Sermon lent 2 When I lived in Japan one of the things I had to do was set up a bank account, and get a stamp to use for my signature.  Unfortunately, being Scotch-Irish my name, McKendry, wasn’t very Japanese and couldn’t be spelt in the Japanese alphabet…so we had to translate it. Japanese is a syllabic language so the first step was to get my name into Japanese syllables.  McKendry…ok.. Ma-Ken-Tori Right, now to find Japanese meaning for each syllable. MA-  well that meant horse…sounds good.  Nice and strong.  I like horses. KEN- could mean a few things, so I could choose...the most common translations were province or sword…I chose sword. So, Horse Sword woman…pretty good name! Lastly…TORI…that means bird.  Awesome! My name rocks!  Horse Sword Eagle woman… that’s a name to be proud of. No no, my friend told me … a different bird…tori usually means chicken… like the kind you eat. Ah… so turns out my name was Horse, sword…chicken woman.   Not quite as inspiring. I don’t think there is a single person here who would be proud to be called a chicken. Yet, today in our gospel, apparently Jesus is… Jesus says he’s just like a hen gathering her chicks in under her wings.  Or at least he’d like to be, but the little chicks refuse to be gathered.  A hen gathering her chicks under her wings… it’s not, at a glance, a very powerful image.  It’s more… homely, Comforting.  Nurturing.  more maternal really Not usually the way we think of God, and yet this maternal image speaks to the diverse nature of God and a side of God that is found throughout scripture. Just as our psalmist today speaks of the wondrous comfort that is found in God, One thing I asked of the Lord,   that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord   all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord,   and to inquire in his temple. For he will hide me in his shelter   in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock. The Lord will cover you, hide you and keep you safe, not at all unlike a hen whose chicks snuggle under the wings of their mother.  Pressed warmly up to her breast, safe and dry through the storms that life brings. Not the way we usually think of our self and our faith…being a chick under Christ’s wing….  Not even one we’d fancy I’d guess.  We’d rather be horse-sword-eagle woman….not chicken woman.   And I’d wager that it’s because if we have any choice at all we’d rather not be seen as something we perceive vulnerable and cowardly…like a chicken. So, if we had to pick an animal from our gospel today we’d be much more likely to want to be the fox then a chicken.   After all foxes are clever, fast, and tenacious! But Jesus is once again showing us how deeply ingrained is the theology of the ‘great reversal’ in all he teaches.  That crazy idea that the first will be last and the last will be first.  That in choosing life, we die and in dying we live. That in Christ all things are turned upside down and it is, in fact, better to be a chicken then a fox. In the letter to the Philippians, Paul contrasts people who live contrary to the life of Christ with those who are citizens of heaven. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things The people Paul refers to as ‘them’ may be the people he wrote to in the first letter to the Corinthians.  Not that the Corinthians were Christ’s enemies exactly, but they lived in opposition to Christ’s life and teachings. Paul tells us that enemies of the cross, those who oppose the ways of sacrificial love Christ exemplified, have their god as the belly and glory in their shame.  If we read through Corinthians we get a sense of what he means.   The churches in Corinth would gather for the Eucharist, potluck style…each bringing what they could.  The well off bringing lots of fancy food and drink and the poor bringing a small amount.  However, it was not shared amongst each other. We read in 1 Cor 11 Paul saying ‘when you come together it isn’t really to eat the Lord’s supper.  For each goes ahead with their own supper, and one goes hungry and another gets drunk.” The Corinthians were acting fox-like looking for a meal for themselves, following the dictates of the flesh…the desires of the stomach for good food and good wine…and ignoring the needs of those around them.  Not worshiping Christ, following his teachings of justice, love and equality…and the special command of care for the poor and those in need.  Rather these foxes, worship themselves, even at Eucharist…metaphorically draining the chalice and snatching bread from their neighbour.  Putting self interest before Christ. And furthermore, we read that those enemies of the cross of Christ gloried in their shame…again this could be Paul refering Corinth, because in chapters 5 and 6 there are a great number of problems listed around sexual immorality in the Corinthian churches and of how people boasted of their sins. This is not the example Paul says we are to follow as imitators of Christ.  Foxes set their minds on earthly things and live as enemies of the cross of Christ.  Chicks flock to Christ the mother hen and live in accordance to his teachings…casting out all that demonizes and curing the ills of this broken world and letting nothing stand in their way. This is what Christ means when he responds to that ol’ fox Herod sending word out that Christ was causing too much trouble to live… 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.  Or in other words….you can’t stop me…there is good work to be done and I will do it.  Christ continued to do the work he had come to do… to cast out the demons and perform cures…to cast out sin and bring back health. Regardless of the obstacles before him. And we are called to be imitators of Christ.  Joining with Paul, who took Christ as his model and observing those around us who live according to the example set by the apostles and disciples.   An example not only of pure defiant resistance, which Christ shows in the face of corruption and injustice.  But also an example of mercy and love even in the face of death. We read Jesus lamenting:  “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!  “ Jerusalem was a fox-like place. Deceptive and self serving.  Herod’s palace was in Jerusalem, the final days Jesus knew were coming, would take place in Jerusalem and center of the Roman occupation was in Jerusalem.          Jesus knew this, and still Jesus was walked straight into the belly of the beast, a fox that worships with his belly and seeks only to devour;….and the image Jesus uses for that how he views that deadly city is not as a warrior set on conquest nor even of a king bent on justice. It is that of a mother watching her beloved child stray so very far from the path she taught him to walk.             Jesus, our mother hen… the same God who ‘brooded’ over the waters of creation now watches her brood run from her loving embrace…knowing that, in time, her own children would be her destruction.             However, also knowing that their absolute failure would be transformed into their redemption through God’s mothering love,   but like any good parent …longing that it could be done without hurt.  Wishing the foxes could turn into hens.              That our repeated falling into sin could be prevented, and that the hands that hurt could be held fast and safe in the hand of a loving God.             Jesus is longing that the chicks, those foxes of Jerusalem would return to the hen and be gathered under the safely of her wings.  The mother longs for her errant child to return to her arms.  Each child of God is longed for in that way.  Our world is full of foxes, of Herods’, of Jesrusalems’, and we are called to see them through Jesus eyes, God’s eyes, a mother’s eyes.             Paul reminds us in Philippians that although we live here in the midst of a sinful world, we truly belong to the kingdom of God…that our citizenship is in heaven and the fox like way things are now…are not forever.              The time will come when fox becomes chick, lion alike to lamb and sinner like unto saint.  The last will be first, the first will be last, and through Christ all shall be well.              Therefore, says Paul, stand firm in the Lord, following his examples of both defiance and compassion.  Following his teachings and life so that we too can be examples to others.  Until we reach that time when even the most fox like cities and people turn and run to Christ…who will receive them and us with outstretched arms…vulnerable, loving and strong.               amen