Mother Hen

SCRIPTURE: Luke 13:34 NIV Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.

THOUGHT: “Go to your core longings,” I was coached by several wise elders in the process of recovering from childhood abuse. “But why?” my ambivalent heart wanted to know. A confirmed people pleaser at 43, I couldn’t figure out what I wanted or who I was – it was confusing to try to answer what I longed for. But the coaches persisted. Every time I felt tears, or anger, or a coming meltdown, I was taught to listen deeply to what longing had been pricked. It would teach me more about who I was underneath layers of pleasing, perfectionism, and pretense. And it did.

Jesus had no such problem, still, he doesn’t talk often about his longings. He weeps over the death of his friend, Lazarus – and we can imagine a deep longing for death to be conquered. He becomes viscerally angry as he sees the marketing mess people have made of his Father’s House of Prayer and we construe it as a longing for what is holy to not be profaned. He sweats drops of blood and we can viscerally feel his longing for life, not death. But the only time Jesus gives voice to a longing is this saying which appears in Luke 13 and also Matthew 23.

If it is true that our longings teach us about who we most truly are, we see the heart of Jesus here. It is the heart of a shepherd who gathers, cares for, and protects his sheep. It is the heart of a mother hen, who marshals her vulnerable, playful, baby chicks to safety under her wings. The sheep flock to the shepherd; the chicks run to their mother…but the children Jesus longs for are running the other direction.

PRAYER: Great Shepherd, Great Prodigal God, Great Mother Hen, plant the image firmly in our heads that this is how you love and what you long for: your children, running to you for kindness and safety, full of trust. May it not be said of us that we were not willing.