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3rd Sunday in Lent

3/23/2025

Today we welcomed Fr. Wilson Roane.
Read the Gospel of Mark
Be prepared to stump the priest (Fr. Wilson) with your questions!

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Good Morning!
It is so good to see everyone here on this second Sunday of Lent!
And you may have noticed in our biblical texts:
And our lack of music:
That it definitely feels like Lent.
A little bit more somber:
A little bit quieter.

But it’s also a joyous day:
As we celebrate

It feels slightly disjointed:
To have a celebratory baptismal day:
In the midst of the somberness of lent.

But Last week:
I shared with everyone that historically:
The Sunday’s of Lent were not actually counted in the 40 days of lent!
Each Sunday was (and still is!) a sort of “Mini-Easter”
A mini-celebration of the resurrection of Jesus:
And therefore:
A perfect time for a baptism.

But then I hit another bump in my preparation for today.

Generally:
I take this time to preach on the Gospel text.
And today’s gospel text doesn’t exactly scream “baptism.”

The story begins with the Pharisees coming to Jesus and telling him that Herod wants
to kill him.

Jesus responds by calling Herod a “fox”
And then he wails about Jerusalem: the city that kills prophets, stones people, and will
ultimately lead to Jesus’ own death.

I’m not really getting Baptism Vibes from that.
But then Jesus says this:
(speaking of Jerusalem)
“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood
under her wings, and you were not willing!”
And this metaphor struck me:
God trying to gather God’s children together:
Just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.

God: the mother hen:
Calls us to the safety of the nest:
Underneath those downy wings:
Behind the heart the beats beneath her vulnerable breast:
Gathering up ALL the children:
Under the safety of her wings.
It feels a bit more baptismal than I initially thought.
Today we’re celebrating Byer’s marking as Christ’s own forever:

Byer’s welcoming under the big tent of God the hens comforting wings.
The same tent of wings that all of us are held under.

But it’s also more than that.
It’s not just about safety in a cruel world.
It’s not just about protection.
It’s not about a contract.
It’s about a covenant.

Which is where we get to our first lesson today.
When Abram (not even yet named Abraham!)
Creates a covenant with God.
A covenant is not a contract.
It’s not like a contract for services:
Or a contract for a job.
Or a prenuptial agreement, or even a will.
Contracts can be good.
They hold people accountable.

But they’re not the same as covenants.
A covenant is all encompassing.
It’s not transactional.
If you were to make a covenant with your best friend today,
It would mean that everything that belonged to them, also belonged to you:
And vise versa.
If your best friend happened to have a mansion and a heap of creditors hounding them:
Guess what?

You’ve got that too.
A contract would protect you from the bad,
But a covenant guarantees that you are in relationship:
And if one goes down:
You both go.

On the flip side,
That also means that if one succeeds:
So does the other.

So when God makes a covenant with Abram:
It’s a big deal.
God promising that Abram:
A childless man:
Will have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.

And we’re told that when God said all this to Abram:
“Abram believed the Lord.”

When Abram believes:
He joins in the covenant:
The covenant in which God will give to Abram all that God has.

It’s like God taking Abram under his mother hen wings.

And thing about it.
What happens:

When a fox gets into the hen house?
The mother hen herds her chicks under her wings:
She bares her breast so that the fox must kill her first before it can get to her chicks.
There will be a flutter of feathers,
And motherless chicks running around: but they have the chance to live.

This is the image that Jesus chose to bring to us:
Our covenant with God means that everything of God’s is also ours:
Even Jesus: God’s own son.

This fits perfectly with baptism:
When as children of God:
We are taken up into the wings of God:
Where God is willing to die to save each of us.

And it also fits perfectly with the season of lent:
Which is a season where we remember and contemplate the vulnerableness of God
through the persecution and death of Jesus.

When we received the cross of ashes on our forehead on Ash Wednesday, it reminded
us exactly how vulnerable and human we are in this world. We are called to something
more than living for ourselves and satisfying our contracts. Our God is not the belly, as it
says in Philippians. We are called to be the chicks that lead the way to our mother hen:
our God.
In our baptism, we are marked by the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit as
Christ’s own forever. We are charged with an imperative call to love like that mother hen

who opens her wings wide and exposes her heart to the foxes of the world in the hope
that our loved ones may live in the light of our vulnerability. Called to love like someone
who is in covenant with God. A fierce and trusting love that encompasses all that which
God possesses. When we live this way, we will know the reign of universal peace
described in this Franciscan blessing:
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial
relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with
anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for
justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer
from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort
them and to turn their pain into joy. May God bless you with enough foolishness to
believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others
claim cannot be done. May the peace of God and the God of peace be with you for
evermore.
Amen.

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1st Sunday in Lent

3/9/2025

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Last Sunday after Epiphany

3/2/2025

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In the coming week: churches around the world will participate in a kind of
transformation.
As the church calendar moves from the season after Epiphany to the season of
Lent.
Our praise-filled shouts of “Alleluia!” will change to lents “Lord have mercy.”
And today:
The lectionary tells us of Jesus’ transformation:
Or: TransFIGURATIONup on the mountaintop.

Throughout Lent:
The lectionary will lead us down the mountain:
Through the valley of the shadow of death,
And ultimately to Jerusalem where the cross and tomb await.

Lent weighs heavily on us.
It urges us to recall the suffering and death of our Lord.
So, in many ways, we arrive at this final Sunday before Lent with a mix of
anticipation and anxiety:
a combination of joy and dread.

It is no accident, then, that every year on this Sunday before Lent:
we hear again the story of Christ’s transfiguration on the mountaintop:
because, at the heart of this story,

we find these all-too-familiar feelings: anticipation diluted by anxiety
and joy thinned by dread.

Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus summons Peter, James, and John to the
mountaintop.
And these disciples did not really happily agree to follow Jesus up the mountain.
Just a few verses earlier:
In verses we did not hear today:
Jesus tells the disciples that he must undergo great suffering:
Be rejected, killed, and then rise from the dead.

“If any want to become my followers,” Jesus says, “let them deny themselves and
take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will
lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

After hearing these words, Peter, James, and John are not super gleeful going up
the mountain.
Instead, they are forced to come to terms with the horrifying truth that Jesus,
their beloved friend and leader, must suffer and die.

When they reach the top of the mountain, the Gospel tells us that Jesus was
transfigured before them and Moses and Elijah appeared.
As the disciples beheld their Lord, they realized that they were in the very
presence of God.
But even in this incredible moment of divine transfiguration:
Peter could not forget what Jesus had told them before they came to the
mountain.

“Master, it is good for us to be here,” Peter says, “Let us make three dwellings,
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

It’s almost as if:
Peter believes the by making some dwellings:
And stay on the mountain: he could keep Jesus safe:
Keep him from the scary truth that Jesus told him just eight days earlier.

At some level, most of us can’t help but sympathize with Peter.
Who among us would knowingly submit our self or our loved ones to pain and
suffering?
Peter’s efforts to protect Jesus are acts of love and devotion--
but they are also acts that show Peter’s-- and the disciples’--
need for safety and security.
They had seen a glimpse of God’s glory in the face of Jesus, and they wanted
desperately to hold onto it, to protect it, to keep it forever.

Yet at that very moment:
The moment that Peter tries so desperately to hold onto and protect Jesus:
Is the same moment that a voice from above breaks in saying:
“This is my Son, my chosen; listen to him!”

And notice what happens next:
As the disciples came down from the mountaintop,
they didn’t rush into the closest town and tell the first person they saw about
what they had just witnessed.

Luke’s Gospel tells us that they “told no one any of the things they had seen.”

Although most biblical scholars interpret the disciples’ silence as a mark of fear
over what they had seen and heard--
And that could certainly be true:
We could also look at it in a different way:
What if the disciples silence allowed them to be obedient to God’s command?
God’s command to LISTEN to Jesus?

Peter, James and John heard God say, “This is my Son, my chosen; listen to him!”
So instead of running and telling the world what they had seen on the mountain:
what if they chose instead to obey;
to be silent so they could listen?

In a world busy with noise and chaos:
Where words are constantly shouted or typed:
Stirring up fear and angst:
Maybe this too, is the word from God that we need to hear.
Maybe listening can transform and transfigure us.

Amidst all of the joys and heartbreaks of the world;
in the face of all of the delight and despair that surrounds us;
and despite all of the things we know and can never know,
God beckons us, ever so gently: to Listen.

Imagine for a moment:
what the world might look like if we listened--
not in preparation to respond, but in order to truly understand.

What might our schools look like if we taught our children how to listen:
Truly LISTEN:
as intently and deliberately as we taught them how to speak and to write?
What might our politics look like if we listened more, and argued less?
And what might our churches look like if we listened intently for the voice of God
from those who differ from us?

You probably know where I’m going with this:
And it’s straight to our revival prayer.
We’ve been praying for our own revival:
Our own transformation.
And we’ll continue to pray for it throughout lent.

But today, I’m going to urge us to listen:
To really and truly listen.

As our Lenten journey approaches,
and the chaos of the world presses in with voices of despair clanging in our ears:
may we remember how to listen:
To listen to one another:
And to listen to God especially:

For Guide WILL guide us in our own transfiguration:
Our own revival:
If only we invite the Holy Spirit in:
And listen to what God has to tell us.

Amen.

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Weekly Lessons and Sermon

3rd Sunday in Lent

2nd Sunday in Lent

1st Sunday in Lent

Last Sunday after Epiphany

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