The Second Sunday in Lent-The Rev Melanie Lemburg

 Lent 2C_2022

March 13, 2022

 

        Last weekend, I served on staff for Happening #105 in the Diocese of Georgia.  Happening is a spiritual renewal experience for high school students led by high school students.  They have a handful of adults present to work as the support staff and to handle any adult stuff, but it’s mostly the teenaged staff members who do everything.  This is the third time I’ve served on staff as an adult, but the other two times, I served as one of the spiritual directors—giving talks, preaching and presiding over the sacraments.  But this time, I didn’t serve as a spiritual director.  I got to serve as a “mom.” 

        When I showed up on Thursday, I was given a manual on how to be a Happening mom.  (I do love a good manual!)  After I read my manual cover to cover, anxious to understand and be able to fulfill my duties as a mom, I began to get a picture of what serving as a mom on Happening staff would look like.  As the weekend unfolded, I was intrigued to realize that my tasks were much more physical ones than I had accomplished in my previous role as spiritual director. 

As a mom, I put out snacks.  I cleaned up the food.  I picked up trash, and I encouraged the youth to pick up their trash.  I made an ice pack and provided a little care for someone who got hurt in a game.  I set up chairs for worship and then I moved and stacked and reset them.  I planned a party and made things festive and beautiful. And I swept, and I swept, and I swept—every single particle of dirt from Honey Creek migrated to the inside spaces, and I waged war on it for the whole weekend.  During one of my many sweeping endeavors, it occurred to me that my task as a mom, while so much more physical than I had anticipated, in fact, had a spiritual component.  My work as a mom at Happening was to create and cultivate home for the candidates and staff.  Sometimes this meant nurturing them; sometimes this meant protecting them—like the time I had to cut off the young candidate who was continually shot-gunning the blue fizzy drink we offered for the party.  (“Trust me kid, it’s late, and this won’t end well for you if you don’t stop.”)  This got me reflecting on the many different ways we mother or create home for each other and what that looks like.

        In our gospel reading for today, we see Jesus headed toward Jerusalem where he is prepared to die on the cross when he gets a warning that Herod is looking to kill him.  This provokes some choice words about Herod from Jesus, and then Jesus offers a lament over Jerusalem saying, “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, and you were not willing!  See, your house is left to you.”

        Jesus is expressing a longing to gather up the scattered, to protect and shield them from harm, to mother them, heal them, and to make home for them.  But they are unwilling to be gathered, protected, mothered, healed, or made at home. 

        Can you think of a time in your life when you have resisted Jesus’s gathering, protecting, mothering, healing, or being made at home?  Can you think of a time when you accepted it?  What was that like?  Can you think of a time when Jesus worked through you to gather, protect, mother, heal or create home for someone else?  What was that like?  How might Jesus be calling each one of us and all of us together to do that work in this world right here and right now?  This world that so desperately needs gathering, protecting, mothering, healing, and home-making for? 

       Your invitation this week is to be mindful of the ways that the Holy Spirit might be inviting you to do this work for those you encounter.  Look for times and ways to gather, to protect, to mother, to offer kindness and healing, and to seek to make home for another.