The Second Sunday in Lent-The Rev Melanie Lemburg
The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg
The Second Sunday
in Lent-Year C
March 16, 2025
“When you scratch the surface of anger,
there’s always something underneath it.”
These words were shared with me by my very first spiritual director
about 25 years ago, and I still think about them all the time. “When you scratch the surface of anger,
there’s always something underneath it.”
I’ve learned to pay attention to
anger—both my own and others—and also to question it. What is truly underneath my anger? What are they feeling that is below the
surface of their anger?
What I have learned about myself and
others is that sometimes when I scratch the surface of anger, I find fear
underneath it. And sometimes when I
scratch the surface of anger, I find grief underneath.
We see this grief just below the surface
of Jesus’s anger in today’s gospel reading from Luke. Jesus is on a teaching and healing tour in
Galilee when some Pharisees warn him that Herod is out to kill him. Now, scholars disagree on whether this was a
genuine warning to Jesus on the part of these particular Pharisees or their
attempt to get Jesus to leave town or stop his teaching and healing in the
area. (It could be either.) At first, Jesus responds with strong words
for Herod (and perhaps these particular Pharisees?) saying: “Go and tell that
fox for me, 'Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and
tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the
next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be
killed outside of Jerusalem.”
But then, Jesus shows us that under his
initial flash of anger is grief as his words continue in a clear lament for
Jerusalem and how he knows the people there will not live up to his hope for
them 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!”
Lately, I’ve been reading the Franciscan
priest Richard Rohr’s new book The Tears of Things. It finds its title in an ancient Latin phrase-
lacrimae rerum-which is found in Virgil’s Aeneid and has been quoted
throughout our history. Rohr quotes poet
Seamus Heaney’s translation of this phrase: ‘There are tears at the heart of
things’-at the heart of our human experience.”
And Rohr explains this by saying, “There is an inherent sadness and
tragedy in almost all situations: in our
relationships, our mistakes, our failures large and small, and even our
victories. We must develop a very real
empathy for this reality, knowing that we cannot fully fix things, entirely
change them, or make them to our liking.
This ‘way of tears,’ and the deep vulnerability that it expresses is
opposed to our normal way of seeking control through will-power, commandment,
force, retribution, and violence.
Instead, we begin in a state of empathy with and for
things and people and events, which just might be the opposite of
judgementalism. It is hard to be on the
attack when you are weeping.”[i]
Rohr writes about how the Old Testament
prophets follow a predictable pattern in their self-development. They begin with anger at the people and their
behavior, blaming them for whatever impending crisis they are warning against,
encouraging the people to change their ways.
But then, they move into grief; and after the prophets make peace with
their own grief, they then are able to engage their empathy, moving alongside
the people in solidarity in their suffering.
This pattern is revealed in Jesus’s
interaction for today as well—how he is angry, then he is grieved, then he is
empathetic and standing alongside the people of Jerusalem in solidarity, even
as he is disappointed in their reception of him.
Interestingly enough, the apostle Paul
adds another voice to this conversation this morning. In his letter to the Philippians, he is
writing from prison to the Christian community in Philippi, which is a city in
Macedonia; and Paul is writing to the Philippians, who are the first church he
established on Europeans soil. Unlike
some of his other churches, Paul seems to have a close and happy relationship
with the Philippians, and he writes the letter to them to encourage them to be persistent
in their faith as they face opposition to the church in that community and even
the threat of death.
Earlier in Philippians, Paul has
emphasized the importance of emulating Jesus “who, though he was in the form of
God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied
himself…and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient
to the point of death—even death on a cross.”
In our reading for today, Paul is urging
the Philippians to follow his example as he seeks to emulate Christ, and he
reminds them that their citizenship is not of this earth (or of Rome within
whose territory they lived), and because they are truly citizens of heaven,
they may not ever feel at home here. And
then grumpy, old Paul speaks about the tears he is shedding for people who are
driven by their passions (because the Greeks thought the stomach was the seat
of the passions or the emotion), and he urges the Philippians to not be like
that, reminding them that all things will be transformed through Christ.
It’s a good lesson for us today,
regardless of how you land politically, this reminder that our citizenship lies
with God and not with earthly structures. It’s a helpful reminder, even as it
can makes us uncomfortable to feel a little homeless when it comes to the
workings of our government because our true citizenship lies elsewhere. And hopefully this discomfort can invite us
to look under the surface of anger, because Lord knows there is so much anger
in our country right now, and name what is underneath it, which is probably
either fear or grief. And if we do find
grief under the anger, I hope we can follow the example of Jesus and the
prophets to let our grief propel us toward empathy and solidarity with those
who are also sad and suffering, even if their grief and their suffering looks
different from ours. Because that is
what it means to be imitators of Christ and to be full citizens of God’s
kingdom.
So this week, I invite you to be curious
about the anger you see—whether it is in yourself or in someone else. And if you find grief there, to make room for
it, inviting God to be present with you in it and to transform you in and
through either grief or empathy.
In closing, I want to share with you a
poem by a poet I just discovered. His
name is Dwayne Betts, and this is a poem in his brand new book titled Doggerel. The poem is titled
Grief
For
Lori
The
story of Easy, a small dog who
I
imagine is named after Mosley’s detective,
Crawls
into the psace left by Zinnia,
Burrowing
into corners, against
Door
frames, beneath a house-
In
search of a phantom smell. State
Fair:
Sahara: Thumbelina: Dreamland:
Envy.
Orange Star. Creeping zinnias
That
bloom until first frost. My g-d
The
ways we grieve, again & again
Because
the only rule of life
Is
to forget means to abandon. When
I
forget to feed Tay, she never barks,
But
waits, wherever I am, as if she trusts
My
memory more than I do. I imagine
This
is grief’s lesson: it is the engine
Of
making what happened before
Matter,
& it’s true that I’ve only ever
Remembered
a few joys as much
As
I’ve recounted all my reasons
To
grieve, but nothing grows
Without
weeping, not even joy.[ii]
Comments
Post a Comment