God's Hen House - 3/17/2019

As many know, when we are reading or listening to the Bible some of it seems strange until a life experience opens a new way of viewing what had before been ignored. Something passed over or not understood until a life experience, or a story gives new Biblical insight not noticed before.
Just take that image found in Luke 13:35 today, where Jesus laments over Jerusalem and says, “Look, your house is left to you ...” (NRSV). It wasn’t until I had a conversation with an executive living in and attending the international congregation in Nagoya, Japan where I was pastor and missionary that my eyes were opened. This conversation was around 2009 and we were discussing the housing situation outside of his home in one of the suburbs of a city in the upper Midwest.
Thanks to the home-foreclosure crisis of a year before he had become all too acquainted with literal desolate homes, or as Jesus calls it “See, your house is left to you.” If you remember, neighborhoods in cities and towns across America were decimated because of houses abandoned after their owners were either forced out by mortgage holders or had given up and walked away from them ahead of inevitable foreclosures.
This executive shared how things had gone in his neighborhood: With no one tending the houses in his upper income neighborhood, eaves sag, windows are broken, and yards become overgrown. The houses begin to languish and so do the neighborhood in which they sit. Although this executive had been able to maintain his home, because of the financial problems of his neighbors his home was now included.
As I heard that story I was reminded about today’s lesson because in New Testament Greek and modern English, the word “house” can stand not only for a building but also for a family.
How is that helpful as we read understand today’s gospel? Today’s portion of Luke begins with the Pharisees passing along a threat from Herod, whom Jesus would refer to as a fox. Thus, for one Jesus is referring to the house of Herod because the House of Herod did not resemble so much a mighty tree as a tangled ball. This Herod referenced as the Fox, named Antipas, had other relatives called Herod as well, and their marriages, divorces and remarriages for just one were not only often ill-considered, but were sometimes incestuous.
Yet on the other hand, the House of Herod were greatly admired in the larger Roman Empire. Herod the Great, for instance, had fully funded the 12 BC Olympics. Herod the Great was also admired by the Roman elite because he left behind many great architectural works, including substantial improvements to the Jewish temple --- so impressive that it caused one of Jesus' disciples to marvel: “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”
Jesus, however, replied, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (Mark 13:1-2). Jesus was right of course, and eventually, that desolation would become all too tangible. In A.D. 66, the Jewish population rebelled against Rome and the House of Herod. The empire could not allow that revolt to succeed, and so in A.D. 70, Roman legions under future emperor Titus retook the city and destroyed much of it, including the temple.
But as much as we may like to think that was all Jesus was talking about --- this desolate House of Herod --- Jesus was also referencing all the neighborhoods and brokenness among the common people as well; the failure by many to love God with their whole hearts and love their neighbors as themselves.
With that in mind, it's not much of a stretch to jump 20 centuries and “the house left to you” --- to our lives, neighborhoods and world. An unattended life, at the grassroots -- one littered with missed opportunities, broken relationships, repeated procrastinations, a lack of empathy, unkept promises, false starts, yielded-to temptations, selfish priorities and the like -- can quickly become a forsaken “house” or as the New International Version of this lesson translates this Biblical Greek “See, your house is left desolate.”
And it is easy to find desolate-house-type lives in the news. We need not go far to think of any one of the celebrities, politicians, and religious figures who destroyed their families, lost their positions, ruined their reputations and betrayed those who trusted them because of some act of infidelity or gross selfishness. But let us not limit our thinking to just that, because it's often much smaller acts of inattention on less public screens that render us forlorn.
In a TV cop show from years ago called The Closer, the main character, Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, was an effective police officer with an innate ability to discern who the bad guys were and wrangle admissions of guilt out of them. But she had one habit that drove her family and co-workers nuts: When she was hot on a case, she became so focused that she usually deflected their requests for her attention, even if they only wanted a moment, putting them off until “later.” As the series went along, it became obvious that she was always behind in tending the most important relationships in her life, and in an episode near the end of the series, it caught up with her.
In that episode, Brenda's parents, whom she loved deeply but too often shortchanged with her time, are visiting in her home. Just after Brenda gets a fresh lead on her current case, her mother asks for a moment to tell her something important. Reluctant to look away from her case, Brenda promises to give her some time over breakfast the next morning. Her mother agrees but looks disappointed. The next morning, intending to keep her date with her mother, Brenda goes to the guest bedroom to awaken her, only to find that her mother had died unexpectedly during the night.
The next episode, set a week or so later and after the funeral, has Brenda, still grieving, back at work, where in a reflective moment, she tells a co-worker that she's sorry for not listening to him better. In the concluding scene of that episode, her husband finds her sitting on the bed where her mother died. She says to him, “The last time I saw Mama, she asked me if I had a minute, and I didn't have the time just then. Now, I'm the one who could really use a minute, and Mama has no time at all.”
Lent is that season when we are to hear that it is our houses, need Spring Cleaning, not later but now. It is to our houses that Jesus laments in today’s gospel. Improper or deferred maintenance is always bad for relationships, and that includes our spiritual ones as well. An unattended spiritual house can yield a life where God is supposedly welcome, but where God is ignored by the occupant --- so ignored, that the occupant doesn't even notice when the Lord is no longer there. Just as we can become so accustomed to starving our relationships, breaking our promises, failing to carry through, ignoring our spiritual health and so on that we don't realize how bad things are until the whole thing comes crashing down.
So today is an opportunity for us to review our “houses.” What might it mean for our House to be left to ourselves? For one thing, it means that life is only what we can make of it on a time-based scale, devoid of any hope that extends beyond our lifetime, devoid of any confidence that God will multiply our efforts in this life. For another, it means that we have no ultimate authority to which we answer. Yes, we still have societal standards, but no rock on which to stand.
In a way, we keep our spiritual houses from becoming desolate by tending our relationship with the Lord. We can't keep telling the Lord “later” or “someday” and expect that to keep the relationship strong. In the Closer episode following the death of Brenda's mother, her husband stops by the police station and asks Brenda if she has a minute. She's begun work on a new case and almost reflexively, she responds, stalling him, and she begins to walk away. But then, with the memory of what she missed by doing that to her mother apparently hitting her afresh, she turns back and says, “Sorry. Yes, I do.” After they are alone in her office, she tells him, “Don't ask me. If you need to talk to me, just say, 'Listen,' okay?” It's good for us to be in that kind of relationship with God as well, where he can just say, “Listen,” and we give God our attention. (Pause)
Yet, as I reflected on that conversation with that executive, years ago, I also heard the blame, “If others had taken care of their home, if others had not overleveraged their mortgages, if “they” hadn’t moved in.” It is far easier to blame others or that systems that we are part of from our current political leadership to our education system to minorities, aliens and migrants. Granted when it comes to our actual houses, it's not always possible when our emergency funds were intended for a shorter time, or we just don't have the budget for every repair the house could use. But that thinking permeates our spiritual thinking as well, you see it not only the language of white supremacy but also in language as simple as this “house” would be different if we simply build stone monuments with the 10 commandments or imposed school directed prayer on all.
Thankfully, this is where our literal homes and our spiritual homes diverge because our spiritual houses not up to the occupant alone. God is ready to help us keep the place up. For just as Jesus is lamenting about the desolate houses, Jesus juxtaposes the image of the hen. What is often missed is that as much as we have an image of a fluffy hen with wayward chicks, we miss an additional vital portion of that protection for a hen to save, a hen's heart and other vital organs must be completely exposed when her wings are open to protect her chicks. This is the posture Jesus takes figuratively, for Jesus will eventually take such a posture literally, with arms wide open to gather all people to himself. In Christ, we have what our houses cannot produce on their own: grace, hope, love and forgiveness – gifts of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ lamentation we have not only the challenge to review the status of our “house” but the seeds of comfort, hope and strength as God opens his household to all of us. Amen.