Foxes and Chickens

Written by Marv Thiessen

Pastor Marv Thiessen

Calgary First Mennonite Church

February 28, 2010

 

FOXES AND CHICKENS

 

I. Introduction

I remember some of the classic children’s games like Red Rover, Red Rover or Drop the Handkerchief or Ante, Ante, Over and as I looked at the texts and ideas for this Sunday’s sermon, I thought I recalled that there was a children’s game called Foxes and Chickens as well. But I didn’t remember how the game was played. So I looked it up. The Internet is a wonderful thing for quick information when otherwise you might search for useless stuff for a long time. Anyway, I quickly found a set of rules for Foxes and Chickens.

Here is what I learned. The game can be played by any number of players greater than two, it appears to me. One player is the fox, one is the hen and the rest are chicks. The chicks line up behind the hen. Each chick holds on to the waist of the chick in front of them. The chicks must not let go. All the chickens march up to the fox who is sitting on the ground and say to the fox: "What are you doing old fox?" The fox replies "Picking up sticks." The hen and chicks ask, "What for?" The fox replies, "To make a fire." The hens and chicks ask, "What for?" The fox replies, "To cook a chicken." The hens and chicks ask, "Where will you get one?" The fox replies, "From your flock." The fox then jumps up and tries to catch the last person in the line. The mother hen has to guard them by turning this way and that to face the fox and holding out its wings to stop him getting past. When the fox manages to touch the last chick he takes it away to his pot and sits back down. The mother hen and her chicks come up to the fox and the same ritual of questions takes place followed by the ensuing chase. The game continues until all the chicks have been caught.

So, as in many active children’s games, this game includes an individual chasing others and trying to catch them. There are the hunters and the hunted in this game. As a result, thinking about this game serves well to introduce our theme for today. We’ll be thinking about the contrast between foxes and chickens, one hunting and the other protecting. We’ll be thinking about the ways in which we feel hunted in our lives and where to go for protection. And we’ll root all of this discussion in the text of Luke chosen for today, a text that includes people being compared to foxes and chickens.

II. The fox

We find the fox in our text, Luke 13:31-35, in the first verse. The fox is Herod, the ruler of the area in Israel in which Jesus was at this point in his story. Luke brings Herod to our attention because some Pharisees, Jewish religious leaders, come to Jesus and warn him that Herod wants to kill Jesus. This warning raises an interesting question. Were the Pharisees who conveyed the warning genuine? We tend to think, because the Gospels portray this on many occasions, that the Pharisees were opposed to Jesus and that they wouldn’t want to help Jesus in any way. We might then interpret this warning as deceptive. Perhaps the Pharisees wanted to manipulate Jesus into heading to Judea where they had more influence and could bring about harm to Jesus. I think, however, that we should probably read this warning as genuine. It’s not all Pharisees who were opposed to Jesus. We think of Nicodemus in John 3 who came to engage Jesus in conversation secretly and who responded positively to Jesus. We think of the unnamed Pharisee in the verses immediately following today’s text who invited Jesus to a meal at his house. We recognize that the Pharisees were not unified in their opposition to Jesus. We should probably understand that the particular Pharisees who warned Jesus about Herod in today’s text were genuinely concerned about Jesus’ well-being.

Perhaps we could make a parenthetical application to life here. Human beings often seem to be prone to make judgments about people based on their affiliations in life like race, ethnicity, religion or occupation. Recognizing that some Pharisees, part of a group that is generally understood to be opposed to Jesus, were not like the majority of them, should warn us against making judgments about people based on their affiliations. We should choose to view people with grace and charity rather than judgment based on their affiliations. We should make our conclusions about people based on the actions and attitudes of those people specifically rather than on generalizations about the groups to which they belong.

Returning to our main idea, we find Jesus responding to the Pharisees’ warning by telling them to convey his words to Herod, whom he calls "that fox." While we might use the descriptor, "fox," in a positive sense at times (although this appears to apply only to one gender of humans), when Jesus called Herod that fox, there was no possibility that it could have been understood positively. William Barclay says that the Jews regarded the fox as the slyest and most destructive of animals. Symbolically, a fox was a worthless and insignificant one. So Jesus was calling Herod that kind of person. We might reflect that it takes a rather brave individual to speak that way of a political ruler.

What Jesus told the Pharisees to convey to Herod was that Jesus was going to keep on doing what he was doing, driving out demons and healing people, the signs that demonstrated that the kingdom of God was present. He would keep on doing it until his job was finished. That seems to be his meaning when he says he will do this today, tomorrow and the third or next day since "the third day" was a phrase that suggested completion. He also seemed to indicate that he was confident that Herod wouldn’t actually kill him when he said that surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem. We recognize that this message to Herod demonstrated Jesus’ commitment. He would do what God told him to do and would not alter that because of the opposition of a human.

We reflect about the fox in the story, Herod. It is entirely possible that Herod wanted to kill Jesus. This same Herod had earlier killed John the Baptist and had wondered about who this Jesus was, considering that Jesus might somehow be John the Baptist come back to life. Luke tells us in chapter nine that Herod was perplexed about Jesus and wanted to see him. While this sounds innocent, we know that Herod had acted cruelly and violently in the past and that makes it entirely possible and perhaps even likely that Herod wanted to kill Jesus. If so, he was the hunting and pursuing fox. He was out to catch and kill Jesus.

When we consider that, we think about the foxes in our lives. Sometimes the foxes in our lives are people and sometimes they can be situations. All appear dangerous to us. All threaten peaceful, secure life. The other texts for this morning suggest people or situations where a fox was in view. Abraham, in Genesis 15, received a promise from God about many offspring. But he didn’t live to see that multitude of descendants come so he could have seen that situation in life as conspiring against him. David, in Psalm 27, spoke of evil men out to devour him and enemies attacking him. Paul, in Philippians 3:17-4:1, spoke of people who were enemies of the cross of Christ. Perhaps you can also readily identify people or situations that threaten your peaceful and secure lives. You understand what it is like to have a fox on your tail.

III. The chicken

When you live, being hunted by a fox, you need some kind of shelter. It seems ironic to think of the shelter that we would go to as being symbolized by a chicken, considering what a chicken usually symbolizes, but the next paragraph of our text leads us precisely to that thought.

I suppose it is because Jesus had just spoken the thought that no prophet could die outside of Jerusalem that his focus turned toward Jerusalem in the story told in our text from Luke. Jesus utters a lament for Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the place that has killed the prophets and stoned those that have been sent to it. It seems clear from those words that Jesus wishes it would have been different in Jerusalem, that Jerusalem would have gladly received the prophets God had sent and would have heeded their words. Instead, Jerusalem had rejected the prophets. Jesus then says that he has often longed to gather the people of Jerusalem together, and to bring them into his shelter the way that a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. When I think about what Jesus means with that statement, I suppose that he thinks of bringing them into connection and relationship with him. They have rejected God’s prophets before him and now they are rejecting him. They are not willing to be gathered together into God’s work that is occurring in Jesus.

Jesus then lets them know that he will not force the issue. He says that their house is left to them desolate. If they will not recognize the work that God is doing through Jesus on earth and come into that work, then he will allow them to choose their own desolation. When he says that they will not see him again until they say, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD," at the end of this section, he probably intends to say to them that they will in the end recognize him as sent by God. They can reject him now but one day they will come to see who he was.

Jesus, then, is calling Jerusalem to respond to him but noting that they have not done so historically. Like a hen calls its chicks into its secure embrace, Jesus has wanted to enfold Jerusalem in his secure embrace, but they have not been willing to come.

It seems to me that Jesus doesn’t use the hen and chick metaphor to speak of shelter as much as he does of belonging. Still, the metaphor of God relating to humans as a hen does to its chicks has meaning for us when we think of our need for shelter from the humans or situations in life that hunt us. Thinking of God’s relationship with humans as being like that of a hen sheltering its chicks is consistent with other biblical literature. The Psalms contain a number of instances where the writer speaks of finding shelter under the wings of God. I find it meaningful to think of God in that sense here in this passage because it functions so well in contrast to Herod, the fox, who would destroy God’s work on earth.

 

IV. The shelter

We conclude, then, by thinking about the shelter that God offers. Like a hen that opens its wings to offer a place of shelter to its chicks, God gives us shelter throughout life. We all experience situations in life when we feel hunted as a fox might hunt chickens. Our security, peace and well-being are threatened. The Bible tells us that we can count on God’s shelter in those situations. We don’t always understand it or recognize it when it occurs but it is present in our lives.

I mentioned Psalm 27 earlier. In that Psalm, David spoke of his day of trouble and of enemies attacking him. He expressed confidence that God would keep him safe and give him shelter. He concluded the Psalm with rousing words of trust and faith, words that singer-songwriter Bryn Haworth committed to song some 25 years ago. I thought we should conclude this sermon with that song and the words of the Psalmist.

I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

So wait for the Lord and let your heart take courage.

Wait for the Lord and be strong.