“Mother Hen” based on Psalm 118:1-6, 26-29 and Luke…

March 13, 2022
by Sara Baron

There are these contrasts in the Bible, these ways that
what is written is so shocking that we can’t even hear it most of the
time. Human brains are mostly set on autopilot, and we conflate what
we hear with what we already believe to be true. This can make it
hard to hear the Bible as it is, because we end up softening edges
that are actually quite hard!

Specifically, I think it could be easy to hear Jesus
say, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as
a hen gathers her brood under her wings” and think, “aw, that’s
sweet, Jesus loves me and wants to protect me.” Which, I grant
you, is a part of the meaning. But, it overlooks the radicalness of
that meaning.

Debie Thomas starts to explain it this way:

Here’s what I find so startling about the image.
If maternal power, acumen, or success were the characteristics Jesus
wanted to emphasize in his choice of metaphor, he could have used any
number of more appropriate Old Testament images to make his point.
God as enraged she-bear (Hosea 13:8). God as soaring mother
eagle (Deuteronomy 32:11-12). God as laboring woman (Isaiah
42:14). God as mom of a healthy, happy toddler (Psalm 131:2).
God as skilled midwife (Psalm 22:9-10). But those are not the
images he chooses. Instead, on this second Sunday in Lent,
Luke’s gospel invites us to contemplate Jesus as a mother hen whose
chicks don’t want her. Though she stands with her wings wide open,
offering welcome, belonging, and shelter, her children refuse to come
home to her. Her wings — her arms — are empty.
This, in other words, is a mother bereft. A mother in
mourning. A mother struggling with failure and futility.¹

Whoa.

And, I think, since this is about Jerusalem which was
the Jewish center of power and influence (and lack of power and lack
of influence), and because Luke’s gospel was written AFTER the
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, I don’t think we’re supposed to
miss the contrast between a mother hen reaching out empty wings and
wishing to protect her chicks with…the golden eagle that the Roman
Empire used as a symbol of its imperial power.

This is where we are dealing with God and Jesus upending
our expectations. In a contrast between an eagle and a chicken, we’d
expect God to be the eagle, RIGHT? (We do have that imagery in
Deuteronomy, as Debie mentioned.) But, no. Here we have a contrast
between a strong predator and a vulnerable prey, and we’re told that
Jesus is like the prey- and WORSE, like the prey trying with all her
might to protect her even more vulnerable young and failing to do so.

This sort of turns my stomach.

I see in my head Ukrainian and Ethiopian mothers holding
their babies while bombs drop around them.

But, that also clarifies the image for me. If bombs are
dropping on mothers hovering over their babies to try to keep them
alive, and the choice is to see God in the bombs or in the mothers,
then the choice is easy – God is the one hovering trying to
protect, even when God can’t protect.

It still turns my stomach though.

And I can see why people might prefer to think of God in
the power of the bomb rather than the powerlessness of the mother. I
think we’d expect the eagle, not the mother hen. But, that’s not the
God we worship.

I don’t think it can be ignored that Luke is using this
passage to foreshadow Jesus’s death and resurrection. The Jesus
seminar believes this whole passage to be a creation of Luke, a way
he was trying to make sense of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.

The Pharisees are warning Jesus that if he doesn’t
change his ministry, he’ll get killed. This is true. But Jesus
responds that he isn’t done doing the work he needs to do. They want
him to be afraid, and have that fear change his path. Jesus seems to
understand, but he holds strong in the face of the fear. He knows
his own vulnerability, he understands it, but he doesn’t let it
change his path. A mother hen is vulnerable, but she still stretches
out her wings for the MORE vulnerable chicks.

The mother hen metaphor fits terrifyingly well with the
reality of Jesus’s impending death. Debie Thomas writes, “Yes,
Jesus mocks Herod by calling him a fox. But he never argues
that the fox isn’t dangerous. He never promises his children
immunity from harm. I mean, let’s face it — if a determined
fox wants to kill a brood of downy chicks, he will find a way to do
so. What Jesus the mother hen offers is not the absence of
danger, but the fullness of his unguarded, open-hearted, wholly
vulnerable self in the face of all that threatens and scares us.”²

This, of course, suggests that the sort of strength God
offers, the sort of strength God asks for from us, isn’t the golden
eagle or bomb kind. It is the vulnerable kind.

That’s the world-turned-upside-down-by-faith bit. What
on earth is vulnerable strength? (Except maybe everything?) Isn’t
that just strength in weakness? Yeah. It probably is. That’s the
God being unexpected thing. Vulnerable strength is a mother hen,
with wings open, ready to protect any chick willing to huddle under
them, when even she herself may be swept away, but if she is, the
chicks may be able to live.

To get good at vulnerability as strength though,
probably doesn’t require having to practice at the threat of life
level. To be ready to do that sort of vulnerability requires
practice with the so-called easy stuff, to build up our vulnerability
muscles. Vulnerability is saying, “I’m scared,” or “I’m sad,”
rather than putting on a mask of impenetrability and pushing through.
Vulnerability is saying, “I don’t know,” and taking the risk
someone might think we’re ill-informed, or “I can’t” when someone
might find you weak (or not trying hard enough.) Vulnerability is
allowing ourselves to see other people’s pain without looking away or
running to a quick fix. (This. Is. Hard.)

Vulnerability is staying with our own pain, rather than
pushing it away, or pushing it down, running to a quick fix, or
trying to push it off on someone else. (#blame).

For many Christians, the “incarnation” is the
ultimate example of vulnerability. The idea is that God who is GOD,
the creator of all that is, takes on human vulnerability, pain, and
mortality in the form of Jesus, and in doing so moves from
invulnerable to vulnerable to be with us.

Truth be told, I have never resonated with that even
when theologians I otherwise adore say so. A friend of mine, for
whom incarnation is one of the most important parts of his faith,
laughed at me once about that and said, “but aren’t you a
panentheist?” (Translation: don’t you believe that God is
EVERYWHERE, in EVERYTHING, and all that is exists within the Divine?)
Well, yes, I am. He said, so doesn’t that make the incarnation sort
of… redundant for you?

That was a helpful ah ha moment, because, for me it is.
(If you are a person who derives great meaning from incarnation,
please know that you are in the majority, and I’m the odd one out,
but I’m going to keep talking because sometimes others are also “odd
ones out” and like to know they aren’t alone.)

I believe God already has all the vulnerability in the
world – literally. God is with ALL those who are struggling, in
EVERY way. I believe in a vulnerable God.

Which is to say that I believe vulnerability is sacred.

And, because I try to practice it regularly, I believe
vulnerability is really, really hard work. Especially when one is
trying to practice vulnerability for the sake of honesty and
connection, and modeling that none of us are impenetrable – but
trying to do that without causing undo harm to others. The balance
is not easy to find, and I am quite capable of having “vulnerability
hangovers” (a term I believe was coined by Brene Brown). That is,
while I’m pushing vulnerability today, but I’m acknowledging that
it can also be wielded as a tool in some cases, and that’s not what
we’re going for here. We’re dealing with weakness and vulnerability,
not to use them as tools to manipulate others, or gain power over
others.

Rather, if God is vulnerable, then we are not excused
from our own vulnerability, nor asked to pretend it away. I think
this is why Ash Wednesday starts Lent by asking us to remember that
we are mortal, so that we can remember to live our lives with
intention. When we are vulnerable, we remember how tender we are,
how easily hurt, how close things that could harm us are, and we open
ourselves to those who are hurt, or harmed, or displaced, or
attacked. And when our hearts break open to allow others in, we are
moved – once again – to create a world that is more just and
equitable so that the MOST vulnerable are no longer forced take the
pain the most powerful avoid.

That, I think, is the power of vulnerability: the power
to break our hearts open which moves us to create a better world.

May God help us, all.

Amen

1Debie
Thomas, “I Have Longed” Lectionary Essay for March 13, 2022,
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3341-i-have-longed

2Ibid.

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

March 13, 2022

Uncategorized

“High Standards?” based on Deuteronomy 30:15-20 (really) and Matthew…

February 16, 2020
by Sara Baron

Choose
the things of life, not the things of death. That’s the gist of our
Hebrew Bible lesson today. Following the ways of God is choosing
life. Turning away from God is choosing death. In the passage,
these are seen as communal decisions. The desire of God is that the
people choose life, but the passage admits it is their choice.

Deuteronomy
is written from the perspective of the Exile, where the big question
was “why did this happen to us?” The answer Deuteronomy gives is
“because we weren’t faithful to God and to God’s vision for our
society.” Thus, when they look back on their communal life, they
yearn to have made better choices, to have been more faithful, to
have chosen the way of life rather than the way of death.

I
have no idea if more faithful choices on the part of Ancient Israel
would have prevented the Exile. It seems a bit unlikely, but who
knows. It is clear that Ancient Israel was not faithful to living
out God’s vision, but it is also clear that the emergence of
mega-empires and being a little country at an intersection of major
trade routes was a dangerous reality.

Nevertheless,
the questions of what way we choose to live still resonate. It seems
useful to point out that although the words “choice” and “life”
have particular connotations in the debate over whether or not women
have the right to control their own bodies, the phrase “choosing
life” has nothing to do with that. Rather, it is about the
patterns of decisions that either turn towards God or away from God.
To put it another way, it is about living in a way that enhances life
for everyone and everything, or …. not.

Choosing
death, in terms of Deuteronomy was oppressing the poor, the widows,
the orphans, and the foreigners. It was wanting a king and creating
wealth differentiations. It was allowing the justice system to
become unjust for the poor. It was putting God second and personal
prosperity first.

While
all of that has resonance today, I think there are also personal
aspects to this metaphor. They may make the most sense from the
perspective of a person who is nearing the end of their life. What
are people yearning for more of at the end of their lives? What do
they regret? What are they grateful for?

While
people and their answers are different, patterns certainly emerge.
An article on the topic from Business
Insider
offers 5 of the most common regrets of people at the end of their
lives:

1. I
wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life
others expected of me.

2. I
wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3. I
wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I
wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.^¹

These
give us some really good answers as to what are the things of life
(courage, authenticity, feelings, friends, joy) and what are the
things of death (expectations, overworking, fear, distance, and
disconnection.)

The
only thing I think is actively missing from the list is the choosing
death of distractions. So much of modern life is just a wide-ranging
smorgasbord of things willing to distract us from our feelings, from
discomfort, from our authentic selves. Many of these distractions
come in the form of screens, but not all do. It is EASY to numb our
selves out, rather than face our feelings, and (oh my!) respond to
what the feelings tell us about how we need to change our lives.

Some
of you have heard me say that during my renewal leave I disconnected
from social media and email. It was GLORIOUS. I still found myself
picking up my phone more than I expected, and I eventually got
curious about why. Quite often, I pick up my phone to play Sudoku
(the only game I permit on my phone). And so then I got curious as
to why I was doing it. Two reasons: either because I was feeling
anxious and wanted to be distracted from it or because I was feeling
overwhelmed deciding between things and wanted to procrastinate the
decision. Those motivations have held true since then as well. The
smorgasbord of distraction options that keep us from making hard
decisions, or from dealing with our emotions are things of death. I
suspect they are also things we may regret on our deathbeds, when
time feels precious and like a thing not be wasted away.

In
an attempt to change that pattern, to be more at ease with myself and
less worried about making the “wrong” decision, since coming back
from leave, I’ve been slowly working my way through Brené
Brown’s book “The Gifts of Imperfection.” This week I read the
section entitled “Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of
Perfectionism.” Brown says “Where perfectionism exists, shame is
always lurking.”^²
Now many of us are trained to think that perfection is a GOOD goal,
that it is about striving to be one’s best or self-improvement, but
Brown disagrees. She says, “Perfectionism is the belief that if we
live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid
the pain of blame, judgement, and shame. …. Perfectionism, at it’s
core, is about trying to earn approval and acceptance.”^³
(OUCH.)

Now,
if I’m honest, I have had an unusually difficult year. Almost a year
ago now, the Church (big C) to which I have committed my life
declared itself morally bankrupt, and that has been …. heavy.

At
the same time, this church (little c) has been struggling through
incredibly difficult decision making that has resulted in much higher
anxiety in the system than usual. And, as family systems predicts, a
lot of the anxiety got passed to
me
as the leader. That’s to be expected. That’s what happens when
there is anxiety in a system, it gets focused on the leader.

Now, I
know that pastoral ministry is an impossible task to do perfectly.
There is a reason why there is no universally agreed upon definition
of perfect pastor. Context matters a lot in ministry – so do
people and their expectations. Each person in each church has
different expectations of what a pastor IS and should be doing, and
most of those aren’t even conscious. So those expectations aren’t
clearly articulated, and yet there is a hope that they will be met –
all of them, from all of the people, all the time, all at the same
time. My own expectations are that I should spend about half my time
on each of the following: visiting the hurting and keeping in touch
with all the people, sermon and worship work, administration and
meetings, keeping up to date with great research and scholarship and
teaching it, considering structural reorganization and systemic
change, making change within our communities, meeting people and
bringing them to church, maintaining a deep and profound prayer life.
At a minimum.

As the
anxiety has risen, my fears of my own failures have gotten sharper,
and the critiques coming at me have kept pace with my own fears. Yet
my capacities haven’t changed – I still can’t meet my own standards
in any aspect of ministry, and I don’t know that I can meet anyone
else’s either.

Now, my
suspicion is that I’m talking about something more universal than
pastoral ministry, or even leadership. I think that most of our
lives have times when we feel like what we’re doing isn’t enough, and
even worse there are times when others agree with us about that! It
feels awful, and it can be a really ugly downhill spiral. This is
the stuff Brown is talking about as perfectionism, and boy oh boy
does it make sense to me that perfectionism is about avoiding the
awful feeling of being judged lacking.

Brown
shares about people who are less stuck in perfectionism, and she says
two attributes make them different, “First, they spoke about their
imperfections in a tender and honest way, and without shame and fear.
Second, they were slow to judge themselves and others. They
appeared to operate from a place of ‘We’re all doing the best we
can.’ Their courage, compassion, and connection seemed rooted in the
ways they treated themselves.”^⁴
She concludes that people were operating from self-compassion, and
that it is LEARNABLE.
It has 3 parts:

“Self-kindness:
Being warm and understanding towards ourselves when we suffer, fail,
or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating
ourselves with self-criticism.

Common
Humanity: Common humanity recognizes that suffering and feelings of
personal inadequacy are part of the shared human experience –
something we all go through rather than something that happens to
‘me’ alone.

Mindfulness:
Taking a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are
neither suppressed nor exaggerated. We cannot ignore our pain and
feel compassion for it at the same time. Mindfulness also requires
that we not ‘over-identify’ with thoughts and feelings, so that we
are caught up and swept away by negativity.”^⁵

So,
difficult as it is, authenticity and choosing LIFE are about facing
shame and failure, being vulnerable, and letting go of perfection.
I’m really quite sure that our self-judgments don’t happen in vacuums
like we think – most
of us believe that it is OK to be harsher with ourselves than we’d be
with others, but the truth is that judgement itself slips out
unaware, and the only way to be truly kind to other people in their
vulnerability is to become more gentle with ourselves in ours.

Perfectionism
is choosing death. Compassion is choosing life. May God help us all
as we strive to choose life. Amen

1Susie
Steiner, “The 5 Things People Regret Most on Their Deathbeds”
https://www.businessinsider.com/5-things-people-regret-on-their-deathbed-2013-12,
Published December 5, 2013. Accessed February 13, 2020.

2Brené
Brown, “The Gifts of
Imperfection” (Center City, Minnesota: Hazelden, 2010), p. 55.

3Brown,
56.

4Brown,
59.

5Brown,
59-60. Please note, the same researcher offers other great stuff at
www.self-compassion.org

February 16, 2020