Peeps

(Today's Readings: Genesis 15:1-12,17-18 Philippians 3:17-4:1 Luke 13:31-35)

They're baaaaaack! I'm sure you've seen them in a store near you - Peeps! These marshmallow-like little critters appear every spring, in pastel colors like yellow, pink, and more recently orange, lavender, blue, and green. Created by the Just Born company in Bethlehem, PA, enough of these little critters are eaten each spring to circle the globe, according to the company website. And they have a following of fans who, not content just to eat them, use them in arts and crafts. Scientists at Emory University experimenting on Peeps, wanting to learn if the Peeps will dissolve in water or sulfuric acid, learned that almost nothing will dissolve Peep eyes. There are even websites devoted to conspiracy theories involving Peeps. After all, we have no idea what they’re peeping about, ever so quietly, as they nuzzle against one another in neat little rows inside those boxes.

Believe it or not, the Peeps actually do have something to do with today’s Gospel text. In our reading from Luke, we catch a glimpse of Jesus as he is making his way from Galilee to Jerusalem. The Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, whom we read about during the Christmas accounts of the Wise Men, and every bit as nasty, wants to kill him. The Pharisees here play an ambivalent role – are they being friends to Jesus by warning him of impending danger, or are they supporting Herod in his efforts to silence Jesus? Or maybe some of both? In any case, Jesus sounds distinctly unimpressed. “Go and tell that fox” – not a flattering description of Herod, who probably saw himself more as a lion – a fox is an annoyance, not a source of terror – “go and tell that fox for me that I’m casting out demons and curing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.” Regardless of Herod’s threats, Jesus is going to go steadily about his business. And his business, his mission, is leading him to Jerusalem, where he fully expects to be killed. “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.’”

On the surface, it’s a harsh saying of Jesus. But beneath the harshness is God’s fierce, protective love for humanity, for us. Jesus gives voice to God’s desire to shelter us as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. While it’s been decades since I’ve spent any significant time around a farm, we’re told that, in case of attack by animals or a threat from nature such as a fire, a mother hen will, along with using its beak and claws in defense, will put its own body between its chicks – its peeps – and the outside threat. The fox can kill the hen; the mother hen may die, but with her body between the chicks and the fox, underneath her body the chicks may survive. It’s a striking image – God as mother hen – and yet it’s what Jesus ultimately did as he offered himself on the cross, putting his own body between us and the destruction with which our sin threatens us.

We see this fierce, protective love of God in our other readings as well. Paul, writing to the saints at Philippi, seeks to strengthen their faith, to help them stand firm despite being surrounded by a culture that doesn’t share their values. While his words are harsh toward those he deems as enemies of the cross of Christ– “their end is destruction” - we also can feel Paul’s passionate care for his followers at Philippi – “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and my crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.”

And in our reading from Genesis, Abram is lamenting that he and his wife Sarai are still at this time childless. Abram, who is childless and with his wife is far along in years seems himself as the end of his family’s line, and his household slave Eliezer as his heir. He feels, in a sense, that he and his family line have been abandoned by God. But God reassures him – not his household slave, but Abraham’s own son. God leads him outside and directs his attention to the heavens. “Count the stars, if you are able to count them. So shall your descendents be.” Abram believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Abram believed God. As we continue our Lenten journey with Jesus toward the cross, we are also asked to believe God, to trust in the fierce, protective love of God. What we may read in Scripture as God’s anger, is the anger of a mother or father who sees their child inadvertently – or maybe even willfully - do something dangerous and life threatening, the anger of a mother or father who says “don’t ever do that again” while at the same time breathing a prayer of gratitude, “thank God you’re ok.”

Jesus wept over Jerusalem – Jerusalem where the Temple stood, Jerusalem where the Temple authorities were sure that God was present, but still a place which had stoned prophets in the past and in which Jesus will be crucified. This passage has been used in the past as a basis for anti-Semitism, but it’s important to remember that Jesus himself was a Jew, as were the prophets of whom Jesus speaks who had previously been stoned in Jerusalem – so we are listening into a conversation within Judaism, Jewish prophets and a Jewish Messiah criticizing the Jewish establishment and trying to point to a better way. Like a mother hen, Jesus speaks of God’s longing to gather the Jerusalem religious establishment under God’s protective wings. While we may see them as terrifying opponents, in God’s eyes they are like frightened chicks running in the opposite direction, peeping in terror.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem. I suspect there is much in our society – and in the church - that would cause Jesus to weep as well. I believe Jesus would weep over a society that with its words is quick to give lip service to God, but in its deeds betrays its primary commitments to material wealth and military power. I believe Jesus would weep over a church that often mimics and supports the ways of the world instead of offering an alternative, that tries to portray Jesus, not as the mother hen protecting the vulnerable, but as an angry farmer with a shotgun blasting away at anything that moves. And yes, a farmer with a shotgun would make much quicker work of the fox then a mother hen would. But that’s not the Jesus of the Gospels – and while I firmly believe that Jesus will come again in power and glory, that day has not yet come, and until then we are to walk as Jesus did, with humility, not arrogance. Paul in Philippians speaks of this in Philippians, in words that are as true now as they were then: For many – I would add both outside and inside the church - live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. How often has Jesus desired to gather us together – all of us here, and all of those not here who never expect to darken the doorstep of a church, all of those in power, and all of those who are powerless - as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.

Let us not set our minds on earthly things, for our citizenship is in heaven. May we stand firm in the Lord, who loves us and longs for us. And may we here at Emanuel, where our name tells us that God is with us, reach out to our friends, our neighbors, to all who are in need, gathering others to the Lord, who seeks to gather us, and gather them, and gather all humanity, under sheltering wings. Amen.