Swallowsrest

Lent 2 -2025

Luke 13:31-35

Marian Free

In the name of God who has “yet more light and truth to break forth from God’s word^[1].” Amen.

As part of my Lenten discipline, I am reading Healing Wounds: the 2025 Lent Book by Norwegian Bishop and author Erik Varden. Varden is a Trappist monk, so I should not have been surprised that his approach to the study is that of a Roman Catholic.  While I understand his imagery, I find some of it jarring. That said, the book is providing much food for thought. Varden takes as his starting point an ancient poem authored by one Arnulf of Leuven (1200-48), a Cistercian and an author. The poem is a meditation on the cross, specifically on Christ’s body on the cross – his feet, his knees, his hands. Varden suggests that the poem asks the question: “How do I appropriate the passion narrative with due proportion and without presumption?” or “How do I experience Christ’s wounds as the living source of a remedy by which sin is cured and humanity’s wounds, my wounds are healed?”^[2]

It is not only Varden’s theology that is somewhat different from my own, but his use of scripture. In particular, given this week’s gospel, I have found my self pondering his reference to Luke 13:34b. “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Varden is commenting on the poet’s reflection on Jesus’ hands – “your sacred hands extended”.  The poet continues: “You show yourself broad, ready to receive both good and bad; attracting the indolent, calling the devout, holding them in your embrace, freely open to all.” Influenced by the language of the poet Varden writes: “He (Jesus) desired to gather Jerusalem’s children ‘together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.’”

I will leave you to ponder what to make of the image. It may be that you, like Arnulf and Varden, see Christ’s outstretched arms on the cross as a welcoming embrace, and that for you too Jesus’ arms nailed to the cross recall to mind Jesus’ words as he contemplates Jerusalem in today’s gospel.

Varden has, it seems to me, used scripture quite creatively, and this is just one example. That said, it is only in the last few hundred years that we have expected scripture to make literal sense. Until quite recently scholars and preachers alike understood that scripture was to be understood allegorically and that it did not have to be entirely logical or linear.

This historical understanding of scripture comes in handy when we examine today’s gospel which, read as a piece, does not seem to be particularly coherent. (In fact, as I am discovering during Morning Prayer, much of Luke’s gospel reads as a list of unrelated sayings or comments.)

In the five verses that comprise this morning’s gospel there appear to be at least four unconnected themes – warnings, determination, concern and prediction – each of which warrant more than the one or two lines allotted.  There are foxes and hens, Pharisees who warn rather than attack Jesus, a city that kills prophets, a Saviour who is also a mother hen, and a saying that could refer to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem or to his post-resurrection return. 

In these verses we see Jesus at his most discerning, his most assertive and his most maternal.

Trying to construct a sermon on any one of those themes means neglecting the others. There is a temptation, into which I may have fallen, to speak of foxes and hens, even though there is no direct connection between them in the text. 

Sometimes, I believe, it is important not to try to make literal sense of the text but allow it to speak to us in whatever way is appropriate for the time – ours or the world’s. It is important not to force the text into some form of coherence – to make the Pharisees’ warning relate to Jesus’ passionate outburst of love, to conflate Jesus’ discussion with the Pharisees with his reflection on Jerusalem.  Likewise, as familiar and heart-warming as they are, we should not take Jesus’ words about gathering the chicks out of context.

It is important to try to make sense of our scriptures, to place them in their context, and to understand the author’s literary skills and intention.  There are times though when sitting with the complexities and contradictions that we find in scripture, accepting that no amount of research, no amount of manipulation of the text will translate into something that makes absolute sense is just what is needed. 

Sometimes, as I have certainly said before, there seems to be some wisdom, if not intention here – the very incoherence of a text serves a purpose. Texts that seem to make little sense serve as a warning that we are not to rely on an earthly capacity for understanding, or to believe that earthly values are a reflection of heavenly values. Complex, contradictory scriptures force us to accept that we can never truly know the mind of God and that we must let go of our desire for certainty, simply sit with the text, and retain an openness to the movement of the Spirit – in the text, in ourselves and in others.

In the words of the hymn:

We limit not the truth of God

to our poor reach of mind,

by notion of our day and sect,

crude, partial and confined:

no let a new and better hope

within our hearts be stirred:

                  the Lord has yet more truth and life

to break forth from his word

O Father, Son, and Spirit, send

us increase from above;

enlarge expand all living souls

to comprehend your love;

and make us all go on to know

 with nobler power conferred:

                  that you have yet more light and truth

to break forth from your word.^[3]

Sometimes all we can do is to let the words wash over us and make such sense as they will.

---

^[1] George Rawson, hymn writer,1807-89.

^[2] Varden,  p20. The book is available on Kindle as well as in hard copy.

^[3] George Rawson, Togetther in Song, 453.

Tags: earthly understtanding, Erik Varden, George Rawson, hens, incoherence, uncertainty

This entry was posted on March 15, 2025 at 3:31 am and is filed under Lent, Luke's gospel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.