2nd Sunday of lent

16 March 2025

The Rev'd Kristian Hewett

Some of you may remember that about 10 years ago there was a spate of news stories about prestigious golf clubs- like St Andrew’s and Royal Troon – and how they were finally admitting women to be full members.

It’s remarkable to think that it took until the mid-2010s for women to be allowed equal access to certain golf courses.

Remarkable, but then again, that’s what you get with many old, traditional institutions: often they’re stuck in their ways and not very good with change.

You could say the same about the Church of England. Another traditional institution that isn’t very good at change. Is it God who is immutable and unchanging, or the time we set for PCC meetings back in the 1980s?

2000 years ago, Jerusalem – the place and temple that represented the established Israelite faith, was another institution that wasn’t very good with change.

Since King Solomon built the First Temple, Jerusalem had struggled with hearing calls for change sent its way by the messengers of God.

Most notably we might think of Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, whose repeated truth-telling against the ills of Jerusalem were resisted so much that he was beaten and imprisoned.

In today’s gospel passage, it’s Jesus’ turn to join the long line of biblical figures to be rejected for calling Jerusalem to change and repentance.

From a few chapters previous in Luke’s gospel, we know that Jesus is heading resolutely to Jerusalem.

He’s impelled to go there to bring and live out his message about the Kingdom of God. A kingdom of justice and peace. A Kingdom of topsy-turvey values where the humble will be exalted and the outcast invited in.

But in his divine foreknowledge, Jesus is under no illusions this will end up as the place of his ultimate rejection. Jerusalem - its authorities and herd mentality - will not be able to stomach his call to prioritise the poor rather than the powerful and to pursue peace rather than violence.

Jesus’ destiny will be to join a long line of prophets who have been silenced and shunned by Jerusalem. This is why he laments today:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!”

….“Poor old Jerusalem,” we might say “getting it wrong again”

“Only this time not with just any old prophet, but the Son of God himself…. if only Jerusalem would be willing to hear a message of change.”

It’s quite easy for us to adopt that tone, lamenting the obstinacy of yet another institution that, like those golf clubs or parish councils we mentioned earlier, won’t change.

Quite easy…. and perhaps too easy. So easy, in fact, that it lets us off the hook and fails to let the text speak meaningfully into our lives today.

So I want to suggest that rather than just looking on in lament at Jerusalem’s obstinacy, we might actually see in the idea of “Jerusalem” a metaphor that maps directly onto how we act and conduct ourselves in God’s world.

Because if we’re honest, we too are reluctant to change. We too don’t want to hear God’s call to newness of life - in myriad ways, large and small.

The gospel’s call upon our life is demanding and radical, and it’s a very rare saint who lets it change their life to its full potential.

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

That’s a big call to change, and I haven’t embraced it fully yet. Have you?

Our struggle to fully welcome the radical change of Jesus’ gospel is why we confess, or repent, at the beginning of every Eucharist.

And repentance is one of the key themes of this season of Lent too.

So often, we think of repentance as feeling bad about ourselves or guilty for what we’ve done or said.

But repentance is about much more than that- and it has a lot to do with change.

The New Testament Greek word for repentance is “metanoia” which is made up of two words meaning “after” and “mind”

“Repentance” in a deeper sense means: “to have a mind after or beyond the one you currently have.”

In a good translation we could say repentance means: “to go beyond the mind you currently have.”

So repentance is about change. Hopeful and life-giving change in our lives.

It’s not about wallowing in self-pity or guilt, because that would actually be too easy!

Repentance is about the exciting but demanding work of change and growth.

Change is the challenge put before Jerusalem by Jesus in today’s gospel, and it’s the challenge he puts before all of us… because we are all like Jerusalem on some level, unwilling to change and to “go beyond the mind we have.”

…. So where is this change to come from? How are we to heed Jesus’ call to the Jerusalem within us, and be ready to be transformed by the gospel?

Well, the truth is that God gives us glimpses of how he’s asking us to change from the most unexpected and surprising places.

That’s something we see hinted at towards the end of today’s gospel reading.

Our gospel passage concludes with Jesus saying

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem….you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”’

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” – that is of course one of the lines the crowds of Jerusalem say on Palm Sunday, at Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

Only, it’s a bit of a misnomer to call it a triumphant entry. Because Jesus arrives into Jerusalem on a donkey, meek and lowly, not in pomp and splendour.

There’s a great and almost ridiculous contradiction between Jesus being welcomed as the Saviour but doing so in such humble and lowly trappings. This is summed up by Zecheriah’s prophecy of the event:

“Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey,”

And this goes to show that God gives Jerusalem the opportunity to see the path of change through the workings of an unexpected, unassuming and humble figure.

In our lives too, the moments that we might see the change God is calling us to is when we are confronted with a surprising, lowly figure.

Now this is something I have the privilege of seeing quite frequently in my role as chaplain with Cambridge Churches Homeless Project, where we encourage people to take up opportunities volunteering alongside the most vulnerable people in our city.

Often, people feel called to volunteer because they want to help people to transform their lives. To get off the streets, to move beyond their traumas or addiction, and to find a more stable and secure path forward.

But invariably, the most rewarding and holy part of a volunteer’s experience is that they themselves are touched, changed and transformed by the encounters with the people they thought they would be doling out help to.

For example, getting to know a homeless person and seeing how they remember your name and the apparently trivial details of a simple conversation you had last week reminds you of the importance of community and shared humanity.

Seeing how a homeless person carries the trauma they’ve gone through moves you to appreciate what vulnerability really is and how it relates to your Christian faith.

Seeing how a homeless person speaks of God’s provision in their life, despite the great material deprivation they appear to face, invites you to deepen your trust in God rather than your own work-ethic.

In essence: being alongside people experiencing homelessness enables us to learn afresh the Christian truth that we are all in need of repentance - of change - and that God provides impetus for that change and growth from the most unexpected sources.

The foreigner, the widow, the homeless person - they are the one who comes in the name of the Lord to challenge our ideas about success and status, and their presence invites us to a renewal of our lives and to a deeper spirituality.

This Lent, let us not be ashamed to see how we too are complicit with “Jerusalem” in being resistant to the change God, in Jesus, calls us to.

And let us be encouraged to look out for how God is calling us to change and grow - especially through the encounters we have with the most unexpected, unassuming and humble of figures.

Amen.