Sermons

March 4, 2007

Rev. Scott Swanson

Second Sunday of Lent - Luke 13: 31-35

Lent. A time for thinking about wilderness wanderings. We have all known our own wilderness times. This past week our community has grieved with our brother Ken for the loss of our dear Barbara.

When I think of those in this community who in the last year or so have wandered in the wilderness as a mother died, and another mother, and a father, and a husband, and a sister, and a daughter. Another mother who is dying, and a brother lying in hospital, and depression spiraling out of control. And loss upon loss upon loss. Wildernesses on all sides.

To be in this type of wilderness, when you think that God is nowhere near, is the most "alone" type of aloneness to be found. When you think that God doesn't know your name, then God's silence is deafening. When your desire for control of your own life drives you into a wilderness place that keeps you from falling to your knees, then exhaustion from constantly wandering comes. Your heart develops this strange void that nothing can fill.

I don't know about you, but there are ways in my life in which it's as though I almost refuse to grow up. I'm 38 years old and there's still a lot of days when I just want my mommy.

Our longing, as individuals and as congregation, for someone to take care of us. Most of us, if we admit it, have at least a little deep down longing for some person or institution to be the expert fixer upper, the grown-up who will step in, know the right thing to do, and do it, all the while making sure that we are okay. Gather us under their wings, keep us safe, make things okay. Pick us up from the sidewalk, take our skinned knee seriously, kiss away our tears, and punish the big kid who pushed us down in the first place. While we eat a popsicle on mommy's lap and watch.

And so we all hope someone else will sort it out: someone will step up to chair the board, or spend time with the children in the Children's worship time downstairs, or phone the person we haven't seen in church for 6 months to find out where they are. And sometimes someone else does sort it out, and sometimes no one does. And we all lament how things aren't the way they used to be.

"Sooner or later, we all wander in the desert. Sometimes it's the one we travel in, and sometimes it's the one we make. When we're in the wilderness it can be really hard to believe that God is out there and that God cares about us. And I think about Abram and Sarai - an old couple, 90 years old or so - and still waiting for God to come through on his promise of a home and a family. And then I think about the image that Jesus gave us, "How I have longed to gather you in as a mother bird collects her babies under her wings."

In a great sermon by Barbara Brown Taylor, says "If you ever love someone you could not protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus' lament. All you can do is open your arms. You cannot make anyone walk into them. Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world - wings spread, breast exposed -- but if you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.

Jesus laments for Jerusalem, but in the end he can't save her. He can't even save himself. Herod will do what Herod will do.

My friends, God longs for us. Like a mother hen Christ seeks us out to gather us in to protect us from the foxes and cold and snow and rain and what ever else out there that seeks to claim us. But faith in God may sometimes be really, really hard to grasp at all, let alone a hang onto.

But the truth is - the Good News is that always and no matter what, God longs to gather us up and hold us close and safe from any and every wilderness and desert in the world: those we travel in and even those we make.

For my 3rd reading I will be using a poem that Timothy Haut wrote for World communion sunday last fall...

Thank you Tim!

Sursum corda.
We lift up our hearts
We lift them up to the Lord:
the empty vessels, the cup of our lives, the barren wombs of
our primal longing, waiting for something to be planted, to
grow, to be born in us.
We lift them up,
these hands, helpless and beseeching,
held up to the silent sky,
our tremulous fingers, reaching
to hold, to behold, to be held, to be healed.
We lift them up,
these hearts, hoping
for the bright, terrifying moment
when they will spring to life
as at the beginning of all things.
We lift them up
asking for our emptiness to be filled,
full as a feast,
full as the bread is full of earth and life, full as the wine is full
of sun and rain, full of holy waiting for you to come here, in
the light of this morning, in this family of your name, in the
love which hallows all creation.
We lift up our hearts.
Sursum corda.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Amen.

Come Lord Jesus. Come and gather us in. Come. Amen.

For more information or to comment on this sermon, please email Rev. Scott Swanson.