GATHERED UNDER THE WINGS
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to
all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with
penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the
unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you
and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm
27
Philippians
3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35
The readings today truly reflect a sense of the Lenten
season: the hope, the fulfillment of promises at the end, is seen dimly
through a dark shadow that seems to fall across these scenes. It
is as if at times we feel like Abram when: “ as the sun was going
down,” fell into, “deep sleep and a deep and terrifying darkness
descended upon him.”
I raised chickens when I was a kid – that was my 4-H project and I was
reasonably successful with it. I got to observe chickens in an
up-close and personal way. Perhaps that is why the image of a hen
gathering her chicks has always been real and meaningful to me.
At a time when we as a people, a church, even within many of our
families, find ourselves broken and scattered, the image of being
gathered under the loving wings of God is a comforting one.
In biology, we speak of two sometimes opposing forces of nature within
all living organisms – one appears selfish and acts toward
preservation of the individual; the other seems gregarious and is
directed toward preservation of the species. In nature, this
dichotomy appears to work well to balance the needs of the individual
with the needs of the community. Dichotomy, however, is not
always either/or; sometimes it is both/and. In this season of
Lent, we are called, again and again, to turn from sin and embrace
truth, to turn from darkness to light, to rise from the ashes of death
to walk with faith in newness of life. But what does that mean in
our day to day life? As I listen to the readings from today's
lectionary, I am struck by the interplay of opposing forces: of
scattering and gathering, dividing and uniting, dying and living.
An item on a Baptist press site on the web this week deeply touched
me. In it I see a sign of today's Gospel message – the
message of the destroyer, the fox, and the hen who gathers her chicks
under her wings.
Saturday, February 20, 2010 NASHVILLE, Tenn.
(ABP) – An Ash Wednesday car/deer crash killed a preacher's daughter
and united a church in grief.
Emmie Cecelia Mears Webb was wearing ashes on her
forehead applied earlier in the evening of Feb. 17 by her mother, Amy
Mears, co-pastor of Glendale Baptist Church in Nashville when a deer
crashed through the windshield and fatally injured her as she sat
between two siblings in the back seat of a sedan driven by her
father. Emmie, 8, died at the scene. Police arrived on the
scene to find the deer, which ran in front of the car just before the
collision, dead inside the vehicle. No other contributing factors
were cited.
Sometime we enter a deep and terrifying darkness and when
we awaken, we realize it is not a dream. Life is difficult and
painful sometimes. We are challenged to find meaning and purpose
amid the most severe trials. I think there are things from which
we would all wish to hide, to flee. But our calling is to
embrace the truth, to stand in reality and trust in God, even when it
feels painful, when it is frightening.
We opened our Lenten lessons last Sunday with Jesus' temptation in the
wilderness. Today we move into Galilee, the seat of the tetrarch
Herod Antipas. The Pharisees come to Jesus with a warning – flee
from Galilee, get away from here. Whether they were trying
to be helpful or disruptive is a matter of debate for the theologians
and scholars. However it was intended, Jesus, not to be driven by
others' schedule nor by fear, responds with a forceful statement.
His mission: to cast out, to cure, to call, to gather – must take
precedent over his personal needs. Indeed, it is not Herod he
fears. Rather it is the tradition that kills prophets and keeps
God's children bound in darkness: afraid, blinded, at enmity with God
and one another. When the Pharisees say he should go, he responds
with, “No, you go! Go tell that fox that the hen will meet him on
her terms.” Perhaps the most moving aspect of his reply is the
sense of rejection by those to whom he has come, the inability to reach
the deepest needs of those he loves.
Barbara Brown Taylor, one of those preachers that every preacher wishes
to be at times, wrote about this passage almost 25 years ago with words
that magnificently capture its spirit. With some adaptation, I
want to share them with you.
If you have ever loved someone you could not
protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus' lament. All you can do
is open your arms. You cannot make anyone walk into them and if
they come, there is no guarantee of protection in the end.
Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable posture in the world --wings
spread, breast exposed -- but if you mean what you say, then this is
how you stand.
Given the number of animals available, it is curious that
Jesus chooses a hen. Where is the biblical precedent for
that? What about the mighty eagle of Exodus, or Hosea's stealthy
leopard? What about the proud lion of Judah, mowing down his
enemies with a roar? Compared to any of those, a mother hen does
not inspire much confidence. No wonder some of the chicks decided
to go with the fox.
But a hen is what Jesus chooses, which -- if you think
about it --is pretty typical of him. He is always turning things
upside down, so that children and peasants wind up on top while kings
and scholars land on the bottom. He is always wrecking our
expectations of how things should turn out by giving prizes to losers
and paying the last first. So of course he chooses a chicken, which is
about as far from a fox as you can get. That way the options
become very clear: you can live by licking your chops or you can die
protecting the chicks.
Jesus won’t be king of the jungle in this or any other
story. What he will be is a mother hen, who gathers, who stands
between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no
fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. All she has is her
willingness to shield her babies with her own body. If the fox
wants them, he will have to kill her first.
Which he does, as it turns out. He slides up on her
one night in the yard while all the babies are asleep. When her
cry wakens them, they scatter. She dies the next day where both
foxes and chickens can see her --wings spread, breast exposed --without
a single chick beneath her feathers. It breaks her heart, but it
does not change a thing. If you mean what you say, then this is
how you stand. – adapted from Barbara Brown Taylor, “As a Hen Gathers Her Brood.,” The Christian Century, February 25, 1986
Deer and cars just don't mix. In a way, young Emmie
Mears became another statistic on Ash Wednesday. Her mom and dad
could not protect her from death. “And yet” – my favorite God
words. And yet, perhaps her death becomes a legacy for life for
those who knew her, for those who are touched by her faith, for us.
The article about Emmie concluded:
Friends and family members remembered Emmie as
a cheerful child who loved people, climbing, banana popsicles, and
animals --especially zebras. “I think she would forgive the deer,” her
sister Mia said in written memories read at the funeral.
Co-pastor April Baker said at the memorial service, “We didn't have
enough of what she had to give, because there's no such thing as too
much kindness, too much goodness, too much love, too much joy.”
Such truth is in those words: “there's no such thing as too
much kindness, too much goodness, too much love, too much joy.” I
hope that in this season, true repentance will be at work, cleansing
away the dulling effects of our selfishness and freeing us to show
kindness, live in goodness, and spread the love and joy of Christ
wherever we go.
The ashes we wore on Ash Wednesday reminded us of our mortality.
The fox who would eat away our lives and, through fear and
intimidation, steal our goodness, our kindness to one another, rob us
of love and joy will have to wait. We have a journey to make, a
calling to fulfill. And it begins anew this season, this day as
with “penitent hearts and steadfast faith [we] embrace and hold fast
the unchangeable truth of [God's] Word.”
Amen
John Dryden Burton
February 28, 2010
St. James’
Eureka Springs, AR