A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent
The Rev. Patricia A. Gillespie
Deuteronomy 26:(1-4)5-11
Romans 10:(5-8a)8b-13
Luke 4:1-13
Psalm 91 or 91:9-15
Ann Hutchins was a school teacher in the Texas frontier. There was not really a town, only farm houses and ranches, so the school sat out by itself. One day there was an Indian attack on the school. By the time the residents got there, all the children were gone and Ann was found dead at her desk. When they moved the desk and lifted the trap door under her feet, out came the ten children.
"How often have I desired to gather you children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings . . ."
Protecting her children. It's a primitive instinct; as Jesus reminds us, birds do it.
Even today we still hear these ‘mother hen' stories: After a recent barn fire, the cleanup crew found the charred remains of a hen still on her nest. When they removed her dead body, there were live chicks underneath.
Birds do it instinctively. But most humans "rise above our instincts" and few of us humans would sacrifice our lives for others.
Yet some teachers, like Ann Hutchins and Jesus, do it. They shelter their loved ones even at the cost of their own lives. They reflect God's protective love that we heard about in today's psalm: "For in the day of trouble he shall keep me safe in his shelter; he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwelling"
But the beginning of today's gospel seems very far from that kind of shelter. What if we are among those who are not able to get through the narrow door? What if the door is shut and we are greeted with "I do not know where you came from"?
I try, I really do, to listen when Jesus teaches in our streets, and to eat and drink with Jesus. And that makes this reading really frightening. Do all my efforts count for nothing? Will I be outside weeping and gnashing my teeth while others are feasting in God's kingdom?
I want to ask, as Abram did, whether God's promises are really true: "How am I to know?" Abram asked. And in response God sends a terrifying darkness. Abraham had to go into the darkness before he could see the covenant light and promise that answered his question.
Today's lessons have some hard questions, clouded and dark. In the gospel, someone asks: "Lord, will only a few be saved?"
Jesus replies: "Strive to enter through the narrow door . . ." The Greek word that is translated "strive," comes from the same root from which we get our English word "agonize" -- it means to struggle, as in an athletic contest. Our English translation continues to tell us that "many will try and will not be able"; but the Greek might better be translated "will not be strong enough."
"Struggle to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try and will not be strong enough."
Few of us are strong enough to mirror God as clearly as Ann Hutchins. Few of us can be mother hens like Jesus. Does that mean that we will be shut outside that "narrow door"?
Perhaps we don't reflect God's image as clearly as Ann. We are not Jesus-like mother hens. But we are all images of that Mother, images of Christ. We are the "brood of God" -- not the Mother Hen, but Her tiny reflections, frightened chicks, looking for safety.
Jesus asks us to "strive" -- to struggle, even to agonize with him, to grow stronger in our ability to mirror Christ. But even so we can't save ourselves. We cannot get through the narrow door by our own efforts. We are among the many who are "not strong enough."
We are helpless like chicks or children in the dangerous darkness.
What could chicks or children do? Run to the Teacher. That's not always a place of light and joy: It was smokey and hot for the chicks during the barn fire. It was dark and scary for the school children during the Indian raid. It may be that sometimes that dark and scary place is our hope.
We are not strong enough. We are standing outside the door in the darkness. Our natural tendency is to panic and run around like chicks in a storm. We cannot save ourselves. All we can do is trust in the Teacher to save us.
Then our trust -- our feeble faith -- like that of Abram, is "reckoned to us as righteousness" and the narrow door is opened wide.
It doesn't take much. Don't be afraid. In the scary darkness of our lives, there is a safe place of light and life. Come to Jesus He's still waiting with wings outstretched.
"The LORD is our light and our salvation; whom then shall we fear?"