In the Name of God:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

How do you picture Jesus?  I don’t mean physically . . . I’m not asking what you think he might have looked like.  I’m wondering what kind of person you imagine, when you imagine – IF you imagine – Jesus.  What kind of personality did the human Jesus have?  How did the human Jesus react to the extraordinary events of his life?

In particular, as we journey through Lent toward Holy Week, how do you picture Jesus reacting to the events leading up to the Passion and to the Passion itself?

You see, each of the evangelists tells the Passion story somewhat differently, and so the Jesus that appears behaves somewhat differently in each of the Gospels.  Of course, the story is always the same in its broad outlines, but the details are very different.  And these differences are important . . . not just because, added all together, they give us a fuller, richer, understanding of what happened . . . but because in the details of the stories, different facets of Jesus are revealed.  And the different images of Jesus that appear can be very helpful to us in different situations in our lives.

How do you picture Jesus?  That’s a question that’s probably related to another question:  What kind of Jesus do you need?

If you’re feeling embattled and alone in the world, you may find a companion in the Jesus described in the Passion narratives in both the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.  In these Gospels, Jesus finally is deserted by everyone and goes to his death utterly alone, mocked and jeered at by everyone around him.  This Jesus seems to have felt that even God had deserted him because his last words in both these Gospels are, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

In the Gospel of Luke we find something rather different:  a compassionate Jesus, who even during his arrest heals a soldier’s ear, which had been cut off by one of Jesus’ followers.  The Lucan Jesus is forgiving and at peace with himself even at his death, when, unlike in Matthew and Mark, he cries out first “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” and finally, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” 

If you need a Jesus who clearly is divine and in complete control, turn to the Gospel of John.  There you will find a triumphant Jesus, surrendering to the crucifixion because it is necessary, but a Jesus who clearly is God.  What are Jesus’ last words in this Gospel?  “It is accomplished!”

So, you see, if you look closely at the Passion narratives you can find a variety of ways to picture Jesus.  And, if you look elsewhere in the Gospels, even more images of Jesus can found . . . some of them rather surprising.  Today’s Gospel story, for example, contains an image of Jesus that may be very surprising indeed.

Today’s story contains Jesus’ famous lament over Jerusalem.  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!”  Jesus goes on to say, “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”  Jesus is invoking an ancient image of God as a mothering bird . . . think of Psalm 17, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me under the shadow of your wings” (17:8); or Psalm 91, “He shall cover you with his pinions, and you shall find refuge under his wings” (91:4); or Psalm 57, “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful, for I have taken refuge in you; in the shadow of your wings will I take refuge until this time of trouble has gone by” (57:1).

Jesus is very deliberately creating an image of HIMSELF as a mothering hen to contrast himself to Herod.  Remember what just happened in the Gospel story?  Jesus is traveling to Jerusalem and as he gets close to the city he’s told to get away because Herod wants to kill him.  Jesus, of course, is not intimidated by this news and says so.  But how does he refer to Herod?  As a fox.  “Go tell that fox, Herod . . . .” he says.  And then he refers to himself as a hen yearning to gather her brood.  In these references to foxes and hens, can you hear a faint warning of the crucifixion to come?

How do you picture Jesus?  I bet not often as a hen. 

I was recently reminded of an old Clint Eastwood movie, Pale Rider, by another preacher writing on this text, Barbara Brown Taylor.  (Her sermon is clearly the source of this sermon.[1])  Have any of you seen the movie?  Well, it’s a western, of course.  Eastwood plays a frontier preacher . . . with a past.  This “past” is never made clear, but Eastwood walks around wearing a clerical collar looking as if it’s lined with nails, and at one point, when he takes off his shirt, we can see the scars of old bullet hole wounds in his back.  One day he rides into a town that’s been taken over by some Herod’s . . . by a pack of foxes.  The corrupt sheriff is working with a bunch of bad guys who are taking whatever they want and killing whoever gets in their way.  At first, Eastwood just observes what’s going on . . . figuring out exactly who the foxes are and where their lair is.

Then one day he calmly walks into the bank and produces a key to a safety deposit box.  (Ah ha! So this town is part of his past and he’s left a bit of it behind.)  Alone in the vault he opens the box.  In it are two six-shooters and a belt full of bullets.  Eastwood takes these out and puts them on, and then he takes off his clerical collar and puts it in the safety deposit box.  (This IS, I think, a secret fantasy of some clergy.)  “Go Clint!  Gun down those foxes!”  Which is, of course, exactly what he does.

That’s Clint Eastwood.  But Jesus is Jesus.  Jesus, too, means to protect the chicks from the foxes but he will not become a fox himself to do it.  When Herod and his bad guys come after Jesus and his brood, he does not pull out a couple of six-shooters to stop them in their tracks.  He simply puts himself between them and the chicks . . . all fluffed up like a mother hen.  Of course, initially, it looks like this mother hen has lost the fight . . . what with feathers all over the place and the chicks running for cover.

But pretty soon, it became clear what she had done.  She refused to run from the foxes and she refused to become one of them.  Having loved her own who were in the world, she loved them to the end.  And afterward, she came back, with teeth marks on her body to make certain they got the point:  that the power of the foxes could not kill her love for them nor could it steal them away from her.  They might have to go through what she went through to get past the foxes, but she would be waiting for them on the other side, with love stronger than death.

To tell you the truth, I’ve never thought much about Jesus as a mother hen before working on this sermon . . . but I’m enjoying the image now.  Maybe because it’s the kind of Jesus I need now.  I’m loving thinking about Jesus as a big fluffed up brooding hen, offering warmth and shelter to all kinds of chicks, including orphans, and runts, and maybe even a couple of ducks.  I’m loving the image of Christ planting himself between the foxes of this world and the fragile-boned chicks . . . offering himself – or should I say herself? – up to be eaten before she’ll sacrifice one of her brood . . . refusing to run from the foxes and refusing to become one of them.

Who would have thought being a mother hen could offer such opportunities for courage?  Maybe that’s why the church is called “Mother Church.”  It is where we come to be fed and sheltered, but it is also where we come to stand firm with those who need the same things from us.  It is – if you’ll bear with me – where we grow from chicks into chickens by giving what we have received, by teaching what we have learned, by loving the way we ourselves have been loved . . . by a mother hen who would give his life to gather us under his wings.

Amen.

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