Under Whose Wing?
Luke
13: 31-35
St Andrew's Galilee
Church of Scotland
“Thus says the Lord Almighty;
have I not entreated you as a father entreats his sons or a mother hen her
daughters or a nurse her children, so that you will always be my people and I
should be your God, and that you should be my children and I shall be your
father. I gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”
2 Esdras 1:28-30
God as a
mother, as a mother hen, may be unfamiliar to us, even startling, but it was not
to the early Jewish community who heard these Gospel stories for they would
have heard the echo of 2 Esdras and realized that now Jesus, the son, was
saying he was the hen, the one who wants to gather us in, protect us. But they refused.
We refuse even when enemies surround us, by foxes.
Jesus, on the
other hand, is not afraid of that fox Herod and in fact tells the Pharisees to
tell him the equivalent of “I am busy
doing all the things you are most fearful of,” “I am casting out demons and
performing cures…”
Now Jesus most
surely had heard that his cousin, John the Baptist had been beheaded by this
man’s illegitimate authority but he was not afraid. Jesus knew that blood
thirsty Herod feared all who challenged his rule. He knew that this animal saw
him as a chicken, easy prey. He was more worried about his followers, his
chicks, and about his city Jerusalem who had forgotten the ways of making
peace. Jesus knows that his days are numbered and that he must enter Jerusalem
to be killed. His lament is for his city and for those he wishes to protect who
will not come to him.
On the Mount
of Olives there is a tear shaped chapel called Dominus Fleuvet where it is said
that Jesus on his way from Bethany looked out over Jerusalem and wept, not for
himself and his impending demise but for his city that kills its prophets and
knows not the ways of peace.
Inside the beautiful chapel there is a magnificent
window that captures at its center the Dome of the Rock and Holy Seplechure.
Beneath the window is the altar with the golden mosaic of a Hen at the bottom.
This mothering
image that Jesus himself claimed has been problematic from the beginning. His
people rejected his offer to shelter them under his wing. Perhaps they were
hoping for a more virile Messiah, a Messiah that would squash their enemies,
ride into town on a white stallion, not a donkey, not a self-sacrificing mother
hen.
One of my
favorite theologians and preachers, Barbara Brown Taylor explored this metaphor
this way:
…
Jesus won't be king of the jungle in
this or any other story.
What he will be is a mother hen, who stands between
the chicks
and those who mean to do them harm.
She has no fangs, no claws, no
rippling muscles.
All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her
own body.
If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first; which he does,
as it turns out. He slides up on her one night in the yard while all the babies
are asleep.
When her cry wakens them, they scatter.
She
dies the next day where both foxes and chickens can see her
-- wings spread,
breast exposed -- without a single chick beneath her feathers.
It breaks her
heart . . . but if you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.
She dies for all to see, the foxes
and the chickens without a single chick beneath her feathers. The question must
be asked then, “Why the sacrifice if it benefits none? Or rather if none come
to take shelter, or more precisely if all scatter like Peter before the cockcrows,
what difference does the sacrifice make?
Standard
atonement theology, as codified in our creeds and prayers, says that Jesus died
for our sins, that he is the sacrificial lamb. But what does it mean if we didn’t
ask for this---if we don’t gather under the wing? Can we claim him as our
Savior after the fact?
Some say
it doesn’t matter; the point is that he did it or rather God sacrificed his
only son. You either accept this or not. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t
recognize it then, the kairos time is now. You can be born again any time.
Others
put more emphasis on the fox, the weasels, and all the other imperial forces
that used crucifixion and the threat of death to maintain their power. They say
it is the nature of empire to try and assert its dominance to anyone and
anything that challenges it. They say the taking of the stand against imperial
forces is something you do because it must be done. It is not contingent on
whether anyone asks you or follows you.
What a
different story this would be if the chicks had gathered under the wing and let
the Hen protect them. But they didn’t and we mostly don’t. We don’t walk into his arms because we think
we can do it all by ourselves or because we reject this vulnerable
unconditional self-sacrificing mother love.
Even the
Anglican Church while revising its Book of Common Prayers for inclusive
language rejected this imagery in the prayer we read together this
morning.
Living among us, Jesus loved us.
He yearned to draw all the world to himself
as a hen gathers her young under her wing,
yet we would not.
Instead they
changed the words to “He yearned to draw all the world to himself yet we were
heedless of his call to walk in love.” This second version put the emphasis on
his call not his action of protection.
Protection is
a word that comes up often now in the mean streets of Jerusalem and the West
Bank where all walk in fear of the next stabbing, the next killing. The
Palestinian Jerusalem Women’s Coalition, in fact have called for outside
protection from the UN to shield them against what they see as lawless
extrajudicial killings. Israelis have taken to bearing arms and shooting all
that are potential threats.
Each side is
seeking protection from the other. And for better or for worse, many youth are
willing to sacrifice their young lives for something called dignity and freedom
and then many innocent are just sacrificed because they are at the wrong place
in the wrong time.
Protection and
security have become calls for action internally within the State of Israel and
Palestine and now abroad. The International community is being called to offer
its military wing of protection.
Few are
gathering under the wing of nonviolence or the mothering hen Jesus, who is
still trying to remind us that we are his chicks, his children.
Why do we
resist? This is the question I wish to pose for you tonight. Why do we say we
are believers but when the chips are down, we follow the warlords or simply try
to save our own skins? Why is it so hard to gather under his wing?
What is
preventing you? Is it just too difficult to accept unconditional love? Do you
feel unworthy? Who or what else has claimed your allegiance? Can you let it go?
Is this the real Lenten test, to let go of our dependency on others and trust
only Him who dared to suggest his love and protection was like that of a mother
Hen.
Mothering and
Fathering God
Help us learn
dependency
so we can become
once again
your people
capable of offering
protection,
dignity, and freedom
to all our kin,
all your children.
Amen.
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