Lenten Reflection

Luke 13:31-35--
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him,
“Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”
He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me,
‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow,
and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day
I must be on my way,
because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets
and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you,
you will not see me until the time comes when you say,
‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Reflection from Tammerie Day

Theologian Sallie McFague argues in her book Models of God, that we have confused the metaphors “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit” for God’s actual identity/ies. These metaphors have lost their snap: they sound like names, concrete and unchanging, rather than descriptors of ways we experience God.

In this text, Jesus claims a metaphor for the relationship God wants with us: Can we imagine Jesus as a mother hen? Watchful and willing to guide her chicks to protection and food, pulling us close under sheltering wings? Standing between us and danger?

During this week of Lent, explore the discipline of envisioning Jesus in a new and different way. Are you willing? Or do you insist on your own way of constructing your image of Jesus? What would it mean to enter this protective and yet fragile embrace? Would you feel God’s love differently? Would you feel God’s love?