On the first Sunday of Lent, the Scripture reading from the Gospel told of Jesus being led into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil who tried various tactics in order to derail Jesus from his mission and ministry. At each temptation Jesus remained firm in his conviction to stay the course. These temptations were transparent. Turn stones into bread and you won’t be hungry. Worship the devil and get all the kingdoms of the world. Throw yourself down from the mountain and angels will save you. Each time Jesus remained strong, and stood his own ground.

Today’s Gospel presents yet another temptation. The Pharisees come to Jesus and say, “Jesus, you need to get out of town. Herod wants to kill you.” Now this was not the Herod who was in charge when Jesus was born, this was Herod Antipas, one of his three sons, appointed by the Romans, who along with some Pharisees and other religious leaders, also selected by the Roman leadership, made a profit from having power over the Jewish people. This Herod had already killed Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist because John had not only criticized Herod for his crimes; he criticized him publicly for divorcing his wife to marry the wife of his half-brother. John was put in jail and eventually beheaded, with his head presented on a platter at a dinner party.

So when the Pharisees told Jesus that Herod wanted him killed, Jesus would have had every reason to be anxious and fearful about his life. What a temptation to not go forward in his ministry. But instead of leaving he replied “Go tell that sly fox for me, ‘Listen I am busy casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow and on the third day I finish my work.”

Jesus went on to lament the fact that Jerusalem had fallen away from God, “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!”

Jerusalem was the city of pilgrimage, a place Jesus would have visited often throughout his childhood and adult life. It was the place of institutional power and authority which could benefit or marginalize people. Psalm 122, states:

Jerusalem, built as a city, walled round about. Here the tribes have come, the tribes of the LORD, As it was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD. Here are the thrones of justice, the thrones of the house of David. For the peace of Jerusalem pray: "May those who love you prosper! May peace be within your ramparts, prosperity within your towers."

But peace was not within its borders when Jesus expressed his longings to draw the people to him. It had become a place of injustice, where shalom, God’s well-being was not the norm. Instead it had become a place where the poor, the widowed and the outcasts were at the mercy of rulers like Herod and the Romans. So it was with a strong and feminine image that Jesus laments the condition of the city, of the place it has become. “How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings but you were not willing.”

When a hen’s chicks are in danger, she opens her wings and gathers the chicks under her protection, willing to hide them, protect them from any danger. N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and a leading New Testament scholar, draws on the image of a ’farmyard fire’ as the threat to the hen's babies, when "those cleaning up have found a dead hen, scorched and blackened, and live chicks sheltering under her wings. She has quite literally given her life to save them.”

In this passage, Jesus is pointing ahead to his destiny, a journey that will take him into a city that has become a dangerous place for him.

Jesus, baptized by his cousin John, went out to begin his ministry, to call all people to be reconciled to God. This was dangerous work for him, to heal, to welcome, to offer forgiveness, to treat all people with respect and dignity.

It is dangerous work still. To assure people that they are loved and are worthy and acceptable does not sit well with some of the powerful rulers of this world. This is quite clear in Uganda where the government wants to jail or put to death gay or lesbian people, and those who care for them.

So today, in this scripture Jesus was offered a brief out, an opportunity to take another road. And he refused. There was work yet to be done, truth to be told, people to heal, people who needed to see the reality of God's presence in their lives. Jesus said, “I still have work to do, and I will not cease until the appointed time.” Sometimes I think this happens to us, the temptation to set aside our goals, our missions, our ministries to which God calls us and that would benefit others.

When I was divorced, my children were pretty young. One daughter was nine months old and the other was three years old. My goal was for us to stay together, no matter what. I decided to go back to school and signed up for classes at the University of Detroit. It was hard. I was working a full-time job, going to class two nights a week, and raising the girls. My ex-husband came to me and said, “Why don’t you let me take the children until you finish school. Then they can come back and live with you.” That was a tempting offer. Life might be much easier, not so stressful. In my heart though I knew if the children left me then, I would probably never get them back. And my goal was for us to stay together, no matter what. And so I said no. I often think back on that one moment in time, so thankful that God was giving me strength, because if I had said yes, I know I would not be here now.

Sometimes we tempt ourselves in subtle ways by saying, “I am not ready yet….when I get my act together….I have to get organized… these are all expressions of temptations that can keep us from moving ahead. In our gospel hymn this morning we sang “If we tarry until we are ready, we will never come at all.”

Often in small group situations people have to learn to listen to each other without offering advice. This is not easy. When a person describes what is going on in their lives, many times we want to jump in and tell them how to fix it. It is always much easier to interfere in someone else’s life than to deal with our own. Isn’t that the truth? It is always much easier to interfere in someone else’s life than to deal with our own. Sometimes in life we will have to face into a hard issue, a truth in our lives that we need to confront, a way of living that we need to change, and we will be tempted to take a different road.

I’ve been reading a book by Neil White, a man who was a prominent editor of several magazines in the South. The book is titled, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts. White was sent to jail for ‘kiting’ – illegally switching money back and forth between accounts to keep from bouncing checks. The prison he was sent to was Carville in Louisiana. It was also the last home for lepers, victims of Hansen’s disease, in this country. When he first arrived, White thought of himself as an undercover reporter, not as an inmate. He believed he would write an expose about the prison and those who had leprosy. He imagined the awards he would receive and how he would manage to restore his good name. But somewhere along the line he realized he was losing the three most important people in his life – his wife and two children. He had an intense longing to change but didn’t know how. He interviewed several people in the institution, asking, “How do you change.” One person who had become a friend to him was Ella, a woman who had been taken away from her family as a young child because she had leprosy. Many people at Carville changed their last names so their families would not bear the stigma society placed on them.

One day White asked Ella, “How does a person change?” “Keep meddlin” was the answer. White said he didn’t want to interview anyone else – he had interviewed a wide spectrum of people from the priest to the guards to inmates to leprosy patients. Ella said, “Maybe you been asking the wrong folks.” “Who should I be interviewing,” he asked. Ella leaned forward and in a soft voice said, “Your own self.”

White wrote, “The very act of being honest with myself, taking an objective look at my life, was freeing. I felt free of the expectations I placed on myself. Free of my drive to win at all costs. For reasons I could not fully explain, I felt an overwhelming sense of euphoria.” He still did not know exactly how to change, but had discovered some simple truths. Life with his children did not require wealth, it is vital to be honest, without worrying about his own image, helping others is more noble than winning awards. He found value in those he met at Carville and he was thankful that his life was so rich.

Even churches are not immune from temptations. Many times, even though the mission statement may be something like “To know Christ and to make him known,” churches often take the easier path of supplying all kinds of activities that can be found in secular places, activities that might entice people to come to the church, but that is buying into a consumer mentality. These activities do not help people get to know Christ. Churches can be seduced by the thought that “more is better” rather than striving to help people who are longing to attain depth in their relationship to God and to each other.

Now is a good time to remind ourselves, ‘keep meddlin’, interview ourselves, so that we focus our own hearts and minds on what God is calling us to do in our personal and church lives. Remember the longings of Jesus were to draw all people to himself, and that includes us. Amen