Sunday, March 16, 2025 – Lent 2
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Luke 13:31-35
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He 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. Yet 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.’ Jerusalem, 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! See, 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.’”
In many ways, I am a traditionalist when it comes to liturgy. I believe it’s important to stay anchored to the ancient traditions of the church, while also being open to new ways of experiencing God.
This commitment of mine is on display most Sundays when I give the benediction. Almost always, I invoke the Trinity, using the traditional formula of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But then I add this gloss: “One God, Mother of the whole creation.”
Now maybe you like that gloss; maybe you don’t. But there was a time when those words would have never crossed my lips. If fact, the first time I ever heard God referred to as Mother, it was quite a shock.
I was a college student in small town Indiana and periodically I attended the local United Methodist church. The pastor was young and cool. And I liked his sermons. Back in the 80s, the hot topic in church was what we call “God language”, that is, how we refer to the Divinity. The local United Methodist bishop had created quite a stir by referring to God as Mother. This made the news back then. And one Sunday, my cool, young pastor used his entire sermon to defend the bishop’s statement. I could have lived with that, but it was what he did next that shook my foundations. He led us in the Lord’s Prayer with these words: “Our Mother who art in heaven…” Well, I didn’t like that very much.
About the same time, there was an article in Newsweek Magazine about a controversial crucifix on display in the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City. It was called “Christa” and portrayed a naked woman hanging on a cross. I remember I didn’t like that very much either. In fact, I didn’t like it so much that I wrote a rather heated letter to the editor. Thank God they never published it!
Of course, talking about God as Mother is less controversial than it used to be. We understand language to be a product of one’s time. We understand the evolution of theology. But perhaps most importantly for me, we’ve also learned a lot about the Bible’s original languages and how those languages refer to the divine using both male and female imagery. Here’s a poignant example: one Hebrew name for God “el Shaddai.” This is often translated as “God Almighty.” But remember that translations are editorial choices. And “el Shaddai” can just as easily be translated as “the many breasted one” – a poetic way of saying that God, like a mother, gives nurture to her children.
OK. But what about that crazy crucifix at St. John the Divine? Jesus was a biological male, right? Right.
Except that this idea of the motherhood of Jesus is also a very old one. In the mystical theology of the High Middle Ages, Jesus as Mother was popularized by such monumental figures in Christian history as Bernard of Clairvaux, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, and Meister Eckhart. They saw in Jesus the nurturing love of a mother. And they got that wild idea, at least in part, from the passage we read today.
One day, the Pharisees came to warn Jesus that King Herod wanted to kill him. I would have headed for the hills, but not Jesus. Instead, he replied rather provocatively: “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.” – a reference, of course, to the Cross.
In calling Herod a fox, Jesus was using a common trope in order to implicate Herod in murder and mayhem. You see, foxes were commonly thought of as bloodthirsty and always on the prowl for an easy kill in places like a henhouse.
And then Jesus ran with that fox and henhouse idea in what has become his famous lament over the city of Jerusalem: “O Jerusalem, 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, but you were not willing.” So, there it is: Jesus in the role of a mother, spoken by the Lord himself, about himself.
Recently I watched a YouTube video of a hen protecting her chicks. And it’s just as Jesus described it. The mother lifts her wings and the little chicks run underneath them. And then she folds her wings back into place with the babies safely underneath. If a threat comes too close, she will peck and make noise and stand her ground. But at the end of the day, if the aggressor is stronger than she, then all she really has to protect her chicks is her own body. And that’s what she uses. She places herself between the danger and the ones she loves. That’s just what mothers do.
The tragic history of our world is filled with the stories of self-sacrificing mothers. Mothers stand in the way of bullets desperately trying to shield their children. Mother lay over their children during earthquakes. Mothers hoist their children to dry ground even while they themselves drown. A mother will do anything to preserve the lives of her children, even sacrifice her own body.
That old fox named Herod, in order to keep his power, was determined to kill the mother hen and gobble up her chicks. And the only thing between the fox and the chicks was the body of Jesus.
In the rising tide of Christian nationalism, which is a heresy of the first order, Jesus is often portrayed as some kind of macho superhero who could have killed his enemies, but instead, in complete superhero self-control, he chooses death.
But Luke tells another story about self-sacrificing love. Jesus hurtles his own body against the systems of evil in order to protect the most vulnerable.
The great preacher Barbara Brown Taylor writes beautifully of this passage, and here I quote “Jesus won’t be king of the jungle in this or any other story. What he will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, … 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 cries waken 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 wings.”[1]
The Gospel’s power is so easily misunderstood, because it is not now, nor has it ever been, about brute strength or political power or the accumulation of riches. The Gospel of the Hen is all about sacrificial love. It’s about putting yourself between the slobbering foxes of this world and those least able to protect themselves.
That’s what Jesus did. That’s what any mother would do.
[1] https://www.religion-online.org/article/as-a-hen-gathers-her-brood/
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Luke 13:31-35
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He 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. Yet 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.’ Jerusalem, 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! See, 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.’”
In many ways, I am a traditionalist when it comes to liturgy. I believe it’s important to stay anchored to the ancient traditions of the church, while also being open to new ways of experiencing God.
This commitment of mine is on display most Sundays when I give the benediction. Almost always, I invoke the Trinity, using the traditional formula of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But then I add this gloss: “One God, Mother of the whole creation.”
Now maybe you like that gloss; maybe you don’t. But there was a time when those words would have never crossed my lips. If fact, the first time I ever heard God referred to as Mother, it was quite a shock.
I was a college student in small town Indiana and periodically I attended the local United Methodist church. The pastor was young and cool. And I liked his sermons. Back in the 80s, the hot topic in church was what we call “God language”, that is, how we refer to the Divinity. The local United Methodist bishop had created quite a stir by referring to God as Mother. This made the news back then. And one Sunday, my cool, young pastor used his entire sermon to defend the bishop’s statement. I could have lived with that, but it was what he did next that shook my foundations. He led us in the Lord’s Prayer with these words: “Our Mother who art in heaven…” Well, I didn’t like that very much.
About the same time, there was an article in Newsweek Magazine about a controversial crucifix on display in the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City. It was called “Christa” and portrayed a naked woman hanging on a cross. I remember I didn’t like that very much either. In fact, I didn’t like it so much that I wrote a rather heated letter to the editor. Thank God they never published it!
Of course, talking about God as Mother is less controversial than it used to be. We understand language to be a product of one’s time. We understand the evolution of theology. But perhaps most importantly for me, we’ve also learned a lot about the Bible’s original languages and how those languages refer to the divine using both male and female imagery. Here’s a poignant example: one Hebrew name for God “el Shaddai.” This is often translated as “God Almighty.” But remember that translations are editorial choices. And “el Shaddai” can just as easily be translated as “the many breasted one” – a poetic way of saying that God, like a mother, gives nurture to her children.
OK. But what about that crazy crucifix at St. John the Divine? Jesus was a biological male, right? Right.
Except that this idea of the motherhood of Jesus is also a very old one. In the mystical theology of the High Middle Ages, Jesus as Mother was popularized by such monumental figures in Christian history as Bernard of Clairvaux, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, and Meister Eckhart. They saw in Jesus the nurturing love of a mother. And they got that wild idea, at least in part, from the passage we read today.
One day, the Pharisees came to warn Jesus that King Herod wanted to kill him. I would have headed for the hills, but not Jesus. Instead, he replied rather provocatively: “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.” – a reference, of course, to the Cross.
In calling Herod a fox, Jesus was using a common trope in order to implicate Herod in murder and mayhem. You see, foxes were commonly thought of as bloodthirsty and always on the prowl for an easy kill in places like a henhouse.
And then Jesus ran with that fox and henhouse idea in what has become his famous lament over the city of Jerusalem: “O Jerusalem, 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, but you were not willing.” So, there it is: Jesus in the role of a mother, spoken by the Lord himself, about himself.
Recently I watched a YouTube video of a hen protecting her chicks. And it’s just as Jesus described it. The mother lifts her wings and the little chicks run underneath them. And then she folds her wings back into place with the babies safely underneath. If a threat comes too close, she will peck and make noise and stand her ground. But at the end of the day, if the aggressor is stronger than she, then all she really has to protect her chicks is her own body. And that’s what she uses. She places herself between the danger and the ones she loves. That’s just what mothers do.
The tragic history of our world is filled with the stories of self-sacrificing mothers. Mothers stand in the way of bullets desperately trying to shield their children. Mother lay over their children during earthquakes. Mothers hoist their children to dry ground even while they themselves drown. A mother will do anything to preserve the lives of her children, even sacrifice her own body.
That old fox named Herod, in order to keep his power, was determined to kill the mother hen and gobble up her chicks. And the only thing between the fox and the chicks was the body of Jesus.
In the rising tide of Christian nationalism, which is a heresy of the first order, Jesus is often portrayed as some kind of macho superhero who could have killed his enemies, but instead, in complete superhero self-control, he chooses death.
But Luke tells another story about self-sacrificing love. Jesus hurtles his own body against the systems of evil in order to protect the most vulnerable.
The great preacher Barbara Brown Taylor writes beautifully of this passage, and here I quote “Jesus won’t be king of the jungle in this or any other story. What he will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, … 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 cries waken 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 wings.”[1]
The Gospel’s power is so easily misunderstood, because it is not now, nor has it ever been, about brute strength or political power or the accumulation of riches. The Gospel of the Hen is all about sacrificial love. It’s about putting yourself between the slobbering foxes of this world and those least able to protect themselves.
That’s what Jesus did. That’s what any mother would do.
[1] https://www.religion-online.org/article/as-a-hen-gathers-her-brood/
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