Invitation to Transforming Intimacy

 Friends, we’re now in the second Sunday of our Lenten journey, and the second week of this sermon series I put together for this season, where we’ll be taking a look at Invitations of Jesus by pastor and author Trevor Hudson. This week’s invitation is “invitation to transforming intimacy”, and Hudson bases it on Matthew 22: 34-40:

The Greatest Commandment

34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

In other words, in yet another story where the Pharisees are trying to publicly mess with Jesus, make him look bad, and thereby get his adoring masses to turn on him, Jesus subverts all of that into a pretty simple teaching about love. Even under the threat of public disgrace, even in the face of the Pharisees’ contempt, even when he knows how badly the masses will eventually turn on him, nonetheless, love for God and neighbor are the core of the faith Jesus proclaims, and all that really matters, and Jesus pushes those teachings up to the top one more time.

Similarly, in the actual Gospel passage appointed for us this morning by the lectionary, from Luke, the Pharisees come at Jesus. Jesus must have rolled his eyes so hard everytime he saw them coming. He’s also quite aware by this point in the narrative of the irony of this group that claims to hate him, and yet wants to talk to him ALL THE TIME. The first thing Jesus teaches us about transforming intimacy is that Jesus understands the complexity of our real feelings about him. If we spend enough time in his spiritual presence, we might, too.

In this story, the Pharisees pull a “look over there!” and tell Jesus “run away! Herod wants to kill you!” Jesus thinks to himself “yeah, and water is wet”. He then explains two truths to the Pharisees: he already knows he’s gonna die, and not just because every human eventually does, and before that day comes, he’d love to get the people of Jerusalem to stop rejecting everything that’s good for them.

To be clear, for the purposes of this sermon, the word “intimacy” can mean a lot of things, but what I mean by it right now is closeness, and, more specifically, closeness with God by way of Jesus. That idea can sound not only very uncomfortable, but also very difficult to wrap your head around, so it’s unsurprising that so many of us need help with it. Jesus knows that, and doesn’t judge.

So what does that “closeness” look like, and how do we get there? This can be an especially uncomfortable conversation in a Protestant church. Some of our Christian cousins from other traditions raise one another in an emotion-led culture of “feeling” God, and then acting on it, so the idea of intimacy with the Divine can be an easier concept among them to wrap their heads around. But, we, the Frozen Chosen, recoil at worship moments that weren’t scripted in advance in the bulletin. We won’t stand unless the little asterisk tells us to. Heaven help the miserable soul who unknowingly sits in your pew. In one of the first churches I served, we had an adorable little old lady among us who struggled very much to hear the service, and shared that information every week. I would say, “I’m so sorry, we’re working on that from a technical standpoint, but, may I suggest you sit a little closer to the front? Because right now you’re in the back pew every week, and if you brought your ears closer they wouldn’t have to work so hard.” And she, bless her soul, would respond, “but if I sit closer, the folks behind me will be staring at the back of my head!”

If the idea of the folks around you looking at the back of your head is terrifying, how much more true must that be if you risked them seeing your face. In the church culture a lot of us grew up in, we quickly learned that we “mask” here. Make the two eyes, the nose, and the mouth do something that looks pleasant, but is perpetually calm and uncommitted. Share some of your griefs and fears, but wrap them up nicely in language around “traveling mercies”, “healing mercies”, and “going on to life eternal” rather than “I’m sick, and I’m scared.” In the church I grew up in, this extended to clothing, so I showed up at church every Sunday for years in one of those velveteen dresses with the lace bib collars that were all the rage for little girls in the 80s. I wore those well, well beyond the 80s, but, in addition to having a hard time with feelings here, we also have a hard time with change and keeping up with the times. In my mom’s day, it was the little white gloves that you’d have neatly folded in your lap. And y’all, by all means, wear whatever makes you feel awesome in this space, and speak using the words that work for you. But the more concerned we get with what we look and sound like to one another, the less we have available to connect with the Divine. That requires vulnerability. And, in my experience, we need to start by being vulnerable with one another before we can let the mask down around God. Hence, you will never, ever see me in one of those velveteen dresses here. I like my Converses, thank you very much. I bring “me” here. I hope you, too, will bring your real selves here, your real feelings, and your real questions. All of those pieces bring you to God.

But the greatest transforming intimacy with the Divine that there is comes from us being so “ourselves” that we risk getting hurt in the process. Because when we’re finally being ourselves, Jesus can be the most authentic version of himself for us. Hence what he says at the end of this pericope about being a mother hen.

I adore this feminine imagery that Jesus chooses for himself–unsurprising to the folks who have been listening to me preach, hey, did you know I’m a feminist?--but I raise an eyebrow at his choice of animal every time. If I had to relate to a female animal, maybe I’d want to tell you I’m a mother wolf. Or a mother bear. Something fierce. Even if we’re sticking with birds, there’s cooler ones out there. A mother eagle flying over the mountains? Awesome. A mother condor fighting off predators to defend her chicks? Sick. 

But a chicken? Really?

Of course. Because when we let down our many layers of Frozen Chosen shields, we find Jesus. Not as some kind of warrior, and certainly not as a predator animal. He’s soft and fluffy and warm and motherly and nonviolent. When a mother hen sees a predator coming, she hides her chicks in her feathers, so she might get killed, but they’ll be safe. Jesus keeps us safe at the expense of his own self, and when we really see that, we finally understand real love…and we get that much closer to understanding God.

May it be so.

Amen.