The Fox and the Hen

The Fox and the Hen

Rev. Charles Lewis Luke 13:31-35

March 4, 2007 Ps. 17:6-13a

Snohomish P.C.

Introduction

As we enter the second week of our Lenten journey, our gospel reading in Luke is already looking ahead to the end of the journey and Jesus’ Passion. Less than half way through Luke’s gospel Jesus has “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (9:51), and the remainder of Luke, Jesus will stay immovably focused on that destination, never taking his eyes off that goal. Though Jesus is being pursued by Herod - who had his cousin and mentor John beheaded - Jesus is bound and determined to finish his work and will not let his timetable be determined by Herod’s schemes.

It may come as a surprise to those of us who are used to thinking of Pharisees as enemies of Jesus, that in this passage it is some Pharisees who attempt to befriend Jesus and warn Jesus to flee from the impending danger. Jesus must know he is in big trouble when even those normally antagonistic toward him are concerned for his safety! But Jesus is not swayed from his purpose and remains steadfast in his mission, turning quickly away from concern for his own safety to concern for the world he has come to save.

SERMON

By now you know I grew up in a family of six children where Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest was being scientifically verified on a daily basis. Actually, I got along well with most of my brothers and sisters most of the time. As the fourth child I was somewhere there in the middle trying to be a peacemaker. My biggest childhood challenge was my younger brother, whose competitive nature matched mine and put my peacemaking role to the test. I usually failed in that role with him and took up arms, which usually meant cross words but occasionally the throwing of few punches. So much for the peacemaking role. Since he was stronger and I was quicker, I normally got my licks in first before the great escape to avoid retaliation. No blood was ever shed and as time went on and he gained a 40 pound muscle advantage, I began appreciating even more the value of peaceful diplomacy to resolve conflicts. We’re best of friends now.

On the Western slope of the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem, sits a small chapel. According to tradition, it was here that Jesus wept over the city of peace – Jeru –shalom – which had refused his ministry and would respond to his peaceful ways with violence. Inside that chapel, I’m told there is a high arched window that looks out over the city at the Holy Jewish site of the Temple Mount, once the center of the Jewish world, and Muslim Holy site of the Dome of the Rock (Haram al-Sharif), the third holiest site for Muslims where Muhammad is said to have ascended to the heavens to hear God’s commands. It also looks out at the Holy Christian site, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher where Jesus was entombed and later resurrected. On the front of the altar is a picture of what never happened in that city it looks out on. It is a mosaic of a white hen with a golden halo around her head. Her red comb resembles a crown, and her wings are spread wide to shelter the chicks that crowd around her feet. The hen looks ready to spit fire if anyone comes near her babies. But, like I said, it never happened, and the picture does not pretend it did. On the mosaic are words printed in Latin, in English translated: “Oh 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 checks under her wings.” And then in a pool of red underneath the chicks feet are the words, “but you were not willing.”[1]

Later in Luke, as Jesus is on the outskirts of Jerusalem at the outset of his triumphal entry, he will look out over the city named for peace – and as Luke puts it, “Jesus wept over Jerusalem, saying, ‘If even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes (19:42).”

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…” Luke (Acts) refers to Jerusalem over 90 times. That’s nearly twice as much as the other three gospels put together. You get the picture that Jerusalem is of great importance to Luke. According to the prophets, it’s the dwelling place of God, the place where God’s glory will be revealed (Isaiah 24:23). When I heard the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem speak last Fall in Seattle, he said, “the world’s peace depends upon the peace of Jerusalem.” He was echoing what prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and the Psalmists were saying over 2600 years earlier, Out of Jerusalem shall peace come. Seek the peace of Jerusalem. (Is. 2:4, Jer. 3:17, Ps.34:14, Micah 6:8). It’s as if when the inhabitants of Jerusalem listen to God’s will and follow it, the whole world spins peacefully on it axis. When Jerusalem ignores God and lets injustice run amuck the whole world wobbles on its axis.[2]

I can understand Jesus' profound, deep emotion in seeing that city, and also his grief. If we’ve not been there in person to witness it today, we’ve read enough about Israeli people hobbling away from a bombing, or a Palestinian child and father desperately trying to avoid bullets being fired in their direction, or the hatred that is expressed so openly and freely in God's own city of peace. Since the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty was signed and has held to this day - proving peace is most certainly possible - much blood has been needlessly shed. If it is not a minority of Israelis believing they have a right to continually confiscate and colonize more and more Palestinian land and subject the hopeless Palestinians to persecution – all against international law - it’s some Palestinians reacting by honoring suicide bombers and denouncing Israel’s right to exist. Despite the fact that public opinions polls consistently show the majority of Israelis favor withdrawing from Palestinian territory in exchange for peace and 80 percent of Palestinians still want a two-state peace agreement with Israel, the bloodshed in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land for Israelis and Palestinians continues with leadership on all sides ignoring strong majorities that crave peace.[3]

“Oh 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 checks under her wings, but you were not willing.” This is no pious or perfunctory comment. No, Jesus cries it out with passion and emotion as if he knows not only the need in his time for welcoming him, but in our time as well. He cries out because it is an expression of his deep love for the children of God in this Holy City meant as a place where the children of Abraham - Jew, Muslim, and Christian alike - are called to live together in peace.
Jesus cries out with the anguished voice of God, that the beautiful city of Jerusalem, the city with so much potential to reveal God’s love to the world, to be a place where three great traditions can peacefully coexist, its inhabitants literally are being walled off from one another. The establishment of one’s own religion or space at the expenses of another has become the idol above the Voice of God as spoken by the prophets.

“You see, Jesus is making his journey to Jerusalem for some very specific, powerful and deep reasons. He goes to announce God's love for all God's people – all who would fall under his expansive wing span. He goes to call people to that love and lives rooted in that love. He goes to make the culmination of his ministry, the greatest expression of his love, the ultimate sacrifice of that love, to accomplish what he is destined to accomplish…and it will happen at the center of religious life, it will happen in Jerusalem.” [4]
“Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…but you were unwilling?" “If even today you knew the things that make for peace.”

I’m struck that “given the number of animals Jesus could have chosen to define himself and describe his mission, doesn’t it seem strange that Jesus chose a mother hen?” Most images in literature draw upon symbols of power to describe Jesus. T.S. Elliott spoke in one of his poems about Christ, the tiger. C.S. Lewis’ in his Narnia series refers to Christ as a strong and mighty lion, much as the Old Testament itself used that imagery for God. But a chicken? How much confidence is inspired by that?

But it is the image Jesus chooses, which – of you think about it – is not so surprising for someone who rode into Jerusalem not on a white stallion with a call to arms, but on the back of a donkey with a cry for, “Peace.” Into a dog-eat dog world of survival of the fittest, Jesus makes the options clear: “you might live licking your chops (and your wounds) or you can be willing to die out of love to save your chicks.”[5]

We know the path Jesus journey into Jerusalem took. “It wasn’t to be the king of the jungle, but a mother hen who fights for the weak and vulnerable and voiceless, who uses his power for good not harm. Mother hens might be willing to defend her chicks against animals 100 times her size – ever seen a hen chase a cow? – but hens have no fangs or claws or rippling muscles. Against a fox they are vulnerable, defending her chicks with wings spread and chest exposed… not unlike the answer to all the violence Christ gave all sprawled out, arms wide open and chest exposed on a cross.

It’s called relinquishing power for peace, emptying self as most important to recognize the selfhood of another, recognizing the right of others to live free of oppression and free of fear and free of the violence that keeps disturbing the peace God intends.

The problem for some is the willingness to acquiesce to Herod's agenda as an acceptable way of life, as the standard terrain for life in this world. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth until we’re eyeless and toothless. But Jesus’ plea is still: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, "How often have I longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wing, but you were unwilling?” This is the voice of God's longing, of God's seeking, of God's searching love and mercy, against all our refusal.

The wonder of this longing - the blessed mystery of this yearning – is that Christ continues to make the offer. Even now he would gather his chicks under his wings. Even now he would teach us “the things that make for peace.” Even now, it is not too late for Jerusalem or the rest of the world to choose to find our way under his wing… walking under the shelter of our Lord, going into the world in peace, being of good cheer, returning no one evil for evil, but seeking to overcome evil with good, strengthening the fainthearted, supporting the weak, helping the afflicted, honoring our fellow human beings, and in all things living and serving the Lord.

Were that to happen, I suspect that as we make our way to Jerusalem this Lenten season, we would count our richest gain as loss and pour contempt on all our pride as we learn to live the ways that make for peace.

God's invitation at this table is to abide in God's loving embrace. The invitation is to recognize the coming of God to us, to perceive the longing, seeking and searching of God. It is the invitation to hear in a new and fresh way the promises of God and of God's love for us. We are invited to move beyond our fear, beyond our own resistance or guilt or rejection to the love, the forgiveness, and the mercy of God.
          The words spoken by Jesus as he saw Jerusalem are also deeply personal words for you and for me. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How I longed for you. How often have I desired to gather you to myself."
          God longs for us. God seeks us. God desires to gather us together at his table. God calls us home under the shelter of his wing.

Let us pray.

Thank you, gracious God, for loving us, for longing for us, for seeking us. Help us to receive your love and enter your compassionate embrace. Break down the walls of resistance and rejection that keep us from you and block us from the things that make for peace.   As your yearn to take us under your wing, may our response be, “we are willing, take us we are yours, through Christ our Lord.” Amen.

[1] From Barbara Brown Taylor, “As a Hen Gathers Her Brood,” Christian Century. Feb, 25, 1998.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Jimmy Carter, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” P. 220-211.

[4] Rev. Dr. James B. Lemler sermon, “God Longs for Us,” The Protestant Hour on 3/4/07.

[5] Barbara Brown Taylor.