Luke 13: 31-35

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. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.' 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! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

-----------

So Jesus says he wants to be a chicken! I can see the disciples now. Peter and James looking at each other, rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. And just moments before they heard Jesus calling Herod a fox and telling the Pharisees to send Herod a message that he will just have to wait to kill him, because he was busy - casting out demons, healing the sick - bringing on the kingdom. That's what I'm talking about. That's the Jesus they want to hear. Not the Jesus who thinks of himself as a mother hen! The disciples would have preferred that Jesus refer to himself using one of the more majestic titles his followers later gave him - "Light of the World", "Lord of Lords", and "King of Kings". And now he says that he wishes that he was a mother hen and that all of our people were chicks. If he must imagine himself as a barnyard fowl he could have at least called himself a game cock - a bird with a sharp beak and spurs and the fierceness to use them. The analogy no doubt irritated the disciples.

Chickens don't get a lot of respect here in northwest Arkansas either. We are surrounded by them, but seldom give them a thought, except maybe when we find ourselves behind a tractor trailer loaded with stacks of birds crammed into tiny cages, birds fearfully crouching, making themselves as small as they can, their white feathers blowing unnaturally in the wind. Coming back from the diocesan convention in Little Rock last weekend we traveled up old Highway 71. I learned that there was a time in Northwest Arkansas, when old 71 was the only road to Benton County, when the leading economic indicator wasn't the price of Wal-Mart shares, but how many chicken feathers and dead carcasses were scattered along the side of the road. We probably wouldn't be any more impressed than the disciples if Jesus suggested to us that he wanted to take us under his wings like a chicken does her brood.

Maybe if he had said that he wanted to be an eagle. Or some other more respectable animal, like the lion, or the winged bull that adorns the cover of our gospel book - mythological symbols of God's strength and majesty. But no, true to form, Jesus chose a chicken. The disciples were dismayed at the comparison, but they shouldn't have been surprised. A few days before they had heard him compare the Kingdom of God to a tiny mustard seed or the yeast that a woman took and mixed with flour to make bread. And it is true that Jesus spent an inordinate amount of his time with the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind - second class citizens of all kinds. And the disciples themselves had come from distinctly working class backgrounds - fisherman mostly. But now, hanging with Jesus, they had become minor celebrities and their vision of the kingdom didn't really have much to do with poultry.

This hen protecting her brood, doesn't really have a lot of power. To start with it's not easy to gather baby chicks - they tend to wander off. And even if the hen manages to gather the chicks under her wings, what can she really do when the fox comes? What is the power of a frightened hen's beak against the sharp teeth and strong jaws of the fox? Jesus frequently presents us with new ways of looking at God's power, and he is doing so here. With the image of the hen and her brood we are presented, not an image of the Divine that is omnipotent, all-powerful, able, with the voice of Charlton Heston, to command the Red Sea to part. Instead, we are offered an image of God that is relational, based on love - "power that does not dominate, force, or coerce, but heals, reconciles, and transforms" (Reuther). It is a power that is frequently thought of as feminine, the ability to bring together, to nurture, to love - to simply be present, God with us in the midst of adversity.

Holding chickens in such low esteem, consider how we regard those who work with chickens as well. Undoubtedly, the worse job I ever had was the summer of my 15th year, when I was talked into being a chicken catcher. My friends and I walked hesitantly into the chicken house late that night, after the chickens had settled down for the evening and the oppressive heat of the August afternoon had subsided. Our instructions were simple. Reach down and grab a chicken by one leg, and then catch two more with that same hand. Then with the other hand, grab a chicken by the leg and add three more. As you can imagine, they didn't really cooperate, but fairly quickly I found myself surrounded by an inverted choir of seven squawking chickens. I carried the ill-fated birds to the waiting tractor trailer, and handed them off to a receiver, who stuffed the unlucky seven into a single waiting cage. The sulphur stench of the chicken house made me gag. As the night dragged on, my muscles ached from repeatedly lifting the miserable creatures onto the trailer bed. Hours of being scratched and pecked left my arms pockmarked with blood. The monotony of the hellish task was broken only by the occasional discovery of an egg, layed by the young pullets, chickens on the edge of adulthood. If my young friends happened upon the egg before I did, I would inevitably learn of their discovery by the impact an exploding egg made after being hurled across the chicken house and colliding with the side of my head. The image remains clear some 40 years later. There I was, adrift in a squawking sea of white feathers and feces, three chickens in one hand, four in the other, and egg yoke dripping slowly down my face. I didn't eat chicken, or eggs, for a month.

As awful as that evening was, it was episodic, one evening in my young life. We didn't have to do this work. For us it was a lark, and less hellish occupations were available to us. Such is not the case for thousands of people who work in the poultry industry in Northwest Arkansas. What remains for me as the memory of a nightmare, is the everyday reality for chicken catchers, live hangers, butchers, breaders, fryers, - chicken processors of all kinds. Maybe the worst job I've heard of is the chicken stabber. Chickens are typically killed with an electric shock, then plunged into a boiling water bath. Amazingly, a small but significant number of chickens survive this double execution. The stabbers job is to use his sharp knife to finish off the survivors. It is in this kind of environment that thousands of workers spend endless days and nights, thankful to have a job.

I can't help but think that if Jesus were walking the face of the earth today, he would spend a lot of his time among the chicken processors of Northwest Arkansas - healing, nurturing, and transforming the lives of those who need him most. What makes us think that we are asked to do any less? In Paul's letter to the Philippians, that we heard this morning, Paul said that Jesus "will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory." It is hard to imagine more humiliating work than processing chickens. But at the same time we hear Paul tell us that it is from humiliation, from humbling circumstances that transformation takes place. The lowly shall be lifted up.

In the gospel reading today, Jesus had harsh words for the city of Jerusalem - calling it a city that kills prophets and stones those who are sent to it. A city that did not accept criticism easily, that lashes out at critics. But Jerusalem was the holiest of cities. If we were to imagine a 21st century, western version of Jerusalem, steeples would dot the landscape and most everyone would belong to a church. A holy place. But governed by a people whose arrogance would not allow them to be gathered as a hen gathers her brood. It takes a certain humility to accept the advice of someone who compares himself to a chicken. A holy city, even a city that could be called the buckle on the Bible Belt, can use its sense of holiness, it's self-righteousness, to justify ill treatment of it's lowest citizens. What would enable us as a city to let go of what one of Arkansas' own prophets, J. William Fulbright, once called - the arrogance of power. A letting go of arrogance that would allow even our most lofty citizens to be gathered under the wings of a God that seeks after the humble.

All Saints - You know, I like to think of us as an emerging church willing to be nurtured by a Mother God. Sometimes we seem like a bunch of chicks, scampering about, everybody trying to find a place, wondering if these strangers will become friends, looking for a way to be of service, maybe just looking for home. All of us, seeking God's loving, healing, and transforming power. And, God, like a mother hen, raises her wings, enfolds us in love, and calls us her own.