First Reading:
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision,
Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward
shall be very great.
2But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me, for
I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of
Damascus?
3And Abram said, You have given me no
offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my
heir.
4But the word of the Lord came to
him, This man shall not be your heir; no one but your
very own issue shall be your heir.
5He brought him
outside and said, Look toward heaven and count the
stars, if you are able to count them.
Then he said to him,
So shall your descendants be.
6And he
believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
7Then he said to him, I am the Lord who
brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to
possess.
8But he said, O Lord God, how am I to know
that I shall possess it?
9He said to him,
Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three
years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young
pigeon.
10He brought him all these and cut them in two,
laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds
in two. 11And when birds of prey came down on the
carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram,
and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
17When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking
fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these
pieces. 18On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram,
saying, To your descendants I give this land, from the
river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates
Second Reading:
31At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to
him, Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill
you.
32He said to them, 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.' 33Yet 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. 34Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the
prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired
to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her
wings, and you were not willing! 35See, your house is left
to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when
you say, `Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'
I've never been a chicken farmer, and I don't know many chicken farmers but I did know one, back where I used to live in Washington State, and when I was in high school, a friend of mine who was a few years older than I was, was asked to take care of the chickens while the farmer was out of town and he asked me to help a couple of times. Now the people who owned the farm weren't much for micromanaging. They only had a few rules… the first rule was that you had to pick up the eggs every day… of course they never told us what we should do with the eggs… and, quite honestly, it may not have been the smartest thing in the world to give two teenage guys nearly two dozen eggs every day for two weeks… but I won't go into detail on that part of the story. Second rule: clean out the chips in the bottom of the coup once a week, the reasons should be clear. And the third rule: everyone who stepped foot into the chicken's pen gets the predator lecture… I never saw it with my own eyes, but apparently there were a few different chicken predators in the area, and none was better at wreaking havoc than the fox. So everyone got the predator lecture, and it went something like this:
A coyote got in here once and the end result was that we lost two
chickens and got a coyote stuck in the coup. It was a little bit of a
problem to get it out of there, but it never came back and neither did
any of its relatives… But since we started raising chickens,
we've been hit
by a fox just about every year. And each time
it takes out 7 or 8 hens. All it leaves behind are some footprints,
some feathers and the rest of the hens screaming their heads off. But
the thing is, it's our own fault. We've got the system right and when
we take care of it the fox isn't able to get in. But I think that fox
just sits out there somewhere and waits and watches… and sooner
or later, someone slips up and forgets something… and that's
when the fox gets in… you don't want that to happen on your
watch. So be careful.
And then they taught you the system of latches for the coup and the places to make sure to check in the pen to see that it's secure. But the thing that the predator lecture taught me that foxes tend to strike fear into people who own chickens.
So I thought it was interesting that Jesus called Herod a fox when the Pharisees came to warn him about Herod's plotting. The Herod in our story is Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great who was the King at the time of Jesus' birth. Herod Antipas ruled the region of Galilee after his father passed away but he was never called a King. You see Herod the Great was the last one who was allowed to have that title. All over the Roman Empire there were little reminders that the people who were now in power locally didn't have a right to their position. They served at the disposal of the Emperor. If Herod wanted to keep his position he had to stay in the good graces of Rome and there were many Jews who lived in the region who didn't think very highly of Herod because sometimes staying in the good graces of the emperor came at the expense of his own people. To them, he appeared obsessed with power and status and willing to do pretty much anything to maintain his advantage, to keep his position and his power.
And when an itinerant preacher came into the picture… saying
things like some who are first will be last and some who are last
will be first
(which by the way is precisely what Jesus
said one verse before today's
scripture lesson) it makes perfect sense that Herod would want to
eliminate him because he was obviously a threat to those who would
be the first.
Especially because he had already gathered quite
a following and he healed people and worked miracles… he had
been baptized by John in the Jordan river and he preached a message
that was similar to John's… The kingdom of God has drawn
near… Herod already had John killed and it would be just as
easy to get rid of Jesus, or so he thought.
From our passage, it's tough to know whether the Pharisees came to
Jesus legitimately warning him of Herod's plans or if they had
ulterior motives. At least one scholar suggests that they were
working with Herod, trying to scare Jesus, to get him to leave the
area that was Herod's responsibility so that Herod couldn't be blamed
for whatever trouble Jesus might cause. But when the Pharisees did
warn him, Jesus didn't seem to care very much about Herod. Give
that fox a message for me. I'm here. I will be here tomorrow and the
next day and the next. But this isn't the end of my mission. I'm
going to finish the work that I started and that finish will come in
Jerusalem.
On this second Sunday of Lent, as we accompany Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, which is the place where he's eventually going to be executed on the cross, our text started off with a warning from the Pharisees and it ended with Jesus lamenting over Jerusalem. How often have I desired to gather the children of Jerusalem together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
In his message to Herod, Jesus says that he will stand face to face with the authorities, whether it's Herod himself in Galilee or whether it's the bigger foxes in Jerusalem. He makes it clear that he's not going to back down from conflict, in fact he's going to move toward it. But he isn't going in to the fray to gain power or privilege for himself and he isn't going in with the weapons of a predator. He likens himself to a mother hen, who doesn't have teeth or claws to protect her children, but she does have the devoted love that nearly all mothers do… and that just might be enough.
This week there were three authors whose writings about mother hens and foxes stood out to me and I thought I'd share excerpts of each of them with you. The first is from the New Testament scholar N.T. Wright. He says: In the ancient world, fire was an ever present danger… while our passage doesn't specifically mention fire, it does have it in mind… it's as terrifying to animals as it is to humans … when a farmyard catches fire, of course everyone would try to escape. But if they could not, some species have developed ways to protect their young… for instance… there are stories of people who have come in to clean up after a barnyard fire and have found a hen, burned and scorched and blackened and yet underneath her wings her chicks are still alive. She quite literally gave her life to save them. It's a vivid image of what Jesus declared that he longed to do for Jerusalem and by implication for all of God's people.
But it seems like the danger he's longing to protect them from isn't something as accidental and indiscriminate as fire… but rather he wants to protect them from predators… after all he's already called Herod a fox. In the dominant culture a fox was understood to be clever, and sly and also unprincipled. The Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament associate the fox with destruction and that brings me to the second author.
Rodney Clapp who was a former editor of Christianity Today said that
Herod, the Pharisees, and the power players in Jerusalem were the
first who would be first. Then and now— there are people who
want to see themselves as in control of their world and in control of
the world. When Jesus named Herod as a fox, he did two things…
first he pointed out that that kind of mindset is predatory… to
be in a position to be able to serve, but instead to serve one's self
is as prevalent in our day as it was then… it seems like we see
another story in the news every few days of people who are rich and
powerful abusing their power… and doesn't even take a whole lot
of power… I've heard it from so many people… I can't
seem to get ahead because people are always trying to hold me down
because of my race, my gender, my education level, my nationality, my
finances…
there are a host of reasons
but what it
amounts to is someone trying to keep their advantage at the expense of
someone else. And if we're honest some of us recognize our own roles
in those powers that be. But I think that when Jesus looked toward
Jerusalem and wanted to gather the people in, he wanted to gather
everyone in because those people who are acting like foxes are very
often just too afraid or perhaps too stubborn to gather under the wing
of the one who calls them close.
And that brings us to the third author. Pastor and professor Barbara
Brown Taylor wrote about the meager resources that a mother hen has
when it comes time to fight off the fox… there she stands with
not much of a beak and nothing to speak of for talons… perhaps
all she has is the hope that she satisfies the predator's appetite
so that he leaves her babies alone.
And of course the teeth and
claws of foxes leave little to chance… it's not a fair fight.
But in this case, the mother hen died, but she died loving those
chicks to the very end, and loving the fox too. And after she died,
she came back with the teeth marks in her body to make sure that
everyone got the point; even the power of foxes couldn't kill her love
for those chicks and even the power of foxes couldn't take them away
from her. Eventually the chicks might have to go through what she
went through in order to get past the foxes, in order to redeem the
foxes, but she would be there waiting on the other side of the fight
with a love that is stronger than death.
So when we, or any of God's people are faced with injustice, whether it's something small or large, I pray that we remember the example of the mother hen, who gave her life so that her people might know that there's always an option when facing the predators of the world… I don't foresee a time when we're going to be able to latch the coup and secure the pen so that the foxes that live with us and among us can't get in… I wish I had an answer of how to do that. But since we can't keep them out, we need to learn how to deal with it and we can't be paralyzed by fear. Jesus' response to Herod and his lament over Jerusalem tells us to stand strong in our faith, to fight where we need to fight, in all things to act on principle and to protect God's children, all of them, in the face of whatever injustice we see in our world.
But on the whole, this passage isn't only about a response to the foxes of the world. It's also about an invitation to be gathered in under the wing of the mother hen… It happens often that our modern way of life tells us that we have better things to do than hide out under that wing. It was that way in Ancient Jerusalem and it has been that way with God's people throughout the ages. And yet with Jesus Christ, we get a picture of this mother hen who longs with compassion and determination to draw us close, to protect us, to teach us, to show us love that is stronger than death, and so I pray in this season of Lent and beyond, that in the midst of the foxes and wherever we may go, that we are always able to hear the invitation, and that we respond by gathering in. Amen
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on the Second Sunday in Lent, February 28, 2010.
© 2010 Daniel Holland
