Lent 2c 2025; 16 March
Gen. 15:1-12, 17-18; Luke 13:31-35
Jack Hardaway
FOX AND HEN
A hot desert highway.
An old car broken down on the side of the road.
The devil climbs out of the car, pops the hood and takes a look.
He bangs and cusses and spits until he kicks the bumper and the car starts.
A headlight pops out and breaks on the asphalt.
The devil laughs in triumph, slams the hood shut, climbs in the car and starts driving.
After a while he catches up to someone walking on the side of the road, its Jesus.
The devil stops the car next to him and waits, not saying anything, not even looking.
Jesus shakes his head and climbs in without saying a word.
They start driving, all day and into the night, nothing to say, with only one head light.
The stars are so bright in the dessert.
The wild night air blows through the windows as they go down the road, Jesus watching the stars populate across the sky.
Jesus points to the stars and breaks the silence, “Count them. You can’t own the sky. You thought you could. I saw your star fall.”
The devil slams the gas pedal down and they accelerate, faster and faster.
In the sky they can see the Spirit moving like the wind, brooding over creation, like on that first day, at the beginning, her wings gathering all things.
The devil then turns off the one head light and he starts to scream, louder and louder. They fly into the darkness the engine roaring like a ravenous beast…
Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.
That is what we profess about Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit, the brooding wind that gathers her young, that gathers creation under her wings.
The Spirit born walks into the ravenous wasteland.
The devil is still in the story.
Today his name is Herod, that fox.
And Jesus is slowly walking toward him, toward Jerusalem, toward the confrontation, toward the passion.
Until then Herod and Jesus play the game of fox and hen, chase and tag.
The work continues, until then, of healing, and bringing liberation from the demonic.
Freedom and vitality are invading the dying landscape. The wilderness is blooming.
Herod simply devours, that is what people like him do, people who are enslaved like he is, possessed.
What happens when the fox catches the hen, and tries to devour him?
Can he own the sky?
He’ll try.
What do we do with that insatiable hunger?
Abram welcomed the stranger, who were angels unawares.
All the stars in the sky, the fullness of the heavens, are for the children of Abraham.
Those same strangers were attacked later on in another town, Abraham’s nephew, Lot, rescued them. The devouring hunger possessed them. There were no stars in the sky for them, only fire and brim stone raining from the sky.
Two ways of being in the world.
The road trip continues, the story goes on, it lives on in each us.
We write the next chapter.