(March 7, 2004)

A Fox in the Henhouse
 

Many of us probably remember the first times we met our partner’s parents and ate a meal at their home. I remember well coming into the kitchen of Sam’s home for dinner. Immediately I noticed that on the three walls without cabinets, there were shotguns hanging above the doorways. Although this was an unusual sight for me, having grown up in town and without the benefit of anyone in our family who was a hunter, I dismissed the guns from my mind and sat down to dinner. I think it was just about between the main course and dessert when we heard the most terrible cacophony outside. Sam’s mother leapt from table, exclaiming that something had gotten into the chicken house, and Sam and his father, in one fluid motion rose from the table, each grabbed one of the shotguns from the wall and hurried outside. The chicken house sat not more than fifty yards from the house, so I had a front row seat for all the action. They ran into that house, fired several shots, and then calmly strode back to the house.

Of course, I was stunned at all the commotion, never having experienced anything like that in my life! When they returned, Sam explained that a fox had gotten into the henhouse, which wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, and they had merely fired the shots to scare the fox away. They had arrived in time to prevent any damage to the chickens, although Sam’s mother was sure they wouldn’t lay eggs for the next few days!

I can honestly say this was my first and only experience with a fox in a henhouse, never living on a farm or with guns posted above the doorways of my house—I assure you they aren’t in the parsonage! Yet, it was fascinating how quickly the whole family reacted to the noise, knowing instinctively was happening and acting immediately to counter the danger and protect the chickens, a precious commodity on the farm.

In our passage today, Jesus instinctively attempts to protect his precious people, the people of Jerusalem. He is their messiah, their Savior, just not the messiah they expected him to be. He did not come carrying weapons and wielding military might—he didn’t have to. He hasn’t appeared in a blaze of glory, but rather he has emerged from the desert to be singled out by God and to bring hope to God’s weary people. And so, he instinctively lashes out at the “fox”—Herod—who threatens the very people Jesus is healing, and Jesus is saving. Typical of Jesus, he doesn’t acknowledge Herod’s power, and he doesn’t counter the king with his own power. Instead, Jesus insults Herod, and then attempts to draw people’s attention to the true power of God. Once again, Jesus takes another step to the cross.

Rather than giving us the image of one who is particularly cunning or crafty, Jesus is probably here referring to Herod the fox as one who lacks the status or is impotent to carry out his threat. Herod would probably have preferred to be called a ‘lion’, as earlier rulers in Israel claimed among their titles. But, Jesus, as usual, intends to offend, and so according to him, Herod Antipas was just a ‘fox’, although foxes could be dangerous and wily. Thus, Jesus relativises Herod’s rank, placing it in comparison with his own mission that is rooted in divine necessity and ordained by God. With this comparison, Jesus succinctly and bluntly demonstrates that he serves one of greater status and power than Herod or the Rome he represents. Herod's threat, then, is blunted because his plan, his kingdom, runs contrary to the divine will. Jesus reminds people that Herod’s foxlike trait is not the protection and the preservation of the welfare of all the people (as a lion might do), but it is the proclivity of the fox for malicious destructiveness. When Jesus calls Herod a fox, he conjures the image of the varmint in the Lord's henhouse, a murderer of God's people, a would-be disrupter of the divine economy.

The problem for the people of Jerusalem is that they were willing to acquiesce to Herod's agenda as an acceptable way of life, as the standard terrain in Jerusalem. After a while, it becomes difficult to tell the Herods apart from those who have merely accepted his style of management. We need not think that this was due to willing cooperation with the power of the "fox." The problem is that victims of oppression can themselves begin to believe that the power of the oppressor is superior--and also believe that cowering in fear is their only recourse. In essence, not making waves against the power structure becomes not only the accepted practice, but also the only acceptable belief (or rather, unbelief).

When Jesus comes proclaiming a new kingdom, gathering his large following, and not supporting Herod’s way of life or treatment of the people, it becomes in Herod’s interests (and even the temple’s—as we have the Pharisees warning to Jesus at the beginning of our passage) to silence Jesus. There were only a few ways of doing so.
To this danger, Jesus responds. He indicates what he has been doing: exorcisms and healing. He has been dealing with powers—real powers. He has been concerned with setting people free and healing them. He has been engaging in acts of compassion and caring, which restore dignity to people. Why should Herod worry about such a ‘nice person’? Because Jesus’ vision went beyond the individual to a transformed society. That had social and political implications. Both dimensions matter: the individual, personal and the social, communal.

Jesus is the mother hen who is not about to abandon the house to the foxes--or to leave the chicks abandoned. His wings are soft and warm, and his calling is clear and inviting. There is tremendous risk for the mother hen in extending her wings. But she would rather give her life than leave her children abandoned to the wiles of a fox-trodden oppression. Jesus is the Davidic messiah who establishes his reign upon the throne in Jerusalem. Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!

And so the chicks who've come to depend on and trust in Him live life in a new way -- not bound to control and fear, but transformed and free to tell others of the ultimate gift who was sent to gather us all under his wings and into the Father's arms. As chicks, they go about their business living for the day--"today, tomorrow, and the next day." There is the same patience and irony that they inherit from their Mother Hen, which infuriates the foxes, whose control fades with the dawning of the new day. To be sure, the foxes of this world will always be with us. Prophet killing, unfortunately, is still abroad in our world; but we are forever welcome and safe under the shadow of the wings of our Lord. We have been given strength to live new lives in this world and offer this same newness to everyone we meet.

These four short verses from Luke are packed with emotion and imagery – and they come at a crucial point in Jesus' journey. In Matthew this lament over Jerusalem occurs during Holy Week - after Palm Sunday and before Maundy Thursday when the die is already cast and Jesus is all but dead. Not so in Luke. This gospel writer describes the scene much earlier in the story – in the middle of the book - when Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. In fact, the whole Gospel of Luke takes place "on the way" to Jerusalem - on the way to this holiest of cities where God is adored in the Temple - this holiest of cities where prophets are stoned again and again for speaking the audacious truth - the truth about the cost and the gift of God's love.

Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and professor from Georgia, and perhaps on of the greatest preachers of our time, reminded me that 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 the heavenly Jerusalem?

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 one must remember, as Dr. Taylor notes, 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.”

Jerusalem is very important to Jesus - so important that he weeps and laments when he senses the foolishness, the impotence, the self-destructiveness of Jerusalem's people. Nothing that happens in Jerusalem is insignificant. When Jerusalem obeys God, the world spins peacefully on its axis. When Jerusalem ignores God, the whole planet wobbles. If the city were filled with hardy souls, this would not be a dangerous situation. Unfortunately, it is filled with pale yellow chicks and at least one fox. In the absence of a mother hen, some of the chicks have taken to following the fox around. Others are huddled out in the open where anything with claws can get to them. Across the valley, a white hen with a gold halo around her head is clucking for all she is worth. Most of the chicks cannot hear her, and the ones that do make no response. They no longer recognize her voice. They have forgotten who they are—they are not willing.

And yet, Jesus was willing, willing to pay the ultimate price, be the ultimate sacrifice for even those of us who are so often unwilling to listen and follow. And so, in this willingness we find the most important word of Jesus for us today from this passage—a word that appears again and again in Luke's intense narrative. The word is MUST: “Nevertheless I MUST journey on today and tomorrow and the next day”. Jesus Must be on his way - he Must go to Jerusalem, he MUST go to the Temple, he MUST go to Gethsemane, he MUST go to Calvary. This mission is not negotiable, it is not tentative, it is not changeable depending on how he feels. There is a passion burning in Jesus' soul, a mission, a call, a vocation - that defines the very heart of who he is. And nothing and nobody can dissuade him - not crafty, foxy, Herod, not the curious Pharisees, not even the hurting, scared, needy people hanging off the edges of Jerusalem - those strangers trying to stop Jesus - begging him to save them, to fix them, to heal them.

The passage is saying that Jesus had to do this! He must do it. It was God’s will for our sake! In the controversial novel, The Last Temptation of Christ, the final temptation was for Jesus to avoid the God-assigned role of suffering on the cross to overcome the sins of the world. God's redemptive plan conflicted with Jesus' natural desire to lead an ordinary human life - having a family, a job and a reasonable long life. What we see in our Gospel account is that Jesus willingly gives up all for us. He must get to Jerusalem. He must be betrayed. He must be sentenced to death. He must be crucified. He must die.

Today, my friends, Jesus is asking each of us a question. Do you have a MUST? Is there a burning passion or vision or mission in your life that propels you, energizes you, calls you - that gives you purpose and value and strength. The greatest leaders in history have shared Jesus' single-minded sense of MUST – dreaming and visioning freedom, justice, peace, and equality. Most of us won't come anywhere near embodying such lofty and powerful ideals - but that does not let us off the hook - that should not keep us from discerning, discovering the meaningful MUSTS in our own living. What is it that motivates you? For which you are willing to take risks? What is it that can open you to failure, that invites you to push your comfort zones, to maybe disappoint some people along the way? Are there causes and people in which you believe so fiercely that you can withstand fear and mistakes and struggle along the way? Perhaps you have a vision for this church that takes us to a new level and moves us to a future outside the lines. Perhaps you have a passion for justice – that motivates you beyond the prejudice and lethargy and politics of our resistant world. Perhaps yours is a professional ethic - that demands that you stand up to the status quo that calls you to risk money and advancement in order to keep your integrity intact. Whatever it is, today Jesus models for us and mandates for us - a sense of MUST.

What is it in your life that is worth living for? More importantly, according to Jesus, what is it in your life that is worth dying for? What is it in your life that you simply MUST do? Our text suggests that Jesus pauses for just a moment in the midst of his mission and his MUST. He pauses and spreads the wings of his imagination - with an image of care and love. Glancing from the Mount of Olives across the Kidron Valley looking toward Jerusalem he laments, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the broken 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!" And because I cannot force you to come, and because you are unwilling to grab the rope and pull yourselves toward life - because you are not willing to come and accept the protection and the warmth and the promise of God's nurturing love, I must go on. I must leave you dangling, leave you out in the cold and the dark. I MUST go on. You will not see me again until it is too late, until the bread has been broken, until the nails have been hammered and my broken body has been laid to rest. Maybe then, after I have gone through my pain and you have gone through yours, maybe then you will come to me and gather under me and with me around the table of God's kingdom - God's healed and reconciled and empowered kingdom.

Today and always, Jesus gives us a choice. He invites us to gather under his wings, to accept the grace and freedom and truth of the Christian life. But we, stubborn and self-destructive, often refuse to go. We instead, jump over the side of life's seductions and temptations – away from God and toward despair. Then tying ourselves to our neediness, we beg Jesus, we tempt God, and we bargain with the Holy One to come with us into the pit of our own destruction. When God refuses to wallow with us we try to tie Jesus down anyway - stopping his MUST with our maybes. But Jesus will not and cannot stop to reinforce our dependency or our fear. Instead he gives us a choice. We can travel with him toward the uncertainly of the future, protected by the wide expanse of his gathering wings. Or we can stay behind and destroy ourselves. Scripture tells us that as Jesus continued on his way to Jerusalem he kept his wings outstretched. He kept his breast bare and vulnerable. We know that he stretched out on a cross - continuing to invite us to be part of his brood -even as the spear pierced his side and he was wounded by a love starved world. The promise of this Season of Lent is that the Holy Must - turns into the Holy Mystery - that through the grace and power of God - Jesus draws us away from our pain toward his, so that in and through his struggle we might be healed. But it only happens if we choose to go with him, if we choose to pull ourselves up from our destructive dependency and our dangling despair - only if gathered under his wing, we march off to the promise and the pain of Jerusalem.

"Oh, Jerusalem, oh Jerusalem. How often have I desired to gather your
children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing?" My friends, are we willing? Are we willing to choose, to decide, to go to Jerusalem, under the wings of God's promise? Or will we stay dangling over the precipice of our own discontent? Jesus will go with us or without us. The choice is ours. May we pray on this, confess and reconnect our lives to the one who can give us meaningful purpose for our lives. May it be so for you and for me. Amen.

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