![The steeple of the Memorial Church](/sites/g/files/omnuum7126/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2025-02/160725ChurchCalArt4.jpg?itok=rG9ZvXzh) # Second Sunday in Lent March 20, 2025 - [ Blog ](/news-categories/blog) *By the Rev. Alanna Sullivan* Associate Minister and *Director of Administration* *The Memorial Church of Harvard University* *(The following is a transcript of the service audio, March 16, 2025)* Will you pray with me? May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts and minds be acceptable in Your sight. Oh, God, our rock and redeemer. Amen. Our gospel lesson for today finds Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. A group of Pharisees have come to warn Jesus. He must leave the area where he is teaching and healing. Herod wants to kill Him. Herod, the very same person who ordered John the Baptist's arrest and beheading not too long ago. And it can be difficult to truly know what the motives of the Pharisees are in this story. However, if they are looking out for Jesus's safety, it nuances their portrayal in the rest of the gospel. What is clear is Jesus's response to their warning. He will not be deterred. "Go and tell Herod, that fox, for me. Listen, I'm casting out demons, performing cures today and tomorrow. And on the third day, I finish my work." So why does Jesus not heed their warning and seek safety? Quite simply, He has work to do, and it is not finished. To borrow words from the beloved Black spiritual, "I ain't got time to die." He knows what his fate will be. And yet, He presses on. He won't change course, not for the Pharisees, not for Herod, not for anyone. And then, Jesus goes on to call Jerusalem the city that rejects God's messengers and kills prophets. He references the fact that a number of prophets were killed there. Uriah, Zechariah, and in later legends, Isaiah. He also claims that prophets cannot be killed outside the city. Now, this is not actually true, but I wonder what Jesus is trying to say beneath those words. Preacher and writer, Barbara Brown Taylor, points out that the Gospel of Luke begins and ends in the temple in Jerusalem. It's here that Zechariah learns that he and Elizabeth will have a child. Mary and Joseph bring their own child to the temple when the time comes. Simeon and Anna deliver their prophecies there, and Jesus returns when he is 12 years old and begins teaching. Taylor writes, "All told, Luke mentions Jerusalem 90 times in his gospel, while all the other New Testament writers combined mention it only 49. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Luke loves this place. So rich in history and symbol, so dense with expectation and fear, Jerusalem is the dwelling place of God. The place where God's glory shall be revealed. Nothing that happens in Jerusalem is insignificant. When Jerusalem obeys God, the world spins peacefully on its axis. And when Jerusalem ignores God, the whole planet wobbles." Harvard Memorial Church ยท The Rev. Alanna C. Sullivan - March 16, 2025 | Sunday Sermon And so, Jesus knows what awaits there. And this holy city is not a random place for Him, it is a place that He is tethered to returning again and again. It's here that He comes to know Himself. In many ways, it's home for Him. And thereby, it makes the pain and anguish of the betrayal that awaits Him all that more acute. And Jesus then deploys an interesting metaphor to further illustrate how He feels, "How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing." Now, if I was truly honest, I was a bit underwhelmed when I first read that line. Jesus says that he's like a mother hen protecting her chicks. Now, I certainly appreciate more feminine and maternal imagery in the Bible. I truly wish there was so more of that in Scripture. But surely, Jesus could conjure a stronger animal to stand up to that fox. Perhaps an eagle or a cow or a horse. Yet, when you spend some time reading the Gospel of Luke, it becomes clear that this unassuming hen is just about right. For in Luke, there is that persistent intent for Jesus to bring those on the margins of society to the center of God's heart. It's what liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez called God's preferential option for the poor. For it is in Luke that a poor, pregnant teenager is bold enough to sing of revolution. The shepherds are the first to receive the news of the Messiah's arrival. In Luke, Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal one who is welcomed home by his dad with compassion that overflows and a love that is unconditional. It's in Luke that Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan to those who might joke that a dead Samaritan is the only kind of good Samaritan. And in this rendering of the gospel, there is a thief who finds the kingdom of God dying next to Jesus on the cross. So in Luke, when Jesus chooses a mother hen scorned by her chicks, a bereft parent to embody His full-bodied, big-hearted love for this broken world, it seems just about right. So what might this mother hen have to teach us about Jesus? And furthermore, what might the hen embody for us how Christ wants us to care for one another? Now, Jesus never says that the fox isn't dangerous. He may mock Herod as a fox. Yet, He never argues that the mother hen can outwit or outmaneuver the fox. As one commentary puts it, the Bible consistently depicts evil as dangerous and predatory. With the fox, no one can flirt with it without risking one's life, so the threat is real. The mother hen cannot shield her chicks from the dangers or pains of the world, just as Jesus cannot make His followers or us immune from experiencing the agonies and traumas of life. And yet, it is right there, amidst that danger, that the mother hen plucks herself down and opens her wings, so that her wet chicks can take shelter. And although the hen is exposed, she's not meek or mild. As my friends with chickens have told me, chickens are not to be trifled with. When a predator approaches, they will stand their ground. They swell with indignation and fear and courage. There's this added poignancy that the hen herself is just as vulnerable as her chicks, for it is in those moments of feeling weak, bare, and raw that Jesus meets us. Christ comes alongside us even in our most brittle of moments. And the shelter that the mother hen provides is not so much a permanent protection but momentary refuge. Now, shelter is different from escape. Escape seeks to be permanent. It's a complete removal. Shelter, on the other hand, is temporary, often constructed with what's on hand. Shelter provides us with a refuge just long enough that we gain the strength, the courage, and the energy to face what lies on the outside. I'm reminded of how five years ago, to this very week, that we were told to seek shelter in place as the COVID pandemic stopped the world. We sought shelter, but knew there was no escape. We longed to rejoin the world, but only by seeking shelter were we able to do so. And so, even with the mother hen's wings extended and her heart laid bare, some of her chicks still reject her. They refuse that shelter, that love that she offers. So why might we resist the shelter that is sometimes offered to us? Well, perhaps we are dutiful. We feel the responsibility to soldier on as Jesus did. We don't want to abandon our post. We don't want to let others down by stepping away. Perhaps we're proud. We can do it ourselves. We're self-sufficient. We don't need help from others. Maybe we are oblivious. We are unaware of the danger that surrounds us. We think, "Oh, that can never happen here. That will never happen to me." Yet, as I think, many of us a part of this institution are learning in real-time right now. All of us are in need of shelter at times. So like a mother hen, Jesus so fiercely and tenderly loves the City of Jerusalem. He weeps for its lost and wandering children who will not accept the shelter He offers. Harbor Brown Teller puts it this way, "If you've ever loved someone you could not protect, then you understand the depths of Jesus's lament. All you can do is open your arms, but you cannot make anyone walk into them." And I don't think one has to be a mourning parent to intimately know the gnaw of grief, the anguish that can accompany work unacknowledged, dreams deferred, unrequited love, and institutional rejection. It is a sobering reality to know that even our love might not be enough sometimes. Yet, I still find hope in the tears of Jesus. There is hope in the honesty that lament offers us. As the psalmist said, God keeps track of our sorrows. God collects our tears and records each one. We cannot be shielded from the dangers and evils of the world. The refuge we are offered or offer one another may only be temporary. It might be tempting to place our trust in the sharp teeth and the cleverness of the fox. Yet, we know there is no winning at the game of life. Life is too complicated to be divided into winners and losers. There is no way for us to outfox grief or sorrow. So this Lenten season, let us be brave enough to love like a hen. For the hen is the one who loves us almost recklessly, the one who finds us in the darkness, the one who loves us no matter the distance we have wandered, no matter the level of betrayal, the one who loves us with a tenderness and a ferocity that cannot be shaken, and the one who knows that love will always have the last word. May it be so. ## Full Sunday Sermon See also:- [ Sunday Service ](/blog-categories/sunday-service) - [ Sunday Service ](/archive/sunday-service) - [ Sermon ](/archive/sermons) - [ Alanna C. Sullivan ](/sermon-topics/alanna-copenhaver) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)