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…
At our staff meeting last Tuesday I announced that unlike my usual habit I had already written one-half of my sermon for Sunday. And what I had done with the reading from Jeremiah…
“Jeremiah?” Father Carey said. “There’s no “Jeremiah” in Sunday’s readings.”
Later that afternoon I sat quietly in a room wondering what do I say now? Starting out from scratch as it were.
I noticed a painting on the wall – a Kansas scene. A landscape – a field, maybe a pasture, maybe land waiting for a spring planting, surrounded by trees, scrubby trees. Trees in various shades of loud greens, greens of new growth, new buds. Late winter has just passed, just a day or so ago, and it’s early spring, mornings still cold. And a glimpse of a farmhouse, maybe a fire going in the stove, people moving around, getting ready to start the day…
I lived in Kansas for a number of years – around ten to be exact.
And when you live in a place for a time, you get to seeing it like the people who have always lived there…
And sitting there I recalled the day I had bought that painting.
I had gone to a showing of a particular Kansas artist, Robert Sudlow. I had bought one of his prints. He happened to be there that day. Most of his paintings were already marked “sold.” I asked him about this painting. Yes, he told me sort of where he had been that day. It was not far from Lawrence where he lived and the university where he had taught most of his working years. He loved going out – didn’t mind the weather – sort of made it more real for him. He loved Kansas and he couldn’t get enough of painting Kansas.
He loved Kansas.
Sort of like Jesus loved Jerusalem.
Our service booklet art shows Jesus sitting, his face in his hands, grieving, Jerusalem in the background.
Sometimes arguments are made to the unbelieving, we know Jesus lived because of “this and this.”
That’s well and good, I suppose. I feel Jesus is real for a lot of reasons. Therefore, I am not surprised that sometimes in this ancient text– which are the words we read in our Bible – we hear revealed a real man who had emotions, loves, just as we do. He loved his land, his country just as we love our own. Just as the painter Robert Sudlow loved his Kansas -sometimes a bare, plain landscape, with winds that never stop, just as I love Arkansas and the particular part of Arkansas that is my home.
Jesus remembered the story of his ancestor who God told to go out under the evening stars: “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. So shall your descendants be.” Or that night as the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, his ancestor, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him. And Abram sees a strange and mystifying ceremony through which God tells him, “To your descendants I give this land…”
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?
Some years ago, I visited Israel as part of a Methodist tour group from Arkansas. I was the only Episcopalian in the group. I have been blessed in my life to be able to travel to other countries several times beginning with a trip to England and Scotland as a twenty-five-year-old. Yet of the trips I have taken over the years I can recall the details to my trip to Israel most clearly – maybe because hearing various Scriptures read; I’m reminded of the actual sites in Isarael.
Like many tours the itinerary was well prepared and quite full with many places to see. One day was scheduled for Masada. There was an extra charge involved as well. I talked our leader in letting me skip. Going out on your own was discouraged – for obvious reasons. I spent the day wandering through Jerusalem. It was the most wonderful day of my visit.
I visited The Western wall – the “Wailing Wall” – but now had time to spend around it. Extensive excavations around it have occurred in recent years – much more of the Temple wall has been exposed – the supporting wall for the area where the Temple had actually been located. An area around the Temple where the Romans had pushed out great stones that had been part of the wall at the time the Temple had been destroyed by the Romans 70A.D. – roughly 40 years after the time of Jesus. To experience Jerusalem as a living city not just some sort of outdoor museum.
Paul told the Christian members of the church at Phillippi that our citizenship is in heaven and there we will meet our brother and Savior Jesus. And on that day our bodies will be changed – will be transformed to conform to his body.
I am tempted to talk of many of the other places I saw on that trip. The Sea of Galilee on a boat probably close to the size of those used by Jesus’ fishermen friends – even the one on which He calmed the storm. Or the small synagogue in Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee or the place – in one of his resurrection appearances – where Jesus hosted a very Southern sounding fish fry – or the small synagogue in Nazareth where reading from the prophet Isaiah He announced that Isaiah’s prophecy had been full-filled in their hearing.
But I would not – of course – wish to be like that brother-in-law who goes on pointedly about his vacation to the place you would die to go to – but haven’t.
But you can.
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?
One thing have I asked of the Lord; one thing I seek.
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life;
To behold the fair beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.
…Be strong, and He shall comfort your heart;
Wait patiently for the Lord.
Amen.
Richard Robertson