A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — February 28, 2010
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Texts:  Psalm 27;  Luke 13:31-35

“How often have I desired to gather your children together as
a hen gathers her brood under her wings…” — Luke 13:34

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
…let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! — Psalm 27:1, 14

I was eating lunch in the McDonald’s on High Street this past week when I chanced to overhear someone talking about the ancient kings of Israel and Judah.  Not your usual conversation topic in McDonald’s.  But then I do occasionally see various older gentlemen in McDonald’s or Wendy’s in earnest conversation with a student or two over an open Bible.  Whether it’s Xenos or Campus Crusade or one of the other para-church ministries, I don’t know.  In any event, this one gentleman was going on about good kings and bad kings in Israel and Judah.

In the book of II Kings, each new king is introduced with a summary judgment of his reign—either “he did what was right in the sight of the Lord” or “he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”  Then the book relates how good things happened to the good kings and evil things to the evil kings.  The point, according to the gentleman, was how God kept close watch over what each king did, responding appropriately with reward or punishment—long or short reigns, good or poor harvests, that sort of thing.  Just so, God keeps a watchful eye on all we do, looking especially for sinful thoughts and actions.  So we better watch out.

 

Ohhhhh… I couldn’t help but wince.  There’s no doubt that this theology does appear in the Bible, but things are not so simple.  In II Kings we find that the most evil of all the kings, Manasseh, had by far the longest reign, 55 years, and the very best of the kings, Josiah, had just recovered the law and reformed the temple when he was murdered by the Egyptian Pharaoh Neco.  In any event, this theology of reward and punishment is part of the problem I preached about last Sunday that leads to so many negative connotations about Lent.  When God is seen as a kind of cosmic “scorekeeper”—like an Olympic ice skating judge who closely reviews each jump and spin in ultra-slow motion to deduct points for any mistakes—why then of course we tend to focus more on what we’ve done wrong, our sins, our trespasses, our transgressions, and on feeling sorry for them.   But you may recall last week’s text from Deuteronomy offered a different, more positive focus: “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life!”  I noted how we often view repentance negatively as feeling sorry and contrite for our sins and vowing never to do them again.  But the Greek word for “repentance,” metanoia, actually means to turn, specifically to turn to God.  And this turning is not to be a matter of force or compulsion—no carrot and stick here—but rather of joyfully choosing life and seeking to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength.

When we know God primarily as a cosmic “scorekeeper,” whose principal way with human beings is to watch out for and catch us in sin and error, it’s nearly impossible for us to have any hope at all.  For not one of us is free from sin.  We’d all be caught; no one would survive.  The Psalmist knows this, singing in Psalm 130:3, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who would stand?” then in the next verse stating the truth about God, “But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.”  Psalm 103 declares, “[The Lord] does not deal with us according to our sins,” but always with steadfast love and grace.  Jesus says in John that he came not to condemn but that all might have abundant life.

Still, a system of punishments and rewards is such a strong part of our usual understanding of how God deals with us that sometimes Biblical statements about God’s gracious intention can fly right by us, unnoticed.  For example, upon hearing the opening words of Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem in Luke 13—“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it”—our minds might well turn to thoughts of judgment and punishment, especially when we recall that Luke wrote all this down after Jesus’ crucifixion in Jerusalem and after Jerusalem and the temple had been destroyed by the Romans. But Jesus proceeds not to punishment but to an image that occurs numerous times in scripture (in Ruth, in the Psalms, in Isaiah) of how God is ever seeking to provide shelter and protection—“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…”  What a surprising image of God’s tender care—God as a mother hen—this despite the wrongs of the people and their resistance to God’s grace.  And note that the wings of a hen do not spread so very far, so they gather the children in very close to the being of God.

I remember a time not long after I got sober and returned to church. I was sitting behind a father and his young son.  The boy was having a really hard time sitting still.  He was wriggling around in the pew, kicking his feet, playing with the pencils and dropping them on the floor, humming little snatches of song.  A few people were beginning to cast some of those “meaningful looks” in the boy’s direction.  Then the father began to lean over toward his son, and I winced in sympathy and embarrassment, waiting to overhear one of those exasperated, parental sound bites we’ve all heard and/or delivered.  You know… like “What’s wrong with you?!  Can’t you sit still?!!” …or “Just you wait till we’re home, young man!” …or “Settle down, or we’ll have to leave!”  But to my surprise, that’s not what happened.  Instead the father reached his arm around the boy, hugged him gently, kissed him on the top of the head, and then just held him close.  There before me was a flesh-and-blood incarnation, a living parable, of Jesus’ cry:  “How often have I desired to gather [you to me] as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”

Psalm 27 clearly rings out with confidence and trust in just such a caring God.  The Psalmist affirms that God always intends good for us—“The Lord is my light and my salvation.”  God is light not darkness, salvation not condemnation.  And surely, this God who lights the way and provides salvation is to be trusted as “the stronghold of my life.”  So, “whom shall I fear?”  The Psalmist’s answer is surely, “Nothing and no one!”  And certainly never God!

But that may still be a question or us.  The Psalmist has no doubt that God is trustworthy.  But what about us when bad things happen to us, terrible things, fearful things?  We’re often not so sure. Are we being punished?  Afflicted by God?  We are tempted to cry out…"Why me?  What have I done that God should punish me?"  Or when bad things happen, we make the false assumption that a trustworthy God would have acted to eliminate all of life’s difficulties.  But the Psalmist knows this is not the case.  Bad things do happen to good people.  So for the Psalmist, trust in God is what equips him to endure with courage and strength and hope in the midst of any and all difficulties.

The first six verses of Psalm 27 attest to a deep and profound trust in God.  Then with verse seven we hear the fervent prayer of someone in need.  We don’t know the exact situation, but adversaries and false witnesses are mentioned in verse twelve.  In the courts of ancient Israel, there were no attorneys or judges to ensure fair procedures.  So witnesses played the dominant role, bringing both accusations and evidence.  False witnesses could put your status and even your very life in danger—hence the explicit prohibition in the Ten Commandments against bearing false witness.

It is a fearsome and fearful situation, and the Psalmist knows at least a flicker of doubt, calling out to God, “Do not hide your face from me…  Do not turn your servant away in anger… Do not cast me off…”  In the midst of trouble, who wouldn’t doubt and question God’s goodness?  But the Psalmist’s trust in God remains firm.  I suggest to you that this is because his is a faith deeply rooted in his experience of religious community.  Recall from verse four that the only things the Psalmist claims to have sought from the Lord were “to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.”  The Psalmist desires to be part of an authentic religious community.  Trust that is kept private, that is unspoken and unshared, turns out to be little more than a matter of one’s own personal resolution and willpower.  But trust that is shared in community—in a fellowship that remembers and celebrates the love and care of God—that trust is constantly nurtured and renewed by the mutual sharing of people’s experience, strength, and hope.  Such sharing—of experience, strength and hope—is the explicit, stated purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous, and is present in religious communities at their best.  I have been blessed to experience such sharing in both.

The Psalmist stands as an exemplar of those who know and trust in the Lord as both light and savior of their life.  Even if we fail to achieve his degree of confidence, even if we are unwilling at times to be gathered in under the sheltering wings of God, we can still take inspiration and courage from the fact that such confidence is possible—that the Psalmist can declare so boldly, “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (in this life!).

So the Psalmist ends by inviting us to share in his experience, strength, and hope—“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.”  I hate to wait.  Most of us hate waiting.  But do not minimize this call to wait for the Lord, for the word in Hebrew means so much more than merely to wait.  It means to trust, to hope, to wait expectantly… all wrapped together.  In times of trouble we can wait for the Lord, trusting God to enfold us in care like a mother hen sheltering her chicks.  And we can trust also that we will know the soaring wings promised by the prophet Isaiah—“Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” [Is 40:32].  In this season of Lent… and throughout our lives… may we all trust, hope, and wait within the steadfast love and grace of the Lord our God.  Amen.