Fox in the Hen House

By Jared Warner

Willow Creek Friends Church

March 16, 2025

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Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili

Luke 13:31–35 (ESV)

³¹ At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” ³² And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. ³³ Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’ ³⁴ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! ³⁵ Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”

As we walk with Jesus, as we become the body of Christ’s church here in our community, this state, nation, and within the world we face many struggles. All of humanity has struggles. I recently watched a YouTube video where a mental health workers was talking with his daughter in the car. They pulled up a light and the car in front of them had bumper stickers all over the place. He said that they had mountains, marathons, stickers of hiking and adventures. He asked his daughter why they put those stickers on their car. She told them that they wanted everyone to know that they were adventurous, brave, and active. He asked a series of questions that eventually led his daughter to come to the conclusion that this person was lonely, shamed, hurting, and wanting to be heard. Life is filled with struggles, not just for those that have Christ but everyone.

But there is something different with the struggle of faith. We are caught between worlds so to speak. We have this unimaginable hope that comes with the resurrection, which we will celebrate in about one month. This hope should empower us, strengthen us, allow us to see that there is nothing in this world that can possibly hinder us because Jesus has overcome, and for those that believe that same power is within each of us.

I am not what people might call charismatic. I am a systematic and rational thinking person. I like to contemplate, observe, and listen before I move forward. But I believe that God can do amazing things. I believe this not because God has healed me of some disease or disorder. I suffer with chronic migraines and have been deaf my entire life. I have prayed often for healing in these areas, yet I remain with fog in my head and mumbles ringing in my ears. But there are other things.

As you all know last week we were out of town at a hockey tournament. Albert’s team got 4^th place if you were wondering. We left for the weekend and things were fine. We were preparing to go to one of the events we scheduled and things were fine. We finished the event and went to pay for souvenirs and by card was declined. In the hour we were at the event several automatic bills came though at once, bills that I was expecting at the end of the month not the beginning. And I stood wondering what am I going to do. Luckily we had a little savings that I could transfer around but it was not a good start to the weekend.

We were in St. Louis and this is one of the only places near us that have stores with a full inventory of gear, so we went to the store to try things on. Albert tried on the various items we would need replaced. He picked out the ones he liked and we made a list. And all I could see were the price tags. And with each item he tried, I felt sick. Literally sick. My head pounded and I was nauseated. One of these items he will need in two months when we go to the next tournament, and that item was the most expensive, and I had just had a card declined. I know I am revealing too much here. But I need you to know that God is able and since I have not been healed I see that power in other places.

We returned home and the next morning after I dropped Albert off at school and before I started work for the day I sat down in my big blue chair and just stared. I did not pray in any cognitive sense, I was just there almost in shock. After a while I began looking at the mail we received that morning and there was an envelope addressed to me and within that envelope was a check for the amount needed for the piece of equipment Albert would need. I had not shad a conversation with the person that mailed the check. They did not know what we would be needing. And they definitely did not know the price of hockey equipment, but the amount on the check would cover the price of the item plus shipping.

Some might call it a coincidence, and it might be. This has happened several times over the course of my adult life. When James graduated from basic training, and when he got married someone randomly sent a check that would cover just what was needed. For me it shows that God knows what we need and cares. Even before we have the words to say God is working.

We have that power and hope available to us and yet we still struggle. We still wonder how we will make it. We wonder if we are good enough. If anything really matters. We question our very faith because the world around us seems so dark.

We struggle and we know that we should have faith. We should have hope. We should have joy not sorrow. We think to ourselves, if I do not act as if I have everything together, people will think I do not have faith. And my struggle will cause others to deny Christ because I still struggle. We think this silently in our minds, but we act differently. We put on a mask or a costume. We deny the truth about our emotions and our situation and we let the people around us believe that we have it all together while we are falling apart inside. We have hope, we have faith, but we are scared and confused.

This is where I was as I began praying with this weeks scripture. I come to it in a place of weakness and in joy. In despair as well as utter amazement at the power and love our God has for us. I come to today’s passage with the usual mixed emotions and stresses of life.

“At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’”

The first thing that jumped out to me is who was speaking to Jesus.

When we look at the gospels the Pharisees often come across as the villains of the story. This does not give us a clear picture as to who they actually are. They are people similar to us. They are religious people, members of a religious society that shaped their contemporary culture. If they were present during medieval Europe they might look like the leaders within the Catholic Church. If they were in Russia or Ukraine, again they would look like the priests and monastics orders within the Orthodox Church. In England, they would probably resemble the clergy of the Church of England the would go to anoint the king. In America today, who do you think they would resemble? Yes, they would resemble the Evangelicals. Because the Evangelicals within our nation are the dominate religious expression within our contemporary culture.

I want you to think about that for a moment. I just mentioned five different groups and likened them all to the same ancient religious order. How can that be possible? From the outside we may not see the difference between these various groups but within they seem vastly different. Some would say that they are the true church, the church established by the Apostles and preserved by the Holy Spirit. And others might say that they are raving heretics. That is often how we approach the people within the gospels when we see a generalized term like Pharisee. We are on the outside, we see them as one, but within the group there are various factions. Yet they as a whole influenced their contemporary culture.

We see Pharisee, and immediately our mind recalls the arguments Jesus has had with them in the pages of scripture, we assume they are resisting Jesus, but that is not what these pharisees seem to be. They come to Jesus and they strongly urge him to leave because Herod is out to kill him. They command him to get away, to save himself.

These are not words of condemnation but words of hospitality and concern. They care about Jesus, they want to act in his best interest. They know that there are people within their society that do not like what Jesus is saying and doing. These pharisees may not completely agree with everything that Jesus is doing, but they do not wish harm to fall upon him.

Did these pharisees believe Jesus? Were they disciples? We cannot know this. All we truly know is that they were religious, and members of the religious society that influenced the culture. And that they were willing to have civil and intimate conversations with Jesus, because they wanted him to remain alive.

How does Jesus respond to this concern? “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

I have read this passage many times throughout the years. And I always found it odd. Seemingly out of place within the context of the rest of the passage. He is lamenting over Jerusalem, yet he is not in Jerusalem but in Galilee. He speaks of Jerusalem as being the ones that are going to cause him harm yet Herod is not the ruler over Jerusalem. So yes when the Pharisees speak to him he is under threat by Herod, because he is in Herod’s region of influence but when he speaks, he does not seem to be concerned.

It is out of place. It connects a couple of different steams of thought together in a way that seems illogical. And as I sit with this passage I often feel as it I am out of sync.

It is because I am out of sync. I have been looking at this through a life experience that did not allow me to see beyond my own mind. You see I could be seen as a contemporary Pharisee. I am a leader within a branch of the dominate religious society within our culture. I have no power but I am comfortable within my position. We do not call ourselves Pharisees because that is a bad word among us. The pharisees are the villains, and we cannot possibly be the villains we are bible believing Christians. Unlike those other groups.

So often I have read this passage and I have recognized several points. Jesus speaks of Jerusalem, which is the symbol of religious faith within that culture and time. Jerusalem, was the center of the faith of the Hebrews, it contained the temple to God, which scholars say is likely to have been the greatest single religious structure devoted to a single deity. It was awe inspiring, drawing people to it from with all of Judea and Roman Palestine, but if we are to believe the scriptures other nations would also send representatives to this place to offer sacrifices as well. When Solomon receives the queen of Sheba, she is there to offer sacrifices and to seek wisdom, and she traveled a great distance to get there. We so often think that Israel was this isolated culture but forget that Israel was at the center of great empires. They were at the cross roads, never great in their own right, but offering more influence than their size normally should.

Jerusalem is there at the center of faith, and Jesus laments over it. I read this and what I see is Jesus lamenting over the religious elites that are unwilling to listen to the will of God. That is what I have always seen, and I am not wrong for seeing it that way. And neither are you, because I am sure you also have understood it like that. Jesus is lamenting over people that embrace religion over the true relationship with God. People like those being controlled by the Pope, or by the Patriarch of Moscow, or the Bishop of Canterbury. Or maybe you might see it as people being more concerned with the ways of the world instead of faith. We have all heard messages saying that we need to be a church on fire and not lukewarm.

This week though I realized something, it has been there all along and some of you might have seen it or heard it. But Jesus is not talking about Jerusalem. He is talking about those people that are right there in the room with him. The ones that are sitting at the same table, wishing him to leave because the fox is on the prowl.

They are encouraging him to go, to save himself. Save himself from what? Herod wants to kill you.

This is what struck me this week. They knew Herod wanted to kill Jesus. One might say well of course, he was getting too powerful. But we are thinking of things in a way that might not be accurate. There were famous people in ancient times, and some of them did get killed. And we understand what can happen if someone opposes a tyrant. They could be speaking in a generalized frame, saying, “if you don’t stop it you are going to get yourself killed.” But these guys knew that Herod wanted to kill him, and Jesus told them to go and tell that fox something. These pharisees were leaders within society. They went all the way up to the very top, they were men of power. They knew Herod wanted to kill Jesus because Herod told them as much. And Jesus knew that they knew this information because they heard it from Herod himself.

Herod potentially could have sent these men to speak with Jesus. Sending them with that threat because Herod killed his cousin John the Baptist because John spoke out against the leadership, and Herod could but did not want to do the same to Jesus. Just leave go somewhere else.

These men were pharisees, they were members of the religious order that held the seats of power within the culture. And they like that power. They were politicians and religious. They relished walking that fine line.

Now consider what Jesus says again. “Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.” Herod threatened him. And Jesus tells the people from Herod’s court, I am going to do what I a doing today and tomorrow and the day after that. And I will continue to do what I think is right and you are not going to do a thing to stop me.

In these words Jesus is encouraging us to be brave, to stand for what we believe even if everyone around us seems to disagree. He is telling us we should not look at the things this world see as powerful and shy away from doing the very thing we know in our core we should be doing.

This reminds me of the stories surrounding the Quaker Abolitionists, people like John Woolman and Levi Coffin. They did not believe it was right for humans to own other humans as property, and because of this they refused to participate. John refused to purchase items that were produced with products of this unethical practice. And he would not write wills for individuals unless they freed any enslaved person. Everyone around him told him that this was a bad decision. They might have agreed with him in theory but how can you survive or keep a business going if you do not consume sugar, cotton, or fabric dyes? What would you wear or eat? What would you even sell when the entire American economy was saturated with products produced by slavery? Yet John remained remained steadfast in his beliefs. John traveled throughout the countryside and even sailed to England where he spoke out against the practice to those that held power and he died and was buried in England not seeing an end come to the practice. But he inspired others and eventually his message was heard and England stopped the trans Atlantic slave trade. But that did not stop the practice.

Levi Coffin live a couple of generations after John and he too was convinced that the practice was wrong. He refused to sell any retail product produced by slaves, and this was his entire livelihood as he was in the retail business. Everyone said his business would fail if he continued to hold to his beliefs, yet he continued to only sell items he knew were produced by willing labor. Levi eventually put his words into greater action by helping individuals escape from bondage in the underground railroad.

Both of these men faced certain death for what they spoke out against. Yet they did not back down because they knew it was right. The entire empire and nation was against them yet they continued. In Levi’s case, his own church rejected him. They agreed in theory but, in their opinion, he had taken it too far, so they wrote him out of the Meeting.

Jesus looked at those pharisees and said I am going to continue doing what I am called to do. I will do it today and tomorrow and the next day after that. I will do it here and I will go to Jerusalem. I will take this message to the very heart of our society and I will not back down.

But then he changes his tone, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

Tell the fox he says in one breath and then there is this melancholy. He is willing to do what he has to do. He will do what is right in the face of power, and yet how he wishes those that he loves would join him. Oh how he wished the religious leaders and the influencers of society would join him in this mission. You see the pharisees were religious people. They were good, ethical, moral, upright people. I would want them all to join our church because they would be great people to have around. Hard working and righteous. But there was a problem they were more concerned with power and influence than they were with doing right. They were more focused on the appearance than the reality. They were more concerned with being correct than the people.

They wanted the influence so they went to the courts of the fox. Jesus speaks of the fox, and then he transitions to speak of chickens. Some of you may understand the imagery here while others may not, but chickens live in flocks. The hen protects her brood by hiding them under her wings, covering them and keeping them safe while the other hens in the coop scream and flop and make a nuance of themselves, and the rooster kicks and chases. When a fox comes into the hen house the chicks are usually safe because the adults will give their lives to protect them. But occasionally there will be one that decides to venture out from safety. This is the image Jesus is giving us. Jerusalem was set up to influence the world but not to be the world. Its leaders venture out the world and they are then subjected to the influences of the world. At first it seems great they can do many good things for the community but they are just a chicken living within the fox den.

This is the intoxication of power. We go out for a good reason but then we are consumed. And eventually we cannot see that we are working in opposition to the very one we once claimed faith in. Jesus calls us to continue his work today and tomorrow and the following day. He calls us to cast out demons, and perform cures. We can focus on the miraculous of this or the mundane but either way the calling is to provide comfort and aid to those less fortunate. We are called to speak of the things of God where ever we are and if necessary to use words, as St. Francis once taught. We should do this boldly without concern about the world. But we then need to come back under Christ’s wing.

We go out and we work. We might even be influential in the world. But what are we doing, why are we doing it, and who are we doing it for? We can get caught up in the intoxication of power believing that we are making a better society. And only too late realizing that we have invited a fox into the hen house. Or we can look at the person next to us and decide to do whatever we can to make their day better. I have rambled a great deal today. But the point I am making is this. There is suffering and pain all around us, and we live with it as well. We have illness and times where we do not know if we can afford what we need. Even Jesus lamented that things were not how he wanted. This struggle is not sin, it is not lack of faith, it is simply part of life. The point is where do we turn in that struggle? Do we rush to God in our time of need seeking safety under her wings or do we turn to the ones in the world that look like they have it all together, only to find that they are a fox?

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