Sermon: “Hen and Chicks," Lent, March 17, 2025

Luke’s Gospel: Jesus and the Outsiders, Outcasts, and Outlaws

Scripture: Luke 13:31-35

Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

Title: “Hen and Chicks”

“’Twas in another lifetime,
 one of toil and blood,
 when blackness was a virtue,
 and the road was filled with mud.

I came in from the wilderness,
 a creature void of form,
 come in, she said, I’ll give ya
 shelter from the storm.”[i]

These words are, of course, from one of the greatest songs ever written or performed. If you’ve never heard this, it’s “Shelter from the Storm;” by the Nobel-prize winning Bob Dylan, one of the greatest songwriters ever. On his classic 1975 album “Blood on the Tracks.” One of the greatest albums ever made. All this according to one of the most trustworthy music critics ever: little old me.

Blood on the Tracks is well known as Dylan’s “breakup album.” In that it came on the heals of his divorce from his first wife, Sarah Lownds. Some songs are bitter, some bittersweet, some angry, some lovely. But all the songs on the album have in common is their subject matter: the nature of love and longing. “Shelter from the Storm” being no exception. It’s a song all about a man who is beaten up, beleaguered, and betrayed by the world, who finds rest, who finds comfort, relief, and safety, in the unconditional love of a woman.

The woman—we could assume is Sarah his ex-wife. But it doesn’t say. All we know is that this woman, whoever she is, has been for him like being let into a bomb shelter during a hurricane. A reprieve from all kinds of worry, and pain.

This song has been in my head a lot lately—even though it’s been months since I actually listened to it. Which has led me to wonder—apart from the fact that it is one catchy tune-- “why?” Why this song, and why now?

It hit me while I was listening to the radio—they were talking about politics, and they use the word “chaos.” They were talking about economics, and they used the word “uncertainty.” Chaos and uncertainty together, they said, has created for us a “perfect storm.” A perfect storm.

I am pretty sure I’ve been thinking about this song a lot lately because of all the chaos, and uncertainty. The fear, the anger, the helplessness that has been swirling around us. Not only in the last few months, but the last few years, though it might just feel a little more intense. Though it could be said that we live in one of the most stable times in human history, it sure doesn’t often feel that way. Based on what we read online, what we overhear at the coffeeshop, and the vulnerabilities of our private conversations, these are some anxiety-inducing days. So I’ve been thinking about this song I think, because—gosh—shelter from this storm would be mighty welcome right about now.

Now, what exactly you may ask, do Bob Dylan and economic uncertainty have to do with the scriptures?

Well, maybe you’ve heard that phrase, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” As different as our times may seem, Jesus and the New Testament emerged during a “perfect storm” of great political turmoil and instability. Occupying armies, political unrest and persecution, poverty and injustice. Not to mention the heightened pains that come with simply trying to scratch a living—a living before electricity or modern medicine.

The details are different, but the ancients knew what it meant to be scared. To be worried about the future. For themselves and their children.

And, like us, they looked for shelter, peace and safety in very similar places.

Like us, some of them tucked themselves in among the various distractions of wealth. Like us, some of them wrapped themselves in various forms of spirituality for solace, while others piled in to politics for protection. Like us, some withdrew from society for relief in their own righteousness—that as long as they did and said all the right things they would be spared. While others placed their bets on Messiahs who would gallop in and solve all of their problems. Usually with a sword. And some of them just drank themselves senseless, using whatever they had on hand to dull the pain.

It's been said that history may not repeat, but it does rhyme. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

We all know where other people are looking for shelter, of course. Especially those people we don’t like, or see as the problem. But I want you to take a moment and think. When the world starts to close in, where do you run? Who or what do you run to? when life starts to run out of control? Where do you find shelter?

Now the truth is that just about every place we run to will crack or crumble at some point. I mean, some options will withstand a lot. But will eventually fall apart. In our scripture for today, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, the heavenly city. The holy heart of God’s people. There the temple, this incredible building stood, where the presence of God was thought to dwell. God’s house! If there was a place of permanence, of refuge—It was the heavenly city. Under the Lord’s protection.

And you know, Jesus comes along and says the whole thing’s gonna be rubble. People didn’t believe him. But he was right. Just a few decades after Jesus’ death the Romans leveled it to the ground. Even the most trustworthy places of sanctuary was gone. For the the second time, actually. Where do you turn?

And the thing is that, though it’s destined to happen, Jesus doesn’t seem like he wants it happen. He’s heading to Jerusalem, even though he knows exactly what’s in store for him there. “It is impossible,” he says. “It is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” “Jerusalem!” he laments, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” 

Here Jesus sees himself as a character in the scriptures, in the story of God’s people. Remember, prophets are people given what the late great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called “divine perspective.” They are given “the sense of the human situation as a divine emergency.”[ii] Prophets are folks sent by the LORD to God’s people to warn them to change their ways, or else calamity will occur. Problem is that Jerusalem has a history of not liking what prophets have to say! Jesus is going to Jerusalem, in spite of the risk, because he wants Jerusalem to live! Just like every other prophet before him.

Now, there’s something that Jesus says next, however, that’s kinda weird. 

“Jerusalem!” he says. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

“I’m a mother chicken,” says the Lord. I mean, It’s not the kind of thing just about anyone says. It’s not the kind of thing prophets usually say, specifically.

No. But there is someone in Israel’s scriptures who talks like this. Somebody in the Biblical tradition who calls herself a hen. Anybody know who that is?

God. It’s God.

You know, often the Bible can be criticized for its use of masculine imagery for God, like Father, Son, Lord, King, to the exclusion of feminine imagery for God. And you know, fair enough. But here Jesus pictures himself not only as a hen, a female chicken. But as a Mother Hen. One brooding over their chicks, and sheltering them in her nest with her wings. It’s, like, double feminine.

And it doesn’t come out of nowhere. Right there in Genesis 1, God’s spirit, it says “brooded over the waters” of chaos at Creation. In the Old Testament, we have Moses complaining that God gave birth to Israel, but God expects Moses to feed them. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast?” the prophet Isaiah asks Israel, “that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” And the specific image of sheltering, motherly wings shows up in Psalm 17, 57 and 61 as metaphors for the divine presence that sustained and protected God’s people from their enemies.[iii] The imagery is all over the place, and it’s God.

In referring to himself as a mother hen, Jesus is doing two things. First, he’s establishing that he’s not just a prophet, speaking for the Lord. He is speaking as the LORD. God’s wisdom in the flesh[iv]. And second, he’s speaking as the Lord who longs to be a refuge, to be that shelter. Even for those are unwilling. Outside him, they will be left to their own devices. But with him they will be safe.[v] Safe from predators like Herod, safe from all the anxiety, safe from all the fear, and the chaos. Protected, nurtured. As chicks in the shadow of their mother’s wings. In him they will find the only hiding place, the only sanctuary that will last, will never fail: the Creator of heaven and earth. “Come in,” she says, “I’ll give ya… shelter from the storm.”

Just imagine… so silly! Homeless Rabbi says all safety and all shelter from life’s storms can be found in him. Imagine how much more silly it would sound after he was crucified! Like “not so safe, now, are ya?” Even the disciples–the little chicks who did gather–scattered all over the place, open to the predators of fear yet again. Only after his resurrection did they know that what he said was true. Only then did they know that they were safe. Safe from the chaos, safe from judgment for their sins, safe from fear. Even in death, nothing could come between them and their mother hen. Whoda thought they’d find it all in a guy who compared himself to a hen in a nest. In a guy who died on a cross. But that’s exactly where they found that safety. The shelter they’d always longed for.

That’s where the early Christians found it. And the promise of the Gospel is that this is where you and I will find it, too. By this I don’t mean a sort of condescending, generic “comfort in religion.” Like, pat you on the head and say, there, we know how y’all are too weak and feeble minded to accept the truth. But a real truth for you and I. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Like, really. You and I have a shelter. That on account of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, you and I have a shelter that will not fall apart or fade or fail.

It’s why we come to church every Sunday. To be clear–the church isn’t what gives us that sense of safety–it never could! The church is made up of flawed, finite human beings. We’re Just a bunch of little chicks, if left to their own devices are gonna be caught by something, or see something shiny and run off a cliff. The last thing you want to say to people is “I go to church for the chicks!”

But in all seriousness apart from the Mother Hen, we really have no idea what we’re doing! The church is more like the nest we gather together in, to be brooded over by the Holy Spirit. Just like God brooded over the waters in Genesis 1. To incubate within us comfort over anxiety. To gestate a sense of courage over fear. To hatch within us a sense of hope over hopelessness that can never be crushed. No matter what the rest of life looks like.

At our Board meeting a few months ago, one of our Elders said flat out that everybody around them seems terrified, but they just feel a sense of calm. That everything’s gonna be alright. That’s the promise of the gospel. On account of the gospel, no storm can shake our inward calm. Because love commands heaven and earth, how can we keep from singing?

In a world full of chaos and threat. In a world full of predators, those who seek refuge–-not in all the other fleeting distractions, in all the falsities and all the empty promises of this world. That’s the promise. That those who truly seek refuge will find what they are looking for in the safety of Jesus Christ. Those who have searched for peace everywhere else will find it in the shadow of the Lord’s wings. Even you. Especially you.

Ask, dear friends, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock on this coop. And it will be opened unto you. “Come in,” she says, “I’ll give ya. Shelter from the storm.”

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the

[i] Bob Dylan, “Shelter from the Storm,” Blood on the Tracks, Columbia Records, 1975.

[ii] Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets: an Introduction (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 3.

[iii] David L. Tiede, “Luke,” in The Harper Collins Study Bible, fully rev. ed. gen. ed. Harold W. Attridge (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 1792.

[iv] R. Alan Culpepper, “Luke,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, vol. IX (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 271.

[v] “Jerusalem will not seek its security in the protective wings of heaven-sent wisdom. So it will be like a helpless fledgling.” Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, The Gospel According to Luke, vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1985), 101.