Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Peterson's paraphrase of this passage catches the dark drama taking place. The Pharisees warn Jesus, "Run for your life! Herod is on the hunt. He's out to kill you." Jesus says, "Tell that fox that I've no time for him right now. Today and tomorrow I am busy clearing out the demons and healing the sick; the third day I am wrapping things up. Besides, it's not proper for a prophet to come to a bad end outside Jerusalem" (and I'm way up here in Galilee). That seems to jog Jesus' thoughts about the holy city, and it provokes his famous lament: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How oft would I have taken thee under my wing, as a mother chicken her brood, and ye would not." Someone has jokingly called the Bible a menagerie, because it's so full of references to animals. Most often animals are symbols of good and evil. Evil is represented by dominating, predatory animals, the wolf, the serpent, the lion, the scorpion. Good is represented by weaker, nurturing animals: the dove, the lamb. Here Jesus compares Herod to a fox (evil) and God and his people to a hen with her chicks. When the fox gets into the hen house, the little chicks are helpless unless they gather together and hide under their mothers wings. Yet the hen cannot make that happen. The chicks, whether from fright or rebellion, refuse to be gathered in. Their helpless mother is frantic, as she watches the fox destroy here babies. A powerful picture of the whole, sad history of Israel. From Jesus' viewpoint, Herod is only the most recent fox. The people of God have been assailed, over the centuries, by all kinds of evil, evil from within and without, and (instead of taking cover in God, which God has desperately wanted) they have flopped and fluttered every which way. And been destroyed. It is God who says, "How oft would I have taken thee under my wing, as a mother chicken her brood, and ye would not."

We can learn something about faithful people from this story. Faithful people are focused. They have a mission to fulfill and a ministry to carry out, and they do not let themselves by distracted by other concerns. Because there are certain things that must be done. All through the gospels, and especially during Holy Week, Jesus is portrayed as one who in on a divine mission. His job is not to be creative, not to innovate, but to stay on track. He uses the word "must" frequently, as if there is a script he is following: "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering." "I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God." "I must be in my father's house." "The scripture must be fulfilled." So, it's no big deal that Herod is after me," he seems to say. "We knew that would happen. But I'm not going to die forgotten, way up here in Galilee, just one more nameless, faceless victim of Herod's cruelty. I've got things to do, promises to keep. Herod can't stop me now. I'm going to Jerusalem. Right into that fox's lair! The curtain is rising on a great drama, and I'm going to stick to the script.

Of all the things that made Abraham Lincoln great, I have always felt that the most important was his ability to stay focused, through unspeakable bloodshed and chaos to keep his eye on the main things. Lincoln had deep problems and griefs at home. He suffered from long bouts of depression. All around him, in the White House, friends and enemies peddled hundreds of personal and political agendas. Let the war be for this, let it be for that. But Lincoln insisted that the purpose of the war was to save the union. The question, he said, was whether this nation, or any such nation (conceived in liberty and dedicated to equality) could last. Or would it inevitably fall victim to internal strife and self-intereest. Would we have to return to kings and princes? If you couldn't save the union, you couldn't free the slaves, or do any other good thing. As the fighting wound down, others spoke of vengeance. Lincoln spoke of "binding up our nation's wounds."

Jesus taught that we should sell all our little pearls to buy "the pearl of great price." He was saying that when push comes to shove, we have to know our priorities and stay focused on them, even if there is some loss involved. He doesn't go to Jerusalem to avoid death, he goes there to die. Because that is where the Plan takes him. He makes sure his disciples understand that by reminding them, "Nobody takes my life from me. I give it away."

Jaques Maritain, the great French philosopher of the last century, said there were really only three questions that had to be answered: "Who am I?" "Where am I?" and "Where ought I to be going?" Jesus knew who he was, and where he was, and where he had to go. Lincoln knew. So have all great leaders and great men and women of faith known. Do we know? Or are we out of focus, our goals fuzzy and ill-defined? Our world is so insane, but not any more so than the world of Jesus. Most people in his day, went to work every day, and came home, and were pulled this way and that. And didn't ask the big questions very often. We remember Jesus because he did.

Why do such people get in trouble? Why did Jesus say if we wanted to follow him we had to take up our crosses? For that matter, why did Jerusalem, over all those centuries, stone the prophets and kill the messengers of God? After all, the prophet's word is a word of grace. It is good news, not bad news. We see that, with the benefit of hindsight. What a great moment it was when Christianity burst onto the world scene. But the first Christians suffered and died by the thousands to make that happen. What a wonderful thing it was when the English people could read the Bible in their own language! But the first person who translated it was burned at the stake. How wonderful that the slaves were freed, but the early abolitionists suffered horrible abuse for suggesting such a heresy. The first way we hear a prophetic word is as a call to change. And that brings with it fear, because the devil we know is better than the devil we don't know. "I have learned how to survive in my life as it is, but if I have to change, I might not make it. And, because we're afraid of change, we get our backs up. It is such a perversion! The hardest times, for me, as a manager in the business world, was when I had to speak to someone about a problem, or deficiency he or she had. I always avoided such moments as long as I could, hoping the problem would go away. I then I would try to be so gentile. "Martha, for you to be successful in your career, you'll need to dress more professionally." (Read: Stop wearing sweat suits and fuzzy bedroom slippers in the office.) John, if you want to move up, you'll need to improve your grammar." (Read: Stop saying ain't in front of the big boss.) "Pete, it would help if you would comb your hair and brush your teeth before coming into the office." (Read: You're grossing everybody out.) Just trying to help people improve themselves! Pointing out problems -- that would hold them back forever, and they might never know why. A word of grace! But nobody ever sees it like that. Everybody takes offense. No matter how gentile you are, they hear such words as words of criticism and immediately tell you that they don't have that problem or that they can't change. Instead of learning! And growing! And moving beyond the problem. We always stone the prophets.