| First
Reading | Psalm | Epistle | Gospel |
| Genesis
15:1-12, 17-18 | 27:1-7 | Philippians
3:17-4:1 | Luke
13:31-35 |
In
every school classroom, large and small, there used to be attached above the front
blackboard, a large wooden frame containing long rolls of world maps. The maps
were printed on a dusty light brown canvas of undetermined age, and with descending
type, the continents, oceans, countries, regions, and even major cities would
be listed and somehow squeezed in. When one was rolled down, it would silently
announce that, despite what you might think, the world was a much larger place
than where you lived. Look at all the strange names printed here. You are not
the center of the universe; you are not even the center of the world. The oceans
are larger than any land. Despite what your horizons appear to be, most of the
world lies beyond them.
Jesus often taught the people as they sat on hillsides. As he talked perhaps they
gained some sense of a larger perspective beyond their own village, seeing the
lake of Galilee stretching to the horizon, the Jordan River winding in innumerable
ox bows through the valley, or the Golan Heights rising across the water. Jesus
wanted people to have vision rather than mere sight. Jesus reminded people that
there was always more to reality than the popular assumptions of how things always
must be.
There is an old English folktale about a cruel pawnbroker to whom a poor man owed
an unpayable sum. The pawnbroker offered to cancel the debt if the man's daughter
would agree to marry him. Naturally the offer was refused, so the pawnbroker insisted
fate would decide the matter. The girl would reach into a bag containing two stones.
If she chose the speckled one, she would become the lender's wife. If she chose
the marbled one, her father's debt would be canceled. If she refused to choose
a stone, her father would be thrown into debtor's prison. The frightened girl
agreed, but was horrified when she noticed that the pawnbroker picked up two speckled
stones and put them into the bag. Whatever one she chose she would lose. But as
she put her hand into the bag, an idea came. She pulled out a pebble and quickly
dropped it to the ground where it was lost in the gravel with all the others.
"Oh my, how clumsy of me, she said, but it doesn't matter, for if you look
into the bag you will be able to tell what pebble I took by the color of the one
that was left. " The scoundrel of a pawnbroker was too proud to admit his
dishonesty, and so the father and his daughter were free. An improbable situation,
yet the story keeps alive an important memory of a world with possibilities even
in the face of present impossibilities.
Is it any more incredible than the ancient saga of Abram and Sarah? They lived
in a harsh, unyielding nomadic society, with few options and growing noticeably
older and weaker. Yet one night, God promised them descendants who would populate
the earth just as the stars shine over the continents and oceans.
Today's Gospel passage is often called Jesus' lament over Jerusalem and is recorded
in both Matthew and Luke. Matthew places it near the end of the tense days of
Holy Week where logically you would expect it. Luke, on the other hand, has Jesus
say it as he is about to enter Jerusalem that fateful week. The world would give
poor odds on the future of Jesus’ mission; Jesus doesn’t pay attention
to the world’s odds. Instead Jesus reveals a word of compassion and sends
a shaft of light piercing the opaque future.
Anthony Robinson, the author of Transforming Congregational Culture that I’ve
recommended to some of you, notes that too often we have taken it as our task
to make the faith fit into the modern scientific world rather than to challenge
it. When one says, “I’m a modern, scientific, enlightened person;
I can’t believe in Easter,” we’ve in effect become apologetic
and replied the resurrection is a metaphor, or a symbol. Perhaps it would be more
thought provoking and more helpful to say, “It’s not surprising you
have trouble with Easter because you live in a closed, limited world where you
expect everything to be explained and controlled. It’s difficult to believe
that God still holds out hope, that God does new things, that God does not let
go and can even raise the dead. It’s difficult to disregard the world’s
odds, but take heart, with God things are possible that are impossible for us.
That’s even true in the enlightened city of Ithaca!”
I used to hate geography, at least the way it was taught to me. It was so boring
and irrelevant. The maps just as well could have been used for window shades.
I think differently now. At the very least their memory reminds me of how much
I do not know; how small and limited my world is. Yet God is a patient teacher.
It is God who assures me, here on the second Sunday of Lent, on March 7, 2004,
there is still hope of a new future, for me, for you, and for the world.
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
