SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Psalm 27

Philippians 3:17—4:1

Luke 13:31-35

Prayer of the Day: God of the covenant, in the mystery of the cross you promise everlasting life to the world. Gather all peoples into your arms, and shelter us with your mercy, that we may rejoice in the life we share in your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“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.

This racially, culturally, religiously and politically diverse group of people have just two things in common. They are all perpetrators of mass shootings in which upwards of ten people were killed and many more wounded. They are also all men. Yes, I know that there are also women who commit violent acts. But they are the exception that proves the rule. Since 1982, 145 mass shootings have been carried out in the United States by men. By contrast, only four mass shootings have been carried out by women.[1] You cannot stare these statistics in the face without asking yourself, what the hell is wrong with men?

Manhood in America has always been linked to violence and the measure of a man is his capacity to employ it when necessary. That sentiment is graphically captured in the lyrics of a country western song by Kenny Rogers, Coward of the County. If you are inclined to listen to it, you can find it on YouTube at the above link. In short, the song narrates the tale of Tommy, the son of a violent outlaw who, in his dying words, warns his son not to follow the path of his own violent life. He urges Tommy, “not to do the things I’ve done” and to “walk away from trouble when you can.” Tommy does his best to heed his father’s advice and live peaceably. But his efforts only earn him the reputation of a coward. Then one day, while Tommy is out working, “the Gatlin boys come calling.” They gang rape Tommy’s wife. Tommy comes home to find his ravaged wife bruised and crying. This causes Tommy to snap. He goes to the local watering hole to confront the Gatlin boys who mock him-until he beats the living crap out of them. The song ends with Tommy singing to his departed father:

“I promised you, Dad,
Not to do the things you’ve done.
I walk away from trouble when I can.
Now please don’t think I’m weak.
I didn’t turn the other cheek.
And, Papa, I sure hope you understand:
Sometimes you gotta fight when you’re a man.”

That message has been reinforced for decades by Westerns in which gunslinging cowboys bring law and order to the lawless frontier, police dramas in which irredeemable criminals are brought to heel by highly armed law enforcement officers and Marvel Comics in which superheroes wielding super powers subdue super villains in cosmic battles for control of the universe. Evil is overcome by strong men employing violence.[2]  As famously observed by former NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” This is the creed of American manhood: “Sometimes you gatta fight when you’re a man.”

Against this backdrop comes Sunday’s gospel in which Jesus laments the violence of his people and their city, Jerusalem, pleading with them to come to him for shelter. The image Jesus employes is striking. For one thing, it is starkly feminine. The love Jesus has is very much like the maternal instinct of every creature to protect its young. Secondly, this image speaks not of coercive power, but of vulnerability. Jesus has just been told that Harod Antipas, the “fox” is out to kill him. Just what sort of shelter can a mother hen provide against a fox? The person that comes to mind here is Victoria Soto, the twenty-seven-year old school teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School killed while trying to shield her students from gunshots fired by school shooter Adam Lanza in that horrible massacre of children almost a decade ago. The image of an unarmed woman trained only in the art of teaching, nurturing and caring for children confronted by a man bent on the destruction of life and armed with an AR-15 assault rifle designed specifically for only that purpose isn’t all that different from the image of a nurturing mother hen confronted by the fox, trying to gather her panicked chicks under her wings as the predator closes in. So I can imagine Jesus longing to take in his hands the heads of his beloved people and speak the words of the poet, “son be mine…this i give you.”

We might prefer a protector more like John Wayne than Jesus. Jesus does not promise us safety and security. To the contrary, he calls his disciples to bear witness to God’s kingdom by living God’s gentle reign of justice, reconciliation and peace in the midst of a violent world that is hostile to it. He does not vanquish our enemies for us. Instead, he calls us to love them. Jesus warns his disciples that his cross is their cross and that they can expect no better treatment than he himself receives. Jesus teaches us by his faithful life, obedient death and glorious resurrection that God’s strength is God’s patience, God’s might is God’s refusal to be drawn into the cycle of retribution and revenge that too often characterizes our relationships with one another, even in response to the murder of God’s beloved Son. God does not need to punish the world to establish godhood and Jesus did not need to fight to prove his manhood. God has no desire to reign over the world through conquest and Jesus has no interest in winning fights. God will reign through suffering love or not at all.  

The notion of American manhood has suffered erosion from several angles, not the least of which is the steady push of women into the workplace, into the halls of higher education, into places of ecclesiastical leadership, into the armed forces and into politics. The ground of uncontested manhood has been shrinking for decades and continues to disappear as women occupy more roles formerly monopolized by men. The role of the man as master of his household, protector of his spouse and uncontested ruler over his children no longer holds. Men find themselves in a world where brut strength is no longer met with awe, jokes that demean women are no longer funny and clever pickup lines no longer work. It is disorienting, to say the least and, to a large degree, threatening. When J.D. Vance ridicules “childless cat women” and complains that men find themselves unable to express themselves by telling a joke or holding the door for a woman, one cannot help but hear the frantic undertone of a disenfranchised man-boy crying “respect my penis, goddamit!”

In a recent New York Times article, three editorial staff members discussed the appeal of Donald Trump with twelve male Trump supporters. All felt that Donald Trump represented a sense of “manliness” that had been lost. They also felt that his re-election could “turn things around” for men. Now bear in mind that this is a man who bragged about kissing women without their consent and grabbing them by the privates. This is a man who routinely mocks the appearance of women he does not like and refers to them as “dogs” and “pigs.” This is a man who has been accused by several women of sexual harassment and assault. This is a man who was found liable for sexually abusing a woman by a federal jury of five men and three women. This “manliness” so admired by Trump’s supporters, is no mere revival of antique chivalry. It represents a toxic antipathy and resentment against strong and independent women and a perceived attack upon manhood.  

The effects of toxic manhood on women runs the gambit from condescension and harassment to outright violence. One in four women will be sexually assaulted before she reaches eighteen. One in five American college women are sexually assaulted during their time on campus. The chief threat of violence to women comes from fragile, insecure men struggling to assert their manhood. This same anxiety helps to fuel the American epidemic of gun violence. A gun represents the final tool of a man’s resistance against a world he feels is leaving him behind. A gun in the hands of an angry man child is the last shred of masculine power left after his girlfriend dumps him, after his female employer fires him and after his son comes out as gay. A gun gives a man the ultimate manly power, namely, the power to kill. It is for that reason the man child insists the only way his gun will be taken from him is by force from “his cold dead fingers.” “You gotta fight to be a man.” When you can’t fight anymore, it follows that you are not a man.

We Americans have serious problem with our men and boys whose expectations and self image have been distorted with our culture’s toxic images of manhood. We who belong to Christ’s church have, in addition, a serious problem with theology that has consistently projected that same toxic male image on God. Sunday’s gospel liberates us from the poisonous effects of toxic manhood. It offers us the picture of a God whose maternal love embraces us in the midst of the terror, confusion and violence that threaten our very existence. Jesus exemplifies a manhood strong enough to weep over the self inflicted suffering of his people and take them in his arms even as they drive nails into his hands. Jesus offers us an alternative to the spiral of despair and violence into which our misguided notions of manhood have plunged so many of us. That lifegiving journey is perhaps the shape repentance takes for us guys this Lenten season.

Here is the poem by Nate Marshall to which I alluded above.    

my mother’s hands

Source: Finna (c. 2020 by Nate Marshall, pub. by Penguin Random House.) Nate Marshall is an American author, poet, rapper and educator. He currently teaches creative writing and literature at Colorado College. He was raised in the West Pullman neighborhood of Chicago where he attended public schools. He holds a BA in English and African American diaspora studies from Vanderbilt University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan. Marshall is the recipient of the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award and a member of the Dark Noise Collective. He is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Poetry Foundation as well as the University of Michigan. In addition to his teaching at Colorado College, Marshall currently serves as director of national programs for Young Chicago Authors and the Louder Than a Bomb Youth Poetry Festival. He teaches creative writing and literature at Colorado College. You can read more about Nate Marshall and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

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[1] Statista, December 9, 2024. A mass shooting is defined as one that occurs in a public place and takes the lives of four or more people.

[2] In recent years, Hollywood has increasingly included women as heroic violent enforcers. One example is CBS’s Equalizer in which vigilante Robyn McCall (played by Queen Latifah) and her team obtain justice for hapless clients for whom the justice system has failed. I suppose this represents an advance for women-if demonstrating that women are as capable as men when it comes to killing people and breaking things can be called an advance.