By Rev. Marek P. Zabriskie
One of the most poignant passages in the gospels occurs when Jesus is walking to Jerusalem. He already knows what lies ahead of him – bitter conflict, a showdown with Jewish leaders, and most likely his death at the hands of the Roman occupying forces.
He is aware of what happens to prophets who speak truth to power, yet he anguish for his people. As Jesus descends Mount of Olives, he surveys the city skyline and then unleashes a cry from the heart, “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!” (Luke 13:34)
He suddenly sounds less like a prophet and more like a mother in anguish, as he imagines himself as a hen longing to comfort and protect her brood under her wings. Perhaps more than fathers, mothers carry this immense burden and weight within them, a yearning to protect their children, to see them grow and thrive, aching when they ache, and desiring for them to get along. There may be no greater grief in life than a mother’s anguish.
Jesus looks out and wishes that he could gather all of God’s children and the wings of God’s love. While this was Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, the same tragic scene could unfold today in Jerusalem or in countless other places.
Perhaps guessing correctly that he would be next prophet to die within its walls, Jesus wept. Luke uses a word that actually signifies uncontrollable sobbing and grief. Jesus had risked his own life to bring the kingdom of God to Jerusalem, but the city of God was apathetic.
Instead, the inhabitants followed the “fox,” as Jesus called Herod. Herod Antipas governed harshly. He had John the Baptist beheaded. His father, Herod the Great, had 45 Sanhedrin members, 300 officers, his wife, uncle, and four of his closest friends killed.
Barabara Brown Taylor suggests that the story of Jesus’ lament for Jerusalem gives us two contrasting ways of leading people. “…Jesus has disciples; Herod has soldiers. Jesus serves; Herod rules. Jesus prays for his enemies; Herod kills his.” She asks, “In a contest between a fox and a chicken, whom would you bet on?” adding, “the contest between the chicken and the fox turned out to be the cosmic battle of all time… And God bet the farm on the hen.”
“Depending on whom you believe, she won,” notes Taylor. “It did not look that way, with feathers all over the place and chicks running for cover. But as time went on, it became clear what she had done.” She had sacrificed her life for the chicks and returned from death to show them the price that she had paid for them.
Perhaps that is why we call this blessed institution “Mother Church,” for like a hen Mother Church shelters her vulnerable chicks and confronts the foxes of this world. She stands firm, does not equivocate, and reminds leaders to act with grace, mercy, and compassion. She is at her best when she refuses to run from the foxes or become one.
On the western slope of the Mount of Olives is a Franciscan church called Dominus Flevit, a Latin name that means “the Lord wept.” This modern church is in the shape of human tear. It was built over the spot where Jesus wept for Jerusalem.
He wept because, as God, he knew the danger of men like Herod and because he had great compassion and empathy on the crowd, who he knew would abandon him.
Inside this church is a large window which looks out at the skyline of Jerusalem, where 2,000 years later, Jews, Christians, and Muslims live in tension and hostility. The brokenness of this ancient city mirrors the brokenness of our world today.
Outside Bethlehem lies an enormous, ugly wall covered with graffiti, that makes the lives of Palestinians almost unbearable. Several years ago, our guide, pointed out to us the illegal Jewish settlements, clusters of new condominiums erected in the Palestinian territory.
We listened to Palestinian Muslims describe the constant harassment and humiliation and economic pressures they face that seemed designed to drive them from their homeland, where they are treated as strangers and outcasts.
We heard Palestinian Christians describe their desperate situation. In 1900, they were 15% of the population. Today, they are less than 2%. Christians have been in the Holy Land for 2,000 years, but now they are caught between traumatized Israeli Jews and traumatized Palestinian Muslims. It is likely that one day there may be no Christians left in the Holy Land.
Some of us gathered one evening to hear two women tell their tragic stories. An Israeli Jew, whose sister had served in the Israel Defense Force, described how her sister was blown up at a bus stop by a Palestinian terrorist. The room was silent.
Then a Palestinian Muslim mother, whose son suffered a seizure, described how she rushed him to the hospital, but was turned back at three Israeli checkpoints. When she finally got him to a hospital, she was told that she had to leave her son. The hospital would notify her about his condition. When the call came, she was told him that he was dead. The room was silent.
Today, Jesus’ cry from the heart is directed to the whole earth, where divisions among religions, races, and countries are tragic. It is ironic that the three great Abrahamic religions speak of a God whose essence is love and who call their followers to love one another, but they cannot get along. Sometimes something occurs that turns these religions into the opposite of what they profess, and faith becomes a force for hatred and exclusion.
Islamic fundamentalists do not just disagree with us, they hate us, and Christian and Jewish fundamentalists return the favor. Muslim fundamentalists call for the elimination of Israel. Jewish fundamentalists declare that God gave them all of the Holy Land, and Christian fundamentalists fiercely support Israeli militarism because they believe that Israeli’s success is essential for the Messiah to return. It’s crazy.
What is missing in all of this is a sense of humility and compassion, a belief that the love of neighbor should trump all the jockeying for land, resources, and power. The late Chief Rabbi of Great Britain Jonathan Sachs said that we need more than tolerance. We need to affirm the diversity of God’s world and the multiple paths of faith, and to harness our faith traditions so that we can come together and build a more peaceful world for all.
In his poem, “September 1, 1939,” W.H. Auden notes in this powder keg of a world that “We must love one another or die.” To love one another doesn’t mean to like each other, agree with each other, or approve of each other. It means that we must respect, honor, and have compassion on those who are different from us. This kind of love is our only hope.
Empathy and compassion are deeply lacking in our world today. Empathy allows us to understand how others feel. Fr. James Martin, a Jesuit priest, notes that “a lack of empathy is at the heart of our mistreatment, mockery, and demonization of the poor, of migrants and refugees, of LGBTQ people and of all those on the margins.” Empathy led our government to create safety nets, but now many of those nets are now being shredded.
The word “compassion” means “to suffer with” or to enter into the chaos of another person’s life. This is what Jesus always did – with a Roman centurion, a hated Samaritan, an ostracized leper, the sick or poor. Compassion and empathy were at the heart of his ministry and must be at the heart of our lives, if we dare to call ourselves “Christians.”
That’s why Jesus wept, because he didn’t want the foxes like Herod to ravage the world, for God is like a hen who longs to protect her chicks. Yes, there’s nothing quite like a mother’s love to remind us of God’s yearning heart, pleading for us to exercise compassion and empathy.
The Rev. Marek P. Zabriskie, is Rector of Christ Church in Greenwich, an author, editor of The Bible Challenge series, founder and executive director of the Center for Biblical Studies. He loves time with his wife and daughters, walking his Corgi, fly fishing, tennis, travel, walking caminos in Europe, studying languages, and sharing God’s Word.
