Believe it or not, but it was on this very day two years ago, March 13^th, 2020, that the Session voted to suspend in-person worship services indefinitely due to COVID-19. Now, as we look back on that day, there may be some disagreement as to whether or not that was the right decision at the time, but no one can deny that the COVID-19 has fundamentally change us…for better or for worse. And the entire thing made us feel completely out of control. We couldn’t stop it. We couldn’t explain it. The most we could hope to do was avoid it. And even avoiding it was difficult and changed our lives in significant ways. That loss of control in our lives was scary and disturbing. None of us like our lives to be out of control. But such a large loss of control made us question a lot of things in our lives and makes us feel like there is nothing we can count on, nothing we can truly trust.

         In our passage from Luke, we find this rather odd little story about Jesus and some Pharisees. These Pharisees come to Jesus to warn him, which already feels out of the ordinary because Jesus and the Pharisees were so often at odds with one another. They come to warn him about Herod. They tell him, “Get away from here, Herod wants to kill you.” Now, this was not the first time that Herod wanted Jesus killed. Remember that whole murdering of all the children two and under in or around Bethlehem after Jesus was visited by the magi? But I don’t know about you, having people tell me that the single most powerful man in the known world is out to kill me would have me a whole lotta nervous. The worst part of it, it would seem to me, would be that fact that there would be nothing you could really do to avoid it. If the most powerful person in the world wanted you dead, how could you stop him? I think I would have been scared out of my mind.

         But Jesus wasn’t…at least not outwardly. He replies to the Pharisees who told him this, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’” Now, I don’t know what your thoughts are on that response from Jesus, but my first thought was, “Man, that takes some serious guts.” Jesus basically says that you can tell Herod where to stick it because Jesus still has work to complete. You’ve got to hand it to Jesus. He is nothing if not fully committed to his mission, even in the face of threats from the most powerful person around.

In reading number 12 in Good Enough, the book we are studying this Lent, (which I believe is actually the reading for this coming Tuesday) Kate Bowler talks about a tree she encountered that had been growing at the top of a cliff but had been blown over and was now hanging downward from the cliff face. And the thing that stood out to Kate about this tree was that it had continued to grow, despite being knocked upside down. She knew this because the tree had started growing down, then shot out sideways for a while and then hooked back up toward the sky. I’ve seen other trees before do similar things after facing significant trauma. The mission of a tree is to grow and, though they can’t control what happens to them, they can always keep to that mission.

That was Jesus’ view on life. He couldn’t control whether or not Herod came after him to kill him (or anyone else for that matter), but what he could do was just stick to the mission he’d been given. And that’s exactly what he does. He tells the Pharisees that today and tomorrow he is casting out demons and healing people and on the third day he will complete his work. Jesus knows that no matter how out of control life gets, God is ultimately still in control. And so he presses on with his work. He doesn’t try to fix the problem, but tries not to let it deter him or distract him.

Often in life, we feel like things need to go exactly how we want them to in order for us to be content and in order for us to accomplish what we want to accomplish. And then when unexpected things happen, we freak out and we try to fix it or re-do it somehow. Marcia McFee, in writing about the connection of this passage to the book Good Enough, writes this: “We probably aren’t receiving death threats from Herod as Jesus was, but our wellbeing could be threatened by the idea that if we just try hard enough, are nice enough, say just the right thing, life will always go our way. We run around in so many directions, trying to herd the chicks into some imagined semblance of perfect formation.” And as someone who has raised chicks, I can verify that herding chicks (or adult chickens, for that matter) is a challenging endeavor. And there are times when life can feel like that. It can seem chaotic and out of control. And we may try to hard everything into some sort of order that we want it in. But often that just feels frustrating and defeating. Sometimes life just doesn’t go our way. And we can fight against that or we can simply let go.

Joseph Campbell once wrote, “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” That can be easier said than done. Even Jesus struggled sometimes with accepting the life waiting for him. We see this most clearly when Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. And he prays to God, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” And Jesus prayed that three times. The cup he was talking about was the cup of his death, so it’s no wonder he was not real keen about accepting that. But there was a second part to Jesus’ prayer in the garden. He always added, “But not my will but yours be done.” Jesus was not excited about relinquishing control and letting what was meant to happen happen, but he was also wholly devoted to the mission of God. So, he turned over every situation to God’s hands. He knew what God’s will was for him, even as he prayed for it to be taken from him. But that act of letting it go, freed him to fully accept what he was about to do.

In our story from Genesis 15, we see Abram struggling to accept the life waiting for him as well, but in a very different way. Abram is worrying about his legacy. God had promised to make him the father of many and yet he and Sarah were unable to have children together. Abram had attempted to make things happen a different way by sleeping with his wife’s maidservant. But Abram felt that it wasn’t right if he and Sarah didn’t have offspring together. But now they were getting way up in age and it seemed to Abram like God’s promises were not really going to come to fruition. He says to God, “O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” Abram was having a hard time letting go and letting God. He couldn’t see how God could possibly hold true to his promises. He felt like life was out of control.

There is an ancient spiritual practice that can help us when we feel like life is out of control. It can help to center us and free us to accept the life that is meant for us. That practice is called meditation. Listen to what Richard Foster writes about meditation in an article for Renovare: “At its most basic and fundamental level, Christian meditation is simply a loving attentiveness to God. Through the prophet Isaiah, God urges us to ‘Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.’1 Listening is the key. Hear the life-giving counsel of Francois Fenelon: ​‘Be silent, and listen to God. Let your heart be in such a state of preparation that his Spirit may impress upon you such virtues as will please him. Let all within you listen to him. This silence of all outward and earthly affection and of human thoughts within us is essential if we are to hear his voice.’ Through meditation we are growing into what Thomas à Kempis called ‘a familiar friendship with Jesus.’ We are creating the emotional and spiritual space that allows God to construct within us an inner sanctuary of the heart.”

I don’t know about you, but I often find myself trying to control my life rather than accepting the life God is giving to me. And meditation can help give us space for God to construct the life he wants for us in our hearts. Foster, in his book Celebration of Disciplines, offers four suggestions for how we can meditate. I would invite you to try one of them this week and see what happens for you.

1. Pick a small passage of Scripture and meditate on it. Repeat it over and over. Recite it outloud. Maybe even memorize it. And think about what it is speaking to your heart. Sit with it silently for a while and listen to what it is telling you.
2. This is what Foster calls Re-Collection. This is a process of being still and quiet. And allowing God to speak to our hearts in that still small voice.
3. Go outside into nature. Find a comfortable spot to sit. Focus on something in nature and study it. Let it speak to you about life and about God, the Creator.
4. Meditate upon the current times. Pick up a newspaper or just think about something that is happening in the world right now. Contemplate it and seek what Foster calls a “prophetic perspective” from God.

Try one of those ideas this week and ask God to help you release your attempts to control the chaos of life and rest instead in the loving arms of God who is ultimately in control of everything. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen!