2nd Sunday of Lent - Year C

Readings:

Genesis 15:1-12 and 17-18

Psalm 27

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Luke 13:31-35

The Philippians are encouraged to stand firm by following Paul?s example and living according to the pattern they had set.

Paul reminds the Philippians that their citizenship is in heaven and that they eagerly await a Saviour who will transform them ? ?will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

The power of the image used by Jesus in the gospel (of the hen gathering her chicks under her wings) is captured in the story

After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park, forest rangers began their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno's damage. One ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched statuesquely on the ground at the base of a tree. Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick. When he gently struck it, three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother's wings.

The loving mother, keenly aware of impending disaster, had carried her offspring to the base of the tree and had gathered them under her wings, instinctively knowing that the toxic smoke would rise. She could have flown to safety but refused to abandon her babies. When the blaze had arrived and the heat had scorched her small body, the mother had remained steadfast. Because she had been willing to die, those under the cover of her wings would live.

(unfortunately, this story has been dismissed as fiction!)

The idea that Jesus had to die in Jerusalem is not so much a statement about Jesus having to die there, but that such cities are places where prophets are killed ? ie the most severe persecution of prophets has been at the hands of the religious establishment in any age (Bratcher)

When a religious institution views itself as the sole custodian and broker of religious faith, it becomes so obsessed with itself and so determined to perpetuate its authority that any perceived threat to its status is interpreted as blasphemy against God and must be squelched. How easy it is to think that our own understanding of the faith is the absolute truth and therefore any view that challenges our own must be interpreted as unorthodox and condemned and eliminated. Religious arrogance can easily be camouflaged as zeal for God?s truth. (Bratcher)

Possible preaching paths:

Pilgrims Progress

City Life ? ?O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ? you kill the hope ??

Two interesting images are presented in the Gospel. That "fox" and the "hen".

Herod is the fox, whowants to kill Jesus (according to the Pharisees)

Jesus is the hen who wants to protec the chicks - for which Jerusalem seems to offer no protection.

and here's a really good cartoon