Lent 2 C

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35

It is so easy to be distracted.

Decide on goals; formulate a plan; make a resolution…and just wait for the distractions to come.

Urgent phone calls, health setbacks, fantasy baseball…there’s always something ready to knock us off track, to take our eyes off the prize. I admit to being constantly distracted from the things that I have decided are most important to my life. If anyone claimed to never be distracted, I’d be suspicious their entire life was one big distraction.

So, amid the constant barrage of things that threaten to take us off-course in our lives, how do we ever accomplish our daily work, and keep moving in the right direction?

In our Gospel, Jesus is moving steadfast in one direction. Although he spends much of his three years of ministry going from village to village, there comes a point where turns his face in one way: towards Jerusalem. Towards the cross. Towards Easter. But along the way, he has work to do. He constantly encounters what you and I might otherwise call distractions. Needy people. Sick people. Angry and stubborn people. And, along the way, Jesus heals them. He sets them free, he debates with them, and he teaches them. It’s part of his mission.

And we know why Jesus has his work cut out for him: the stubbornness and rebellion of the very people he’s trying to save: us!

Jesus says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” How often Jesus has longed to save us and we were not willing. Were we distracted? Unlike the passage we heard last week, the enemy here isn’t the Devil, prowling somewhere out there in the wilderness. The enemy is us.

But in the same passage, Jesus tells us why he continues his mission without distraction. He loves us like a mother hen.

I’m not sure I fully understood what that meant until I saw a mother hen in action. [Share my mother hen story.]

Make no mistake: a mother hen’s love is not just a Hallmark Card expression…it is selfless, dangerous, and sacrificial. It’s the kind of love that would call an otherwise rational creature to throw itself toward harm’s way in order to protect its loved ones. Toward a hawk. Toward Jerusalem and the cross.

---

So here we are, in a season of Lent in which many Christians around the world are focusing on walking more closely with Jesus. Maybe you, like me, are hoping to be less distracted as we follow that path.

It means walking alongside both the daily work of Jesus, and moving in the direction of his purpose…it means walking with Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection.

It means walking with Jesus in our life, death, and resurrection.

We are each called to all different kinds of daily work: professional work, the work of caring for others, of being a student, of being part of a community, of volunteering, of being a good citizen.

Can you see that all of that work, no matter what it is, is wrapped up in a purpose?

It’s to fully participate in God’s love, given to us, and shared for others.

We continue our work and move toward our purpose in a distracting world. A world full of stubborn people, rebellious people; and, when they don’t get their way, violent people. A world where even the ones you love will let you down. And even despite frequent setbacks, emergencies, and urgent phone calls, still…we are often our own worst enemy.

But we each do our work in a world that Jesus longed to gather together like a mother hen — even though it rejected him. A world that Jesus saw not as one distraction after another, but precious and valuable. A world that Jesus would (and did) give his own life to in order to save.

As much as I would want it to be, Lent (or any other time) will not be free from distractions. But we can be turned in the right direction, and with Jesus, set our sights on the cross and its purpose: to share God’s mother hen love with all the world.