Sermon: February 28, 2010

“How often I’ve longed to gather your children like a hen,

her brood safe under her wings….”

Luke 13:34b The Message

Many of you know that we have a backyard chicken coop. Life in that coop can be interesting. The “girls,” as we call them, get up early and wait patiently to see any signs of life in our house, expecting their morning treats of cracked corn and sunflower seeds. There is a definite “pecking order” in the coop. Some birds are quick to claim their share of the grain while others wait in a corner for John to throw a handful directly to them. And the ones who are on the bottom of that pecking order loose more than a few feathers when they get in the way of chickens in charge.

This is the time of year when one of the hens sometimes gets broody. She will spend all her waking hours sitting on the clutch of eggs in the nesting box patiently waiting for those eggs to hatch. Without a rooster in the coop, this is never going to happen but this bit of biology seems to be lost on her!

I’m guessing that most of us are not familiar with life in the coop, so I’ve done a little poultry research this week and discovered that not every hen will patiently sit on a clutch of fertile eggs for 21 days until they hatch. Most hens lay their eggs and then, seemingly without regard, wander off in search of grubs and worms. This is certainly true in our coop. Most of our chickens lay their eggs and then are back outside hoping for fresh garden ground to explore. But once a hen gives in to her maternal nature, she is a force to reckon with. While sitting on the eggs, the expectant mother will not eat or rise from the nest except to shift the eggs with her beak every few hours. She is entirely focused on the task at hand. If she is lucky enough to have fertile eggs, once those eggs hatch, the mother hen emerges from the nest with her fluffy brood tucked under her body to teach them to scratch for food. As the chicks grow, the hen will allow them to explore the world within a safe radius. But if she sees a hawk’s shadow or spies a predator lurking in the bush, the hen clucks an alarm and the chicks come running under the shelter of her wings.

In this morning’s passage from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus was sounding such an alarm. The people of Israel had explored far beyond the safe radius of God’s expectations and speaking out of the heartbreak and disappointment at the refusal of his own people to live in keeping with God’s way, Jesus cried for them saying, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often I’ve longed to gather your children like a hen, her brood safe under her wings – but you refused and turned away!”

As a parent myself, I have always found this scene rather touching. I imagine our children and think of the ways we have tried to protect them. As babies it was easier. Never far from our sight, we did everything in our power to keep them safe. As our children grew, it became harder and harder to keep them gathered under our protective wings safely out of harm’s way. I remember the time when Joel was 8 or 9 years old and playing in one of his very first baseball games. He was so excited at the chance to play first base but when he was pulled off the field at the last minute when the better player finally arrived, he wanted nothing more than for me to hold him on my lap for most of the game. I remember that middle of the night phone call from Erin when she arrived in Budapest to study for a semester and the school wasn’t open and she didn’t know where to go for help. My heart was breaking as I listened to her exhausted tears but she was too far away for me to pull her in and hold her close.

Like every other child, sometimes ours were not interested in being gathered in under wings. I remember several of the poor decisions Joel made while in high school. This time the tears were mine. I felt powerless to save him from his mistakes but wanted nothing more than to hold him close. I think of our tears… the tears of frustration and fear that we as parents have cried for our children’s future and I understand the desire to sound the alarm and gather them under protective wings.

Jesus wanted nothing more than to sound the alarm and gather the ones he loved under protective wings but they didn’t want to be gathered in. Herod, the fox… Herod, the sly and unprincipled one… Herod, the destructive one… had captured their allegiances. The people had chosen to follow Herod and the corrupting power of Rome. Jesus could have made a long list of the times and the ways that God’s people had chosen Herod instead of God… the ways they were living “ungathered” lives. He could have spoken harshly to them about how they were living out of the dominant values of the day. But instead he wept for them and spoke compassionately of his desire to protect them from all harm. In a tender moment, Jesus recognized them as barnyard chicks lost in a storm, too afraid and too stubborn to find shelter under the shadow of the mother hen’s wings.

Recognizing that the power of this passage is not lost on the world in which we live, one biblical scholar acknowledges that: “We live in a menagerie. In the symbolic world of these verses, evil threatens in the form of a fox, and the mother hen laments because her young are exposed but will not accept her protections. What more can the hen do but stand up to the fox and seek to shelter and protect her young? Alas, what will become of the young if they do not accept the shelter of their mother’s wing?” (Dr. R. Alan Culpepper in The New Interpreter’s Bible)

Last week, we began our Lenten journey. Lent is a time for honesty, truth telling, and introspection. It is a time for us to take a look at “life in the coop.” That’s what we do in Lent. We take the time to look at the ways we are choosing to run away from the shelter of God’s wings… the ways we are choosing to live “ungathered lives.” This isn’t easy. Few of us really want to take that honest look at how we are choosing to live outside the radius of God’s expectations. But it is important to look at all that threatens life in God’s beloved coop… all that keeps us running in all directions rather than trusting in God’s grace.

The journey of Lent pushes us to understand our own desires to remain ungathered and then offers us the chance to start all over again as new creations in God’s love. Lent is a time to take God at God’s word. So let’s take a moment now to make a few notes for yourself. What are the internal and external threats that keep you living an ungathered life? What are you brooding over? How are you living in Herod-like ways?

Life in the coop can be hard but we are not alone on this journey toward grace. We don’t have to live “ungathered” lives. We can seek protection under God’s wings. Anne Lamott puts is this way, “God isn’t there to take away our pain and suffering but to fill it with his or her presence.” (page 241 in Traveling Mercies) We can put our faith in God’s unconditional grace… that forgiving love that meets us where we are but does not leave us where it finds us. God, like a mother hen, is a force to be reckoned with. Today is the day to seek shelter under her wing.