words of Jesus about Jerusalem, are words of the heart ache cry of Jesus wishing that that human beings could be convinced of the mothering care of God and live this kind of care with each other.

St. Paul lived as a Jew and as a Roman citizen, but after the end of the Jewish homeland and the destruction of Jerusalem, he believed that the way to survive the politics of his time was to carry the passport as a citizen of heaven, a parallel realm of God.  The early churches were comprised of diaspora Jews, not so tied to their homeland.  Also ritual non-adhering Jews, and Gentiles made up the church as a group of people who for very practical reason came to accept heavenly citizenship, rather than be tied to the Holy Land of Israel.  Paul tried to live as a Jew and Roman citizen and as a heavenly citizen, and Rome became the city that killed Peter and Paul and made many others martyrs.  So, it could be said "Rome, Rome, the city that kills the prophets..."

You and I cannot escape the same dilemma of living as citizens of heaven, within the very messy politics of our time and place.  We need wisdom to know how to live in the cities where it remains that people of power and greed, find a way to persecute or kill out of significance the prophetic messengers of truth.

In the midst of a messy world, we must live from our heavenly citizenship of faith, and we must proclaim the values of Jesus Christ, to be the mothering presence of God's love and care protecting the vulnerable people of our world. Amen.