The Mother Hen
May 9 2010 Mother’s Day
Last Sunday afternoon I took my mother down to San Antonio to see her sister. They were having a surprise 80th birthday party for my Aunt Grace. I was glad I was able to go. I saw cousins I had not seen for almost ten years. It was good to listen to everyone reminiscing about their childhood, all of the scrapes and trouble they got into, the laughter, the dynamic of family. I remember when I was growing up and my family would visit their family, there were nine kids covering a span of about a dozen years. There was always a lot of fun and playing, but there was also a lot of drama and fighting and often times a bit of blood. And I remember my Aunt Grace always seeming to be unflappable. She seemed to stay calm no matter what happened. I guess she had seen enough that nothing really fazed her. At least it appeared that way to me.
At the end of my first year and for all of my second year at seminary in St. Louis, Cheryl taught school in a town 45 miles east of there. She taught Kindergarten through 4th grade in a two-room school at Trinity Lutheran Church in Worden, Illinois. All things considered, it made more sense for us to live in that town of 900 and for me to commute back and forth to St. Louis rather than have her make the commute each day. Not long after she started teaching, their pastor took a call and left. I was asked to help them out, which as an eager young seminary student I was more than happy to do. I preached almost every Sunday that summer and twice a month during the school year. I also made hospital calls and home visits. Since that was a farming community, and I grew up in the big city, I really enjoyed going out to visit people on their farms, and they seemed happy to show me around. One dear widowed lady, Erna Knackstedt, raised chickens. She showed me around her barns with the thousands of chirping, seemingly helpless chicks. And I also saw how a mother hen reacts when any perceived threat enters her space. She squawks and puts up a commotion and runs around frantically. It’s a little unsettling when you first see it, even though it may not scare you away. After all, it is just a chicken, and how threatening can a chicken be? But that is not the point. As that mother hen is putting on that scene, all the time she has her wings spread out, herding her chicks out of harm’s way and to safety. She wants to protect her chicks. That is a mother’s instinct.
I observed a young father at WalMart with three small children trying to do some grocery shopping. The older ones were boys, about 3 and 5, and there was a baby in a car seat. Those boys kept trying to wander away. I felt sorry for the guy, remembering what it is like to have more kids than hands. He was trying to herd them along, keeping them close as they made their way through the store. Of course, those boys weren’t willing to herded. They had their own ideas of where they wanted to go, exploring and picking up things and playing games. At one point I heard the father say something we’ve all said: “Stay close to me — I don’t want anything to happen to you!” Parents want to be protective, but children aren’t always willing.
Remembering how it was with my siblings and my cousins, that scene with the father in the store, and thinking about those little chicks with the mother hen made me think of how Jesus is concerned about little helpless ones.
Luke 13:31-35 31 At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.” 32 He replied, “Go tell that fox, `I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ 33 In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day– for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem! 34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 35 Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, `Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (NIV)
When Jesus says He wants to gather up “Jerusalem,” He is talking about all of God’s chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, the Jews. Time after time God had sent prophets to call His people to repentance, yet they would not listen. And now God’s Son Himself is on the scene to bring God’s promised salvation to His people, the Children of Israel. He wants to lead them to safety. He wants to protect them. But they are not willing. They won’t listen to Him. They run away.
Jesus is still our mother hen, wanting to gather us up and keep us safe. It may sound strange to hear God spoken of in feminine terms, since for the most part God has revealed Himself in the masculine. We think of Him and know Him best as Father and Son, because that is how He has made Himself known to us. However, there are instances in Scripture that use the feminine in order to reveal different aspects of our God. I think God wanted us to understand His more tender side when He said through Isaiah:
“As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted …” (Isaiah 66:13)
It should not be surprising or unusual that God uses the image of how fiercely protective a mother can be to describe the way He wants to protect the ones He loves, the ones for whom He came to suffer, die and rise again – the ones He came to save.
…how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
How often do we act like those silly chicks, running away, while the mother hen, who knows better, is trying to gather us? Jesus has called us to Himself with the message of free forgiveness because of what He did in our place. He calls us to believe in Him that we might have life and have it to the full. He seeks to gather us into a protected environment. It is an environment where we strive to live according to His laws and decrees because we know that He has already given us pardon and peace. He has freed us from sin and death by taking our place in punishment, dying on a cross to pay for our sins, and rising again to assure us of life everlasting. He wants to protect us while we are in this world and eventually take us to be with Him in heaven.
Yet some refuse to be gathered. Even though God wants all men to be saved, and offers it freely to any and everyone, some will not be gathered. He invites them to believe, leads them to see His goodness and mercy, but they refuse. Unless they are gathered in before they die, nothing awaits them other than eternal torment in Hell. And that should make us all think of the urgency of sharing the Good News that we have come to know and believe.
Some have been gathered into this safe haven, His Church, through the Word and Sacraments. They, like us, have heard the Good News and know what God has done, yet at times they want to turn their back on it, going astray, thinking they know better, refusing to admit their sins so that they can receive the forgiveness that God offers so freely in Jesus Christ.
God provides protection. Some won’t enter, others who are in it want out. Perhaps it is because they feel too constrained. They want to get out from under what they feel is too restrictive an environment. Why did God have to give us rules that outlaw so many things? Is it really all that bad to break a commandment. Doesn’t it seem like God takes all the fun out of things? If only we were FREE. Free to do whatever we want! But what is that freedom? In the 1960’s Janis Joplin had a song that proclaimed: Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. That is where you find yourself when you refuse to be gathered. You find yourself in the midst of the immoral and anti-Christians forces of our society with nothing to protect you.
Would you rather be unprotected in this world or under the wings of your Mother Hen? When you are safe under the wings of Jesus, you have a different kind of freedom. You have freedom from all sins that would condemn and separate you from Christ, freedom from worldly concerns, freedome from the fear of punishment. Living in the forgiveness that God gives you in Christ is total freedom, reason to sing and laugh and dance and rejoice! You discover that what you thought would be fun, those things God tells you not to do, aren’t worth the pain and suffering and heartbreak they bring into your life. It makes sense to obey God, the one who loved you enough to buy you back from sin. The things He tells you to avoid are not worth running out from under the protection of His wings. Paul realized this and wrote about it this way:
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. Phil 3:8-9
When he was going through a particularly difficult time in the Reformation, Martin Luther said: “When you look at the mother hen and her chicks, you see a picture of Christ and yourself better than any painter could paint.”
Lightning struck a hen house and it burst into flames. The volunteer fire department could not save it, and it burned to the ground. As the farmer poked through the ashes, he found the charred carcass of a hen. Underneath the blackened carcass were six chicks who had survived the fire. The mother hen had gathered her chicks under her wings. She had died so they might live. And that is exactly what Jesus, your Mother Hen, did for you. He put himself in harm’s way for your sake. He paid the price of His life in exchange for yours. Then He rose again in victory. He is still that Mother Hen that wants to gather you in, offering you the protection that comes only from being with Him.
