First thoughts on Jesus and Jerusalem (Luke 2)

Bill Loader is always good.  This week especially so.  My notes below are cribbed from his site.

• It’s completely predictable for political-power-people like Herod to be nervous about social-power-people like Jesus—and to want to ‘tame’ them.
• Jesus replies to ‘that fox’ Herod that he has just been dealing with ‘powers’.  Casting out demons and curing sick people.
• The trouble is that this is not the only ‘power’ will Jesus will confront as he embodies ‘setting the captives free.’
• Jerusalem is the power center in Israel.  Prophets die there trying to set captives free.  Mother hens go there to protect their babies.  Wisdom (Sophia embodied)  and mother hens will always long to protect and comfort their beloved.  Prophets, Jesus, Sophia, we, all of us do this embodying.  The various ‘Powers’ will always draw a response that combines compassion and action from the braver of us.

One verse of the psalm brings this together for me personally

• What if I had not believed
  that I should see the goodness of the LORD *
  in the land of the living! (Psalm 27.17)

I answer—Well, if I hadn’t believed and seen the goodness of God myself  I wouldn’t have been set free and healed.  Nor would I have this meddlesome-get-involved  mother-hen feeling from time to time.

Hymn for the Last Day of Epiphany

 

Now we cease our alleluias

and more thoughtfully rejoice,

that with human language muted

we might hear God’s softer voice.

 

Now we leave the shining mountain

in the company of friends,

whose encouragement we’ll treasure

as the path we take descends.

 

Now we study Christ’s temptations

in the wilderness alone

and trust, in the face of evil,

we’ll have answers of our own.

 

Now we set our faces forward,

following the steps of him

who with mindfulness and courage

journeys to Jerusalem.

A Wandering Aramean

We start Lent this year telling a story that begins, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor….”

This is big clue of what Lent invites us toward in Liturgical time, or story time. We’re invited to think about those times when life feels like we’re wandering in a desert ourselves and then to realize there’s nothing at all unusual about this!  We come from a long line of people who know what it’s like to be lost. 

And the invitation continues with the the very compelling question that follows—How do we find our way?  Tempting as it is for a priest or preacher to give ‘a definitive answer,’ it’s really a personal question, don’t you think?