This light and frothy text reminds me of the words Father Cavanaugh said to a scrappy kid who showed up wanting admission to the University of Notre Dame. His name was Rudy Ruettigar. Here’s what he said: “Rudy, I’ve learned two things as a priest: There is a God, and I’m not God.”  

That’s what you call straight talk.

And this is a straight-talking text. That’s what we get during Lent. We’re in a season of self-examination and repentance, and we need straight talk. We’re spending these weeks leading up to Easter taking inventory of our lives and how they link up with the life of God.

We’re on the road to Jerusalem, and there’s no turning back. It’s a tough road, not unlike the road traveled by Rudy Ruttigar. Rudy’s story was made famous in the 1993 film by the same name. Do you remember it? If you’ve seen the movie, you know that Rudy was determined to go to Notre Dame. But he was dyslexic. He was determined to play football. But he was 5’6” and weighed 165.    

His application to Notre Dame was rejected twice before he was admitted. Once he finally gained admission, he joined the football practice squad. He practiced with the team day in and day out with little chance of ever suiting up for a game.

And then on the day of the last game of his senior year, Rudy was asked to suit up and to lead the Fighting Irish out onto the field. In the final minutes of the game, Rudy played football for Notre Dame.

Rudy was rejected over and over before he reached his goal, but he kept on going. This is sort of what’s happening to Jesus in Luke 13. Jesus was rejected, but he kept on going. One day Jesus would be accepted, but not yet.

The Pharisees’ rejection of Jesus was so stealthy. They make it look like they’re trying to help. Jesus is like the new kid in class, or the party crasher, and his presence is a little too close for comfort. He’s not playing by their rules. So instead of facing the problem, they send it away. Their excuse is that Herod wants to kill him.

This really doesn’t faze Jesus. Herod is the least of his worries. That’s why Jesus calls him a fox. Foxes aren’t really a threat. They’re just in the right place at the right time. I think there are foxes in Texas, but I’ve never seen one here. One thing I have seen in is a buzzard. You know what buzzards do. They don’t kill anything. They just wait for things to die. Then they feast upon the leftovers.

Foxes do the same thing. In this case, Rome is the superpower. Israel is the victim. Herod is Rome’s puppet king. He waits for Rome to act and feasts on the leftovers. He’s an opportunist with no real political power. Herod can only dream of killing Jesus singlehandedly, and Jesus knows it.

Jesus must be on his way, not because of Herod’s plot but because of God’s plan. Jesus doesn’t run away from his fears; he goes toward them. He heads straight for Jerusalem, casting out demons and performing cures along the way.

“Listen,” he says, but they won’t.

Jesus has come to gather his children—but they’ll have nothing of it. They want it their way. Does this sound familiar? A friend of mine says it’s the perfect example of parenting. Here’s what she says:  

“So often, as a parent, you find yourself giving your kids chance after chance, whether it be to clean their room or change their attitude or do their homework. You do reach a breaking point. Before you can give them another chance, you have to take something away.”

She goes on to say, “God has offered his protection, friendship, care, favor to Israel time after time. He’s been rejected and ignored and disobeyed in return. Now, God’s gone so far as to offer his son, and even the son has been turned away. God has reached that parental breaking point. Before God can give the people another chance, God has to take something away.”

This is consistent with the way God interacts with Israel. God’s own self-description throughout the Old Testament is that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. It says in Exodus that God forgives iniquity but that God also visits iniquity. God is merciful to a point. God is also vengeful to a point.[1] God sees the mess we’ve made and meets us there. We can tell God to go away, or we can face our fears. 

In this text, Jesus makes an agonizing claim: Jerusalem doesn’t want a visit from God. They want to do things as they’ve always done them. They resist the gathering wings of God.   

The temple in Jerusalem is the center of Jewish life. Anything of great significance to Israel happens there. Jesus is the cornerstone, but he has been rejected by the builders. As a result, Jesus has left the building. He wanted to protect the henhouse, but now the fox will surely have his way.

“You will not see me,” Jesus tells them, “until the time when you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” One day the world will accept Jesus. On that day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.

So where does that leave us? We’ve agreed to walk the way of the cross—the difficult way of self- examination, confession, and repentance. Since we profess that Jesus will return, we’d better have something to do while we wait. Jesus has called us to practice what we preach.

St. Ignatius of Loyola was a Spanish nobleman. Born in 1491, he did all of the things one would expect a nobleman to do. He trained for battle. He learned the rules of chivalry. In a battle defending northern Spain from the French, one of his legs was badly wounded, and the other was broken.

There was no Baylor Center for Rehabilitation in medieval Spain, and when his broken leg failed to heal properly, it had to be broken again and reset—all without anesthesia. His wounds led him very close to death. At the brink of death, Ignatius found life.

On his sickbed, Ignatius learned how to listen. He learned which impulses drew him closer to God and which impulses drove him away from God. When he learned to walk again, he quite literally began walking the way of the cross. Ignatius gave his possessions away. He left his life of luxury. Ignatius the noble became Ignatius the peasant—and later Ignatius the priest. 

Ignatius is well known in world Christianity for developing a series of spiritual exercises. Ignatius believed that spiritual exercises help us remember that the presence of God is all around us if we’ll only take time to pay attention and to listen. The best known of these practices is the prayer of examination.

The prayer of examination has four basic moves. First, start with thankfulness that you are a child of God and live in the presence of God. Second, ask the Holy Spirit to help you give an honest account of your day—your highs and your lows, your attitudes and activities. Why did you respond one way to one person and another way to another person? Third, set all of your actions at the feet of Jesus.

Fourth, you divide these actions into two categories: what actions prompt your need for forgiveness? What actions have allowed you to be an instrument of God’s love?    

In this text, Jesus laments for Jerusalem, but how might these words speak to us today? Hear them again: “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 rarely fits our categories. If Jesus is going to portray himself as a bird, can he at least be an eagle? We often assign descriptions for God with words like omnipotent, but that word is not in the Bible. But Jesus the mother hen? That’s in the Bible. This is no ordinary hen. Jesus does not run away from danger; he runs straight for his death.

Jesus the mother hen wants to reach out to us, to gather us in and to give us warmth and life in his presence. Are we willing to accept his love, or will we reject it? Or to put it another way, are we willing to reject some things in our lives in order to accept his love?  

Christian author Leanne Payne notes that “if we do not practice the presence of God, we will practice the presence of another. If we do not listen for the Word, we will be subject to the words of the world, the flesh and the devil.”[2] This is why Christian practices such as those taught by St. Ignatius are so helpful. His prayer of examination teaches us to listen for the Word and to find the center of our identity in the shelter of God’s presence.

Often we think the Christian life is about measuring our actions to those of Christ. But what if instead of comparing ourselves to Christ, we learned to live in Christ? What if we allowed ourselves the chance to be overwhelmed by the love of Christ? 

Take your hand and make a fist. Look at your fist and think about all of the things that this gesture implies. Now take your other hand and use it to cover your fist. How does it feel? The fist gets warmer. It relaxes.

This is how God comes to us, if we would only receive his love.   

Think of all the things in your life that overwhelm you. Make a list. What if you were overwhelmed by Christ instead? We all have things in our lives that force God out and send Jesus on his way, but what if we rejected those things to make room for Jesus?

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and he longs to gather us in. He is casting out demons and performing cures for all who would forsake their way to be overshadowed by God’s wings and God’s way. It takes practice, but it’s the only way we can face our fears and walk toward Jerusalem. The way of rejection is the way of the cross. And it will lead us home. 

Amen.