Lent 2 C + Wonder + 3.16.25

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M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Gen. 15:1–12, 17–18; Ps. 27; Phil. 3:17–4:1; Luke 13:31–35)

 

In the film Labyrinth from 1986, which was a favorite film of mine as a child, there is a young woman, Sarah, who has to babysit her little brother.  And she is so incensed at the inconvenience that she says she would do anything if the little boy would disappear.  And a goblin king hears this and snatches up the baby, and Sarah searches and searches through a labyrinth, learning a lot about herself on the way, until she finally gets to the goblin king, who has her baby brother captive.  But as she gets closer, Sarah is drawn into a dreamlike scene where the goblin king would woo her to stay with him in a fairytale existence.  And Sarah manages to break it all with one simple thought: “you have no power over me.”[1]

Jesus may not have been talking to a goblin king in today’s gospel, but his message is clear.  You Herod, you fox (which we know might have meant he was sneaky, or smart or impotent),[2] you have no power over me!  You may have served up John the Baptist’s head on a platter, but you cannot stop what I’ve got.  Because I’m a Messiah on a mission.  I have people to heal and demons to cast out, and then, and only then, I am on my way.

Now in Labyrinth, Sarah has to learn selfless love in order to claim back her brother.  She must learn not to be entranced by the pretty things she wants or the fairytale story that she wants her life to be in order to make space in her life for her family, and especially for her little brother.  She must be willing to sacrifice for him.

And the amazing thing about the gospel is that it is clear that Jesus is so above all the power and petty politics that he really can write his own script but he chooses to give his life.  He knows it is what he, as the Son of the Mother Hen God must do.[3]  This wondrous act of love. He is willing to sacrifice for us.
In today’s reading from Genesis, we see God willing to sacrifice for Abram’s people. Because you will notice that when Abram is cast down in a terrified sleep, it is God’s presence that passes through the halved bodies of the sacrificial animals, implying that God is willing to take on sacrifice in order to enter into covenant in Abram and God’s people.[1]

And we are part of that covenant story too.  We are part of the story of the skies that God showed to Abram so many years ago.  You and I are stars in that sky.  This story in Genesis came clear to me one day when I visited a synagogue in Budapest.  We had to walk through metal detectors to get into the synagogue, which looked like nothing much, a plain building, on the outside.  The metal detectors were because some anti-Semitic actors sometimes try to blow up synagogues.  Well, once we were inside the synagogue, our eyes were drawn to the ceiling, covered with a myriad of stars.  The rabbi told us that this painting was designed to re-create a bit of what Abram, later Abraham saw, God’s promise of a family so big it filled the heavens.  What a wonder! 

“One thing I asked of the Lord, that I will seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple (Ps. 27:4).” 

This Psalm talks about seeking to see the beauty of the LORD, and Abram saw it that day with God.  Jesus saw it in Jerusalem even though he knew the dark places his path led.

Because the path of the beauty-seeker is not free of darkness.  See Abram thrown to the ground, in a terrified sleep.  See Jesus see the terror and the beauty of his path ahead.  We will all see darkness.

And perhaps because of this, we are allowed to ask questions.  Thanks be to God, huh?  That we can ask questions.  Abram says, God, what good is your promise?  A boy who isn’t even my blood will be my heir.  And God says, “Just wait.”  And we are proof, each one of us, of the truth of that promise.  Each one of us is a star in that sky that was promised.  A beloved child of God.  The wonder of it.

Behind the gospel story we also see pathos. In the church “Dominus Flevit” (which means “The Lord wept”) on top of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem in 2019, I was struck by so much emotion seeing the panorama of the old city and the altar covered with a depiction of Jesus the Mother Hen gathering his flock. According to tradition, Jesus wept saying these words, with love and perhaps anticipating his sacrifice to come.

So, fellow children of the Mother Hen God, siblings in Christ, we strive to be faithful, even though shadows might cross our paths.  We ask questions of God, because we have seen from Abraham that doubt and questions don’t mean a lack of faith, they mean an engaged faith.  Engagement like Jesus, teaching and healing and wishing to gather us in like a Mother Hen with her brood. Engagement like a God who covenants with us, willing to sacrifice for us, as he did with Abram and continues to do with us.

God wants to connect that way with us, even if it means we ask questions about things we couldn’t possibly know about.  It’s possible that even Jesus had questions, but he kept the faith in God’s promises and kept on the path.  And we can keep wondering and keep on the path.  Because we Christians are wonderers, citizens of heaven.   And yet the fruitfulness that Abram saw in the skies was of a very earthly sort.  So let us keep feet on the ground, and yet hearts pointed heavenward, where our true citizenship is, grateful that the foxes of this world have no power over us.  Let us wonder in the beauty of God, because, thanks to the costly love of Jesus, we can wonder too, and spread a love that leaves the world wondering… what are those Christians all about, anyway? Maybe they will see a different kind of Christianity in us.



[1] Labyrinth, 1986.  The reference to Lent is because I have sworn off movies apart from during Sundays during this Lent J.

[2] Leslie J. Hoppe, “Exegetical Perspective: Luke 13:31-35,” Feasting on the Word Lectionary Companion, Year C, Vol. 2, 71.

[3] With thanks to Anne Howard, “Our Mother Hen God,” http://www.beatitudessociety.org/blog.

 


[1] Rolf Jacobsen, Karoline Lewis and Matt Skinner, “Sermon Brainwave Podcast for March 16, 2025,” workingpreacher.org (accessed via Spotify March 8, 2025).

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