March 13, 2022

Can you picture Jesus as a mother hen – gathering us all under her wings for protection? That’s the image Jesus offers us in our gospel today (v 34). Both the gospel and our Genesis readings offer us unusual images of God, but that’s okay because the Holy Spirit loves to surprise us with unexpected ways in which the sacred bursts through into our ordinary lives. It’s somewhat akin to the indigenous idea of Trickster – the sacred appearing to us in surprising and even disturbing ways – to get us to think.

Like poor Abram today – he sounds kind of fed up and depressed to keep hearing God promise him all kinds of big things when up to that point, Abram does not even have a single child of his own, and he’s getting to quite a ripe old age. God may be trying to cheer him up, and shows him all the stars, saying that Abram’s descendants will be as numerous as these. Yeah, yeah … Abram may be thinking … how many times have I heard God saying this, but nothing happens. God throws in a big land package promise to try and convince him, and by the way – biblical promises that certain people will be given certain land packages – have caused no end of trouble in human history. Look at poor Ukraine even today. Last week I heard about more evidence that a significant part of why Putin invaded Ukraine was because the highly corrupt Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church wants him to ‘repatriate’ Kyiv back into Russian Orthodoxy instead of being Ukrainian Orthodox.

Anyways back to poor Abram – he’s not feeling very convinced by God’s promises, so he talks back (!) and asks God – how am I to know that you’re really going to do these things for me? And God orchestrates a kind of violent burnt offering ritual that was the gold standard for sealing covenants in that time & culture. I thought it was my vegetarian sensibilities that made me feel rather disgusted about all these animal carcasses cut in half; but when Abram falls into a deep sleep, we’re told that a “deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.” It’s rather reassuring to know that even the Big Cheese patriarchs like Abram, can get discouraged and depressed when God’s big promises don’t seem to pan out. Even while sound asleep, Abram is depressed! So let’s not beat ourselves up if we too get depressed about all those prayers and promises for peace on earth … only to find that one extremely selfish, violent, greedy and egotistical dictator can ruin everything overnight. I heard a UVic Slavic Studies prof last week say that sadly she cannot imagine Putin backing down. Those who care deeply about the suffering in the world, are carrying this now like a heavy ball and chain.

In our epistle today we heard some provocative sayings as Paul tries to impress the Philippians with the need to live a life of purity and faith, instead of being like those whose “god is the belly; and … their minds are set on earthly things” (v 19). I appreciate how my new First Nations Version of the New Testament https://www.amazon.ca/.../ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o03... puts this: “A bad end awaits these people. They have made their weak human appetites the spirit they follow.” And I was puzzling over v 21 talking about how God would transform “the body of our humiliation” … but again the First Nations Version was helpful: “When he appears, he will take our weak death-doomed bodies and change them into a body like his, a body that shines with beauty and honor.” Now that sounds appealing!

And then we heard our gospel that begins with the Pharisees coming to warn Jesus to run away because Herod wants to kill him. Are they protecting him, or just trying to get rid of him? As mentioned in my last parish email, the Bible Study group had fun with Barclay’s list of seven types of Pharisees, especially this one:

(c) The Bruised or Bleeding Pharisees. No Jewish Rabbi could be seen talking to any woman on the street, not even his wife or mother or sister. But certain of the Pharisees went further. They would not even look at a woman on the street; they even shut their eyes to avoid seeing a woman; they, therefore, knocked into walls and houses and bruised themselves; and then exhibited their bruises as special badges of extraordinary piety. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dsb/luke-13.html

Interesting that while the Pharisees, like so many traditional law-abiding men of high religious stature – avoided women -- Jesus takes this opportunity to compare himself to a mother hen of all things; and wishes he could protect all his followers like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. Nowadays most hens who lay most of the eggs in our supermarkets do not get to protect their chicks under their wings – instead they’re in tight cages all their lives for maximum human profit, although thankfully we can choose to pay more for Free Range eggs. When faced with the news of a death threat from Herod, Jesus does not invoke God’s army of sword-wielding angels to protect him. Instead, he says he’ll keep on healing people and then head to Jerusalem where the prophets usually get killed. His concern is not for his own safety, but rather his desire is to protect people from harm. Mother Hen Jesus, may we follow your example and do our best to help protect the vulnerable from great harm -- in so many sad situations of human cruelty in our world today, Amen.