Monday, January 24, 2022                                            (today’s lectionary)
Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth
David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned for forty years: seven years and six months in Hebron over Judah, and thirty-three years in Jerusalem over all Israel and Judah.
Our friend Janice lived in Jerusalem. She worked for YWAM (Youth With a Mission), mostly with children, sometimes Palestinian, sometimes Jewish.
Janice loved Jerusalem. Â Back in the US for a bit, we watched a documentary together and she raved about the markets and religious sites, and she also raved about the friendship between Arab and Jew. As usually seems to be the case, the famous and endless conflict was mostly among politicians and armies. The real people, with their families and their businesses, their births and deaths and joys and sorrows, mostly got along just fine.
A year or two ago my favorite high school history teacher, John Gathman, suggested that I read a “biography” of Jerusalem. Which I haven’t done, yet. I know a little. The Jebusites established their capitol there, and then David’s soldiers found a way to get inside their walls through a waterway.
Then the king and his men set out for Jerusalem against the Jebusites who inhabited the region. David was told, “You cannot enter here: the blind and the lame will drive you away. But David did take the stronghold of Zion, which became the City of David.
The story goes on from there, in fascinating detail. Like the Jerusalem markets flush with Jewish, Arab and Palestinian stalls full of every fruit and grain and syrup and oil, Jerusalem’s history parallels the history of several religions and several people-groups. It is the precious history of a precious place.
These days the traveling our bodies allow us is mostly virtual, so Margaret and I won’t go to Jerusalem, we won’t go to shop or travel the old streets up to the Mount of Olives and then to Gethsemane.
Anyway I think it might be easier to hear the cries of Christ from a distance. He struggles underneath the heavy cross and falls, and soldiers beat him until he can’t get up. His body is broken and Jesus cries out in pain, Jesus weeps in sadness and compassion for all of us, including the vicious Roman shepherds moving him toward his death.
No one can enter a strong man’s house to plunder his property unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can do what he wants.
Jesus did not stop them from tying him up. He does stop them from crucifying him. He communes quietly with the Holy Spirit inside him, as he has done every morning and every night since his baptism. He remembers the plaintive sadness of his earlier lament, and knows the whole of it:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.
In Austin, here in my quiet place, overwhelmed and exhausted by the genius of four fantastic football games this weekend, heading nearly to sleep … can I be quiet for a moment and lift up my own lament to echo that of Jesus, weeping for all the Jerusalems in all the world?
 (2 Samuel 5, Psalm 89, 2 Timothy 1, Mark 3)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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