By Such Stripes Are We Healed
by Jack Shaver
©The United Church of Canada, 1985
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 0-88622-196-X
7M/12/85/APL
Used with Permission
Thursday
Mother hen's lament
Matthew 23: 37-39
Both Matthew and Luke record this lament over Jerusalem. Matthew locates it during passion week, following some very strong criticism of the scribes and Pharisees. Luke puts it earlier in Jesus' ministry, between a warning by a friendly Pharisee that Herod was planning to have Jesus killed and a controversy with other Pharisees over the question of healing on the Sabbath. In both cases, the settings enhance the moving power of the passage.
The lament has long held a significant place in the history of human expression. When language is found to give eloquent expression to sorrow, a great treasure has been found. When music has the quality of enabling genuine grief, a great gift has been given.
I will never forget a lecture given by Dr. Crump Miller on the history of jazz, in which he pointed out the many connections between that music and black American evangelical Christianity. He discussed the funeral marches of the late Louis Armstrong and then, before he played the lament from one of them, he said: "Listen to this and then tell me whether you would be more able to do your griefwork to that melody or to 'Abide with me'."
I had just returned from a distant city where my wife had been admitted to hospital suffering a severe breakdown. Our children and I had no idea what we were in for, or what we had been responsible for. I was in a state of shock, understanding nothing and feeling nothing. That lament permitted me to do my "grief-work". It enabled me to endure events, past and current. It enabled me to accept, rather than reject, what I was experiencing.
Laments can differ in what they are about as well as in the quality of their eloquence. David's lament at the death of Saul and Jonathan (II Samuel 1: 19-27) is eloquent indeed. Its subject is the death of public figures who were friends. Jeremiah 's lament, "Is there no balm in Gilead?" is over a different matter-grief at his people's waywardness. A love of sinners is prompting that grief. Jesus' lament over Jerusalem is all that, grief stemming from the love of sinners, but with the added gravity that the beloved sinners are seeking his life. While steadfastly setting his face towards the Jerusalem which will execute him, he grieves in love over the city.
- In an earlier reflection we saw how penetrating the image of travail could be to the heart of God, especially if we could listen with the ears of a woman who had given birth. In today's text we have another metaphor that will work even better if we can hear it with the ears of a mother:
- "How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! "
I can remember discovering, on my first student field, how big a problem a broody hen was to an egg producer. I heard housewives discussing ways to cure a broody hen. Broody hens weren't satisfied with producing break fasts for someone else, they wanted to produce a family.
In exploring the connection between sin and suffering and the Good News, is there any word in the notion that God is like a broody hen?
Thanksgiving
O God of steadfast love,
how right and good it is to give thanks; things are as they should be when we do. But we have learned that being grateful because we should is neither right nor good.
Dear God, a grateful heart is a gift or it is not real at all.
A grateful heart transforms life.
It turns life into a mysterious gift, and precious in our sight.- It opens our heart to wonder and surprise
- It lets us revel in sight and sound.
It permits us to love another. - Dear God, it's because you are there when we turn to you, that we dare embrace life. It's because you believe in us that we can freely accept the gift of life. It's because you love the world that we can take it to our hearts.
Gracious God, it's all because of you that our hearts can sing.
Turn loose our praise.
Amen