St. John's Episcopal Church

Sermon for Sunday, February 28, 2010 (Year C, Lent 2)

…some Pharisees came and said to [Jesus], “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”  He 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.’” (Luke 13:31-32)

Today I want to share with you a comment on the gospel reading by The Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor of Piedmont College in Demorest, GA.  Ms. Taylor is an Episcopal priest, author of twelve books on spirituality, and a highly regarded preacher.  This item was published in the Feb. 25, 1986, edition of The Christian Century.

On the western slope of the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem, sits a small chapel called Dominus Flevit.  The name comes from Luke’s Gospel, which contains not one but two accounts of Jesus’ grief over the loss of Jerusalem.  According to tradition, it was here that Jesus wept over the city that had refused his ministrations.

Inside the chapel, the altar is centered before a high arched window that looks out over the city.  Iron grillwork divides the view into sections, so that on a sunny day the effect is that of a stained-glass window.  The difference is that this subject is alive.  It is not some artist’s rendering of the holy city but the city itself, with the Dome of the Rock in the bottom left corner and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the middle.  Two-thirds of the view is the cloudless sky above the city which the grillwork turns into a quilt of blue squares.  Perhaps this is where the heavenly Jerusalem hovers over the earthly one, until the time comes for the two to meet?

Down below, on the front of the altar, is a picture of what never happened in that city.  It is a mosaic medallion 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 pale yellow chicks that crowd around her feet.  There are seven of them, with black dots for eyes and orange dots for beaks.  They look happy to be there.  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 that it did.  The medallion is rimmed with red words in Latin.  Translated into English they read, “Jerusalem, 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!”  The last phrase is set outside the circle, in a pool of red underneath the chicks’ feet: you were not willing.

The same lament appears in Matthew’s Gospel, but Jerusalem does not mean the same thing to him that it does to Luke.  Luke’s Gospel begins and ends in the temple in Jerusalem.  Zechariah learns in the temple that he and Elizabeth will have a child [John the Baptist].  Mary and Joseph bring their own child there when the time comes.  Simeon and Anna deliver their prophecies [about Jesus] there, and Jesus returns when he is 12 years old to take his place among the teachers of Israel.

All told, Luke mentions Jerusalem 90 times in his Gospel, while all the other New Testament writers combined mention it only 49 times.  It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Luke loves the place — so rich in history and symbol, so dense with expectation and fear.  Jerusalem is the dwelling place of God, the place where God’s glory shall be revealed (Isa. 24:23).  It is also the place where God is betrayed by those who hate the good and love what is evil (Mic. 3:2).  Nothing that happens in Jerusalem is insignificant.  When Jerusalem obeys God, the world spins peacefully on its axis.  When Jerusalem ignores God, the whole planet wobbles.

If the city were filled with hardy souls, this would not be a dangerous situation.  Unfortunately, it is filled with pale yellow chicks and at least one fox.  In the absence of a mother hen, some of the chicks have taken to following the fox around.  Others are huddled out in the open where anything with claws can get to them.  Across the valley, a white hen with a gold halo around her head is clucking for all she is worth.  Most of the chicks cannot hear her, and the ones that do make no response.  They no longer recognize her voice.  They have forgotten who they are.

If you have ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus’ lament.  All you can do is open your arms.  You cannot make anyone walk into them.  Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world — wings spread, breast exposed — but if you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.

Given the number of animals available, it is curious that Jesus chooses a hen.  Where is the biblical precedent for that?  What about the mighty eagle of Exodus, or Hosea’s stealthy leopard?  What about the proud lion of Judah, mowing down his enemies with a roar?  Compared to any of those, a mother hen does not inspire much confidence.  No wonder some of the chicks decided to go with the fox.

But a hen is what Jesus chooses, which — if you think about it — is pretty typical of him.  He is always turning things upside down, so that children and peasants wind up on top while kings and scholars land on the bottom.  He is always wrecking our expectations of how things should turn out by giving prizes to losers and paying the last first.  So of course he chooses a chicken, which is about as far from a fox as you can get.  That way the options become very clear: you can live by licking your chops, or you can die protecting the chicks.

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 it does not change a thing.  If you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.

Ms. Taylor asks, “Where is the biblical precedent for that?” — meaning the biblical precedent for Jesus’ reference to a hen gathering her chicks under her wings.  Actually, it’s from the Second Book of Esdras, which is generally included among the works we call the Apocrypha.  In chapter 1 the scribe and Torah master Ezra reports, “The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Go, declare to my people their evil deeds, and to their children the iniquities that they have committed against me…’” (2 Esdras 1:4-5)

Then, after reciting all God’s mercies during and after the Exodus, and noting the peoples’ failure to keep his statutes, God says, “What shall I do to you, O Jacob?  You, Judah, would not obey me… Because you have forsaken me, I also will forsake you… Thus says the Lord Almighty: Have I not entreated you as a father entreats his sons or a mother her daughter or a nurse her children, so that you should be my people and I should be your God, and that you should be my children and I should be your father?  I gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.  But now, what shall I do to you?  I will cast you out from my presence… I sent you my servants the prophets, but you have taken and killed them and torn their bodies in pieces; I will require their blood of you, says the Lord.” (2 Esdras 1:24-25, 28-32)

Jesus knew his scripture, that’s for sure!  The Pharisees who warn our Lord about Herod’s threat of murder aren’t telling him anything new.  Jerusalem has always had its share of foxes ready to prey on the defenseless chicks.  And those God sent to call the foxes to account have often been killed in order to protect the status quo.  You could say much the same about any great capital of the world — like Washington, D.C. in our own day.  Except, of course, no heavenly Washington will come down to meet and transform the earthly one.  That is too much to expect.

In any case, by his allusion to the words of Ezra, Jesus makes it clear that he has work to do, and he intends to do it, no matter what.  He knows the risks.  He knows that, in the end, a hen stands little chance against a fox.  And he knows that many of those for whom the hen will soon lay down her life will not notice, much less honor, her sacrifice.  In fact, none of this hen’s “chicks,” even the most devoted, is worth what our Lord is prepared to offer.  Nonetheless, Jesus is determined to proceed.  As Ms. Taylor says, “If you mean what you say, then this is how you stand.”

Across the centuries we Christians have understood that we are called to imitate Christ.  Being like Christ was central to St. Paul’s teaching, and so he urges the Philippians to “…join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.” (Phil. 3:17)  We must all live like our Master, Paul says, the One who was willing to sacrifice himself on behalf of the weak and vulnerable.

Such sacrifice is not much in vogue today, either in politics or in the Church.  We live in an age in which doctrinal purity matters most.  Whether it’s politics or the Church, what counts most today is talking and acting in a way that pleases “the base.”  Attending to the needs of the chicks — those who are at risk, those in need — doesn’t earn points in this game.

I don’t believe that Jesus would be pleased.  But neither would he be surprised.  I think he would recognize the similarity of this age to his own, and, as Ms. Taylor puts it, he would recommend that if we mean what we say, then we must take a just and courageous stand, gather the weak and vulnerable under our wings, and trust that God will make it all work out in the end.  What Christ did for us, we must do for others.  Amen.

— The Rev. John E. Laycock, Interim Pastor

Readings for Year C, Lent 2: Lesson — Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18  •  Gradual — Psalm 27  •  Epistle — Philippians 3:17-4:1  •  Gospel — Luke 13:31-35

Collect for Lent 2:

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.