Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35 or Luke 9:28-36
Don’t you hate it when you get left out… I was a lazy kid; never was very good at - or interested in sport (I was one of those kids who played the piano) - I was always the last to be picked for the soccer team.
My favourite days at school were the days when I got to pick the team (or one of my other - less active friends)… We had an unwritten agreement to always choose our friends first - the other guys who weren’t that good at sport.
If it was cricket, soccer, or swimming - we would inevitably lose the competition of the day - but we’d tell our mothers when we got home - “I was one of the first to be picked for the team today!”
It was good to feel included.
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The
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In the older reading (from Genesis 15) God makes a promise to Abraham: “look at the sky and try to count the stars; you will have as many descendants as that.”
God’s promise to Abraham is linked to events which immediately precede it:
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Abraham hears that his nephew, Lot, living in Sodom has been captured by a marauding army… he gathers 318 of his own trained men, pursues this army and recaptures his nephew, all his nephew’s goods, all the stuff that the army stole from Sodom - their women, and the people and returns them to their home town Sodom.
When the King of Sodom offers to repay Abraham for his troubles (probably a considerable amount - because
Abraham refuses to take anything because of a vow he has made to God: He had promised not to take anything so that no-one could say “I have made Abraham Rich.”
Abraham’s life was to bear testimony to the fact that God would look after him.
His purpose was to point people to God’s faithfulness, so that they could know what Yahweh was really like, people of all nations were to be included in this revelation.
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“After these things” as the scripture puts it - God reiterates his promise to Abraham… you will have as many descendents as there are stars in the sky…
And these descendents become the nation of
The laws of the land, the ways that they were supposed to treat even foreigners and slaves were designed so that the community of
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The story of the history of
Fixated sometimes on getting rich at other’s expense. Sometimes on worshipping God’s other than the God of Abraham… hoping at one stage that by worshipping a God called Baal they would get better crops…
The nation that was the object of God’s dreams - became a great disappointment.
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As if, to illustrate the frailty of human beings the lens sweeps across centuries / millennia. And some 2000 years later, in the gospel reading for today, Jesus is teaching, preaching, healing and making his way to
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Two thousand years is a long time. The dream about which God spoke to Abraham is an old dream -
The nation which they were going to be has seen better days - they’ve moved into the land which God promised them, yet they speak fondly of days gone by when Solomon and David reigned; when they were a powerful nation, enjoying plenty!
They are now ruled by Herod, a client King - who rules on behalf of Caesar.
They’re a conquered people and their land is being taken away, piece by piece, because of the heavy taxations which their new rulers impose on them; their people are without hope.
In fact, by the time Luke, the gospel writer, puts pen to paper and writes the gospel which we are now reading, the temple, the last symbol of the nation’s former glory - and God’s providence - will have been destroyed.
The nation of
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God’s dream of hope for the people - which God shared with Abraham has been destroyed… it feels to them as if God has cursed them! They feel like they have been left out.
Yet the honest truth is that they, like us, simply have not been obedient, and their disobedience has led to their ruin.
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In the gospel reading for today Jesus sings the blues about the dreams that He and the Father had for
One of the commentaries I read calls it: “The Lament of the Rejected Lover.”
The picture which Jesus paints is simple - God is like a hen, trying to protect her chicks from danger. She stretches out her wings and runs around, making a noise, trying to gather them…
Desperate, but losing the battle.
Heartbroken she watches her chickens getting eaten up, one by one, by foxes…
“How many times have I wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me!” (GNT) He cries out.
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We are a lot like the chicks which the mother hen tries to gather up to safety - we keep escaping; going off on our own journeys…
We - like the people of
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Sometimes we make mistakes of blatant disobedience.
I can think of many times when I have gone directly against what God was leading me to do - and I have ended up getting hurt, or messing something up.
I don’t think I’m the only one whose done this.
We’re so thick headed that we go along our own paths - thinking that God’s just being a party pooper and not letting us have any fun… Meanwhile God is like the mother hen and all she’s doing is trying to protect her young from getting hurt...
“How many times have I tried to gather you under my wings…”
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Sometimes we make sincere mistakes…
The Pharisees were often upset with Jesus. On several occasions he got into trouble with them for healing people on the Sabbath - not because they didn’t like Jesus - but because the Pharisees thought they were properly enforcing God’s law.
Jesus corrects them - “The Sabbath is made for people, not people for the Sabbath.”
Even some of the instigators of the crucifixion of Jesus probably had the best intentions - they actually thought they were being obedient to God...
After all Jesus message was radical and it sounded ridiculous and blasphemous. He threatened to destroy the temple. He associated freely with people who were known to be sinners. He called himself the Son of God…
Most of us would probably have agreed that he had to go.
…the desperate picture - a hen trying in vain to gather her chicks to safety…
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And that is the story of
That’s the story of Jesus ministry - trying to gather his people to safety - but we’re disobedient and we end up getting hurt.
And that continues to be the story of us today… the church. We do stupid things. We say things that are hurtful - hateful sometimes, we destroy the world around us…
And God continues to reach out.
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The Bible speaks of a dream which God shared with a man called Abraham about 4000 years ago. A dream about a nation of people that would show the world what God was like…
2000 years ago God sent his son to show the world what God was like…
2000 years later - and here we are, a new nation - called by God to live in a way that lets people know that God loves them - even in spite of their mistakes.
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The God we worship is not an exclusive God. We however are disobedient people who constantly run around hurting ourselves and each other - doing the things which God has called us not to do and not doing the things which God calls us to do.
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During the season of Lent we look forward to and prepare ourselves for Easter - the resurrection of Jesus…
The sign that even our most radical disobedience - although it causes great harm - will never be able to overcome the love that God has for us.
And God continues to reach out to God’s people - gathering them into safety…
It is up to us to respond to that invitation -
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