You will notice that at the top of our worship bulletin, we encourage you to sing and pray using language that is most comfortable to you.  Therefore, when we say the Lord’s Prayer, you are welcome to say a version other than that which is written in the bulletin.  When we sing hymns, we invite you to use more traditional words than what is in our hymnals.  And when we talk about God, we encourage you to think of God in whatever terms work best for you. 

You may or may not have figured out that I artfully craft all the liturgy and prayers in our worship service so that we don’t refer to God in either male or female terms. That is because God is Spirit, existing beyond space and time, transcending gender distinctions.  Our language, on the other hand, is – like us – finite, human, and earthbound.  Thus, anytime we attempt to describe the transcendent reality of God, our words are going to come up short.  God is far beyond anyone or anything we can know or imagine, and so all words used to describe God are analogous and metaphorical.

Many of you may be comfortable using male pronouns when referring to God.  Male imagery is prevalent throughout the Bible, with such metaphors as God the king [Ps 47:7] and God the warrior [Is 42:13].  In Jeremiah [2:2], God is described as a bridegroom.  And perhaps the most common Biblical description of all is God the Father.  And certainly, these images – especially of God as a loving Father -- work for many of us.

But the Bible also offers us a number of female images for God.  In Isaiah [42:14, 66:13], God calls out like a woman in labor, gasping and panting; and God’s love and care is likened to a mother comforting her child.  In Hosea [11:3], God speaks as a mother teaching a toddler to walk and holding the child in her arms.  In Deuteronomy [32:11], God is depicted as a mother eagle who stirs up the nest of her young and bears them aloft on her pinions.  In the Psalms, God is likened to a midwife [22:9] and a handmaiden’s mistress [123:2].

And in this morning's Gospel passage, God's protective love for us is depicted as a mother hen.  “How I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,” Jesus laments. 

 

A mother hen -- what a folksy, homespun way to describe God.  But the metaphor works.  It works because mother hens are willing to spread their wings in protection over their young, and they are willing to sacrifice their own life in order to protect their chicks.

Today is the second Sunday in Lent, and in this morning’s passage, there is a sense of foreboding.  Back in Chapter 9 of Luke’s gospel, Jesus “set his face” toward Jerusalem, and in the chapters since, he has been moving ever closer to the city.  We sense the impending doom in today’s verses, when some Pharisees come to warn Jesus that Herod is close to tracking him down and plans to kill him.  This is the same Herod who kills John the Baptist; and his father before him, Herod the Great, tried to kill the infant Jesus in Bethlehem.

Even though Jesus knows that Jerusalem will be the site of his death, he will not be deterred from his mission. “Go tell that fox,” he says.  Go tell that sly, cunning, destructive Herod that I will not be stopped.  I will carry on, I will proclaim God’s kingdom, and on the third day, I will reach my goal.

Jesus has chosen a path of faithfulness and service -- and ultimately a path of death -- because it is “the work” that God sets before him.  Jesus knows where he is going, he knows what will happen, he knows what the final scene will be.  And no one, not even Herod, can deflect him from his course. 

But even in this moment, with the cross looming, Jesus grieves for the world around him.  He weeps for the people of the world, and cries for those who have strayed from God and turned away from God’s love and protection.  “How I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,” he cries, “but you were not willing.” 

In these words of Jesus, we hear the voice of God’s lamenting.  We hear the sound of God’s heart breaking.  Like the tender fierce love of a mother for her children, so is the love that God has for us, so is the love that Jesus has for his church.  He longs to gather us under His wings.  He wants to extend his arms over us, to shelter us under the protection of his grace, to hide us under his mercy.  And he is willing to go to Jerusalem and die for us.

 

Christ’s church is a big fluffed up brooding hen, offering warmth and shelter to the broken, the marginalized, the doubting, the suffering, the needy.  Maybe that is why it is referred to as “Mother Church.” 

 

For this is the place where we come to be embraced and sheltered; this is the place we come in our need and our brokenness, to experience God’s healing love and grace; it is here in the midst of this community of faith that we find arms to enfold us when the bottom falls out of our world; this is the place where we nurture and support each other on our faith journeys; and it is here that we love others the way we ourselves have been loved by a mother hen who would give her life to gather us under her wings.

 

It is in this Mother Church that we are called into relationship with Christ and with each other, where we can come in our despair to receive the generous welcome and love of God, and then offer that welcome and acceptance to others in their vulnerability and their  humanity.

 

During these days of Lent, Christ invites us to walk with him.  He stands on that hill and laments for those who have rejected God’s love, he weeps for those who have turned away from the God who seeks us out.  The question is -- are we willing to shelter ourselves under the wings of the Almighty? 

 

During Lent, let us walk with Jesus, but not as individuals; there are no lone rangers in the kingdom of God.  We are to travel our Lenten journeys together, as Christ’s Church, like a brood of helpless hatchlings hidden under our Savior’s protective wing -- through the joys and sorrows, through the triumphs and failures of our lives, huddled together in God’s healing love under the embracing wings of Christ.

 

Once upon a time, there was a prairie farmer who had a barnyard full of hens, and one of the hens had a brood of chicks.  One day a grassfire swept through the barnyard.  It burned quickly through the farm, and the animals and birds simply didn’t have time to run.  When the fire had done its worst, the farmer came and surveyed the damage.  There in the barn was the mother hen, lying dead on her nest, her wings spread wide, her feathers black and burned.  But when the farmer picked up the dead hen, out scampered her half dozen chicks, who had survived under the protective shelter of her wings.  Had those chicks not come to their mother when she called, or had the hen sought shelter for herself, all would have died; but instead, she gathered them under her in the face of danger.  And she gave her life to save them.

 

This is our God.  And this morning, Jesus once again calls to you and me.  He calls us to the protective shelter of his wings.  He calls the broken person in each of us to the safety of his arms stretched out for us on the cross.  He calls us to trust him, no matter what our fears, our hurts, our troubles.

 

And so, Let us accept Christ’s welcoming embrace.  Let us heed Christ’s call.  And let us gather together, in protection and holy love, beneath Christ’s wings.  Amen.

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