Back in chapter nine of the Gospel according to Luke we hear:
51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
Jesus thus sets out on his way; on the way to Jerusalem and all that entails, on his way to rejection, death, absence and resurrection. As he makes his way to Jerusalem we are told, just earlier in our chapter today, chapter 13, that he went through “one town and village after another”. And he is joined by his disciples, his followers, his students and companions on the way.
And this is where we are today, right now in our Lenten journey, following Jesus on the way to Holy Week, on the way to death, absence and resurrection. We are enjoined with him on this holy path to die to our old self, be still and void held only by God in the silence of all things, and to be resurrected anew, knowing ourselves again for the first time in the light and love of God.
Our Gospel today is full of powerful, vibrant and poetic imagery that will draw us deeper into this mystery, draw us deeper on our way to our Jerusalem this Lent.
At the heart of all we hear today is a profound reflection on power and powerlessness. This is delivered by the One who as God Incarnate is the ultimate power in the world, but who, as the one destined to die tortured and abused on a cross, experiences the ultimate in powerlessness. Complete power surrenders to complete powerlessness.
Jesus begins his exposition on power by his response to the Pharisees who, for some reason, warn him of Herod’s intention to kill him. “Go and tell that fox” Jesus begins his reply. “That fox” – this description of Herod feeds into the symbolism of foxes we in the modern west also share: sly, cunning, crafty, tricksy. But also, in Jewish culture at the time of Jesus referring to a man in power as a fox also carried an extra charge, another layer of meaning. Great men, great men of power were referred to as ‘lions’, and the lesser men, the men who benefitted from being on someone’s coat tails were referred to as ‘foxes’.
By calling Herod a fox, Jesus is essentially labelling him as ‘small fry’, someone of lesser importance, someone who may not deserve the job he has, someone who is a pretender to power. And for his audience Jesus would have been speaking into widely held concerns about Herod, concerns regarding his ancestry, his relationship with his brother’s wife and his fitness for office, his fitness to hold power.
But it is also clear that Jesus uses the image a fox in relation and in deadly opposition to the powerful image we hear later. Jesus here explicitly images himself as a Mother Hen, a clear and contrasting image of the divine in feminine, in maternal, form as opposed to the normal masculine imagery we are so familiar with, Lord, King, father, son. Now if Jesus wanted to portray maternal power, success or authority there are several Old Testament feminine images he would have known and could have used:
God as an angry she-bear (Hosea 13.8). God as flying mother eagle (Deuteronomy 32.11-12). God as labouring woman (Isaiah 42.14). God as expert and caring midwife (Psalm 22.9-10).
But those are not the images Jesus chooses. Instead, on this second Sunday in Lent, as we walk with Jesus on the way to Jerusalem, on the way to the cross, we hear of his self-identification with a Mother-Hen. Clearly as we have said, this is to contrast the image of a fox.
We all know what occurs when a fox comes for a chicken. It is literally not a pretty sight.
But equally, when her young are threatened, the Mother Hen will, regardless of the attacker, regardless of the impossibility of survival, as this passage vividly describes, gather her brood under her wings in love and protection. She may be powerless, but nevertheless the mother instinctively reaches out and shelters her children.
Of course, we, humans also do this.
In recent years I have chosen not to view the numerous images and footage of the sadly widespread wars and conflicts with innocent civilian casualties, casualties I know have included mothers, powerlessly protecting their children even as they died, just as a Mother Hen does. I do remember a vivid image from 1988, not of a mother, but of a Kurdish father, his arm around his toddler son, as they both died as result of the chemical gassing in Halabja by the forces of Saddam Hussein. His arms could not protect his son from the poison, but this father sheltered him anyway.
These images, whether recorded, or not are part of the violence and tragedy of human history.
Equally part of human history is the incredible capacity of people to shelter and protect even those who are not their young, not their family, not their close community. Monks Myanmar I am your mother story …
Jesus, as Mother Hen, is beyond even this human, selfless altruism. He longs, he desires to shelter those who do not want shelter, those who do not want his motherly protective and open wings. Even more, he desires to love and protect those who would, and will kill him: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets”.
It is this incredible love that is the key his collapsing ultimate power into ultimate powerlessness. As the infinitely powerful God Incarnate, he chooses final powerlessness – choosing to die so that his death may defeat death and free all people, even those who reject his love, reject his care, reject his maternal wings.
And today, through this living text, this acceptance of vulnerability and powerlessness is his gift for us in our Lenten journey.
Jesus makes it clear, that on the third day he will “finish his work” – this of course alludes to the third day, the day of resurrection. This follows the day of his absence and comes ultimately from the day of his death, the day of entering into the powerlessness of the Cross. He finishes on the third day – but the original Greek can also be translated: ‘on the third day I am perfected’. His perfection stems ultimately from his powerlessness, not his power.
So too, we as images of God will, in our Lenten journey be completed, be accomplished when we embrace the vulnerability and powerlessness inherent in our mortal life: from dust we have come and to dust we return.
And so let us pray, that like Christ the Mother Hen, this Lent we accept our complete powerlessness and at the same time allow our bodies, hearts and souls to instinctively move in love to protect and nurture those around us – and thereby unfold towards OUR perfection in God. Amen.