Unless We Are

Luke 13:31-35

 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you kill the prophets and stone to death those sent to you! How often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings! But you were not willing!  Your house will be abandoned. (NOG - Names of God Bible)

It took me a long time today, and a dive down the research rabbit-hole, but finally, after crawling out of the theological warren of Revelations and brushing its bitter desert dust off of me, I went back to the Gospel reading. (I always have trouble with readings from Revelations, and I’m generally in agreement with the Eastern Orthodox folks who don’t include it in the canon.)

Anyway—

“Chicks under wings” is where I ended up today. Most of us in the modern U.S. don’t have any experience with hens and chicks, except as a garden plant. Even if we keep chickens, we don’t breed them. We’ve never seen a real live hen with her chicks under her wings. So here’s a video: Hen hiding chicks. It’s cute, and faintly ridiculous, isn’t it?

Here again, the Gospel is quoting Tanakh (Old Testament). The image of God as a mother bird is a pervasive one in Hebrew metaphorical language. “Shadow of wings” is always paired with “refuge.” When danger threatens, or the weather is bad out in the open, the chicks push their way under their mother’s wings. I couldn’t find one video in which the hen actively “gathers” her chicks under her wings. The verb ‘to gather’ is also missing from the image in the Greek. I would read it this way, “…I wanted to gather you together; a hen with her brood under her wings.” All the references from the Tanakh have the fugitive coming to hide under God’s wings, to be protected from danger. Jesus adds the ‘gathering’ part. There is also the implication that coming to God for shelter will result in God’s favor; that trust in God will be returned in the measure with which it was given.

Ruth 2:12

¹² May Adonai reward you for what you’ve done; may you be rewarded in full by Adonai the God of Isra’el, under whose wings you have come for refuge.”

Psalm 17:8

⁸ Protect me like the pupil of your eye,
hide me in the shadow of your wings

Psalm 57

^2 (1) Show me favor, God, show me favor;
for in you I have taken refuge.
Yes, I will find refuge in the shadow of your wings
until the storms have passed.

Psalm 91

⁴ he will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge;

So what I hear in the Gospel passage is this: “How often I wanted your children to come under my wings, where they would be safe and I could protect them! But you wouldn’t let them! Your house will be abandoned.” Remember, he’s talking to Jerusalem, the city. Jerusalem means “City of God.” The city symbolizes all of Zion, all of Israel, and in the Christian context, all of God’s people. “Your house” probably means the Temple. Earlier in this passage, Jesus calls Herod “that fox.” Jerusalem conspires with ‘that fox’ and stays true to form, killing prophets and stoning the rescuers, refusing to trust God.

So, here we are—

chicks loose in the field

while the fox is hunting.

Cold,

afraid,

stubborn,

angry;

our house abandoned.

Don’t you see?

God can’t be safe

unless we are.