Turning to the Protective Wing

by Pastor Kathy Barlow-Westmoreland

This week's focus scripture is Luke 13:31-35.

How many times…I have protected you from the fox- the obvious fox- those threats from the outside- threats to your time and your priorities, and then the threats from within- thinking I did not care for you, thinking I did not understand what it meant to be you- whether you are older and widowed, or younger and struggling with your career, whether you are trying to care for your aging parents or working to be a good parent to your children…how many times I have wanted to put my arms around you…all of you…just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you would not let me…

I don’t know about you, but I cannot remember a time when God wanted to gather me under a wing and protect me. More often it seems that God is throwing me out into the world- to face whatever it is that life is throwing at me- the challenges at work, the difficulties of parenting, the obstacles of care giving our parents, the pressures and boredom of school, the wall of physical pain. When do I see God stretching out some kind of divine wing to protect me? How can I reject what I do not even see being offered?

And then I do some serious rembering…A little over five years ago my dad died-suddenly, but not entirely unexpectedly, although it felt that way at the time. I was a daddy’s girl, so the loss was especially profound for me, although, being a minister of Word and Sacrament, I was also aware of my mother’s loss and my brother’s as well. It would be six months later, when his ashes were taken back to Kansas that I would begin to accept the protective shelter of Christ’s mother hen wing for me as one of God’s chicks. As I walked into the church where I had been raised, where I had been confirmed and where I had been ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, I began to move under those protective wings. These are people who not only had known me my whole life, but some of them had known my dad. (You see, while I am not from the west side, I do understand it- after all my home church was called Westside Presbyterian Church- perhaps an omen for me!). They are the ones who had been there at my baptism, who had taught me in Sunday School, who had gone with me on mission trips, who had surrounded my at my ordination. They stretched out their wings and there I was able to become a chick again- and to be sheltered under their wings, to trust that the wings could protect me. There I knew the strong and tender love of God.

Jesus, in his lament over Jerusalem, notes how he has wanted to put his arms around the people, like a mother hen, to protect them, but they would not let them. The mother hen, ready to risk her life to save her chicks, is a powerful image for Jesus to use. A mother hen is often ill equipped to protect her chicks from the vicious and well armed predators-after all, what she has is a bit of beak or some small claws. She is willing to give herself up entirely, to satisfy the appetite of what threatens them, if they will leave her babies alone. Jesus, as a mother hen, loved us to the end. He died loving us and came back with the marks to show us that no fox, no threat could kill the love or could keep us from that relationship with Jesus.

You know when a mother hen see a hawk coming, she gives a warning and the immediately the chicks come under her wing. Sometimes the signs can be tricky, and then those organs given to mother hens for receiving vibrations, and the good sense of hearing come into play to make sure that this is indeed a threat. The goal of the mother hen is to love and protect, and Jesus, like the images given of God in the psalms also wanted to protect and love the children of God. Jesus had given the warning, and yet the people did not listen. Somehow, either they did not sense the threat or did not trust the protective power of Christ. And yet, Christ continues to put himself between us and the foxes that threaten our well being, our trust, our sense of being the beloved children of God. Even, like the mother hen, if it means Christ is offered up to keep us under that protective wing.

This all sounds really good for us as believers, as the chicks under the wings of the Savior. But, (you know there is always a but)…we are the body of Christ- that is the physical presence of Christ in the world. We are the hands and feet and voice of Christ, and, in this instance, the wings of Christ. We are the brooding hen, fluffed up and offering the warmth and shelter of God’s love to all kinds of chicks who come through our doors – orphans, runts, maybe even a couple of geese- you know . those who make a lot of noise, leave big piles of you know what behind and then move on… As the church of Jesus Christ we stand between those who would threaten us, in whatever way- personally, or corporately, and the fragile chicks- those who are new and still finding their way, offering ourselves up to be attacked and even eaten before one of the chicks will die.

Before we think that this mother hen is some namby-pamby milquetoast mama, she is not. Jesus is not afraid to confront the forces of injustice and destruction. He also realizes some of those forces of sin come from his own- the chicks of this mother hen, if you will. He is my kind of mother at this point, the mother who is there through thick and thin, who gently folds down the bed covers, who tenderly fluff the pillow, who tucks us in for the night, and then says, “Don’t let me EVER catch you doing that again.” We are loved unconditionally, but there is always accountability and consequences.

You see, sometimes we are the chick, needing the shelter of the mother hen’s wings, or the correction of that firm parent and sometimes we are the mother hen, ready to protect and shelter the more fragile and vulnerable among us from the threats of life of the world. As the body of Christ we need to be ready to give of ourselves to feed and shelter and protect the most vulnerable of God’s children-whether they be in Camp Washington or Haiti- or in Washington DC (don’t those children of God need a strong mother) or in Chile.

Jesus’ lament us not unlike our own- he seeks to take us under the protective wing so that we will not continue in the paths we have been traveling (however good they might seem). And yet we resist, just as the word resists our efforts on their behalf. What would happen, just imagine for a moment, if we were to be willing to truly protect the most vulnerable the way that Christ protected us? What if, in the face of the powers of this world, we stood firm for the poor, the orphaned, the oppressed, who have no voice?
You see, to be the body of Christ is to be the mother hen for the world, ready to spread our wings to protect the most fragile and vulnerable among us, just as Christ as protected us. Can we, the Union Church, be the refuge , the safe haven, for those who seek the protective shelter of the wings of the mother hen God? Can we provide that closeness, that trustworthiness to the broken of the world? That is our challenge, not only to one another, as we are also broken and hurting, but to the world outside our doors – to be the mother hen with wings spread wide for a world threatened and vulnerable.

The foxes are many, but the strong and persistent love of the mother hen will prevail. Amen.

St. John's Westminster Union Church
1085 Neeb Rd. Cincinnati, Ohio 45233
(513) 347-4613