Scripture: Genesis: 15:12–17, Luke 13:31–35
On our journey today with Jesus in the Dark Woods of Lent we’re talking about the gifts of emptiness.
Lent, we have come to learn, is a season of stark landscapes and open spaces for wandering and watching the ebb and flow of the cosmic dance—Jesus watched and learned from the world for forty days and nights, eating nothing and yet being sustained by everything. We call the Dark Woods empty, but we know that they are not. Today, we are on our own forty-day journey, experiencing emptiness, and yet finding new forms of fullness.
As we move through the dark woods, there are clearings and openings through which we can see the stars, and the rising sun, and the waning moon.
Several years ago, a good friend and I went kayak camping off the coast of Maine for a week in the summer. The weather was unusually calm and we were able to travel way off the coast to the outer islands in our kayaks because the water was so calm.
For days we didn’t see anyone but lobster harvesters in the distance doing their solitary work. For several nights in a row we camped on a beautiful little island which someone in the past had unfairly named “Hell’s Half Acre,”1 perhaps ironically because it is one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Each night, isolated on this little island, we watched the moon rise up from the horizon and fill the whole ocean with glimmering and shining light. It felt like God was putting on a show for us, directing the full beauty of creation at this little island. We stayed an extra night on Hell’s Half Acre, even after we had run almost out of food, just to enjoy the perfect weather and watch the moon rise. We were in the wilderness, and yet not alone.
In our scripture readings today, Abraham is told that his descendants will be exiled and enslaved for hundreds of years before coming back to the place where they are now speaking—in other words, there will be a void. And in the second reading, Jesus is told that he needs to flee, again, from King Herod, who continues to pursue him as a threat to his kingly power and authority. In both readings, the people prepare to be dislocated.
Of course, we don’t have to look far or work hard to make connections here. This week marked five years since the World Health Organization made the designation of COVID-19 as a world-wide pandemic.2 We know the shifts that followed—and too the profound acts of bravery, kindness, creativity, and problem solving that come forth in light of that emptying. There was emptiness, and so we had to go looking for God and each other in new ways. This is an important legacy to remember.
Martin Luther wrote about how God sees emptiness: “God created the world out of nothing / As long as we are nothing / God can make something out of us.”3
In the clearings of the Dark Woods we can look around and think not just of our questions of survival, but of the bigger questions of life: Who are we? Who are we becoming? Who is our neighbor? How are we called to love? What is God making of me?
Yesterday there was a large group of church members and community members who gathered to write postcards to elected officials as many grapple with the experience of a politics of emptying and emptiness. The politics of division has created a wilderness chasm in the United States with eerie echoes and uncertain signs. Where one looks for an inspiring moonrise, we may find obscured skies. Where one looks for the sweetness of Abraham’s infinite stars, we may find a mouthful of salt. And yet in the simple act of coming together to write post cards (that quite possibly no one will probably read), I felt uplifted by the words that people were sharing with each other as we were writing, as if we were writing the postcards to and for each other, because we got to learn about each other’s motivations for writing.
Here are a few example sentiments:
- I’m writing for my parents who were WWII veterans, or,
- I’m writing for my child whose life is more vulnerable and uncertain today than it was mere weeks ago, or,
- I’m writing on behalf of sick kids and refugees who are trying to stay alive, or,
- I’m writing on behalf of food insecure people and the Good Neighbors Food Pantry, or,
- I’m writing because I believe in the power of people of faith.
And then this morning we encounter Jesus in Luke’s gospel, writing his own postcard, so to speak, to King Herod:
“Go and tell that fox for me, I am going to keep casting out demons and performing cures, until the work is done.”4
Wow. Go and tell that fox—what relative restraint; what evocative language. Jesus uses a metaphor from nature, likening the king to a fox (an admirable animal, but perhaps one not to be trusted). Jesus communicates substance without attacking. His words have no vitriol, and yet they have a very sharp edge. The language here stays focused on what is at stake: bringing people to wholeness and curing those who are sick.
But there is something else going on here too.
As Jesus teaches in the streets, it’s not his disciples or friends who come to warn him to leave the city. Rather, Jesus is confronted by a group of Pharisees who say, “get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”
In the gospels, the Pharisees are the religious leaders who are typically depicted as Jesus’s opponents who are sometimes plotting how to get rid of him. But it’s notable that in this moment, Jesus’s political opponents are the ones who warn him and keep him safe.
This may indicate, in some small way, that at least some of the Pharisees are friendly to Jesus. Perhaps it’s because they trust Jesus to be fair, especially in comparison to the maniacal King Herod who in Matthew 2 orders the killing of all infants in and around Bethlehem, and who in Matthew 14 detains John the Baptist and executes him.5 Even though the Pharisees maintain their power under King Herod, perhaps they are afraid of him, and perhaps they can also see in Jesus’s sly critique of the fox that Jesus offers a fair and grounded alternative, even if they disagree with him on other points.
How are we to love our neighbor?
How are we supposed to forgive?
Where are we supposed to find inspiration for the days ahead?
These are the gifts of the Dark Woods. It is empty in the woods. And it is also anything but empty. Look up and see the moon, and see the fox, and have hope.
Happy mini-Easter.
Amen.