Readings:
Sermon:
I wonder whether you have had the chance to see the extraordinary alignment of the planets in our solar system over the last month or two? When it has been possible to see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus stretched out across the sky - and the moon too. If you haven’t, then book the date for the next time this will happen - in 2040. 😊
I wonder whether, like me, you are fascinated by the night sky and on a cloudless and light pollution free evening, you have seen planets and countless stars - and those are just what we can see with our naked eye, let alone what we could see using a telescope and what scientists tell us exist beyond what we CAN see. It’s amazing - it’s stand back in awe and wonder time. The Psalmist in Psalm 19 says, ‘The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, the skies proclaim the work of His hands.’ And in Graham Kendrick’s song ‘The Servant King’ he speaks about the hands of Jesus nailed to the cross and that these same hands flung stars into space.
And Abraham, according to the OT reading from Genesis chapter 15 on this day, was told that he would have as many descendants as the stars in the sky above. God told him to ‘Look up at the heavens and count them…so shall your offspring be.’ And that was God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah, who were old and without children. Nothing is impossible for God. But it’s often when we face difficulties in our lives that we forget what God IS capable of. He can fill the barren womb with a child and there is another example in scripture with Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, who also became pregnant at a big age. And there was also Hannah whose womb was closed by God and then eventually opened for her to conceive Samuel. I long for that to happen for someone I love - not someone old, but 40, and unable to have children - and I don’t know why it doesn’t happen. Why, Lord? But God can do it and so many other things, that we think are impossible.
In Abraham’s life his sorrow turned to joy. He was 100 and Sarah his wife was 90 when Isaac, their son was born. The name Isaac means ‘laughter’ and when Sarah heard the news that she would have a child at such a great age she laughed. She did not believe it. But then imagine THEM later - as old as they were - laughing AND dancing - after the birth ….. once Sarah had recovered a little, of course. And in Genesis 21 Sarah says, ‘God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh WITH me.’ And I feel like adding - ‘and not AT me anymore.’ Imagine God Himself laughing - and dancing - with them. What joy they knew …… even in their old age.
Nothing is impossible with God, but we don’t always think or believe it probable.
Many years after the time of Abraham and Sarah, a young lady, little more than a girl, was told that she would have a son, and we are told that she ‘knew not a man’ - and she gave birth to a son they called Jesus. And about 30 years later THAT child, as a man, looked over Jerusalem, as we read in our Gospel reading for today from Luke chapter 13 - and said, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” What tenderness there is here, in the image of the hen and her chicks. But what sorrow was in Jesus’ heart - how He loved them, but they rejected Him and His father, who had sent Him.
He lamented over Jerusalem - and probably for all those who had been born as descendants of Abraham and had caused the heart of God to be broken. They say that ‘when they are young, children break your arms but later they often break your hearts’. How have WE broken the heart of God? WE all have. WE have ALL sinned - but the good news is that HE hates the sin but will always love the sinner. As OUR parent, God will always love us. That’s what parents do.
To the Jews, Jesus said, “Your house is left desolate.” In other words, it had come to this: God no longer dwelt there - in His House, set apart for Him, the Temple in Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant carried through the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land by the Israelites set free from slavery in Egypt, was put in the centre of the Temple in Jerusalem - in the Holy of Holies - and it represented God’s presence in the midst of His people - but the temple had become an empty shell - a building without a soul - and would be destroyed altogether, just 40 years after the death of Jesus, never to be rebuilt - what a disaster! In AD70 the Romans destroyed the Temple and they carried away many of the large stones and took them and threw them into the Mediterranean Sea, many miles away, so that they could not be used again.
When we think of the Church today, even our own church, we might ask the question: why is it that the few have become fewer, and the Church is not what it was? Certainly, the numbers gathering together on a Sunday are not what they were, but the quality of our life together has also suffered. Does our house seem desolate? Does God say to us, ‘How often have I wanted to gather you together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings?’ But Jesus did not stop there. The next few words are really important. He says, ‘But you were not willing.’ God doesn’t force Himself onto us. If WE are willing, then things could change, maybe there will be laughter and rejoicing and dancing once more. For nothing is impossible for God. And let’s not give up on God - He has certainly not given up on us.
When we turn back to the Psalms and to Psalm 57 we read this: ‘Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings.’
Let us ask God to be merciful towards us AND to keep us safe under His wings or is that HER wings, as we see something of the qualities of a wonderful, loving and protective mother in this imagery of the hen with her chicks - of God and the Church.
Questions:
- How do we explain the state of the Church today?
- Whose responsibility is it to do something about it?
- Like Abraham, is it possible that we too could look up at the stars and believe that God can give us many spiritual descendants?