"Of Hens and Foxes" (sermon)

Sunday March 13, 2022

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Scripture Reading: Luke 13:31-35

Let’s talk chickens.

 

In today’s reading, Jesus says to the people of Jerusalem, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.”

 

This is a verse that was familiar to me, but one that made a lot more sense to me after I had spent some time around chickens.

 

When I lived in Tanzania, my next-door neighbours who were a pair of doctors from England and I kept a flock of chickens.  None of us knew anything about keeping chickens when we began this venture, but we learned as we went along; and I learned a lot, both about chickens and about life, from watching them.

 

We started with just a small flock – 6 hens and a rooster – and the hens were laying well right up until Christmas.  We were getting 5 or 6 eggs a day that we would collect from the laying boxes at the back of the chicken coop and then divide between us.  But then right after Christmas, all of a sudden they stopped laying.  We grumbled about this… “Lazy hens! Why are we feeding you if you aren’t going to give us any eggs?”

 

But then on New Year’s Day, Russ from next door knocked on my back door and said to me, “I’ve figured out why we aren’t getting any eggs.”  We went outside, and I remember that it was a rainy day, and he lifted the vines that we growing over a fence, and there, sitting on a nest with about 20 eggs, was a very wet and very grumpy chicken who wasn’t about to budge.

 

We did move the eggs into the coop for safety, and once we realized that they were still laying in the nest, we marked the eggs that were there so that we could still collect the fresh eggs.  In the end, we ended up with 4 broody hens taking turns sitting on two nests of eggs.  And when they hatched, all four hens took turns co-parenting the flock of chicks, keeping them safe from the dogs on the ground and the fish eagles that would occasionally fly overhead.

 

And so now, when I hear Jesus comparing himself to a mama hen, the image that comes to mind is discovering that nest of eggs in that pouring rain, with a wet and miserable hen sitting on them determined to keep them safe and warm despite the obvious discomfort she was in.

 

One of the biggest threats to chickens and especially chicks in the part of Tanzania where I lived were the fish eagles – they are comparable to our bald eagles in this part of the world in terms of size and appearance.  If you watched the chickens, you knew when there was a fish eagle in the area because the chickens would disappear, hiding under bushes and vines, shooing the chicks ahead of them; and they would stay there until it was safe to come out again.

 

But in this part of the world, I know that one of the biggest threats to chickens comes from the foxes that live around here, which is too bad because I actually quite like foxes.

 

And so I find it very interesting that Jesus also uses fox imagery in what he is saying.  If the people of Jerusalem are like chicks, protected by mama hen Jesus, then Jesus compares King Herod to a fox.

 

Herod was a puppet king, in a position of power, but only in that position because the Roman Emperor wanted him to be there.  Rome had placed Herod in this position because he was seen to be loyal to Rome, and because of his Jewish ancestry they thought that he would hold the respect of the people.  Herod was in a position to do a great deal of harm, or a great deal of good should he so choose… but only for as long as he kept Rome happy.

 

And Herod chose to rule as a despot, living in luxury but afraid of anything or anyone that might take his power away from him.  He was a person to be feared, just as chickens and chicks should be afraid of a fox.

 

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and Holy Week. This journey that he is on is going to end on the cross.  I almost want to take the old metaphor, a fox in a henhouse, and turn it on its head. Instead of a single fox entering a chicken coop full of hens, instead we have Jesus, the lone chicken, entering the city of Herod and his cronies, a city of foxes.  Is it any wonder that the tone of today’s reading is full of anxiety and tension?

 

And Jesus doesn’t turn away from the path in front of him. In fact, he embraces it. Instead of running away from the fox, he wants to march in there and protect all of those chicks who are in danger. I think back to that fish eagle flying overhead, and the mama hen shooing her chicks under the bushes ahead of her, even though she could have kept herself safer by leaving them behind.

 

Jesus said, “How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”  A fox is mightier than a hen, a fox holds more power in the food chain than a hen does, but why would a chick trust her personal well-being to a fox rather than a mama hen? The fox definitely doesn’t have the chick’s best interests at heart.

 

And why do we turn away from Jesus to put our trust in other things? Why would we put our ultimate trust in the economy… the stock market doesn’t have our best interests at heart.  Why would we put our trust in a charismatic celebrity… they are unlikely to have our best interests at heart.

 

And yet I think that Jesus hits on a very profound truth here. Too often we turn away from that unconditional love that God offers to us; too often we put our trust elsewhere.  Are we afraid to let ourselves be loved and cared for?  Are we afraid of the vulnerability that it takes to let ourselves be loved?

 

There is so much pain and fear in the world these days.  Our hearts overflow with prayers for Ukraine, with tears for everyone who is grieving, with anxiety for what is going to happen with Covid.

 

And into all of this, Jesus offers us an invitation… like chicks, we are called to rest under the loving and protective wings of God.  When everything feels like it is too much, there we can find caring and nurture and rest and unconditional love.

 

Even as he is about to step into the fox’s lair, Jesus says, “How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”  May each one of us find our place under those wings, and know that we are loved.  Amen.

 

 

One of the infamous Tanzanian chickens.

This one was named Chanel.

She was beautiful, but not very friendly –

she tended to peck at my feet and my skirt

when I went out to feed them!