Consider the Chickens

Luke 13:31-35

Christ in the Wilderness - The Hen
Stanley Spencer

Lent 2

March 13, 2022

 

Jesus is foreshadowing his own death here

knowing that it would be Jerusalem where

he would be killed, he  mourns over Jerusalem.

Saying: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills

the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.”

 

Jerusalem, Jerusalem

I don't know if we as American Christians can quite

understand the significance of Jerusalem.

 

We have love for our cities here in the US

I know people love Hilton Head

Many people love San Francisco and New York,

or their own home towns.

but there is something more than love about Jerusalem.

 

David and the Israelites invaded and conquered Jerusalem

and established it as the capital of Israel.

 

There is great religious significance there.

The place where David planned to build the temple

was supposedly the same place where Abraham

offered Isaac as a sacrifice.

The temple, when it was built the first time,

held the Ark of the Covenant, the chest that held

 the 10 commandments.

 

Jerusalem is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible 669 times.

And Zion, which usually means Jerusalem, is mentioned 154 times.

 

Luke mentions Jerusalem 90 times in his Gospel.

Luke loves this city too.

 

Jesus begins his life there with his circumcision at the temple.

In this passage from Luke today, Jesus tells the Pharisees

that he has to go to Jerusalem

 because that's where the prophets are killed.

 

They’re not sure, but people think that the name

Jerusalem means “Heritage of Peace”.

Which might seem ironic.

 

In spite of its holiness – or because of it –

It has historically been a place of great conflict

the center of great upheaval, violence,

It is a place that is both beautiful and torn.

Everyone, it seems, wants a piece of Jerusalem.

 

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem” Jesus says mournfully.

Jerusalem not only holds significance for Israelites

it is precious to God and Jesus as well.

 

Jerusalem is not just a city, but it’s also an ideal.

It represents the point at which God meets God's people.

Where God's power and mercy meets human commerce

and organized religion and politics.

Where God and God's people meet, where they intersect.

It is the cross of God and humanity, if you will.

 

When Jesus talks about Jerusalem,

he is not talking only about one place or one people.

It is about all of God’s people.

Jerusalem is God's children.

Jerusalem is the relationship between God and humanity.

 

Jesus says to Jerusalem:

“How often have I desired to gather you together

as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,

and you were not willing.”

  

A mother hen is kind of a weird thing for Jesus

to compare his relation to Jerusalem with.

Here’s where I have to learn about livestock again.

They didn’t tell me that when you become a pastor

you need to know so much about farming and livestock.

They should teach that class in seminary.

 

In my limited experience, chickens are kind of silly animals.

Whenever you seem to come close to them,

they run away, they’re very skittish,

they don’t seem concerned

with each other very much.

 

But I read that it’s different for a mother hen.

Apparently, whenever there’s danger, a mother hen

will cluck for her young and when they come,

she’ll open her wings to them, and gather them underneath

either by cuddling them or slapping them in forcefully,

and she covers them. She remains exposed to danger.

She’s ready to give her life for theirs.

 

The chicken doesn’t have any other defenses,

not very sharp claws or teeth,

all she has to give is the protection of her own body

she can only offer her own life to protect her children's.

Jesus says he feels like a mother hen.

Her chicks have scattered though.

 They are not responding to the calls that she’s made.

 

And to make it worse, there’s a fox running around the house.

Some of the chicks have run off and followed the fox.

Some wander by themselves. They’re not responding to her voice.

Even given the shelter of her wings, they would rather

wander aimlessly and try to make their own way.

The people of Jerusalem have strayed from God.

 

And we have often strayed from the safety of God's wings too.

We follow the fox, we search for our own little worms,

we seek out money, notoriety, security,

we resort to the ease of violence and coercion to get our way.

We scatter to the call of cynicism and hopelessness.

 

This war that we are seeing in Ukraine is just

the latest example of how humanity has rebelled against God’s way.

How humans would rather follow the fox

and use violence and bullying to get what we think we want,

leaving a path of death and destruction in our wake.

It’s easier to see when it’s someone else’s doing.

 But make no mistake, the United States has our own

examples of atrocities, and cluster bombs,

Our own Hiroshimas, Nagasakis, My Lais, and El Salvadors.

We have our own groups of innocent people

who have been left cowering in our path.

 

And Jesus can say the same things about us too, that he says

about Jerusalem. We are people who have killed

our own prophets, repeatedly. We ignore and push them away too.

Those who tell us the truth and those who have been sent to us.

We have been too happy to not hear their calls

and go on with our business uninterrupted.

We’re a nation that likes to claim Christ when it benefits us,

but we like to leave Christ behind when he’s a challenge.

 

God keeps calling to us.

But so many times we would rather take our chances with the fox

than to be gathered under the wings of God.

 

The preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor said:

“If you have ever loved someone you could not protect,

then you understand the depth of Jesus’ lament about Jerusalem.”

All you can do is to keep opening your arms, like that mother hen.

 You can’t make anyone walk into them.

She rightly said, it was the most vulnerable position in the world.

 

And God does the same with us.

When faced with children who reject, deny, scatter and self-destruct

God does not close herself off to Jerusalem

God doesn’t look to punish or toss us aside.

God opens her wings one more time like the mother hen.

But this leaves her in a that vulnerable position.

 

Jesus says that he will not see Jerusalem again

until he hears them say

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the lord.”

 

And that is what Jesus hears when we rides back

into town for the last time on a donkey.

Jesus does go back to Jerusalem

To face the fox, and all those other scattered children.

 

The mother hen attempting to protect her chicks.

She shields them with her own body

She protects them by giving her own life.

 

In that city, at that time, the grace of God had a definitive

interaction with the town of Jerusalem,

And the powers of Organized religion

and politics and commerce.

And the grace of God won.

 

Grace is God's final word on Jerusalem

and God's final word on our wandering and our sin

and our flirtation with foxes.

 

We will always be God's little chicks, called together by our baptism

Even as we wander around, leave the nest,

scatter to search on our own, and follow after the fox.

 

God's grace is still God’s final word.

She always waits for us, and spread her wings,

hoping to gather us together again.

 

Let us pray.

Mothering God.

You love us and yet we scatter.

Help us to hear your call.

Help us to follow you even when it’s difficult.

Gather us into your arms of mercy and grace.

Amen.