Lent II, Year C, 2007; St. Stephen Episcopal; Rev. Rachel Taber-
Hamilton
The City of Stones
The covenant established between Abram (Abraham) and Yahweh
took place approximately 4000 years ago. In the practices of Abram’
s culture, legal codes of conduct and contract were paramount to
successful social and spiritual relationships. If a contract between
two parties was a conditional covenant, there were certain things
that both the parties in the agreement would do. In a situation where
a conditional covenant was being made, both parties would walk
together between the pieces of sacrificed animals (e.g., Jeremiah 34:
18-19). This meant that the terms of the covenant would be
mandatory to both parties. If one party became guilty of violating
any single term of the covenant, it would free the other party from
the necessity of fulfilling his own promises contained in the
covenant.
But in Genesis 15, Abraham and God did not walk together between
the pieces of the animals. God put Abraham in a deep sleep and
only God -- in the form of incense and flame -- crossed between the
pieces of the animals. This meant that the fulfillment of the covenant
was based on God's grace, in spite of how often Abraham or his
descendants may not fulfill their obligations. Abraham could not be a
participant in the covenant, but could only be the receiver of the
covenant.
Possession and ownership of the land was unconditional; however,
the enjoyment of the land is conditionally based on obedience – an
obedience based on only one condition; the Abrahamic Covenant
was based on the command for Abraham to leave the land of his
home and to enter a new land. Abraham left everything that was
certain and secure in order to become a dweller in tents, having no
definite home, embarking upon a spiritual journey in search of that
city whose maker and builder was God (Hebrews 11:10). His
descendents would create the city of Jerusalem that would become
the sacred center for three major religious traditions and the site of
much bloodshed over many more generations.
When Jesus journey’s to Jerusalem, it is the journey of his life and
ministry toward his death and legacy. He knows well what
Jerusalem will do to him because of what it has done to prophets
before him. But his tone of angry irony turns abruptly to an earnest
longing, the ongoing commitment of a God continuing to make
every effort to keep His promise with all of Abraham’s descendents,
children who despise one another for religious and cultural
differences and who annihilate anyone who cries for peace and
justice for all people. “How often have I desired to gather your
children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and
you were not willing!” Jesus is the sacrifice humanity unwittingly
made in an unconditional contract that only God could fulfill of God’s
own grace and will. We cannot participate in the covenant; we can
only receive it, but only if we will receive it.
At the top of the Mount of Olives is the chapel called Dominus
Flevit. It is said to mark the spot on the summit where Christ looked
out over Jerusalem and cried over the city. The Latin name means,
“The Lord wept.” The mosaic laid into the front of its altar depicts a
hen attempting to gather her chicks with her wings. It is the only
depiction of a chicken with a halo that I have ever seen. And yet,
because of it, the image is endearing as well as tragic. It holds a
meaning that many things we might expect would be so (chicks
gathering at their mother’s soft call, a city of faith welcoming it’s
savior like a soul welcoming the presence of its Creator) turn out
perversely not to be. Between the Mount of Olives and the city of
Jerusalem lies the Kidron Valley, used then and now as a Jewish
cemetery. It is the valley of death referred to in Psalm 23, and Jesus
must cross it before entering Jerusalem – a final reminder of
mortality before he faced his own.
When Jesus was Baptized and God said, “This is my beloved, my
son, in whom I am well pleased” and then entered the wilderness to
encounter the tests to his resolve, he perhaps knew then where that
resolve would ultimately lead him. And he knew that loving God
and being loved by God was not about rewards and punishments;
rather, it is about loving what God asks us to love, sends us to love,
just because the world and those in it need love. It doesn’t mean
they’re going to appreciate it; in fact, those who come in love are as
likely to be “stoned” spiritually and emotionally as prophets were
once stoned physically. Christ at one point refers to his apostles as
living stones, as the building stones of a living temple in which God
dwells. We can reject the love we are asked to accept and to give to
others by throwing stones of death, stones of prejudice and hate, or
we can accept God’s love and pass it along in our actions by
becoming stones of life and building together a new city, a house
worthy of the God who created and loves us all.
Today I am giving you stones. And I would ask you to pray with
them, add them to your spot of sacred reflection that I have invited
you to create – the place where, hopefully, the wine glass (or cup) I
gave you last week stands. As you pray this week, add these
stones to your glass. Stones may not be what you thought God
would give you in the wilderness, and yet in Exodus it is a stone that
wanders with the Israelites through the desert that becomes a sign
that God is with them. And Christ himself later becomes the
foundation stone for the living church, the stone rejected by the
builders. From stone experiences in life, we learn both the reality of
hate as well as the longing and need for love.