Are You Chicken?

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to [Jesus], “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…’ 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!” – Luke 13:31-32, 34-35 (NRSV) 

I’ll admit it. I’ve been preaching this scripture wrong all along. I’ve been seduced by the beauty of the metaphor: Jesus as a mother hen, gathering her chicks beneath her wings. So comforting. 

Who wouldn’t want to shelter at her downy sides? 

Anyone with sense is the answer. Like every foolish little chicken in the fairytales, I took my eye off the fox. Never noticed him once in all my readings of this passage. But there he is: 

“Go and tell that fox for me…” Herod. The king who lays in wait.  

It’s Jesus who names him fox. Right before chastising the people of Jerusalem for not wanting to live in the hen house. But they’re no fools. They know their fables. Know that fox eats chicken as sure as scissors beat paper. 

Who wouldn’t want to be on the winning side? The safe side? 

Jesus is the answer. But it’s not comfort that he’s offering them. It’s challenge: In a world of foxes, choose the shelter of my wings. Do you believe that my softness is stronger than their sharpness? Or are you chicken? 

Prayer
Jesus, I trust your mighty and vulnerable wings.