Download Sermon on Fox, Deer, Hen

The Fox, the Hen and the Deer
Luke 13: 31-35
Rev. Gerry Kush Gregersen
February 24, 2013
I’m going to begin this sermon today by asking you to close your eyes and to
conjure up in your mind’s eye your image of God. What does God look like to you?
Now I have to admit that when I’m asked to do this exercise, what comes to mind
first is Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel of God creating
Adam. We’re all familiar with that image of a powerfully masculine God, a mature
father-figure with a long white beard, flowing white hair, intense eyes, and the muscular
arm stretched out in the act of creating the first human being. It’s an arresting and even
awesome image that sticks with you. But, even though Michelangelo’s amazing work of
art is what I may see when asked to visualize God, that’s not really how I would describe
my concept of God, and my guess is most of you wouldn’t either. If I were to ask you to
think of qualities that you associate with God, if you’re like me, at the top of the list
would probably be that God is “unconditionally loving.” Many of you would add words
like nurturing, forgiving, comforting, all-embracing, compassionate, generous, healing,
and as someone who listens to you. And so when we combine that image on the ceiling of
the Sistine chapel with the qualities I just described, it’s not surprising that a word we
often use to convey our sense of God is “Father”.
For many of us it’s a wonderful image, this image of God as a loving, caring,
protecting, powerful Father. But it’s not an image that works for everyone. I’ve heard
people say things like, “When I was growing up, my father was not the type of man who
was a good representative of God. If that’s what God is like, I’ll have to do without God
in my life.” And then there was the little girl whose letter appeared in the book, A
CHILD’S LETTERS TO GOD. She wrote, “ Dear God: Are boys really better than
girls? I know you are one, but please try to be fair.”
That little girl is saying something important. She’s saying that her concept of
God is as a man, because of the language and symbols she’s been taught that convey the
sense of God. And yet, if you listen to those qualities I listed that we often associate with
God, many of them sound quite feminine or motherly. Words like nurturing,
comforting, someone who listens to you.
The linguist Benjamin Whorf contended that language has a lot to say about the
way we think. According to his hypothesis, different languages impose different
conceptions of reality. He believed that language actually shapes a person’s basic ideas.
For example, the Hopi Indians have no past tense of their verbs. Therefore, Whorf said,
the Hopi cannot very readily think about the past.
Scholars have debated Whorf’s thesis, and while it may be too strong to say that
language determines the way we think, certainly the words we use can influence what we
think. For example: What do you think of when I say the word “bird”? When I say the
word “cat”? When I say the word “man”? When you imagined a bird or a cat, you
probably didn’t imagine or even think about the animal’s gender. Yet, when you
imagined “man”, I’d bet you visualized a male person. And so, even though the terms
“man” and “mankind” are purported to be inclusive of and non-gender specific, they
are in fact exclusive to the male gender.
In some ways, it does appear that as soon as we use language, we lose something.
When we use language to talk about who we think God is, we lose something, because
God is beyond our language or any language. Yet, how can we finite creatures talk
about God without using our language?
When we try to describe the awesome and wondrous mystery of God with words,
we cannot help but use gender imagery. This is because there is so much richness in
masculinity and so much richness in femininity. Yet, any word or image that describes
God is simply that: a word which describes God. It is not Godself. It’s a concept. It’s
what the Buddhists call the finger pointing to the moon. The concept or image is the
finger that points, but it’s not the moon. As creatures of the earth, we can’t accurately
describe or define transcendence. So we use words as symbols that point to God, sort of
like metaphysical bridges.
Like the symbol of Father. To say that God is our Father, for example, is not to
say that God is the biological father of each one of us (Although there are some who
would argue that point; they get the finger confused with the moon!). Rather, it’s to say
that something about the nature of God is LIKE that of a loving father.
Of course, Jesus called God “Father.” But he also said “Abba”, which we
translate roughly as “Daddy”. Why didn’t he say Father all the time? Perhaps because
in ancient times, a father was typically authoritarian, emotionally distant, and viewed
his children more as economic assets than as beings equal to himself. By contrast, the
term “Daddy” is a personal term. It conveys a sense of relationship and closeness. This is
the God Jesus related to so intimately.
There are other Biblical words that can help us relate to God intimately. Let’s
take a look at some of the references to God as mother in the Bible, like in today’s
passage. Jesus has just finished calling Herod a fox, which itself is a striking image. In
the Greek that was a derogatory term that meant a scheming or crafty person. It was an
image Jesus used to make the point that his mission to enter Jerusalem would not be
thwarted by threats from Herod. But then as Jesus looks with sadness about Jerusalem
and how its people will surely reject him, he uses quite another image to talk about
himself. He says, “How often have I desired to gather your children as a hen gathers her
brood together.” Here is Jesus, who is the fullest representation we have of who God is,
comparing himself to a mother hen who covers her chicks with her wings and gives them
protection and safety.
And here’s another example from the book of Deuteronomy: “As the eagle stirs
up her nest, flutters over her young, spreading out her wings, catching them and bearing
them on her pinions, so the Lord has led you.” Do you know what this illustrates? The
mother eagle stirs up the nest where her young are resting, so they have no choice but to
get out of it and learn to fly, which they need to do in order to survive. As the young ones
make their fledgling attempt to raise their wings, the mother eagle watches. If they fail
in their first attempt and fall, she swoops down and scoops them up and returns them to
the nest, to try again some other time.
And isn’t this a great description of the way God relates to us? God encourages
us to try new things and nudges us to move beyond the place where we’re all safe and
secure. And when we try our wings, God watches us with a guiding hand, ready to
swoop down and scoop us up if we fail., and gently place us back in the nest until we
might be more ready to take a risk or face a challenge.
Here’s still another picture of a maternal God from the prophet Isaiah. “As one
whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you.” “To comfort” is a stronger word in
Hebrew than we think of in English. It means “with strength,” that is, the strength of the
comforter fortifies and renews the one being comforted.
And then there are the
parables of Jesus. Take a look at Luke 15, the three “lost and found” stories. First is the
parable of the lost sheep, then the parable of the lost son, then the parable of the lost
coin. In the first parable, God is imaged as a shepherd, which isn’t actually gender
specific because in the ancient world, both males and females worked as shepherds. In
the second parable, God is imaged as a patient father; in the third parable, God is
imaged as a woman who’s a careful housekeeper. So we have one parable of both male
and female images for God, a parable of a male image for God, and a parable of a
female image for God. God the Shepherd seeks us when we have strayed from the fold;
God the Father seeks us when we have rebelled. And God the housekeeper seeks us
when the clutter of life threatens to overwhelm us.
Is this some new radical feminist idea? I don’t thinks so. Remember that in the
earliest days of the Church just after Jesus left the earth, before everything got all
organized and church law established, there were a lot of different ideas and truths
about Jesus being espoused. As time went on, the Early Church saw that there are three
truths about God they could affirm. It became important to agree upon some common
beliefs because other religions and cults were pressing on them and threatening to
destroy the uniqueness of what Christians had experienced.
As I share them, perhaps you could try to imagine yourself among them and ask
if there anything that’s gender specific about them. The first truth about God they
affirmed is that
God is unknowable. There is no particular earthly thing that God actually is – not
Father or Mother, or Shepherd. God is beyond our earth, our universe, our galaxy, and
beyond our comprehension. God cannot be manipulated by us, organized by us,
controlled by us, or domesticated by us.
This is such a significant point, because as we are so aware in this century, many
of the problems and pains of the world are caused by people who think they have God in
their hip pocket. I’m reminded of the story about Lincoln when he was considering
whether to go to war against the South. He was conferring with a cabinet member, who
turned to Lincoln and said, “Well, we know God is on our side.” With his usual patience
and wisdom, Lincoln responded, “I am more concerned about whether we are on God’s
side.” He had the appropriate humility about the unknowableness of God.
The second truth the earliest Christians affirmed is that God is inexhaustible.
God is limitless. God’s existence is timeless. God’s power has no bounds; God’s love is
without end. Whatever we understand of God’s power and how it’s expressed, there is
always more of it to try to grasp.
The third truth the earliest Christians affirmed is that God Has manifested
Godself in the person and work of Jesus the Christ. Now, certainly it’s true that Jesus
was a male. But he was a fully integrated human being with qualities which are typically
termed masculine and qualities which are typically termed feminine. He was a male in
body, but integrated in emotions and spirit.
On the masculine side, Jesus was a carpenter and very skilled. He provided for
his family after the death of his father. He matched wits with the most logical minds of
his day; he was the impetus for a movement that has become the largest and most
powerfully impacting movement in human history. He made provision for the care of his
mother when his own death was imminent.
On the feminine side, he had keen intuition people and places, even to the extent
that he knew, without turning and looking when someone had touched the hem of his
robe. He wept. He defended children. He had holy wisdom, which in the Greek is
“Sophia.”
Pope John Paul 1, in a public audience once said, “God is Father, but above all,
God is Mother.” He was echoing the words of Saint Anselm from the 11th century, who
wrote this beautiful prayer: “And you, Jesus, are you not also a mother? Are you not the
Mother who, like a hen, gathers her chickens under her wings?”
So we come to the question, Who is God for you? Is God like a rock? A friend? A
shield? A comforter? Is God ever like a mother for you? The notion of God as only
father has been a stumbling block for many, especially women who have been abused or
abandoned by their earth fathers or husbands. And so for them, and for all of us,
perhaps we need to broaden our names for God.
Here’s a story, and I have Jamie’s permission to tell it. While I was driving her to
an appointment after she’d received her cancer diagnosis, suddenly right in front of us
on Route 3 came 2 deer sort of trotting across the road. We both gasped, not because I
almost hit them, which I didn’t, but because one of them was white with brown
markings on it like an Appaloosa. It was stunning, one of those once-in-a-lifetime chance
encounters. Jamie immediately said, “I’m taking that as a good omen”.
Well, when Jamie told a mutual friend of ours about the deer the friend sent her
this story:
One day Fawn heard Great Spirit calling to her from the top of Sacred
Mountain. Fawn immediately started up the trail She didn’t know that a horrible demon
guarded the way to Great Spirit’s lodge. The demon was trying to keep all the beings of
creation from connecting with Great Spirit. He wanted all of Great Spriit’s creatures to
feel that Great Spirit didn’t want to be disturbed. This would make the demon feel
powerful, and capable of causing them to fear him.
Fawn wasn’t afraid at all when she came upon the demon. This was curious, as
the demon was the archtype of all the ugly monsters that have ever been. The demon
breathed fire and smoke and made disgusting sounds to frighten Fawn. Any normal
creature would have fled or died on the spot from fear.
But Fawn just said gently to the deomn, “Please let me pass. I’m on the way to
see Great Spirit.”
Fawn’s eyes were filled with love and compassion for this bug bully of a demon.
The demon was amazed at Fawn’s lack of fear. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t
frighten her, because her love had penetarated his hardened, ugly heart. Much to the
demon’s dismay, his rock-hard heart began to melt, and his body schrank to the size of a
walnut. Faun’s love and gentleness had caused this meltdown. Because of the gentleness
and caring the Fawn embodied, the pathway is now clear for all of Great Spirit’s
children to reach Sacred Mountain without having to feel the demons of fear blocking
their way.
The sotry goes on to say the Fawn had a dappled coat, like the one we saw cross
Route 3.
I love this story because, first of all, it affirms Jamie’s instinct that the dappled
deer we saw was a good sign and that she doesn’t have to fear what lies ahead. But I also
love it because Fawn knows there are a lot of folks who are frightened away from
seeking God because of the monsters -- or the foxes -- that have blocked their path.
Maybe the monsters were images that in their experience made God seem distant, or
uncaring, or even abusive. Maybe the monsters were people who had put God in a little
box and said “this is God and this is what you have to believe in.” What Fawn teaches
us is that if we try to make our words and our images about God into God, then we
ourselves may be the ones blocking the way. So, let’s follow Fawn’s gentle lead and let’s
clear that path. And let us let God be God, whoever and whatever he or she may be.
Amen.