The Fierceness of a Mother Hen

Perhaps one of the most touching descriptions of God as multi-gendered, if gendered at all, came from Jesus’ analogy of God as Mother Hen.

How appropriate for the Easter season! And how appropriate for all of us who witness for the leadership and ordination of people of all genders in our Church. From Luke 13:31-32, 34:

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to [Jesus], “Get away from here, for Herod desires to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.’ . . . Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”  

One of Richard Rohr’s daily messages which focused on that particular scripture passage included an interpretation Lutheran pastor, Nadia Bolz-Weber, presented in one of her sermons. No wonder we want our own women and others ordained if they can enlighten us with a new perspective as she does. She begins with the so often quoted command of Jesus, “Be not afraid.”:   

Never once have I stopped being afraid just because someone said that. 

I AM afraid. . . .

So maybe our hope for becoming unafraid is found in . . . the part where Jesus calls Herod a fox and then refers to himself as a mother hen.  

A mother hen.  

Maybe that beautiful image of God could mean something important for us: and by us I mean we fragile, vulnerable human beings who face very real danger. I can’t bear to say that this scripture is a description of what behaviors and attitudes you could imitate if you want to be a good, not-afraid person. But neither can I tell you that the Mother Hen thing means that God will protect you from Herod or that God is going to keep bad things from happening to you.  

Because honestly, nothing actually keeps danger from being dangerous.  

A mother hen cannot actually keep a determined fox from killing her chicks. So where does that leave us? I mean, if danger is real, and a hen can’t actually keep (her) chicks out of danger, then what good is this image of God as Mother Hen if faith in her can’t make us safe? 

Well, today I started to think that maybe it’s not safety that keeps us from being afraid.  

Maybe it’s love. 

Which means that a Mother Hen of a God doesn’t keep foxes from being dangerous . . . a Mother Hen of a God keeps foxes from being what determines how we experience the unbelievably beautiful gift of being alive. 

God the Mother Hen gathers all of her downy feathered, vulnerable little ones under God’s protective wings so that we know where we belong, because it is there that we find warmth and shelter.  

But Faith in God does not bring you safety.  

The fox still exists.  

Danger still exists.  

And by that I mean, danger is not optional, but fear is.   

Because maybe the opposite of fear isn’t bravery.  Maybe the opposite of fear is love. So in the response to our own Herods, in response to the very real dangers of this world we have an invitation as people of faith: which is to respond by loving.

There’s something about that thought, that the more feminine or other-gendered God is not with us to bring us safety. Instead, her/his/its/their true protection is love.

And I don’t see that as starry-eyed lofty idealism, as impractical, impossible – ludicrous even – in the face of the condition of the world today, for what is going to shield us all from destruction, devastation, war, killings, misery, and suffering? I think she may be right – love. And I don’t mean, and I don’t think she means, sloppy, sentimental, daisies-poked-into-rifles love, but the tough, rigorous, persistent kind: the kind that spurs diplomats to keep pursuing peace, that keeps drivers braving mined corridors in Ukraine, that keeps aid workers and everyday individuals staffing refugee sanctuaries night and day around the world, that keeps citizens opening their homes and pocketbooks to the persecuted and their needs, that keeps mouths fed, bodies sheltered, and hopes reawakened at borders, war zones, and in climate ravaged lands everywhere.

A mother hen can be fierce when it comes to her children, and it is that fierceness along with the way her wings spread long and wide in every direction that can be our model for the future.

Well, I wouldn’t be me if I ended with just a fierce mother hen image. I have to laud the choice of hen as the one bringing forth and nurturing new birth inherent in that image, too. It is, after all, Easter.

And so, here’s a short poem by Alan Amos we who are so often excluded from our spiritual homes might use for comfort and inspiration this season: