The Hen

What do you know about hens? I know very little except that I really like their beautiful and expensive eggs, which I eat very sparingly these days.

I also know from Luke 13:31-35 that hens gather. They are they original mother hens, buk-buk-buk-ba-gwacking and fussing over their babies.

Jesus offers the image of two animals in this passage: a fox and a hen. The fox is endless bad news for the hen, of course. The hen gathers because the fox prowls.

The fox, Jesus interprets for us, is Herod, the Roman governor on the prowl. As best he can, he gathers power and control.

Who, then is the hen? God Almighty.

Who is she gathering under her wings? You, beloved one.

God is the fussing hen, buk-buk-buk-ba-gwacking all the way to you.

And that is not all.

God is the fussing hen gathering all the beloved, all the broken, and all who live under the threat of Herod.

Herod is long gone, of course, yet the threat of those who love power and control remains. Where there is love of power and control, there is a threat for those whom Jesus describes as the least of these: those who live on the edges of safety, the neighbors who barely scrape by each day.

I imagine the hen gathering those who are still living in a warzone in Ukraine, the mothers whose husbands and sons will never come home. And those in Gaza, the brown-skinned ones whose homes, sacred spaces, schools, hospitals and coffee shops have been destroyed.

Still, the hen fusses.

Global Refuge is a non-profit with Lutheran roots. For Christmas, all of St. John’s offering went to the neighbors who are served by this organization. I learned from my colleague that when the federal government cut funding to organizations like this one, the federal government had the privilege of defaulting on their debt. Not only did Global Refuge lose future funding, it lost the funding the federal government had promised to pay.

And so, the hen’s work is never done.

Certainly, the fox has good intentions. I prefer a balanced budget and I dislike wasteful spending. Are there lines in the federal budget that should be cut? Has spending gotten out of control? Absolutely.

What does it say about the fox and its den when many of very first budget lines cut were the lines meant to become food for the hungry and shelter for the poor? It says that the hen will continue to fuss. Buk-buk-buk-ba-gwack.

Photo by Aditya Tma on Unsplash