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“Jump,
jump!” These were the voices Dewayne heard. They were the
excited screams of several young boys. “What’s the matter?
Are you scared?” one of the boys yelled. Dewayne kept
traveling up the narrow path to the lake.
Coming out
by the lake, Dewayne looked up and saw the boys on a cliff
hanging over the beautiful, glistening lake. The boys were all
on the edge of the cliff in their swimming trunks. Several
beer cans lay all around.
“Well,
are you gonna jump or not?” one bellowed out to the skinny,
nervous boy peering over the edge. It was then that
Dewayne’s mind began to think back to a year earlier when he
had been in the same spot. It was a really hot day in late
July. Dewayne and a few friends had decided to go to the lake
to swim and relax. This lake was also below a large cliff that
towered about 80 feet above the water. After they had been at
the lake for a while, someone dared him to jump. “What’s
wrong?” they said. “You’re not a chicken, are you?”
So, feeling like he had to prove his manliness, Dewayne
trudged up the cliff. He took a few quick glances over the
edge; that was enough to make his stomach start to tremble.
“Jump!
Jump!” everyone began to chant. By this time, the audience
had grown, so there was no way out. He closed his eyes, took a
deep breath, and felt his heart pounding. He ran until there
was no ground beneath him. This isn’t so bad, he thought.
The weightless feeling of free falling made him feel as if he
was flying. What seemed like eternity was really only three or
four seconds until the landing that changed his life forever.
Crack! Finally he reached the water, but not the way he had
expected. Dewayne had landed on a tree. He recalls the
sensation that all feeling in his legs was gone. That’s when
Dewayne realized that he couldn’t stand. The pain was
unbearable. He thought he must be dying.
After being
flown by paramedics to the nearest hospital, Dewayne was told
he had shattered his 12th vertebrae. He underwent a 16-hour
surgery that put two titanium rods in his back. The next year
was full of excruciating pain and hours of rehab. Slowly,
somehow, through hard work and the grace of God, Dewayne
learned to walk again.
Now, a year
later, Dewayne watched as another boy faced a similar
decision. Dewayne stood and watched. As the boy standing at
the edge slowly backed off, a smile came over Dewayne’s
face. As the others teased and ridiculed the boy for not jumping
and called him a chicken, Dewayne wished he had been brave
enough to be called a chicken.
Dewayne
took off his shirt and went into the water for a quick swim.
When he came out, the boy who had decided not to jump was
swimming close by and asked, “Hey, what’s that scar on
your back?” The boy was referring to the long, jagged scar
that ran from Dewayne’s shoulder blades to the waistband of
his swimming trunks. The scar was lined with the small scars
of 168 staples that had held the incision together.
Dewayne
turned to the boy and said, “I jumped.” The boy nodded
with an understanding smile. Dewayne remembers saying to
himself at that moment, “They say you can never go back, and
I know that is true, but this particular day feels as if God
has shown me a replay of that awful day that occurred almost
one year ago. And today the outcome was much better. If only I
had possessed the courage of that boy to let them call me a
chicken.”
“What’s
the matter? Are you a chicken?” It is a powerful phrase in
our culture, to say the least.
“Are you a chicken?” Those four words, when uttered
together, can too often make otherwise- rational,
well-mannered people—especially of the male
persuasion—turn around and do the craziest things. Whether
it is throwing snowballs at passing cars, tossing water
balloons off building roofs or freeway overpasses, getting
behind the wheel before you’re supposed to or when you
shouldn’t, taking something that you haven’t paid for or
jumping off a cliff, the question “Are you a chicken?” has
gotten more people in trouble or hurt than we probably know.
“So,
what’s the matter? Are you a chicken?” Those are questions
I think many will ask when they hear us tell our story of the
events of Holy Week and of Good Friday, especially. As people
hear us tell of the trumped-up charges levied against Jesus,
the sham of a trial and the rush to judgment those in power
brought upon him, I imagine them saying, “Why didn’t he
defend himself? Why didn’t he plead his case? What’s the
matter? Was he a chicken?”
Or when
they hear us tell of the brutal beating Jesus took at the
hands of Roman authorities and the demeaning, demoralizing and
dehumanizing crucifixion he endured, I can only imagine that
people would be saying to themselves, “Why didn’t he fight
back? Why did he just take all of that? What’s the matter?
Was he a chicken?”
When they
hear us say that among the last words Jesus ever said were
“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they
do”—uttered while hanging on the cross and watching those
who brought this fate upon him gamble for the last of his
belongings and mock him—can’t you just hear them asking
us, “What’s up with that? Forgiveness offered in the face
of such injustice? That’s crazy. Why didn’t he tell his
followers, the big crowd that entered the city with him, to
fight back and avenge his death? What’s the matter with him?
Was he a chicken?”
“What’s
the matter, Jesus? Are you a chicken?” In today’s reading,
Jesus answers that question with a surprising “yes.” In
our text, we hear Jesus cry out, “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!” Jesus says that I am a chicken. And guess what? He
says you are, too. “I have longed to gather you, my
children, together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her
wings.” Jesus says, “I am the hen and you are my
chicks.”
To
understand what this is all about, I invite you to come with
me to the edge of another cliff.
This cliff is on the western slope of the Mount of
Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem. There
sits a small chapel called Dominus Flevit. The name, meaning
“the Lord wept,” comes from Luke’s gospel, which
contains not one but two accounts of Jesus’ grief over the
loss of Jerusalem. According to tradition, it was here that
Jesus wept over the city that had refused to accept him and
his Kingdom movement. It was here, at the edge of this cliff,
that the words of today’s text were originally uttered.
It is to
Jerusalem that Jesus offers this heartfelt lament. Jesus longs
to gather the inhabitants of this city under the loving and
protecting embrace of his wings. It is to them that he wants
to be the hen. Jerusalem—the central city in the history of
God’s covenant people. All told, there are 139 mentions of
Jerusalem in the Bible, ninety of them in Luke’s gospel. You
see, those who lived during biblical times believed that
Jerusalem was the dwelling place of God, the place where
God’s glory was to be revealed. And from today’s text it
would appear that, in some sense, Jesus understood the
symbolic power that this holy place represented. It was held
that when Jerusalem obeyed God, the world spun peacefully on
its axis. But when Jerusalem ignored God, the whole planet
wobbled. Christians have often referred to the church as the
New Jerusalem, understanding that it would be the place where
the spirit of God was powerfully present. It would be the
place where the world could observe how people in community
lived and treated each other, and that would unveil the glory
of God for all the world to see. I wonder if Jesus weeps as
passionately over this New Jerusalem for the ways it has
strayed off the path God has set out for it?
“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!” are the tear-soaked words
Jesus cries over this holy city. We must remember that this is
what this Lenten journey is about for Jesus. And ultimately,
we must realize that our own Lenten journey is about the same
thing—a journey to confront and restore those places in our
lives and in our world that are broken and in need of being
brought back to wholeness.
Jesus’ journey brings him to Jerusalem to confront
the religious leaders who had preached the letter of the law
but who had failed to catch its inner meaning of love and
forgiveness. Jesus had already angered these leaders by
showing them they must do acts of charity even on the Sabbath,
a day that the law says no righteous person is supposed to
work. Jesus says that it is okay to pick grain on the Sabbath
if you are hungry. He states that moneychangers have no
business in the temple where they prey on the poor in the name
of God. He even goes so far as to say that it is right to love
the untouchables (even the hated Samaritans)—and not just
love them, but invite them to God’s Kingdom and make a place
for them in the worshiping community. Jesus’ life and death
make clear that love is the essence of the law. Because that
is missing from the life of Jerusalem, God’s holiest of
cities, Jesus is moved to tears.
Oh, the
times may have changed, but the issues seem to remain the
same. I believe Jesus still cries over a church that too often
gets caught up in defending the letter of the law rather than
living out an ethic of love. I expect that Christ’s tears
still flow for a church that is too quick to draw lines to
keep out untouchables, barring some of God’s most vulnerable
children from worship, leadership and the resources and
blessings of the fellowship within her walls. It is to the
broken communities of his day and ours that Jesus longs to be
like a mother hen.
Given the
number of animals available, it is curious that Jesus chooses
a hen. Where is the biblical precedent for that? What about
the mighty eagle of Exodus, or Hosea’s stealthy leopard?
What about the proud lion of Judah, mowing down his enemies
with a roar? Compared to any of those, a mother hen does not
inspire much confidence. No wonder some of the chicks decided
to go with the fox.
But a hen
is what Jesus chooses, which (if you think about it) is pretty
typical of him. He is always turning things upside down, so
that children and peasants wind up on top while kings and
scholars land on the bottom. He is always wrecking our
expectations of how things should turn out by giving prizes to
losers and paying the last first. So of course he chooses a
chicken, which is about as far from a fox as you can get. That
way, the options become very clear: you can live by licking
your chops or you can die protecting the chicks.
Jesus
won’t be king of the jungle in this or any other story. What
he will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and
those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, no claws, no
rippling muscles. All she has is her willingness to shield her
babies with her own body. If you have ever loved someone you
could not protect, then you understand the depth of Jesus’
lament. All you can do is open your arms. You cannot make
anyone walk into them. Meanwhile, this is the most vulnerable
posture in the world—wings spread, breast exposed. But if
you mean what you say, then this is how you stand. If the fox
wants her chicks, he will have to kill her first.
Which he does, as it turns out. He slides up on her one
night in the yard while all the babies are asleep. When her
cry awakens them, they scatter. She dies the next day where
both foxes and chickens can see her—wings spread, breast
exposed—without a single chick beneath her feathers. It
breaks her heart, but it does not change a thing. If you mean
what you say, then this is how you stand.
“I long
to gather you together, under my wings, as the hen gathers her
chicks…but you were not willing.” Why not? Why won’t we
heed Jesus’ call? Why won’t more of us come together under
his wings of protection? Why are we unwilling to join together
in the kind of life-giving, boundary-breaking communities God
intends for us all? What’s the matter with us? Are we
chicken?
To
some degree, I think we all are. We are afraid—afraid of
taking this journey from brokenness to wholeness. Because, you
see, this journey means being honest—honest that sometimes
things aren’t going as well as we would like people to think
they are. This journey that Christ calls us to means that
sometimes we have to be honest that we hurt or honest that we
are suffering. We must be honest that beneath the smooth
facade we like to project, we are scared, confused and
vulnerable. The truth of the matter is that oftentimes we are
chicken of being seen as chickens. But that’s exactly what
we are, you see—chicks in need of the loving and protective
embrace of our mother hen. When we are honest enough to come
in under these wings, we will find that we are invited to a
loving connection—a connection with God, a connection with
each other, and a connection with ourselves—a connection
that our brokenness keeps hidden.
“So
Jesus, what’s the matter? Are you a chicken?” “Yes,”
he responds, “as a matter of fact, I am.” And there is
plenty of room for each of us under his outstretched wings. So
let’s stop clucking around and come home to roost in our
Savior’s loving embrace.
Notes:
The Internet has made research for preaching an amazing
experience. For this week’s sermon, I was searching for a
good “chicken” story.
I typed something like, “Are you chicken” into the
Google search engine. Among the many hits was the story
written by Dewayne Sammons. This piece came from an online
magazine called Voices Electric, a collection of
student writings from Ashland Community and Technical College
in Ashland, Kentucky. The miracle of the digital highway
brought me into contact with his voice, and now I am able to
share it with you.
I
am also grateful to a very interesting article written by Barbara
Brown Taylor entitled “As a Hen Gathers Her Brood.” Taylor
teaches at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia and she is
among the nation’s premiere preachers and storytellers. This
article appeared in The Christian Century, February 25,
1986, page 201.
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