This morning’s gospel lesson is from Luke 13:31-35. Hear the word of the Lord.
I am so amazed at the image Jesus draws in this story. Apparently, I am not the only one. One preacher, after visiting the Holy Land wrote these words: “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” (Barbara Brown Taylor. “As A Hen Gathers Her Brood.” The Christian Century, February 25, 1986, page 201).
The image is really set up in the first half of the passage where we meet all the key characters: Jesus (the hen), Herod (the fox), and Jerusalem (the city and the people of God). The Pharisees are just peripheral players. They kind of get the story going, but then fade away into the background. They come to Jesus with a warning: “You’d better get out of here! Herod is looking to finish what he started when he had John beheaded…you’re next!” Jesus responds by calling Herod a fox...a sneaky, conniving, dirty, plotting fox. He says to tell the fox to be patient. For now he is about his work, but soon – very soon – he will be finished. Then he introduces the third character: Jerusalem. It is both the destination where he will be killed, and the people for whom he weeps.
The problem is, in the words of an old saying, there is a fox loose in the hen house. The Pharisees say that Jesus is in danger because of the threat Herod represents. But Jesus turns the table and suggests that while Herod might be a threat to him, the cunning fox is more of a threat to them – his beloved people. We all know foxes love to stir up trouble, and they truly love little, tender, vulnerable chicks.
Jesus knew quite well the power and attractiveness of temptation. His was still fairly fresh in his mind. And here lies Jerusalem, the city – the people – that God chose as his own, constantly being assaulted by the fox. Though Herod had no real “authority” over Jerusalem since it was outside his “kingdom,” he, and the kingdom of the world he represents, certainly exuded clear influence in Jerusalem’s life. If it weren’t for the influences of the world, then why would Jerusalem have such a reputation for stoning and killing those God sent to speak his truth? Why would Jerusalem have had such a hard time being faithful to the God who was always faithful to them? It is very hard to live as chicks when the world of foxes is constantly circling.
That much has never changed. Paul wrote to the early church of the difficulties that arise in being in the world but not of it. We still today feel so often like chicks in a world of foxes. Jerusalem now stands in the story in our place – in the place of the Church which God ordained in Christ to be His holy people. It stands in the place of a church that struggles to live the Holiness of Christ. The Church stands today, like the Jerusalem of old, as a people with a reputation. Our reputation is not good.
This week in the news, one church filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection stemming from a long list of sexual abuse lawsuits. Last week in the news one church laid down an ultimatum to some of its constituent churches threatening excommunication. The George Barna survey we mentioned a couple weeks ago confirmed that public opinion of the Church is not very high. Perhaps we have been influenced too much by the fox and his ways.
Jerusalem was known for killing its prophets. Being a prophet is inherently risky business, but I wonder how many others the Church stones…or drives away…or kills. When I was involved with an outreach program at one church, the unbearable frustration was that the kids we were working with felt more alone and rejected at church than anywhere else. The people were polite, but our kids were never welcomed. Our kids were never invited to truly be a part of the church. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How many of my people, that I have sent to you, have you driven away?” Perhaps it is over his Church that Jesus this morning weeps.
I was involved with planting a church in an area of town most people wanted nothing to do with, and for people that most people wanted nothing to do with. The common sentiment from the church people we were recruiting to plant with us was “we don’t want our kids growing up around those kids … Those kids are always in trouble … They will be a bad influence on our kids … we just can’t help.” “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How many of my people that I have sent to you have you driven away?” Perhaps it is over his Church that Jesus this morning weeps.
No wonder the church has a bad reputation! Jerusalem killed the prophets whom God sent, and today’s church is often known for sending away any that don’t fit in. That is nothing but the influence of the fox! The fox says people should fit a certain mold. The fox says people have to look a certain way. The fox says people have to act a certain way. The fox makes us so uncomfortable that we feel safer driving anyone who is not one of us away. Perhaps the church has become so influenced and infiltrated by the world and the ways of the world that it has almost become indistinguishable from the world. And Jesus weeps.
Lent is a season of taking a long, hard deep look into the mirror. Do we fall into this trap? Do new people who come to us leave because they don’t feel comfortable here? Do new people come, look around and think we are just a bunch of cliquish snobs? Do we secretly think “we don’t want that kind of people here”? And Jesus weeps.
While Lent is a season of taking a long, hard, deep look into the mirror, it is also a season of peering deeply into the eyes of a loving God. We have to remember and recognize our shortcomings, and faults. We have to repent of our sin. But we also have to refocus our lives on the cross. When we return to the text, we find Jesus weeping, not because things are hopeless. Jesus is not weeping because all is lost. Jesus weeps because he desires to protect Jerusalem from the foxes that lurk. He desires to gather all his chicks beneath his wing. He desires to protect, but Jerusalem won’t let him. Jesus weeps.
Jesus weeps but he is not stopped. As we follow the journey of Lent we find that it ends in Jerusalem. Though he is rejected – though his protection is refused, he goes anyway like a loving hen. Of all the animals he could have gone as, the hen seems the most unlikely. What ever happened to the Lion of Judah? He could have come roaring into Jerusalem, ate the foxes and all the people would be free. He didn’t. Jesus came as a lamb to be slaughtered. Jesus came as a hen…as a loving mother standing precariously between an attacker and her children.
Though his children had been disobedient…though his bride had been unfaithful…though he was rejected by them, still he came. And in a final twist of irony, Jesus hung, wings extended and breast exposed on the cross dying to protect those who didn’t want it. Where sin abounded, grace abounded all more.
So Jesus hung for his people – Jerusalem – then. So Jesus hung for his people – the church – now. The good news for us is that though Jesus weeps, he still desires to protect his chicks from the fox. Though the Church has a bad reputation in the world, the gospel message is that we are still Christ’s Church. Though the Church often stones and drives away those whom God sends to it, the good news is that we are still Christ’s Church. Though we stumble and fall and make messes, we are still Christ’s church that he loves, and that he longs to protect. We are still Christ’s church that he desires to gather together under his wing. The question, this morning, is whether we will be like Jerusalem and deny His protection, or if we will accept it.
To accept his protection is to fall in line behind him. To accept his protection is to trust in the power of his blood. To accept his protection is to choose to be more like a hen and less like a fox…more like the kingdom of God and less like the kingdom of the world. To accept his protection is to be more like him. As we become more like him, we need his protection more. For to be like him is to be vulnerable. It is to be OK with being different. It is to be humble and meek. It is to be patient and gentle and generous. The world is a fox, always lurking, always scheming. We are to be a hen, opening our wings and exposing our necks for those who God sends us to, though they might reject us. Christ knew what was coming and went willingly anyway. We are called to do the same. We see what may lie ahead if we take this call to Christ-likeness and perfect love seriously, and are called to willingly following. We know the danger and the uncomfortability, but our call is to trust solely in Christ’s mighty and widespread arms of protection. Our call is to accept our cross for God glory: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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