Sermon: Fox and Hen
Two
boys were out in the street of their cul-de-sac playing soccer. They would rush
back to their driveway when cars come through.
And
so it went…
But
one time, a car was driving by, and they didn’t notice, until one of the boys
kicked their soccer ball hard, and whack!
it hit the side of the car driving by.
The
car stopped.
A
man started to get out.
The
boys ran.
They
ran passed the driveway,
They
jumped over their own fence,
And
continued to run away.
The
man, picked up the soccer ball and deposited it back in their yard. He’d
stopped and got out of his car because he wanted to make sure no one, not even
the ball, was hurt.
The
soccer-playing boys were expecting wrath, but the man just wanted to make sure
everyone was okay.
And
that’s part of the story of humanity
—all of us
—so often we expect a fox, but we’re
being offered a hen
—we expect God to be a carnivore, but
God is looking to protect us.
Let us pray.
Paul
is gripped with disappointment at what he sees among his people in Philippi.
They are settling on a Jesus plus
kind of Gospel. They’ve assumed Jesus is great, but not enough to finally stand
as the bedrock upon which to build their life. They ought to be citizens of
heaven, but they’ve instead accepted a dual citizenship,
a Jesus passport and an earthly
passport.
They do not see their Identity in
Christ as sufficient ground to standing firm on in this life.
In
a parallel way, the Pharisees come to warn Jesus off of doing his gospel work…
They warn of Herod’s wrath
—Herod who, to Luke’s eyes is a
gadfly, a goofball interested in Jesus
—a powerful person who wants to come
and see Jesus, but not a threat until he links up with Pilate at the end of
Luke’s Gospel.
But
Jesus stands up to say, “I know what I’m
doing, in the face of a potential danger, you don’t see the real danger. The
danger is not being under his wings,
the danger is not being there with
Jesus doing his Gospel work!”
Paul
warns the Philippians that they are trying to keeping safe with a Jesus plus strategy, and Jesus warns
the Pharisees they are trying to keep safe with a Jesus Minus strategy.
One
worries Jesus isn’t sufficient, the other that Jesus isn’t even an option.
And
both, both are caught up in a lie.
They’ve bought into the strength of
that fox Herod, the power of the enemies of the Cross of Christ.
Both over and against the magnificent
power found in the weakness of the cross of Jesus Christ.
And how does that happen?
How
do we decide Jesus isn’t enough for us?
I
suppose these days it is because we buy into what our culture tells us,
becoming citizens of Heaven and America, just as the Philippians were citizens
of Heaven and Rome.
We
buy into the myth of scarcity and the fallacy of choice.
Think
of it, we can get so revved up by the messages of our society:
That success and having more are one
in the same
That we have such a limited life that
we have to spend every ounce of it getting the best!
We
can grasp onto these messages so tightly that we loose our grasp on God.
I
think of the comedian Aziz An-sari, who describes these phenomena well in his
book “Modern Romance” and his TV show “Master of None.”
In one scene, he is ready for Lunch
and he wants Tacos, so he looks up on Yelp where the best Taco stand is, and
there are so many different metrics you can use to judge a Taco, that by the
time he makes a decision on where to eat, the place is closed.
So
too, he finds woman after woman to date on a dating site, and ultimately he
can’t decide who is the best person to contact, and therefore goes away single.
Or
look at TV, for every half hour we get 8 minutes where we’re told we’re
worthless unless we choose the best product.
The
world we live in is so anxious about getting “the best” of everything that it
can’t settle for anything.
We’ve
bought what the world is selling. We’ve managed to forget the resurrection and
have come to believe our life is such a
scarce thing that we must be so very careful how to spend it.
Listen
to that… spend it. Spend our life.
We’ve made ourselves into a thing
instead of a person!
We’ve
forgotten that we’ve been given this
life! Our life is not a commodity to be horded and sparingly spent, but a gift.
A
gift… a free gift.
Think
of that strange covenant God makes with Abram. If it was a sensible covenant
both parties would sign it
—both God and Abram would walk
through the blood and guts of these sacrificial animals
—but no, the smoke and flame of the
presence of God goes through alone
—it is an unconditional promise, one
predicated on God’s gift to Abram.
And so too, the citizenship Paul
preaches, we’re citizens of heaven because the heavenly one is transforming us
from humiliation into glory. It is a gift
of God.
And so too, this warm shelter at the
hen’s bosom, calling her chicks to rest in the safety of her wings. Pleading
that we take her gift, her motherly love, and get away from the world when it insists on
being fox-like!
And so too, our lives! Gift!
Let
us hold fast to the promise of God, that God is for us and therefore none can
be against us.
That life isn’t for spending, but for
living, living this great gift God
has given us.
Living it! Knowing our choices, though
they matter greatly, do not matter as much as the choice God has made through
Jesus Christ. Therefore we can live freely,
nestled gently under the wing of the
Mother Hen.
Living boldly the gospel in the face
of all that would stand against it.
Living as citizens of Heaven, here on
earth.
Trust
that this life isn’t one of constant fleeing,
jumping our own fence when God comes to check if we’re alright, and give us
back our ball.
Trust
that God isn’t a fox, trying to eat us.
Life isn’t the struggle of carnivore
against carnivore,
each choice we make some kind of
blood sport,
a maelstrom of anxiety.
No.
God is not a meat eater.
God is our Shelter in times of
trouble, our Helper and our Salvation in all times of need.
Amen.
