Fox and Hen; Luke 13; March 17, 2019; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; ICCM
Have you seen the movie Braveheart? It’s an old movie with Mel Gibson playing William Wallace, a Scottish clan leader who inspired and led a revolution against English rule. This Scottish uprising for freedom took place at the end of the 1200’s. The movie is filled with lots of bloody combat scenes and takes plenty of historical liberties. As the story unfolds in the movie, Wallace has many chances to accept a settlement from the English Crown, to trade his power with the people for personal ease, to exchange his conviction for prestige and wealth. Over and over he holds true to his purpose and determination.
Even when he is betrayed by a man he trusted, he does not lose heart or give up. At one point, just before being drawn and quartered he is offered a drug to ease the pain of his impending death. His refusal of the drug that would dull his wits comes with the words, “every man must die, not every man truly lives.” He stays true to his goal, unwilling to compromise, to weaken, to recant—even when to do so would save his life or ease his own suffering. He was determined to win freedom for Scotland even until his last breath.
I’ve seen the movie several times, and whenever I see it, I think about Jesus, who showed unwavering determination all through his life. Jesus had numerous chances to soften his tone, to compromise, to save himself. But to do that would have been untrue to his purpose.
Today’s gospel is one of those times when it might have been strategically wise to soften his tone, but he didn’t. Some Pharisees came to warn Jesus that Herod was out to kill him, that he should leave Galilee. It was no idle threat. Herod’s power was great. It was Herod who had first imprisoned John the Baptist, and then had him beheaded. Yet Jesus didn’t waver, even when threatened with the power of the king. It’s as if Jesus was saying:
Herod’s power is not final. Go tell that fox I have work to do. Herod may think he’s a lion, but he’s a crafty little fox and I’ve got more important things to do than focus on a threat to my own safety. Self-preservation is not the issue. I’ll be casting out demons and healing today, tomorrow, and the next day until I have accomplished what I need to accomplish. Then I’ll go to Jerusalem, they can kill me there, as is fitting.
Jesus knows his purpose is to love with the protectiveness of a mother hen. Threats and rejection are not enough to stop him. He won’t retreat or shortcut or settle for half truths or half measures. He heads right into the center of the conflict, right to the central city, Jerusalem.
In many ways this passage is about a conflict of wills. We have four wills to consider here:
- Herod’s will to get rid of Jesus
- Jesus’ determination to stick to his purpose
- Jerusalem’s unwillingness to receive the prophets of God, including Jesus
- And God’s own will to save humanity.
This passage is about God’s passionate determination to save and human determination to resist that salvation. It is about the intensity of God’s wanting to give us mercy, God’s unceasing desire to gather us like a hen under her wings because God sees what our life is life and what it would be like without God.
God’s will is the one that wins in this contest of wills. Jesus is obedient to go and do what God wills alone, not what anyone else dictates. That will includes going to Jerusalem. Jesus repeats that will in Luke 18:31 when he takes the 12 aside and says to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.”
Luke uses Jerusalem as a structure for the central part of the gospel. In Chapter 9: 51 Jesus “sets his face toward Jerusalem.” In chapter 19: 41-44 he laments over Jerusalem one more time, he says,
If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.
Then after those fire-y words of prediction he goes on to cleanse the temple.
In between setting his face to Jerusalem in chapter 9 and cleansing the temple in chapter 19 we have this long journey to the city with repeated reminders along the way that this path to Jerusalem is God’s will and has to do with saving the world. Our text today stands at the midway point in the journey. It is both a reminder that this determined messiah cannot be sidetracked or made to compromise his purpose and a prophetic sign that Jesus is aware that resistance and rejection are part of God’s saving purpose, resistance that pushes him all the way to the cross. Here, midway to the cross, we see our savior, caught up in the passion, love, judgment and struggle of wills. We see a savior who knows his function is to love with the protectiveness of a mother hen, no matter what threats or rejection stand in the way.
Ok—let’s pause here and explore the images. Herod is a fox and Jesus is a mother hen. What does that mean? Not many people have much exposure to mother hens these days. Steve and I had laying hens when we lived in Duluth, but without a rooster the eggs weren’t fertile and those hens didn’t get to brood over their eggs or any chicks. Some of you may have raised brooder chicks with lamps and feeders and heaters and such. We see the occasional chicken on the back streets here in Mazatlan, but the days of mother hens as a common image are almost gone.
A friend of mine was raised on a farm. Her mother raised hundreds of chicks for butcher in a brooder house, and they had laying hens too, but they had roosters too and each year they would let the hens brood over a nest of eggs, one nest for each of the kids in the family. My friend and her siblings were responsible to raise those chicks to maturity. When they sold the grownup chickens, then the money went to pay for books or toys or special clothes. She told me that to see a mother hen was a heartwarming sight. The mother hen would cluck to call her chicks and they would come running. She would stand with wings outspread and when they were all tucked in close, she would fold her wings over them, hiding them completely from sight, protecting them from whatever dangers were there.
Another friend of mine, Pastor John Sippola, once told me a story about just how protective hens are. John’s uncle was a farmer and had a hen house, like many farmers did. One night the hen house caught on fire. They were unable to put the fire out. The next morning John’s uncle was out surveying the damage, kicking around in the ashes. He came up to the charred body of a hen and lightly nudged it over. Underneath were live chicks.
Jesus loves us with the love of a mother hen. That’s no soft image. It is determined and protective. 1st John puts it this way,
God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent the Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loves us and sent the Son…Beloved, since God loves us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us and God’s love is perfected in us.
This is what we need to know. God is love. Jesus Christ shows that love, so we can live it. Nothing need stand in the way of that love. Jesus showed us that. Not threats by kings, not desertion by closest friends, not hanging on a cross, not death or burial. The last word is love that rises from the ashes of death. There is a harsh intensity to God’s love. God will give it all for the love of us.
Thy Holy Wings, O Savior, spread gently over me, O close thy wings around me, and keep me safely there, enfold us, one and all. Amen.