Lent 2, 03/17/2019

Sermon on Luke 13:31-35, by Ryan Mills

³¹At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to [Jesus,] “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” ³²He 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. ³³Yet 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.’ ³⁴Jerusalem, 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! ³⁵See, 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.’ ” (NRSV)

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Welcome today on this Second Sunday in Lent, what I’ve begun to call ‘Chicken Sunday’, where we hear Jesus describe his love and care for his people in terms of a mother hen: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…and you were not willing.”

Some of you know our family raised chickens a couple years ago in a coop in our back yard. We wanted two chickens, but had to buy six as the minimum, and then someone in either an act of Lenten almsgiving or in trying to get rid of their problems gave us two more. So we had eight chickens, each with their own feisty personality, each completely oblivious to the danger of staying out of its coop at night, or running across the proverbial road during rush hour, each interested in pecking anything shiny like a wedding ring or a watch as hard as possible, all loud, all stinky, all constantly hungry. To be honest it was like having 8 teenagers to take care of, and you can only have omelettes for breakfast and egg salad for dinner for so many months before you’re sick of it, and your cholesterol levels are too!

But if you’ve ever seen a mother hen with its babies, that’s an amazing sight. I remember walking up to a mother hen once, and as I approached she scrambled around to push her little ones under her, scootching towards a corner for safety, while trying to stay on top of the eggs that had not yet hatched, ignoring the chicken feed I brought so that her chicks could eat it later, and at the same time giving off a kind of warning growl, fluffing up her feathers to look bigger and scarier, as if to say ‘stay away from my babies!’ And then as she’s trying to do all these motherly multi-tasking things, her little chicks popped up from underneath her, not happy to be restrained, and showed their thanks to their loving mother by pecking her in the eye--those of you who are parents maybe can relate--but the mother hen just shut one eyelid and pushed them back down again, keeping the other eye squarely on her enemy, me.

“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!” Maybe in the hen Jesus wants us to see a parable of his own loving care for us. For our God grants us life as the creator of Heaven and earth, he sustains and warms us with the power of his Holy Spirit, he protects us from every danger and every kind of evil, putting even his own Son Jesus in between ourselves and whatever would harm us, caring for us, brooding over us, concerned about us in every way, providing for all our needs. And how do we repay him but by popping up and pecking him in the eyes! We are not willing to be gathered. We would rather run around as little chicks, cold and alone and in danger from everything that would devour us, away from the warm flock of God, away from his arms—“and you were not willing,” Jesus says.

That’s the hardest part about the Gospel, that’s the hardest part about the Christian life, is for us to realize God comes to give us everything, but we want to do it all by ourselves. The God who made us and saved us and sustains us comes to us, but we want nothing to do with him. We have to admit today that even though we are beloved little chicks, we live as enemies of God, we live like King Herod as people who worship just ourselves, the old Adam and Eve in each of us acts as if God was dead, and we have been crowned in his place. Lent is a time to admit our hardness of heart, that we have lived to worship and serve ourselves, that we have trusted mostly in ourselves, and that as Jesus says we have not been willing to be tucked under God’s wings, that when he has tried to extend his loving arms over us, we have pecked him in the eyes, and have pecked out his image in our neighbors.

But we see today how Jesus treats those who reject him, we see the lengths he will go to care for those who don’t want his care. Jesus comes under attack today by both the Pharisees, the Religious Chamber of Commerce, and the evil King Herod. The Pharisees say, “Get out of here! Oh, and also King Herod wants to kill you!” Church and State are united as the enemies of Christ. But Jesus will not be deterred, he is all in, he is committed, he loves even his enemies, and you and I are one of them, Christ is always looking for sinners that he will give his life for, and that he will bring to faith in him. “You tell that old fox Herod,” Jesus says, “you tell that old fox, that fox who wants to break into the henhouse and get himself a free KFC chicken dinner, you tell him I am casting out demons on day one, and healing on day two, and on the 3^rdday my work is done.” Yes, he knows his mission: to give himself as a ransom for many, to save and redeem and bless the world. Yes, he’s here and he’s all in, and he will do whatever it takes to save and redeem and bless you. Farmers have told me that in cases of tragedy, where a barn or a chicken coop catches on fire, that the animals will all try and escape--who wouldn’t run from the flames? But hens will gather their little ones underneath them, they will stay put on top of their chicks, no matter the heat or flames, they will not move nor run away, so that it’s not uncommon to find a dead hen, with her whole brood alive and safe beneath her, all because of the mother’s loving sacrifice of her own self. And so it is on that Good Friday, Jesus will extend his loving, protecting wings over all who don’t deserve it, over you and me, he will stay put and make the sacrifice and take the disaster of sin and death upon himself, and on the third day--Friday, Saturday, Sunday, on the third day, Easter Sunday, it will all be completed, his work will be done, like a Phoenix he will rise again from the ashes, he will rise up bringing you and me with him, leaving just a stone that’s rolled away and an empty tomb, to live and reign forever as your Lord, with the promise of eternal life for you and me and everyone who believes in him.

This is why St. Paul tells us today that our citizenship is in heaven. We belong to him. We don’t belong to ourselves, we don’t belong to anyone or anything else first and foremost except for him, because who else has given themselves for you? Who else could die and be raised for you, who else could you belong to through life and death, except for your Lord Jesus? Your citizenship, your belonging, your ultimate place to be is with Jesus Christ, St. Paul says, so stand firm in the Lord. Stand firm! Stand firm in trust, in confidence in him, just as a child doesn’t wonder how or why, but just knows to trust. Just as a chick that stays under the wings, knowing where it belongs. And when we stand firm in him, we will stand firm with and for our neighbor, with the people God has put into our lives, with those we don’t know but can serve here in our neighborhood and around the world--- being citizens of heaven makes us free to do every kind of good here on earth, for every kind of person that we meet.

One of my favorite churches I visited during my time in the Holy Land is called “Dominus Flevit,” which means “The Lord Wept,” reminding us of that shortest Bible verse: “Jesus Wept.” It’s on the Mount of Olives, a hill overlooking Jerusalem, where Jesus wept over the city and spoke the very words we’ve heard today. And as you come up to the altar in that church to take Holy Communion, as you sing, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord,” like we will here in a moment, there’s a beautiful mosaic right where you come to kneel down: a Mosaic of a brown Mother Hen, head up, wings stretched out, with 12 little yellow chicks under her, and red marks, wounds of love in her wings and on her side. Today our Hen, the one who comes in the Name of the Lord, comes for you, and comes to give himself to you. So come and kneel, come find shelter under his wings, come and be nourished as the hen gives his own body broken, his own bled shed, until at the last he gathers us to himself in heaven, with all his brood, all his chicks, all his saints, and where under the shadow of his wings, we will eat and drink in safety forever.

And the Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills
New Haven, Connecticut, USA
E-Mail: Pastor@TrinityLutheranNH.org

(top)