Luke 13:31-35
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to [Jesus,] “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem. 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! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
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This past Friday evening, I had the opportunity to take Sam with me to hear my brother-in-law sing the Evangelist role in J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion.
Following the performance, my sister remarked to me, “I forgot just how many words there were!” Meaning that, in John’s gospel, the story of Jesus’s arrest, trial, and crucifixion is filled with speaking more than it is filled with action. The bulk of the story is an extended conversation between Jesus and Pilate, plus inquiries and interjections by the crowd.
I’ll admit that for all of the times I’ve read John’s passion, I haven’t ever considered just how significant the role of the crowd really is, because they only speak in single sentences or short phrases. But hearing those single sentences and short phrases sung as distinct musical events, I was struck by the crowd’s blatant, pervasive, and brutal public rejection of Jesus in the story. Pilate invokes their opinion repeatedly, and finds himself weak to their demands. The crowds are at once callous and vehement in their betrayal of Jesus.
I started thinking about how it is not just the story of Jesus’s last days that is filled to the brim with betrayals and rejections. His whole life is a narrative of rejection. It is startling and devastating.
In the words of Isaiah 53, “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity...he was despised, and we held him of no account.”
This theme of rejection has run strong in our readings from Luke so far this liturgical year.
Back in December, during Advent, we listened to Mary respond with joy over the child she is to bear, singing her Magnificat, praising God for flipping the world order upside-down. But you know as well as I do that the world-as-it-is does not want to be turned upside-down. So even here, before Jesus is born, we get the sense that his life and his kingdom are going to be met with resistance, opposition, and rejection.
In Epiphany, we heard Jesus declare his intentions to serve those who are poor, oppressed, suffering, and outcast; news that was met with such anger and rejection that Jesus almost found himself thrown off a cliff.
Back on level ground, Jesus has preached blessings upon those who have nothing and has spoken caution to those who have everything; he has preached love for enemies, he has healed, even on the Sabbath, he has raise people to new life. He has gathered disciples, even as he has been also met with opposition by those who have wealth or power. He and his message have been rejected by the empire and by the religious elites.
Now, in today’s gospel, Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. In Luke’s gospel, Jerusalem is not just a place, but is a grand symbol for Jesus of conflict, betrayal, suffering, and ultimately death.
Here on the road, some religious leaders meet up with Jesus and try to shoo him away from the city. But Jesus stands firm. He knows his mission. He knows his fate. He knows that he will not be dissuaded from his journey, even to the place where he will meet his end.
Then, in a reflective moment, pondering all the weight of the conflict and rejection that await him in Jerusalem, Jesus shifts his tone from one of defiance to one of lament.
“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing,” Jesus says, pouring out his heart.
You were not willing.
It isn’t an accusation. It’s not a judgement. It is a lament.
Jesus, for one moment, grieves the way that his mission and his very self have been met with resistance. Everything he holds dear, everything he offers that would restore goodness and beauty to the world - all met with scorn.
How often Jesus has longed to gather God’s people together, only to know the pain of rebuff.
How often Jesus has reached out to the world with love, only to know the pain of love unrequited.
How often Jesus has made offerings of compassion, only to know the pain of his gift rejected.
Certainly I can find myself among the scornful, those times when I resist Jesus’s call to forgiveness or generosity, when I back away from speaking for justice and advocating for my neighbors. I can weep at the truth of the hymn, “Ah, Holy Jesus,” when I sing,
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee!
'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee;
I crucified thee.
But even as today’s text invites us to consider the ways that we have not been willing, that is not the only invitation of our gospel. Today’s text also invites us to consider our own deep experiences of rejection, the times that we also have offered ourselves to the world and have been scorned or turned down.
We know this pain, dear ones, don’t we?
How often we have reached out to this world, to our families, to loved ones, to friends in need, to any of those to whom our hearts are devoted, only to have our advances met with scorn or silence.
How often we have put ourselves out there, in love and in vulnerability, in grace and in trust, only to have our offerings met with lukewarm response, or ridicule, or exclusion, or neglect.
How often we have sought affection and companionship, healthy love from those who should love us, only to find ourselves alone or empty.
Jesus knows our pain.
I find it beautiful and heartbreaking that Jesus is able to meet us in all of our spaces of rejection. Jesus, who despite the deepest desires of his heart, lived a life of ceaseless rejection, rejection that cost him his very life.
Jesus weeps over and holds with tenderness even the worst narratives of rejection that lead to tragic death, whether the fresh grief of our Muslim siblings, mourning the senseless massacre of their beloveds in New Zealand, or the unknowable grief of our young people who have been bulled and rejected to the point of violence or self-violence or suicide.
Here on the road to Jerusalem, even before the cross, Jesus shows us his heart. A heart that does not wait to prove his love for us until death, but a heart that has been longing, since day one, for reconciliation and a world renewed. Jesus laments rejection and grieves with those who have been cast out.
When we are hurt and rejected and vulnerable, Jesus (who knows rejection and vulnerability) still freely offers us the love and acceptance that we may or may not receive from others; still freely offers us the love and acceptance that it might be impossible or inappropriate to seek from others around us.
Jesus, our mother hen, still longs to gather us under his wings. Jesus still longs to gather together love and mercy and salvation and justice for us and for our world; to be in relationship with us and with the world, in this life and not just in the life to come.
And so the grace of God, in all of our grief and rejection is that Jesus doesn’t give up on us. He hasn’t yet quit trying to gather us under his wings. He has not stopped and will not stop reaching out to us in love.
Jesus’s resurrection is a resurrection of a love that would not die. Jesus’s desire to gather and protect and embrace us, Jesus’s desire to turn this world into his peaceable kingdom, is so strong that even rejection and death cannot stop him pursuing it.
We have been gathered, my friends. Jesus holds us and comforts us, even in our own rejections.
But more than that, Jesus gives us wings to embrace the world, too, to gather others, to make a safe space for all who are lost and excluded.
One parting story for you:
A news story surfaced this week about an agricultural school in northeast France, where a group of chickens in a henhouse is suspected of killing a fox that tried to sneak into their coop:
“The fox is thought to have entered the henhouse…at dusk last week and become trapped inside by light-controlled automatic hatch doors that close when the sun goes down…[Students at the school] discovered the fox’s body the following morning when making their rounds to check on the chickens….[The head of farming at the school described the actions of the chickens as a] ‘herd instinct.’
Jesus gathers us, and also, Jesus trains us to gather and protect one another. Jesus inspires in us a “herd instinct” for the sake of one another.
With the wings of Jesus wrapped around us, and with our own wings extended to cover each other, we can be certain that no rejection will ever be the final word on our worth, and no Herod or no fox will ever have the final say over us.
Jesus, our rejected and resurrected mother hen, promises to cover us with mercy. Here, we will - together - huddle up to love this world back into order until his roost is again safe and secure, a place of rest, and a place of peace, for all people.