“I long to gather you…”

Luke 13: 31-35

It is Lent… and I’ve been away for Lent’s beginning. As part of my family and I arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, our very first cab driver let us know that Lent had begun for him. He was fasting—the first of 50 days where Orthodox Ethiopians will not eat at all throughout the morning and then eat from a fasting menu (no meat) for their evening meal. I was a little sorry that I was missing our yearly opportunity here to be marked with a cross of ashes, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return…” until I realized that as a traveler along dusty roads, I was covered in dust from morning ‘til night. Remember that you are come from the earth, you are covered in it, you will return to it. There was no escaping this truth in our travels. We woke in the dark each morning to the sounds of prayer being called. At first, we heard the call to the first of five times of daily prayer for Muslims across from our guest house, but then throughout most of our trip, we heard the much longer Christian worship services, broadcast over speakers in the same way. The constant call to worship reminded us over and over of Jesus’ longing expressed this week… Christ’s longing to gather people as a hen gathers her chicks… and Jesus’ frustration that so often, we are not willing.

My friend Carrie, a pastor in Jerusalem, writes that the news says “Jerusalem is at a boiling point.” A fire bomb was thrown, the gates to the Old City closed, a Palestinian in Hebron was killed after an alleged stabbing attempt. “It’s true,” Carrie writes, “today feels closer to ‘boiling’ than it has in a long time” but she sat in the middle of it, getting a haircut. Her stylist Samer said, “Yes, take a photo to remember how our life goes on even with a fire raging…”

I notice how she persists, how all the people of that diverse, holy city—our whole world compressed into one place—continue on despite the continuous challenge to life, the constant threat of death. 

Jesus cries out, laments Jerusalem’s capacity (and really the capacity of all of us) to kill and destroy, ignore and avoid God’s people, God’s word, God’s presence among us but Jesus does not… 

Even with a threat over his own life, Jesus persists. 

If Herod—exploiter, killer—is like a fox in the hen house, Jesus calls himself the hen who protects her chicks even at the cost of her own life.

In our pilgrimage to Ethiopia, one of our visits was to Lalibela. Nine hundred years ago, King Lalibela spent 23 years of his life constructing eleven wondrous churches hewn into the stone, connected to one another through tunnels with architectural details that continue to stun architectural students and pilgrims alike. How did he do it? Well, with divine/angelic help or 400,000 workers, “You decide…” our guide said. How they did it remains a wonder but why they did it was to create a much nearer-to-home Jerusalem for devout followers of Jesus in Ethiopia. Lalibela created a church to remember Jesus’ birth—and every Christmas, thousands of pilgrims from all over this diverse nation flocks to hear the good news of Jesus’ birth announced once again. There is a church devoted to Mary, the mother of Jesus. There is Bethlehem—house of bread—where those who hunger receive bread daily. There is a famous, iconic cross-chaped church… there is Golgotha, where Jesus’ passion and death is remembered and in another church is the tomb. Lalibela created this “Jerusalem” to gather people out of devotion to the one who describes himself as our Mother Hen, always determined to gather those she loves.

But Jesus weeps, we are not willing to be gathered, loved like that…

We weep with Jesus…

As we witness, powerlessly, as a flight crashes… killing all 157 people aboard that plane. A whole family going to reconnect with their father/grandfather in Nigeria, 21 United Nations employees from many countries working on global food aid, going on a routine flight for a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya…

As we witness, powerlessly, as a small group of violent white supremacists from Australia entered two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and shot and murdered people gathered for prayer and community support including those from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Jordan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia…

One of our Ethiopian driver guides, who makes a decent wage in his chosen field of tourism, who ate with us at restaurants where we couldn’t have possibly finished the size of meal we were given—and we all noted that—told us this story about his parents’ village in the countryside. “Do you know that they still wonder each day if they will have a meal? The children come home from school and if their mother has something to give them, she makes eye contact and says, ‘Come and eat.’ But if she has no food, she will not even look at them… and they know, there is no food today.”

We weep with Jesus as tragedy, hate and hunger continue in our world, a world that Jesus longs to gather into one. A world that many people are working to improve…and yet, clearly, our work together with God is not yet complete. 

After the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight last Sunday, we were moved by the way that life stopped for grief. Five Ethiopian TV channels broadcast flickering candles and a message of mourning for at least 36 hours. We arrived at and then left an Ethiopian restaurant that usually features traditional Ethiopian music and dancing but was cancelled that night out of respect for those who died. Our driver pointed out so that we could notice how quiet the city was… music, not playing. All were subdued as messages of grief came in from leaders throughout the world.
At least one response during this season is to stop whatever we are doing and grieve with God and with all who mourn, for all who have lost loved ones too soon, for all that we are powerless to change…

Another response, as we witness violent hate that takes life away in a moment, that divides on purpose to cause more fear, conflict… that is unwilling to be gathered together as one human family… is to persist in following Jesus’ vision, to courageously go forward in life together, even when it may put us personally at risk… As the UN World Food Program director David Beasley noted, “As we mourn, let us reflect that each of these World Food Program colleagues were willing to travel and work far from their homes and loved ones to help make the world a better place to live. That was their calling…”[1]

Our diverse world, in all its diversity, is a world that God created and deeply loves… and Jesus calls us to persist in our callings in this season—maybe it is to stop, to mourn, to cry out as Jesus did… maybe it is to keep moving forward courageously, rejecting any fear of death… but as we pause or as we persist, Jesus calls, gathers, covers us in loving protection, sheltering and feeding us so that we have all we need.

Let us pray… (with this prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book)

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and forever. Amen.                                     -The Lord’s Prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book

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[1]Tracy Wilkinson, “United Nations mourns 21 employees killed in Ethiopian Airlines plane crash,” The San Diego Union-Tribune, Saturday, March 16, 2019.