Trusting A "Hen"?

 

Might God have wings? The Gospel lesson raises a possibility that one of the images that is quite appropriate for God is not as a chicken or even a lion or an eagle but as a mother hen, with wings.

 

To help us with this I share a story that appeared several years ago in National Geographic magazine.

After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park, forest rangers began their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno's damage. One ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched statuesquely on the ground at the base of a tree.

 

Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, the ranger knocked over the bird with a stick. When he gently struck it, three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother's wings. The loving mother keenly aware of impending disaster, had carried her offspring to the base of the tree and then gathered them under her wings. Instinctively knowing that the toxic fumes would kill her offspring, that the greatest chance for survival for her chicks were under her wings, near a huge tree she had set her mind. She could have flown to safety but she refused to abandon her babies. When the blaze had arrived the heat had scorched her tiny body, but she had remained steadfast.

 

Because she had been willing to die, those under the cover of her wings now have the opportunity to live.

 

Jesus is steadfast. He sets his face to go to Jerusalem. Jesus goes there to die. Not because He is somehow "into" martyrdom. Not because He would enjoy being crucified. Christ is neither insane nor sado-masochistic. Instead Christ moves onto Jerusalem out of a compelling concern, a passionate love for all humanity, for all creation. There are other forces that would suck the very life from people and from creation. Christ knows those powers. He is willing to take them on despite the personal cost to himself.

 

Just as the mother bird knew the cost of protection for her wee brood, the power of the fire and its toxic fumes, so too Jesus knew. He knew and would fully experience the flames of hatred, greed, fear, ignorance, jealousy and envy. These flames are at least as powerful as any forest fire – for they consume not only those in their path but have the ability to spread into the far distant future, affecting people not yet born.

 

Jesus knows the broken realities of humanity. This is a brokenness that we also share. See the gaps between so many gay people and so many so-called "straight" people. See the pain and divide between men and women, once married now separated or divorced. See the brokenness of children who have been abused, beaten, neglected. What will children become, when those that God has intended for them to be able to trust and be nurtured by, hurt them so deeply?

 

There is brokenness on a much larger scale too. There are those who have homes and food, education and health care, nearly endless possibilities. There are also those who have none of the above and probably will never have access to such. There is brokenness between people of different religions, those who claim to believe or trust in "God" but then degrade, demonize or exclude others who also claim to believer or trust in "God".

 

Jesus is going to Jerusalem to gather up the vulnerable people, "children" under his wings, whatever their age. He does so to protect them from the forces of all the toxic flames that abound. We people do not have to hate each other. In Christ we can lovingly care for each other, wisely employing God's bounty. Scarcity can be overcome. Don't we know? Haven't we seen?  There is enough for all! We do not have to hoard.

 

So, God sends His Son. That Son is on his way to Jerusalem, not for a stay at the Jerusalem Hilton, but to die. To accomplish His mission, like the bird in the National Geographic story, He refuses to save Himself. He dares to go to Jerusalem into the very eye of the fire.

 

Today we hear him speaking while he is on that journey. He speaks employing hen imagery. He speaks to all the people of Israel but also to us. Are we listening?

"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."

 

Do we hear Christ's pain? He wails because He loves the people of Jerusalem, but they refuse the overtures of His love. He is willing to die so that they might live and experience entirely new lives. But they reject Him. They scamper away from that loving but oh, so vulnerable "hen".

 

Jesus continues to speak, often necessarily to lament. He loves the people of Richmond, Vancouver, Delta, the lower mainland. He laments because He loves the people of the Lower East Side, the peoples of Haiti, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, the US and Canada. But so often we refuse or rebuff his overtures. We think that we know best. We attempt to survive in the midst of the fires on our own. In some ways we tell him to "take a hike", to "leave us alone".

 

But even now, the suffering, dying, rising Christ comes calling us. Sometimes His voice is soft, barely a whisper. At other times His voice is loud. Whatever the level of His voice He longs for us to turn to Him for life, to receive His body and blood, to be gathered under His wings, to listen for His voice.

 

ARE WE WILLING? Or with the Jerusalem of old, will Christ say of us, "You would not!"?

 

The fires around and within are real! They are powerful in both their toxicity and heat. But Jesus who sets his face to Jerusalem refuses to abandon us. Even now he comes as a "hen", spreading her wings, wanting to cover us, to nurture us, to move us through death to new life. Will we or will we not trust Him?

 

I can smell the smoke. Amen