The Gospel text for today (Luke 13:31-35) contrasts a fox with a hen. The fox is Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, a regional powerbroker. He is the son of Herod the Great, the ‘wicked king’ of the well-known Christmas stories. Herod Antipas too has gained some notoriety; it is he who imprisoned and then had John the Baptist beheaded. Herod Antipas’s motive for seeking to kill Jesus is not stated, but it can reasonably be inferred that, like John, Jesus disapproved of Herod’s evil acts (Luke 3:19) and was public about his disapproval.

“Go and tell that fox for me” (v.32) is a scathing analysis of Herod’s character and actions. The fox is a creature that is not only portrayed (correctly) as a wily predator but also (incorrectly) as a killer set on wanton destruction. Namely, killing for the fun of it.

Luke(the author) then briefly describes Jesus’ ministry and work of healing and wholeness, and that this work would culminate in Jerusalem (when he would meet the fox).Luke then (in v. 34) proceeds to have Jesus lift his voice in lament over Jerusalem, and uses the metaphor of the hen for Jesus (borrowing the bird imagery from Psalm 91:4).

This juxtaposition of the fox and the hen thus forms a lesson about power and its true nature. Herod, like some world political rulers of our times (there’s a number to choose from!), sees his subjects alternately as threats to be neutralized or punished, or just as prey for exploitation, and thus proves to be only interested in his own welfare. It is the self-serving nature of Herod’s understanding of power that is being critiqued. The power of leadership should always be to serve the common good.

The way of the fox is contrasted with the way of the hen - Jesus’ motherly care for the people of Jerusalem, even though this care would make him vulnerable(indeed it would end his life). It is the image of the protective mother, showing the deepest love and care to her chicks, that tells Luke’s listeners, including us, that there is a different way of understanding power. And it is not about self-service and self-aggrandizement.

Note with the hen metaphor Jesus is not only wanting to embrace and protect his followers in Jerusalem. His embrace and protection extend to those who later cry “Crucify him.” Indeed I would include in that embrace his critics, detractors, and enemies. Even foxes.

For the hen metaphor is in essence a family metaphor. A family metaphor which the Jesus movement later extended to refer to the whole of humanity as one family. The whole of humanity would be brothers and sisters to each other, caring, loyal and protective of one another. All of humanity is one nation, one tribe, one whānau – a reality where we are fundamentally connected to each other, inclusive of diversity and difference, of the challenged and challenging, of all great and small.

Herod and Jesus will eventually meet in person, and in Jerusalem (23:8-12). That encounter (also unique to Luke) replays this comparison of the two models of leadership and power. Herod in this version will be the one responsible for dressing Jesus in royal apparel (23:11), an intended form of mockery. Mockery and derision in the mouths of the corrupt powerful, the foxes, serve mostly to show their own unfitness to wield authority. The hen is a symbol of one whose work is fulfilled not in her own protection, let alone pursuit of her own self-interest, but in the healing and flourishing of her children.

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Holiness, small gods and angels (to borrow from Mary Oliver) are all around Or for a panentheist, like me, godding is all around. God is all around, if sometimes hard to see.

Is justice all around? Is where justice is, so is God? Or where God is, so is justice? I think so. I think how we understand justice is grounded in how we understand God.

One way of understanding the relationship of God and justice is that the former is a benevolent transcendent sovereign who knows what’s best, who has fixed markers of right and wrong, written down and enforced. The enforcement, or consequences, if not now will be in a form of after-life. In this understanding of God and justice, the task of the believer is to proclaim the sovereign’s will, interpret it for our time, and seek to do it. That is by acting justly and righting injustice.

I think one of the tasks of a community such as ours is to think deeply about the ideal and vision of justice. Most of the time we use that ‘j’ word we are talking about righting injustices - injustices often entrenched by prejudice and governing power over centuries. Like the injustices that have arisen and become systematized by assuming that males should be privileged in relation to females, or adults to children, or heterosexual to homosexual, or one race, culture, or class to another. The task of identifying and righting such injustices goes on and on, sometimes making progress (sometimes restitution),and sometimes in some places regressing.

And some of this work of righting injustices can be complicated. Like this well-known cartoon depicting the difference between equality and equity.

Of course like any depiction you can find fault with it. Is physical height the problem? Or is the fence the problem? Who likes baseball anyway??

For my purposes I want to ask whether the smallest child (having two boxes instead of one) is being privileged at the expense of his/her sibling?

Sometimes the vision for justice means resources are allocated in such a way that some people get more (based on their needs) than others. Participation and enjoyment for all is the goal.

Whilst I don’t have understand God (or justice) in terms of a benevolent heavenly sovereign it needs to be said that much good has been done by those who do. By interpreting the Bible, especially by referring to the prophets and the Gospels, believers have advocated and worked for social justice, equal rights, the alleviation of poverty, and so on.

My problem with this benevolent sovereign understanding of God is that it is prefaced on the metaphor of absolute male monarchy (hence the language of ‘King’ and ‘Lord’), with its hierarchies and paternalism, which we in turn as a society or church, especially in the past, have replicated. The metaphor of monarchy carries within it the notion that some of us are better, more worthy, than others, and then we in turn create systems to entrench this notion and create injustice.

However there are other ways of thinking of God and justice. 

Instead of using the word G-o-d we can use the word Deep. This is a metaphor that invites us to ponder what is not so apparent, what's not on the surface. It also counters the notion of God being up above, looking down.

Thenature of the Deep is a goodness that permeates all life, and connects all.This goodness (holiness) bubbles up on the surface, sometimes serendipitously,oftentimes right in front of us or just around the corner.

In the Deep we are all connected. It is a primal connection that deconstructs the tribalistic walls and allegiances we think are necessary and desirable to protect us. In this Deep goddishness, where we all belong and are loved, the armour we have acquired and cultivate to survive is a hindrance rather than a help.

To understand this connectivity of the Deep, Paul's body metaphor (1 Cor 12) is helpful. Taken to understand all humanity, the body metaphor reminds us that though we have obvious differences (age, gender, race, class) we also have obvious similarities, and like with a human body those similarities (think of our blood, veins, and arteries) connect us. What is good, or painful, for one part of the body is good, or painful, to the whole.

The Jesus' movements' understanding of family - where we are all siblings to each other, with God being the only parent, is also helpful in moving our thinking and actions away from the group or nationalism mindset that besets and dogs our world. The truth of the Deep, beneath the barriers of our self-interests, is that we are all connected. To hurt one is to hurt all. To lift up one is to lift up all. Just like in functional families.

Somethings, especially things of the Deep, are hard to find language for. The word ‘connection’ points to the indiscriminate Deep permeating us all, all life, all matter, whether we wish it to or not, and in this sense relating us and reminding us all that there is at least one thing (in the immortal words of Jake and Elroy) ‘that makes us all the same’.

But, like love, the Deep is not passive – it is slowly working towards a state of harmony between all, where great and small, strong and weak (whilst remaining in large part great, small, strong, and weak) receive what they need, contribute what they can, and don’t become bloated with self-importance, wealth, or privilege – as if these things are due to their specialness and a reason why they should deprive others of the same. Instead the harmony, or balance, of the Deep is like that of a body (each part though different is joined, necessary, and interdependent). Or is like that of an ecosystem (where streams, soil, plants, insects, and birds have over time developed an interdependence, a reliance, on the existence of the other).

So when one human thinks in their ignorance or arrogance they are ‘self-made, ’disregarding so much the body (or family or ecosystem) has given them, and disregarding so much of the obligation and need to contribute to and aid others, they inculcate an imbalance, a discordance, out of which in time injustice and other evils can arise to hurt and damage. It is such imbalances and injustices that the lifegiving ways and movements of the Deep seek to rectify, that is to recreate mutual right relation between all, without making new injustices.

At the start of our liturgy today there are the formal and traditional words introducing the season of Lent, although, as with many things in our liturgies I have changed out the language. The metaphor of “Kingdom of God” is exchanged for “A commonwealth shaped by justice and grace.” ‘Commonwealth’ is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. And to supplement (give body to) ‘commonwealth’ I have added ‘justice and grace’. In the understanding of God as the Deep, the movements of justice and grace walk hand in hand as one. 

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