THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT, 03/04/2007

Sermon on Luke 13:31-35, by Hubert Beck

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (English Standard Version [ESV))

THE FOX AND THE HEN

Does the juxtaposition of a fox and a hen in the text strike you as strange – perhaps even ludicrous?

Perhaps it does not seem so to the fox, but it surely must to the hen. Although, on second thought, the hen may not be quite as intimidated as one might suspect, for she has “gathered her brood under her wings,” perhaps to protect them from the fox! If you have ever been around a hen protecting her chicks you know that she is a formidable foe! You had better not take her too lightly!

Admittedly the fox and the hen seem to be somewhat separate parts of this same saying of Jesus. When he spoke of Herod he was responding to the warning that Herod, who had earlier sought audience with him (Luke 9:9), was now wanting to kill him. When he spoke of the brooding hen he spoke of Jerusalem, where, indeed, he would be killed. In a sense they are entirely separate pictures.

Yet they are placed together in today’s Gospel reading as though they have some kind of relationship. Jesus speaks of his desire to gather Jerusalem under his protecting wing in Matthew’s Gospel only after his entry into the holy city on Palm Sunday. (Matthew 23:37-39) Here in Luke’s account, however, he is still on his way to Jerusalem from the protective environment of Galilee, where Herod held sway. He is warned to hasten his journey lest Herod catch up with him while he still had the power to do so. Luke, therefore, must have had some reason for placing these two “sayings” back to back, in juxtaposition with one another. To what end?

THE THREAT BY HEROD: A THREAT BY ALL WORLDLY AUTHORITY

We must do some guessing, of course, for Luke does not speak of his intention outright. It seems, nevertheless, that there is something here of a comparison and a contrast between the powers of this earth and the urgent desire of God to corral misdirected earthly intentions.

Herod, already in the earlier note that he wished to see Jesus, quite obviously sensed that there was something about Jesus that threatened his authority. Just as his father had earlier sought to kill the infant Jesus in Bethlehem, slaughtering all the innocents of that city, because he would tolerate no threat by a “newborn king” to his royal throne, so here in his son there was a brooding sense that this man Jesus was a danger. Although there is no sign of Jesus ever having made any overt political threat to the ruling authorities, there was something about him and his message and his following that seemed to undermine the authority Herod so jealously guarded.

Jesus would never hold ultimate allegiance to anyone other than his Father. He would not act or react to Herod’s threat as though he actually held any ultimate jurisdiction over him. He recognized the voice of Satan again – the same voice which we heard last Sunday calling Jesus to forsake his mission, in exchange for which Satan would give him all the kingdoms of the world. “If you ‘play my game’ I will not harm you, but if you insist continuing on the path you seem to be following, your very life is in danger.” Jesus responded to Satan, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” (Luke 3:5-8) He says it again here in quite other words, but to the same effect. “Tell that old fox to get out of the henhouse. I have my mission to do and am even now doing it. You will not stop me. My death will come in my own time and in the place appointed for me to render it. It is the will of my Father that I pursue and you cannot stand in my way.” Thus did Jesus respond to Herod’s threat.

It has been told me that, although the churches of Russia generally had relative freedom to conduct worship services during the Marxist rule, they were forbidden to speak any word that even remotely smacked of a political nature. Everything was to be “religious” only. Spies were regularly planted in the services to be sure this law was enforced or reported if it was transgressed. It was clear even to the Marxists who scoffed at religion that any person committed to a religious faith was, by definition, asserting that an authority higher than the presiding government was always in effect. That was, again by definition, subversive. Therefore the least they could do was to be certain that no such subversive word was ever spoken in any worship service. Like Herod, without a word having been spoken, there was a recognition of political danger simply in a confession of religious faith – or, in Herod’s case – in following Jesus.

Herein lies the constant tension between the world and the people of God, between the subtle temptations to those things so cherished by our flesh and the resistance of a conscience directed by the word and will of the Lord. A commentator on this text noted, “It is a matter of perspective. . . . Where does the final authority lie? . . . The lenses of God’s promise and love allow one to see a different picture – one in which the immediate, perceivable reality is subjugated to another reality. Then the power of the foxes gives way to the love of a hen for her chicks.” (Proclamation 4, Fortress Press, Lent, Series C, Myrna and Robert Kysar, authors, © 1988, pp. 35, 36)

This tension exists all the way into the relationship between the church and state as the tension between Herod and Jesus illustrates. The church may pay allegiance to the state . . . but only to a point. “We must obey God rather than men,” the apostles asserted when they were forbidden the right to speak of their Savior. (Acts 4:19, 20) In Herod’s threat Jesus sensed a subtle willingness to leave Jesus alone if he only cooperated with the earthly power Herod exerted. He would have none of it.

We should stop just long enough at this point to ask, in accord with the above-quoted commentator, “Where does the final authority in your life lie? The fox continues to threaten us in many and various disguises today, always asking for an allegiance quite other than that to which we have been called in our baptism. The masks are many -- the camouflages are subtle. But everywhere around us voices are calling us to offer our allegiance to an authority quite foreign to that which our Lord would have us make. They do not sound at all like “Herod threatening to kill us” today. They sound much more like a “Herod who would give us life,” in fact. That is their deceitfulness, disarming in their charm and appearing to be crucial to our welfare in their demands. Many foxes haunt the henhouse of God!

THE WONDER OF HUDDLING UNDER THE WINGS OF THE PROTECTIVE HEN

Over against the threat of Herod’s power Jesus speaks of a “hen gathering her brood together under her wings.” Is this not a marvelous picture of God’s protecting care . . . of his love and concern and overarching protection? The mother hen, as was noted earlier, can be fierce in the protection of her little chicks snuggling together under her wing. The helpless chicks crowd together trustingly under her warm body, both unaware of and unconcerned about the danger that lurks nearby in the form of the fox. They try to slip out now and then and her wing scoops them back up into the safety of her shelter. They attempt to steal out from under her warmth only to find themselves gathered back into the protection of her body.

This is the picture of God that we all cherish . . . a protective, loving, warm, supportive, defending, supporting God – a mother hen who holds her chicks in a passionately sheltering sanctuary where the fox cannot penetrate. How fervently we all long for a place like that – a place where the terrors of life are held at bay and the miseries of life are subsumed in the warmth of a space of security. We retreat to that place in our faith time and time again, confident that God will be our shield and our fortress.

Why, then, do the chicks strive so hard to escape that place? Why must Jesus say, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” Why would they not? Why do we not? We are as much a mystery to ourselves as Jerusalem must have been to herself! Why is our trust in our Lord’s care for us so shallow? Why do we wander off into our own paths so readily, as though we can live life on our own terms . . . even if and when the fox shows up? At no place in life, perhaps, does our sin show up quite so boldly as the way we run from the shelter of God’s wings in order to live in the shadow of the fox! Our self-will, our falsely placed self-confidence betrays us all too frequently as we listen to the soft “purring” of the fox, turning to the world around us for our security, our contentment, our source of comfort and consolation.

Jerusalem had a long history of this, and Jesus refers to it. Rather than listening to the prophets’ appeals to return to the protecting wings of her protector, Jerusalem killed the prophets and stoned those whom God sent to her as his ambassadors through whom he called her to return to her mother who would gladly spread her wings over the brood that she had seen into existence. Now, on his way to this wayward city for his holy self-sacrifice in behalf of the wandering world, Jesus calls with tender pathos for a recognition of who she was meant to be, from whom she came, and to whom she was intended to go.

As suggested above, the plea to return is regularly issued to us also. That is what the word “repent” is all about – a turn from our own self-sufficiency, our own self-will, our own misguided confidence in our ability to take our life in hand under the very nose of the fox and a turn to the one whose wings are our only hope and our only protection. Only a week and a half ago ashes were placed on our forehead, reminding us that we are dust to which we shall return. We were reminded again that it is our sinfulness that creates the gaping hole in the ground that shall one day gobble up the dust from which we were taken. We were admonished once again to return to our Lord in whom alone there is new life and a promise of protection and support and love that will see us through the days when the fox shadows our every footstep. It was the cry of our text spoken to us in today’s terms: “O children of mine, children of mine, who so love to go astray, fleeing from the protection of your mother’s wings, return to me.”

THE FOX IN THE HENHOUSE – AND THE HEN’S ESCAPE

The Jerusalem who killed the prophets through the ages, stoning those who were sent to it, had another victim in its sights. Jesus knew it as he spoke in today’s text. In God’s own time he would offer up his Son to the will of humankind as a sin-offering for all those who left the loving, brooding wing of the mother hen, placing themselves into the ways where the fox would destroy them. The belly of the fox was already full of them and now he sought to swallow up the mother hen herself. Jesus knew what lay ahead of him.

“I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem . . . Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” These words, strange in so many ways and yet so clear in other ways, speak of “the time and way of the Lord.” Herod was not to be the fox who got into the henhouse . . . but a fox would, indeed, enter the henhouse. The fox’s name, however, was Pilate, not Herod, although he momentarily but unsuccessfully attempted to get Herod to take up the dishonor of the fox’s violence. Pilate was to carry out the resolve of those Jewish authorities in Jerusalem who willed to put Jesus to death in keeping with its long history.

Those around him did not understand what was going on. Until they said “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” they still would not understand. Is this a reference to Palm Sunday? That is what they shouted as he entered Jerusalem, you know! But it is not likely that it was to this moment that Jesus referred, for that cry only ushered him into the city that kills the prophets and stones those whom God sends. No! That which lay ahead of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem was the unthinkable . . . the mother hen would give up her one and only-begotten chick that had remained faithfully under the safety of her wing to the mercy of the fox so that as he chased that helpless chick down she might run to gather all her other chicks back under her wing! She not only gave this chick up, but she shoved him out from under her wing into the very mouth of the fox! How can this be?

Only God knows how this can be. It is his will that the sinless One should be offered for all the sinful ones. It is his way to send the one helpless chick that had remained under the parent’s wing out from under that protective wing to be pursued and slain in behalf of all those who had left their place of security. What a wonder this is! It all seems to be such a setting of weakness with the fox pursuing the helpless chick and devouring it, filling the tomb of his belly with the little defenseless chick!

Ah, but that little chick proved to be indigestible in the tomb of that belly, for the wolf had to give it up again in three days! Was this not also a wonder!?!?! That the fox could not contain the defenseless chick is a marvel! The mother hen had risen up in all her fury, had assaulted the fox with beak and claw, had bloodied the head of the fox, had forced the fox to give her chick back! There, in that strange juxtaposition of the hen and the fox we find the heart of the good news of God’s love for us. He would not hold back from us his dear Son in order that we might be gathered together once again under the marvelously protective wing of the mother whose chicks are now secured. Now – and especially now – we can and must say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” His Father shook the tomb of the fox’s belly free of its victim and he rises up victorious! The fox has been chastised and tamed. He has not lost his power, but he has lost all the terror of his power.

THE FOX, COLLARED AND LEASHED, IS NOW HELD PRISONER AMONG THOSE HE SOUGHT TO DESTROY

So suddenly, in a most unexpected way, the fox, the old satanic foe who appeared as Herod and Pilate, is now held prisoner among those whom he sought to destroy. He is not annihilated, to be sure, but he is collared and leashed in the very yard that he sought to terrorize. The chicks are free to come and go now, so long as they remain at a safe distance from the snarling fox tied to his tree. The mother hen watches over her flock carefully, though, lest her chicks get too frisky in their wandering. Her wing is always ready to receive the tired and weary ones, the wounded and troubled ones, the fear-filled and weak ones. There is always warmth and protection and love under her warm body. Peter’s words are hung as a standard in this yard: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.” (I Peter 5:6-9a ESV)

We, of course, are those chicks. Our lives, watched over ever so carefully by our Lord, are free from the terrible threats of that fox, the devil, so that we can live our lives with boldness and courage. We dare not wander from the safety of the yard we call the church where God’s surrounding promises hold the evil one at bay as though we could ward him off by our own strength or will, for that inevitably places us in great danger. Under the wings of the church God shelters us, speaks to us through the voice of the Scripture, reminds us of our baptism, sustains us through bread and wine. Here we sense again the love of the mother hen’s wing. He sends us out, in turn, to represent him in the yard of this world where we are to serve him by funneling his love for us out to all those around us.

What does that look like in your life, then? How does it work out in your daily round of living? Only you can answer according to the guidance given you by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in your lives. It would be nice if we could map out where to go and what to do and how to act in every moment and at every turn of our lives. But God, who has so carefully guarded us from the terror of the fox, opens opportunities, makes new possibilities, offers occasions that you, yourself must identify in which to serve him. God does not give you a blueprint for living. God gives you opportunity for living. There is a vast difference between a blueprint and an opportunity! Having collared and put the leash on the fox, God sends you out into the yard as ambassadors of love and grace in the world where other foxes threaten people with whom you have daily contact. Yours is the message and the exemplary lives to give witness that “the fox is no longer in control! You can live with joy and freedom!”

Hubert Beck
Retired Lutheran Pastor
E-Mail: hbeck@austin.rr.com

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