Lent 2: Mama Hen
Luke 13: 31-35
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.’ ”
Jesus is doing what he feels called to do. He does this work of healing and teaching and feeding people because he believes in God’s Dream for the world. And for Jesus, and at least for some of us modern followers of Jesus, God’s Dream is pretty simple. Everyone is cared for, everyone has enough, everyone goes to bed safe, warm and well fed. It is a simple dream and it seems to be a profoundly hard dream for any group of humans to really live into. Humans seem often inclined to greed and manipulation and domination and harm in little and big ways, in structured ways and in casual interactions. This is what Jesus has learned from his faith is Sin, the brokenness that divides and conquers and belittles and harms.
So he goes ahead and does his work to invite God’s dream into the everyday. He talks about earth as it is in heaven and then he shows it, he does it and he asks the disciples to do it too. Also, if we are paying attention, he is asking us to do it too.
Which is why Jesus is so interesting and why the Romans are looking for him. This passage Pharisees, folks who like Jesus want a better world for the people of Israel. They are not the bad guys. We might better imagine the relationship as two factions within one political party.
The Pharisees, who have been ideologically sparking with Jesus show up with a message of safety, watch you back and be careful. Harod and his Roman goons are coming for you.
Herod, this Herod, is not Herod we meet at Jesus’ birth. That’s this guy's dad, Herod the Great.
Of course, nicknames are relative to where you are socially. And Jesus along with all the vulnerable people and pretty much everyone in Israel does not feel Great about Herod. He is GREAT looking, which in the ancient world is a sign of God’s blessing and he is GREATLY connected. Which means he went to all the right prep-schools and private colleges and is buddies with Ceaser.
His lineage to be King of Israel… is not great, but he is placed on the throne by Rome. He marries a beautiful princess from a family whose lineage actually would place them on the throne and, somehow, her little brother ends up dead.
Imagine if you can, a ruler who is so driven by ego and appearances that he will stop at nothing to maintain his authority and his power, even killing his own family members.
Now imagine his son, also named Herod and probably hoping that people think he is great rather than Herod the really mediocre guy.
This Herod the Meh is trying to prove himself to Rome. So he does what would make his dad prude; development projects and exploitation and violence. But he has this problem. People talk. And it’s not all great. At this point in the Gospel, Herod has already killed John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin and mentor.
And now the Pharisees are like cool it Jesus, Herod is on your trail.
To which Jesus responds, Tell that Fox I’m right here.
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “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.’
Then he adds, “or do I need to go to Jerusalem to be killed there like all the other prophets” when he says:
‘Yet 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.’
He names out loud and in front of God and everybody that the religious-political establishment has a history of killing the prophets, of drowning out the voices that remind them they are not living into God’s Dream. And then he laments:
“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!
Jesus, names Herod a fox, the classic trickster and then names himself the mama hen. Mama hen is a classic reference to the feminine divine and God’s love.
Betty Miller Conway speaks of the mother hens on her farm. She loves her hens that will mother almost any bird and transform with the work of motherhood:
“Even before those first little chicks emerge from the eggs, bedraggled and wet, the broody hen changes personality. That little hen that peacefully pecked the corn around your feet at feeding time becomes charged with a sense of certainty and purpose. She sits on her eggs for 21 days hardly leaving the nest and pecking at you as you gingerly reach past her to refill her water. When she does come off to eat or drink (only because she would starve otherwise), she is fussy and cranky, and she dances around frantically gobbling up everything in sight. Then she rushes back to the nest as though she thinks that it might be on fire.
When the chicks hatch, it only gets worse. Although she weighs only 4 or 5 pounds, the hen manages to puff herself up into a fearsome looking creature. She is not afraid of anything. The same hen that cackled in panic over a chipmunk in the hen house will attack the neighbor’s German Shepherd with feathered fury if she perceives it as a threat to her chicks. Our own dogs—slink around the perimeter of the barnyard with their tails between their legs, fearful of stirring up her ire. We all know to move gently and stay out of her way. Even though we are more than 20 times her size, she will not hesitate to chase us out of the barnyard, scolding and flogging us at the same time.
Of course, the truth be told, hens are really quite vulnerable, and having loud, peeping chicks on the ground with them is a magnet to raccoons and possums, not to mention the occasional coyote who lurks nearby. Despite her bravado, a hen is no match for them. As my dad used to say, everything likes to eat chicken, and in the end, a little hen can’t really make herself big enough to ward off a serious predator.
But I love the fact that they think they can. Hens take on the daunting task of motherhood with fierce and unwavering dedication.”
Jesus names himself as a mother hen. This dedicated and venerable work that in the end can not actually stop the fox. But will teach the chicks to live boldly and bravely together.
God’ dream is dangerous and living it is risky. This is not a Disney story. It doesn't end with a council of predators who give up their ways and make a peaceable kingdom, yet.
See Jesus and God’s dream live in the yet. In the work and in each step forward. And faith and hope and love are the forces that bind us to keep trying, keep working to make it realized and keep calling us to God’s beautiful dream.
May it be so.
Amen