Sermon for March 17, 2019 - The Second Sunday in Lent - The Rev'd Elise A Feyerherm
Genesis 15:1-12,17-18 – Psalm 27 – Philippians 3:17-4:1 – Luke 13:31-35
We are now a week and a half into our Lenten journey through the wilderness. Eleven days into whatever Lenten discipline we’ve taken on. Each day presents us with a choice – do I keep going with this discipline, or do I let it go? Each choice is a step we take, enabled by grace, in the journey toward God, the journey toward love.
Even before we take each step, I think there is a prior choice – and that is, what voice in my head will I listen to? What voice will I trust to lead me in the right direction? Which voice is most faithful to the voice of God? Which voice will carry me, in trials and tribulations, through the wilderness? Lent is not the only time we ask these questions, but it is the season where discernment is ramped up, focused more intently on our own hearts and their tendency to wander, to listen to voices that are not God’s.
And those other voices are many, vying for our attention at every turn. We are not the only ones to hear them – the gospel reading for this morning makes it clear that Jesus heard them, too. Last Sunday it was the voice of the Adversary, the Tempter, promising sustenance and authority and invulnerability in exchange for turning away from God. This Sunday we are much farther into Jesus’ mission; he has been healing and teaching and creating beloved community for quite a while, and now he is heading toward Jerusalem. But his need for discernment hasn’t ended – at every turn Jesus must still sort through the voices around him.
His mission is clear – to fulfill what the prophet Isaiah announced: “[to] bring good news to the poor… proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[1] There continue, however, to be other voices around him that threaten to undermine his mission and his commitment to it. In this story of King Herod trying to kill him, and Jesus’ fellow Jews the Pharisees warning him of the danger, we find a fascinating triangle of voices – the voice of rebellion, the voice of fear, and of course the voice of faith. I think it is a triangle that exists in each and every one of us, myself included. Inside of us exists the voice of Herod, the voice of Jesus’ colleagues the Pharisees, and the voice of Jesus himself.
Herod bellows loudly in each of us; it is the part of us that is deeply threatened by the claim that God has on our lives. This is the part of us that is content with the status quo, concerned with holding on to our own power and security, just as Herod was. It is the part of us that would like to put an end to the work God is doing in us – end it right now. I have Herod within me, and I imagine that you do, too.
Within us as well is the voice that is just too afraid, that would like to see God do something great with us but the risk is just too great. “Herod is trying to kill you,” it says. This is going to be too hard – God wants too much!
In Luke’s story, this is the voice of the Pharisees, warning Jesus to escape before Herod catches him. They are sympathetic with what Jesus is doing – they understand Jesus’ passion for bringing the Torah to the people and bringing the Jewish faith alive in everyday life. But Herod is a terrifying and forceful figure – capable of violence and destruction in order to preserve his own power. It’s not surprising that some Pharisees would warn Jesus that Herod wanted to kill him – they’re the group within first-century Judaism with which Jesus had the most in common. He was, in a certain sense, one of them, and they didn’t want to see him crushed under Herod’s tyranny.
They, too, represent a part of each of us – that part of us that catches a glimpse of what God might accomplish in us, but is unable to face the danger that comes with it. When God calls us and we’re not sure that’s where we want to be, there is that voice that shouts out a warning – be careful! Perhaps it even shouts, run away, as fast as you can! This voice isn’t always wrong – it may even have a great deal of wisdom to share. It alerts us to danger that may be very real – loss of income, or security, or the scorn of a world that seeks only its own interests and cannot comprehend someone who seeks to serve.
But that voice of fear, as useful as it can be, has always to be contained by a deeper voice – the voice of our true self, created in the image of God and loved into a unique calling to help heal the world. This is the part of us that is attuned to God’s presence, that already knows in some deep way what it is we are called to do and where we are called to be, even when it is hard. It is the self that takes joy in the work God has given us, that is ready to cast out demons and heal the sick in whatever way we are able.
This self is strong if we allow it to be. It is also tender, vulnerable because of the voice of our fear. What gives me hope in the midst of very real threats in our world, is that I have seen the power of the voice which as Christians we hear in Jesus. It is the voice that that hears Herod’s threats and won’t back down, but rather responds calmly and faithfully in the face of danger, knowing that love is stronger than death, and as fierce as the grave.
This past week alone, the voice has rung loud and clear. I heard this voice as pastors and congregations in the United Methodist church declared their sacred disobedience against a church resolution that bars LGBTQ persons from being ordained or married in the church. Their response to threats of discipline and schism – we will not flee, and we will hold fast to love.
I heard this voice in the Episcopal Church, as our bishops stood in solidarity with same-gender spouses, insisting that they have the same right as other bishops’ spouses to be included at the next Lambeth Conference next year. Their voice is firm and courageous, but refusing to accept the violence of the status quo, writing that: “We intend to build relationships and missional partnerships that will be inclusive vehicles for building communion across the Anglican world in all its beautiful diversity.”[2]
But perhaps the most powerful echo of the voice of the God we know in Jesus came this past week in the voice of a worshiper at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, as he met at the door the gunman bent on killing him and as many of his fellow Muslims as possible. “Hello, brother,” he said. “Hello, brother.” Like Jesus, he died a horrible, violent death. Like Jesus, he met his executioner not with hatred but with love.
Let us be clear: centuries ago, Herod did not win. In our own day, in this newest act of terrorism, white supremacy has not won. And neither has death had the last word. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? Hello, brother. May this be the voice that guides us through the wilderness.
[1] Luke 4:18-19.