What do you think keeps people from coming to church? (invite responses – busyness, fatigue, sports – have a conversation). To what extent can these earthly things also get in the way of praying or other means of engaging with God? How often do distractions, distortions and other expectations get in the way of fully embracing our relationship with God?
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’
Herod had very particular distractions, distortions, and expectations about his life. He liked the power and privileges he held. He gained much by being King of the Jews and wanted to keep that power for himself. He didn’t like the threat of an itinerant preacher named Jesus. Jesus was upsetting the status quo that kept Herod and many others comfortable. This became so distracting for Herod, that he failed to see who Jesus really was and how Jesus was inviting him, and all of Jerusalem into a deeper relationship with God.
Jesus said: 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!
God wants to have a relationship with humanity. God has continually sought to have a relationship with humanity in creative and loving ways. Relationships, however, require some mutuality, some intentionality and participation from all those in the relationship. It is hard to have a relationship if people don’t show up, don’t participate, continually prioritise other things, continually make excuses. It is hard to nurture a relationship where some are apathetic, or even worse, are bitter, and antagonistic because, like Herod, they are prioritising other things.
Relationships require conversations, understanding, and even compromises. Anyone who has been in a relationship knows it is unhealthy for the same person to always decide what to have for dinner. A healthy relationship involves us sometimes eating something that doesn’t excite us and that is ok because we care about the other person, we care about the relationship. Relationships are give and take, sharing and caring, supporting and being supported. Relationships are showing up in a plethora of ways for one another. What does this look like in our relationship with God?
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, …How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings!
God wants to have a relationship with humanity. God doesn’t give up on humanity. Jesus remains a perfect example of this. God so longs to have a relationship with humanity that God is willing to become one of us, to fully embody humanity with all its joy and all its pain. God is willing to walk alongside us, gently covering us with the wings of love, trying to gather us together and hold us in that love no matter what.
God wants to have a relationship with us and will do whatever it takes. How far are we willing to go to meet God and enable God to gather us in, holding us when life is hard, cradling us when we need to be reminded that we are loved, and celebrating with us in our joys? What more can we do to participate in this relationship?
May we allow ourselves to be gathered under the wings of God’s love, trusting that those wings will shelter us, guide us, and transform us enabling us to offer glimpses of God’s glory for those who may resist being gathered in and yet need to experience that love. This we pray as we sing: 465 Gather us in