Luke 13:31-35
At that very hour 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. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” 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! See, 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.”
There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable
If you’re familiar with the musical “Hamilton,” you know that these devastating words are sung as the Hamiltons mourn the senseless death of their 19-year-old son, Philip. Of course, you don’t have to know “Hamilton” to know the shattering grief these lyrics describe. And who among us hasn’t known moments that the words don’t reach, when there are no words to express the depth of our suffering, when we feel terribly alone, incredulous and angry that the rest of the world just keeps on going as though everything hasn’t changed.
There are moments that the words don’t reach, moments when we are forced to confront how little we can actually control, moments that make us wonder about never loving again if doing so would save us from experiencing the crushing depths of grief.
“If you have ever loved someone you could not protect,” writes Barbara Brown Taylor, “then you understand the depth of Jesus’ lament.”
Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
We understand the depth of Jesus’ lament, because the awful truth is that ultimately none of us can fully protect those we love – even those we love so much that we would gladly trade places with them if it would protect them – if it would save them.
So how do we live in this world? How do we keep on exposing ourselves to grief by caring what happens to those around us? How do we not live in a state of perpetual fear? How do we see vividly – and with great clarity – not just the death that surrounds us but also the life? The hope? The promise? How do we keep on loving?
I have read no better sermon on this passage from Luke than that of Barbara Brown Taylor, so I want to share a significant portion of it with you now. These are her words, not mine, and I hope you find them as powerful as I do.
At the risk of his own life, Jesus has brought the precious kingdom of God within the reach of the beloved city of God, but the city of God is not interested. Jerusalem has better things to do than to hide under the shelter of this mother hen’s wings. It has a fox as its head, who commands a great deal more respect.
Consider the contrast: Jesus has disciples: Herod has soldiers. Jesus serves: Herod rules. Jesus prays for his enemies: Herod kills his. In a contest between a fox and a chicken, whom would you bet on?
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, they 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.
It may have looked like a minor skirmish to those who were there, but that contest between the chicken and the fox turned out to be the cosmic battle of all time, in which the power of tooth and fang was put up against the power of a mother’s love for her chicks. And God bet the farm on the hen.
Depending on whom you believe, she won. It did not look that way at first, with feathers all over the place and chicks running for cover. But as time went on, it became clear what she had done. She had refused to run from the foxes, and she had refused to become one of them. Having loved her own who were in the world, she loved them to the end. She died a mother hen, and afterwards she came back to them with teeth marks on her body to make sure they got the point: that the power of foxes could not kill her love for them, nor could it steal them away from her. They might have to go through what she went through in order to get past the foxes, but she would be waiting for them on the other side, with love stronger than death.
As I reflect on Barbara Brown Taylor’s words and what is so often the timelessness of scripture and its ability to speak to us right where we’re at, I believe there is much here for us to consider and even cling to today.
In a world where power continues to be worshipped and might keeps on making right, it’s not surprising, I suppose, that so many bet on the fox. When we can’t protect those we love, we might even believe that the fox can guarantee us some measure of safety by way of brute force or material wealth.
But our protector is the hen, whose steadfast love ultimately leads us through even death to life. Held in the loving arms of Jesus, we are disciples, servants, people who pray for our enemies rather than destroying them.
So how do we live in this world? How do we keep on caring? How do we keep on loving? We turn from the fox – whatever form that fox takes today – and bet the farm on the hen – Jesus Christ – who stands, vulnerable and exposed, on the side of justice and mercy. We witness the power of a mother’s love for her chicks, a power no fox can diminish or defeat. We trust a broken-hearted God who enters fully into all those moments that the words don’t reach, sharing in our suffering too terrible to name, with a grace too powerful to name. Amen.
Barbara Brown Taylor, “As a Hen Gathers Her Brood,” The Christian Century, February 25, 1986.
Well said, both by you and by Barbara Taylor. Your use of language addresses me. It commands my attention and my memory. Thank you!
Thank you!