But you wouldn't let me. Of those words, Barbara Brown Taylor once wrote, "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. 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." Barbara Brown Taylor, from a 1986 article in The Christian Century

What can this mean but that the presence of God in the world is always more like a hen than like a fox, or, more like a cross than a sword or a gun—a love and mercy always at risk But this is an astonishing suggestion. Just as amazing is that Jesus used the image of a hen to describe his mission in to his people. For aside from the parallel passage in Matthew’s gospel, there is nothing anywhere else in the Bible like this image of Jesus (of God!) as a mother hen, calling to her chicks to come to the safety of her wings. It is an image of complete self-giving and total vulnerability. Jerusalem, Jerusalem… It’s the anguished of Christ for his people. "If you mean what you say, then this is how you stand." Vulnerable, easily killed by a fox.

For do you know how it works with a hen protecting her baby chicks from the fox? She will be torn to shreds, in what would seem to be the mismatched foolishness of protecting her little chicks against the power of the wily fox four times her size. Her only hope is that upon ripping her apart and making a meal of her, the fox will be satisfied and leave the chicks alone. "If you mean what you say, then this is how you stand."

This is hard to accept, and a hard lesson to learn, especially when you’re facing some version of Herod, the fox. As a part of the corrupt Roman Empire, brutal, immoral King Herod functions in our text as a symbol of the domination system—which out in the so-called "real world" is usually assumed to be the only way, existence ruled by brute force and intimidation. On the streets, on the job, even on the school playground, we come to know only too well that bullying power, and its bitter fruit. Secretly, and daily, we live in fear, unsure of the power of love.

The famous Lutheran story-teller, Walter Wangerin tells a tale that is a parable of conversion from fox Herod’s bullying ways to the anguished love of the hen for her chicks. Wangerin’s young son had a comic book collection, and for some reason, began to steal comic books to add to it. This was happening while Walter was teaching at a Lutheran seminary. Which means, not only was little Matthew’s stealing wrong, it could prove to be an acute embarrassment to Dad. What to do? Walter tried reasoning with the kid and that didn’t work. He tried shaming the kid by marching him down the library to return to the librarian a comic book he stole. Didn’t work. Then he tried laying the 7th commandment on him: "You shall not steal." And offered his professorial opinions to his young son about that meant. Didn’t work. The stealing of comic books continued. Finally one day, not knowing what else to do, Walter decided that a spanking was in order, and now I quote directly from him:

People are not spanked or bullied into the transforming kingdom of God. We can only be loved into it. It’s not wrath and intimidation, but Christ’s anguished love, that changes lives. And the hen, the mother bird, is a sign of it.

A great spiritual leader, of the last century, Sundar Singh, was traveling through the Himalayas, and came upon forest fire. Most everyone was frantically trying to fight the fire, but he noticed a group of men standing and looking up into a tree that was about to go up in flames. He asked them what they were looking at; they pointed up at a nest full of young birds. Above it, the mother bird was circling wildly in the air and calling out warnings to her young ones. There was nothing she or the men could do, and soon the flames started climbing up the branches. As the nest caught fire, they were all amazed to see how the mother bird reacted. Instead of flying away from the flames, she flew down and settled on the nest, covering her little ones with her wings. The next moment, she and her nestlings were burned to ashes. No one could believe their eyes. They stood in stunned silence. Finally Sundar turned to those standing by and said: "We have witnessed a truly marvelous thing. God created that bird with such love and devotion, that she gave her life trying to protect her young. If her small heart was so full of love, how unfathomable must be the love of her Creator. That is the love that brought him down from heaven to become man. That is the love that made him suffer a painful death for our sake." As quoted by Penny Newall in Pacifica, California in the Plough Reader from Sadhu

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I have often wanted to gather your people, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you wouldn't let me. The instinct of hens and mother birds to protect their young is but a tiny sign of a primal, saving, yearning love so vast it can only be called, God.

And so it comes down to this: If you mean what you say, "Jesus is Lord," then finally, here is how you stand: not with some kind of Herod, but under Christ’s wings, trusting anguished his love, cheeping like baby chicks,

And then you make that a prayer for the world. Amen.