Jesus wept over Jerusalem

Jerusalem, the city of prophets and kings, is also the city over which Jesus wept. We are prone to think of Jesus as calm, gentle, compassionate, patient, and overlook other emotions, such as driving the moneychangers out of the temple in what appears to be anger and here we have Jesus weeping. The human Jesus, so much in tune with the will of the Father, was sad that the powerful leaders for both church and state were missing the revelation of God with us. The leaders were too interested in power and not willing to listen to the wisdom of God. Knowing that Jerusalem is the metaphoric and geographical center of the revelation – the city where the final trial and sentence of death await and still with steady beat and confident commitment Jesus moves directly for Jerusalem.

There is no easy way with God. Jesus makes it very clear in the gospel account that the way of discipline and faith are narrow. We maybe should pay closer attention to times when Jesus is frustrated at those who seem to take the easy road, or who turn away when faith demands too much, or the disciples just don’t get it. Time and time again he has tried to explain things, tried to share experiences, tried to teach but they won’t come to class, or stay awake, or spend the extra effort. Knowing that without firm grounding and commitment times of trial and temptation will cause even his friends to reject him and betray him, Jesus also sees the cost of deception in those of the crowd who are vulnerable to the loud popular voices of religious leaders. And thus, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and over its’ people.

As the geographical center of Luke’s gospel, Jerusalem is mentioned 90 times whereas all the other New Testament writers combined mentions Jerusalem only 49 times. It is hard to exaggerate the symbolic and historical importance of Jerusalem for Luke. This is the center of it all. This is the city of the holy Temple. This is the heart of the promised place and the center of religious worship and it is here that the prophets die and where Jesus too will die and rise again, appear to the disciples and ascend into heaven. It is here that the Spirit will descend upon the disciples and equip them for ministry to Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And it is here that Jesus weeps.

We should not have much trouble finding the Jerusalem of our day: try Washington DC where the halls of power are only blocks from poverty, with billions of dollars available for war while a person dies of hunger somewhere in the world every 3.5 seconds. Not all is lost however, some of our federal investments work on behalf of the power. Consider the Hagar Shelter in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a haven for women who have been abandoned by their husbands, abused, and left to care for themselves and their children on the streets of one of the world’s poorest cities. The US State Department selected a Swiss businessman, Tami as one of six international heroes in the struggle against the global slave trade.

Tami was a successful Swiss businessman who married a woman from Japan and later moved with her and their three daughters to Cambodia, because years earlier, Tami had heard the loud weeping of a mother whose 6 month old child has just died of malaria. Tami could not forget the wails of that woman. He could not work hard enough to erase her cry.

Tami and Simonetta discovered hundreds of women living on the streets with their children, unable to find shelter, food, they were vulnerable to every kind of exploitation. Tami remembered the story of Hagar. When Abraham abandoned Hagar and Ishmael, she cried out to God and God heard her cry and provided for them. Hagar literally means, “the one who flees and is afraid.”

Tami and Simonetta raised funds and built the Hagar facility, to house women, equip them to return to society as independent productive citizens. Hagar’s Soya company was born by having women distribute and sale small bags of soya milk for 20 cents a bag. The US department of Agriculture contacted Tami about creating a milk nutrition program in Cambodia’s public schools. But the USDA linked Hagar up with the International Finance Corporation which supports enterprise development around the world. With financing Hagar Soya made a leap from tiny microenterprise with production capacity of 500 liters per day to a significant factory capable of producing 1200 liters per day in packaging that allows distribution throughout Cambodia. By mid 2006, Hagar Soy’s payroll included 83 abandoned women. The second enterprise was a catering program with another cohort of women learning to cook and deliver meals to government level meetings, US Embassy, and the high scale hotels. The third enterprise was Hagar Design Limited, whish specializes in women’s accessories and home products. Each enterprise has liberated 80-100 women from poverty, abandonment, destitution and vulnerability and given her the respect and dignity God desires for all people. I do not think Jesus weeps except with joy over the Hagar project in Cambodia.

Perhaps your Jerusalem is here in Poplar Springs or Woodbine or Lisbon. Making an effort, being disciplined, trusting, faithful, attentive and intentional takes commitment and priority...these are the practices that constitute the narrow way. They are very difficult in a culture that does it best to keep us off-balance and fearful. When we cheat ourselves out of these essentials, life-giving relationships, those who love us suffer, but we suffer most because we cheat ourselves when we take the easy way, avoiding the narrow way of truth and integrity and love. Holding true, staying the course of commitment, being integrated and supportive of the whole program of our small parish is just as important today as the faithfulness and trust among the disciples of Jesus. Being faithful is difficult. We want security of connection, of relationship, of covenant, and the promise that God is with us. We want it for us but fail to be instruments of it for others. We get distracted and overwhelmed with our priorities. We need time to rest, to do a dozen other things than the very things that nurture our spirits, feed our souls, and connect us with the source of life eternal. We may become discouraged and feel like giving up. We may take a break, back off from some ministry, take a weekend to relax or vacation. It is important to renew and that very day someone comes here and looks for the very one who is not here. The mystery of love is that you may never know that someone looked for you and you were not here. Have you never needed to see a certain person who you thought would understand your sorrow, grief, or circumstance? Have you not looked to a friend or mentor for help only to be disappointed that he or she was just too busy with other things? In such cases, the chance to be the embodied presence of God for another goes unmet, and Jesus Weeps.

Opening our hearts and stepping to the very edge of the precipice of trust makes us afraid and rightfully so because we can be and likely will be hurt. We might have to think hard to follow a teaching, read a long handout, or tolerate some people who are pretty effective at pushing our emotional buttons. The way of discipleship is costly.

Not all of us were unconditionally loved as children. Some of us will try our best to love our children that way and even they can break our hearts. Even though we know at some cerebral level that God’s love is unconditional, we still too often believe that being loved really depends on our worthiness. So we want some proof, because we believe we are not worthy. So we bargain for love, even with God, because we don’t know any other way. We take the fragments instead of the whole loaf and Jesus weeps.

It is interesting that Jesus chooses the image of the hen in contrast to the idea of Herod being a fox. As usual, Jesus turns things upside down, so that children and peasants are on top while religious leaders and powerful kings are put down. The last to come into the fields to work are paid first. The chicken may be as far from the fox as we can imagine in the animal kingdom, but then the options this image offers is pretty clear: you can live by licking your chops or you can die protecting the chicks.

Jesus is not out to be king of the jungle, but a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. All the hen has is her own body. To kill the vulnerable chicks the fox will have to kill her first. Sadly, we know just how prophetic this image is. We know that the self-gift of God was demonstrated in similar vulnerability as Jesus stretched out his arms on the hard wood of the cross to draw all within his saving embrace. Sin and grace met in Jerusalem on a hillside called Golgotha and grace won. Sin could not conquer the overwhelming unconditional love of God. That same unconditional love reaches out to each one of us today and if we are quiet and still we too may hear Jesus weeping over us when we fail to allow grace to escort us into the fullness of the promise. We are called to abandon our fear and to walk wide-eyed into God’s love.