5th Sunday after Pentecost 2025

Anybody else?

They're gonna roast me, y'all.

Alright.

Well have a seat, young ones.

As we You wanna come on up?

Yes! Are you coming up?

Winning.

I was hoping you'd show up.

The donut.

Okay, it's a quick one.

Okay.

So, is that good?

I know, I want one.

This is what I was thinking.

Have um you ever met somebody that was a little grumpy and then maybe a lot grumpy, and you thought, they just need a hug.

Has that ever happened?

You ever met somebody like that?

Like, man, they need a hug.

They must be hurting pretty bad.

I was thinking that, you know, in life, it's really, really important for us to find people that make us feel safe and remind us that everything, despite sometimes what it seems like, that everything is going to be okay.

And I think that Jesus is trying to tell us that this actually isn't just like a suggestion.

I think today what he's trying to say is that if we don't have places in our life where we can be sheltered and scared and feel super small and feel like everything's not gonna be okay, if we don't have places where we can do that, and if we don't have people that can wrap their arms around us and say, hey, it's okay, and it is scary, and the world is big, and everything's gonna be okay, and you're not alone.

But if we don't have that, that life is a whole lot harder and a lot less fun.

So I hope that you all have those people in your life and can be those people in other people's lives, um, and I think that that's what God hopes for us.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, yeah, my signs are good.

Thus says the fire of Sinai, the grace in the wilderness, the women, children, and men, the survivors of the sword, Israel seeking rest.

From afar the rock over the subher to me.

With an everlasting love, I have loved you, daughter.

That is why I have continued my faithfulness to you.

Again shall I rebuild you a daughter and daughter, you shall have built the virgin Israel.

Again, daughter, you shall be adorned with your hand rubs, and go forth in the dance of those who rebel.

Again, daughter, you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria.

The planters shall plant, and they shall consume.

For there shall be a day when sentinels shall proclaim in the hill country of Ephraim.

Come, let us go up to Zion, to the glorious one our God.

Look, I'm going to bring them from the land of the north, and I shall gather them in the farthest parts of the earth.

Among them blind and lame, pregnant women and burning men, all together in a great assembly, they shall return here.

With weeping they come, and through supplication shall I lead them back.

I will have them walk by the streams of water of the street path, and they shall not stumble on it.

For I am appeared to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

Hear the word of the Holy One of the nations, and declare it in the islands far off.

Say the one who scattered Israel shall gather him and shall keep him as a shepherd of flock.

For the faithful one has ransomed Jacob of Rebekah's line, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.

Then shall young women rejoice and dance in young men and elders together.

I shall turn their mourning to joy, I shall comfort them and give them joy or sorrow.

I shall satisfy the very souls of the priests with badness, and my people with goodness shall be satisfied, an utterance of the God who provides.

Thus says the Holy One of old, a voice in drama is heard, wailing, bitterly weeping.

Rachel is weeping for her children.

She refuses to be comforted for her children because they are no more.

Thus says the mother of wisdom, daughter, hold back your voice from weeping, and daughter, your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your word, daughter, an utterance of she who is wisdom.

They shall come back from the land of the enemy.

There is hope for your future, an utterance of the will of the creation.

Your children shall return to their country.

The word of the Lord.

The sound of song and of salvation is an attempt of the righteous.

The right hand of the most high is mighty.

The right hand of the mighty God is exalted.

The right hand of the most high is mighty.

I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the ancient of days.

The merciful God has punished me severely, but today did not enter.

Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them, and give thanks to the hand of justice.

This is the gate of the living God, the righteous shall enter through them.

I thank you for you have answered me, and of my salvation.

The stone the builders rejected has become the corner.

This is the mighty God's doing.

It is harmful as the day that the Creator of all has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad.

Save us, we pray.

Blessed is the one who are the same.

Come now, milk, evil.

Your riches are rotting, and your clothes are rotten.

Your gold and silver have decayed, and your decay shall be a witness against you, and it shall eat your flesh like fire.

You have laid up treasure before the last days.

Listen, the wages of the workers who reach your fields, which you all defrauded and out of, cry out, and the criers of the farm, the cries of the farm workers have reached the ears of the commander of the heavens of the games.

You all have lived on the earth in self-indulgence and in luxury.

You all have horror to your hearts in a day of sword.

You all have condemned to murder the righteous one.

Does not God resist you with the word of the Lord?

Summoned by a God who made us regional university, gathered in the name of Jesus, religious.

At the same time, some Pharisees came and said to him, Go and depart from here, for Herod wants to kill you.

And Jesus said to them, You all go and tell that fox for me.

Listen, I am casting out demons and providing healing today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will be finished.

Yet today, tomorrow, and the one that is coming, I must go, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones, those who are sent to her.

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 here, your house is left to you.

And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Holy One.

The gospel of the Lord.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Or stand.

You can stand.

It'd be weird, but you can.

Good morning.

So, one of the things I love about being here, you know, I've been here over six months now, y'all.

Yay! I'm excited.

I love it here.

This is truly my favorite church that I've been a part of, I think, probably in my whole life.

And one of the things I love is that Mike seems to be really interested in helping to open us to the complexity and mystery of God in like all of the different ways that language gives us access to that mystery.

And, you know, there's a rich tradition in the Judeo sort of Christian line, our theology, our faith, that does hold up the feminine divine.

And we do a really good job of that here.

I mean, we're reading the women's lectionary now that is intentionally putting in female pronouns and words to help us understand the voices that have been lost and the ways that we have probably neglected our understanding of God.

And I love that.

And there's so many voices that we can reclaim that will give us a richer understanding of what it means to be Christians.

And I was excited because, you know, there's not a ton of actual female or motherly metaphors in the tradition, in the Judeo-Christian scriptures.

You don't get a lot of feminine metaphors and motherly metaphors.

You do get some.

There are some in the first testament.

Um, you get some in this Psalter, and you get some in Hosea and a few other places in Isaiah about sort of God nursing and things like that, like nourishing us.

But we get one today.

Like we get this really wonderful, beautiful metaphor today about God as a mother, like a protective mother, and shows up in kind of a rare way in a chicken.

In a chicken.

So we're in Luke chapter 13.

Luke 13 · chapter mention

And if you remember in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus in chapter 9, he's up in the north, and he turns, it says he turns his face towards Jerusalem, and he begins his final journey towards his death.

And that lasts a while around chapter 18.

And we're in that in chapter 13, and along the way, he's preaching and he's teaching and he's healing and he's casting out demons and he's performing miracles, and he's kind of in the northern part, north of Jerusalem, and he's getting close to the city, and he's still in the territory of Herod Antipas.

So he's still in the territory of Herod.

He's the power player, the ruler of that area.

And he's doing what he does.

He's healing, he's teaching, he's casting out demons, he's speaking truth to power, he's ushering in the kingdom of God.

And people come and they say, Jesus, this guy wants to kill you.

You need to get going.

You need to move on.

And Jesus' response is, you tell that fox, which I love, he calls him a fox, says, You tell that fox, essentially, that I'm not scared of it, right?

I'm not scared of it because I'm here and I know what's next, and I'm going to proclaim the gospel, and I'm going to get to Jerusalem because this is the will of God.

And then he does this thing where he kind of like, I imagine he like turns south.

I imagine he turns south towards Jerusalem.

And he says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones the people that are trying to help you.

Like, and they call this the lament.

Like, it doesn't say he lamented and said it.

But the wisdom of the faithful is that this is a lament, which is a particular sort of kind of wailing, like a grieving.

Like, he's he's not like he's like longing, he's like, there's grief, and he's like, ah, this city that I love, you do this thing, and how I long to gather you like a hen that gathers its chicks under its wing.

How I long to do that, but you refuse.

And I will tell you, I think he's talking about Jerusalem, and I think he's talking about all of the Jewish people, and I think he's talking about us.

That's just how I think Scripture works.

Just, I long to gather you and protect you and to hold you under my wings, but you reject it.

You reject it.

And boy, can I tell you, like, I don't know if you're like me, but I really like this mothering, nurturing metaphor for God.

I can find it comforting that God desires to like uphold my soul, like hold it and remind me that everything is gonna be okay, that despite floods and tragedies and horrors and selfishness, despite how small I am and someday seemingly so unpowerful and insignificant, like my soul gets a hug, like it's gonna be okay.

Like, I'm grateful that Jesus chose this metaphor.

I mean, he could have chosen a lot of metaphors, right?

And there's a lot of animals to choose from.

And in some ways, he could have chosen the good shepherd.

That seems to work elsewhere.

Could have said, you know, I want to be a good shepherd.

I mean, he could have got there, but he chose this one.

Like this brooding head.

You know, and has anybody had chickens?

Like a show of hands.

We got one, two, three, four, five.

Okay, we got a few chicken hammers here.

Okay.

So, y'all, I'm like, I wasn't a pet, I love my dog, like I adore my dog, but I wasn't like a pet person a lot, and so we had a compromise when my kids were younger that they could have chickens.

And so, as long as I didn't have to do anything, you know, that's like a compromise for me.

As long as I don't have to do anything in their outside.

And so uh Becky, you know, got a bunch of chickens, and the kids had them for a long time, and she's super handy, so she built a coop and all this stuff.

The kids love the chickens.

And I was telling Becky, I was like, I was like, oh, they got this chicken metaphor, right?

And she's like, oh yeah, you don't want to mess with a brooding hen.

Like you who know know.

But you evidently you have to like trick them into like getting out of the nesting box because they are fierce.

They are fierce and they're like biologically designed to do this.

This is this is what pens do.

They go brooding.

And there's a reason for this.

There's a reason for this, because if the chicks don't have a brooding hen, right, what happens?

They die.

They die.

And it might not be because there's a hawk or a fox or an eagle or whatever it is.

It's probably just because they got cold, because they're little, and they can't hold their body temperature.

So it's in their nature.

It's not like they make a decision.

Friends, the chickens that decide not to go to the brooding head, they didn't make it down the evolutionary chain.

And the ones that do it now aren't making it down the ever they're winning the Darwin Awards, okay?

They're winning the Darwin Awards.

They're done.

They're done.

So I was talking to Becky, and she was like, yeah, like that's that's the whole reality.

Of the brood.

And I'm like, man, thanks, Jesus.

Are y'icking up on this?

It's like on one hand, it's like a super nice to know that God wants to hold me and protect me and my soul.

And on the other hand, he's like, you're like a dumb chicken.

You're like the.00001% that doesn't make it down the evolutionary chain, people.

Like, you are killing yourself.

That's what's happening.

If you do not allow this to happen, you will die.

So it's kind of like this interesting, complex, backhanded metaphor.

Where it holds up this beauty of who God is and the relationship God desires to have with us.

And on the other hand, it's pretty critical.

But you know, I don't think that it's unreasonable that I don't want to go to the head.

So stay with me.

Like, honestly, I think that, like, this is so powerful.

Because I think there's a lot of really good, reasonable, um, there's just a lot of reasonable things that make me be suspicious.

I'm not saying they're good.

I don't think any of them are good.

But I think it's just true.

And I think Jesus is trying to like open us up a little bit to say that this is a true reality, whether you like it or not.

We need relationships in our life with God and with other people where we can be vulnerable and scared and honest, and we need to relationships where people put their arms around us in safe ways and they say everything is going to be okay.

It's going to be alright, you're not alone.

We need that in our life if we're going to do this human thing fully.

And I think the psychological research is pretty clear if you want to go into it.

I did, that if we don't have these relationships in our life, then the result is less compassion, less empathy, less connection, more depression, more isolation.

And that Jesus is saying that this is critical to what it means to be a human being.

And so I wonder what are the things, if it is so critical, if it's a truth about humanity that we need this, why do I seem to reject it?

Because I gotta be honest with y'all, I am not like really good at this.

And I don't think a lot of you are either.

I mean, I don't know you that well, but it's just my hunch.

Just my hunch.

Been doing this American humaning thing in the West for, you know, 46 years now.

And I think that there are a few things that really keep us.

And the first is shame.

Shame.

I think that we, on some level, believe that we don't deserve it.

Maybe other people, but I don't, you know.

I'm not good enough.

I haven't done enough.

I think the other hens, or the other chicks, they belong, but I don't belong, so they don't want me there.

I think shame, that the intensely painful feeling that somehow I'm fundamentally flawed and unworthy of love and belonging.

We live in a culture of shame.

We live in a culture that wants us to feel that way.

Do you know why?

Because it's profitable.

Because I tell you what, if I feel like I'm not worthy of love and belonging, I'll sure spend a lot of money to fill that hole in my life.

I'll buy stuff and do things for people.

Consumerism is based on keeping us feeling shamed.

I think we can make the case that the entire gospel in some ways is anti-shame.

It is a response to that.

God says, I will come be with you and put my arm around you.

I will incarnate and be among you so that you can fight that lie.

Because a good hug fights that lie, doesn't it?

So I think shame.

That's the lie that we believe that keeps it.

Then I started thinking also like failure.

Anybody else think that being vulnerable and being scared and allowing somebody to care for you and shelter you is a failure of your personhood or your manhood or your womanhood or however you define yourself?

I grew up with tough guys.

I grew up with the macho reality where it's like, don't ever show weakness, don't be taking, be a person who takes care of everybody.

Don't ever be weak.

Don't ever be vulnerable.

Always be giving out.

Don't allow yourself that.

That's not a good, that's a failure.

I think that's another lie that we believe.

Is that somehow when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and cared for, when we allow ourselves to engage the sadness and sometimes what feels like the hopelessness of life, that it's failure.

I think that's another lie.

Maybe that's a lie you believe too.

And then I started thinking, well, you know, there's actually some reasonable things that have happened in my life that make me suspect of that chicken.

You know?

Like, I the last one is fear.

Like, I'm afraid of it.

Is anybody else afraid of it?

Afraid of like being in a relationship like that, like where you really open yourself up and you're vulnerable, you know, whether spiritually with your soul and God or with another human being as the incarnation of God?

I get afraid of it, and part of the reason is I can't be the only one who's done that in the past, and then this person has used that against me to harm me.

I've gone in, I've allowed myself to be protected and vulnerable, and they used it to harm me in some way out of their own brokenness.

Or I feel like now I owe them, and I don't want to owe anybody.

You know, it's not a gift, it's like a transaction.

So I'm suspect of it.

I'm afraid of it.

Or maybe, maybe you feel like you're in a place in your life where you finally broke free of a hen that brooded over you your entire life.

Maybe, maybe, like, you know, you felt like you were so smothered by a loving head your entire life and your existence that it's like, I'm finally free, but now I'm out here on my own, and I, you know, I'm not sure this is it either.

And you look back at the head and you're like, but I don't want to go back there.

I don't want to go back into that type of relationship because I don't want to be smothered again.

I like my freedom.

Maybe there's a lie that you're believing that it's like one or the other.

I'm either smothered or I'm free.

I think there's a lot of reasons, very reasonable reasons, why we're suspect of this reality, either with God or with somebody else.

And I would not be doing my job faithfully, in my opinion, if I didn't stand here and tell you that in my work as being a human being, and my 15 years as a minister, and everything that I've read and studied about the nature of humanity, it is necessary and critical for thriving life.

We have to have relationships where we can be vulnerable and open and scared and honest, and we need people in our life that will give us that hug and say, it's going to be okay.

You're not alone.

And Jesus is telling us that in our soul, that's who God is.

And it's scary, and there's a lot of reasons and wounds and hurts that we don't want to trust in, but that's what I believe the message of the story is in this.

And the challenge, the challenge.

The challenge to lean into it, to acknowledge it.

I mean, we can't fix it, but I mean lean into it, take the next step in it, identify how we can we can try to let that truth overwhelm us and saturate us a little bit more in our spiritual life and our soul and in our community and our relationships.

And it's hard work.

Like I it's hard work, friends.

So join me.

Join me on this quest to try to be a little bit more open, a little bit more vulnerable.

Oh here, I'd be remote to say this.

Like you gotta find the right people.

Like you gotta find the right people.

So I I challenge you to if you don't have those people to make it a priority, try to find some people and some relationships where you can be this.

Um and if you have that, then maybe go get a hug.

And if you are that for somebody, maybe give a hug.