“Hens and Chicks” a sermon based on Luke 13:31-35 Second Sunday of Lent March 17, 2019

“At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." Jesus replied 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. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because a prophet cannot be killed anywhere outside of Jerusalem.'

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I have wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

See, your temple is left to you. But I tell you, you will not see me again until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of God.'"

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Luke sets up this story and its point in an interesting way. He tells us “some of the Pharisees” came to Jesus to warn him about Herod. We can find other parts of Luke where Pharisees  - or perhaps more specifically Caiaphas the High Priest and his minions, are clear that they are not on Jesus' side (Lk 6:11; 11:53). (Lk 9:7-9).

They tell him Herod wants to kill him, and Jesus calls Herod a ‘fox’.  Now, this isn’t the same Herod who was in power at the birth of Jesus – but his son, Herod Antipas, a ruthless leader but apparently not as bad as his father. Since his father had a reputation for killing off anyone he thought threatened him, I guess this one wasn’t so bad.

We do know that not all the Pharisees were against Jesus – some actually did support him, albeit quietly.  Joseph of Arimathea was one who buried Jesus – and there were others.  Maybe the Pharisees are trying to get Jesus to keep a lid on things; maybe they’re thinking the threat of Herod may help them silence Jesus – maybe they are trying to help him, to protect himself.

Jesus, however, won’t have any of it. "Tell that fox that today, and tomorrow I am curing and healing, and on the third day my work will be finished.”  Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. He knows this is where he needs to be. He makes it clear that he knows where he is heading and will not be stopped in finishing his task. If we go back in the texts about the Transfiguration, Jesus comes down the mountain and sets his face towards Jerusalem.

There is a book by Stephen Covey called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Two of the habits he notes are that they are proactive, choosing their direction in life based on what they value. And he says they begin with the end in mind  -  deciding where they want to be when they arrive at the destination. Jesus expresses both concepts in this short passage. He does not let Herod or the threat of Herod or the threat of the Pharisees make his decisions. He chooses a course of action based on his own value system.

And then Jesus says some rather strange things. He says “Today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way, for a prophet cannot be killed anywhere outside of Jerusalem.”

Then he says he has wanted to gather them in ‘like a mother hen’ to protect them, but they were not willing.

Then he says, “Your temple is left to you.”

Hmmm. Jesus had a way of being cryptic, but this is head-scratching. What does that mean? That every prophet has to go to Jerusalem to be killed? Does it only happen in Jerusalem? If they stay away from Jerusalem does it not happen? Is Jerusalem the city? Or does he mean something else?
Then the comment about the mother hen gathering the chicks, but they were not willing. This begins, I think, to offer a clue. Jerusalem is maybe the ‘children of Israel’. We know the city of Jerusalem is where the temple is, where the Ark of the Covenant is, the spiritual heart of Judaism – but in this case is Jerusalem the place? Or the people?

Last clue – your temple is left to you. Your so-called spiritual centre still stands, but you have abandoned your faith. You haven’t been willing to look again at God’s law, but preferred your own way. Now you won’t see me again, until you are able to say “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of God.”

And now, for me, his comments about the mother hen and her chicks comes into clearer focus. Rather than come back to God, they (and we) would rather peck the ground in front of us and not paying any attention to our direction – we’re myopic. We don’t see obstacles and dangers before us, but we also might miss something that God has prepared for us.

We are neither proactive nor do we have a long enough range in our vision to see where we are heading. Instead, we react to whatever is pushing us right now or whatever we see in front of us right now. And we haven't a clue as to where our current path will lead us. We are walking in a darkness of our own making, a wilful blindness.

Now, if you’ve raised chickens, you will know that chicks don't necessarily follow their mother around – they’re busy pecking in all directions. In order to protect them, the mother hen uses her beak to pull them under wings. The chicks, however, are too busy trying to peck, and don’t recognise what the mother hen is doing. They have the attention span of a flea, basically.

When we start looking at the stories of Jesus and the disciples, how many times do we hear of them arguing with one another. Who is going to be the greatest among them? Who will sit beside Jesus in the new realm, on his right and on his left. Jesus has to snap them back into focus. In the story of the transfiguration, they get hung up and Jesus has to bring them back to reality. Jesus has focus. The others don’t.

Jesus has seen clearly where he is going. He knows, not through any magic ability, but through astute evaluation of the political and religious climate around him, that going to Jerusalem for the Passover is not going to end well. Yet he knows that’s where he has to be. In the end, he says, God has offered them a way, but they have turned away from God, lost focus, even with the physical temple sitting in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem becomes more than a physical place – it becomes a people who have lost their way, who have become distracted, who go through the motions of building a temple and keeping the tablets of the law there, and then completely ignoring the law in favour of their own way of doing things. Jerusalem becomes an allegory for the children of Israel.

What about us? What about the church today? We come to church on Sunday. Why? What brings us here? We say we follow Jesus, yet we focus on pennies here and pennies there to keep the church open, but what do we want to keep it open for? We come for Bible study, on occasion, mostly for services, and some education. We listen to the scripture, but do we forget that the words written there are meant to shape and guide us along the way? Instead of focusing on the transforming of lives through worship, education, service, we peck at each other. And what happens if we are called back to focus on the Way of Jesus?

Keeping our focus and not going off on different paths is hard work. It means looking inward, and being honest about our motivations and our actions. If we really do know who we are and whose we are, we can learn to be proactive, and keep the destination in mind. Following Jesus has to be the basis of our decision-making. The good news is that we have chance after chance – being called back time after time after time to BE Jerusalem, to BE the people, to be proactive, to discern the way and follow. May we find our way back.

Sources: “Brood of Chickens” a sermon based on Luke 13:31-35by Rev. Randy Quinn