Mother Hen

“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 would not! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Matthew 23:37-39

It has been no quite a week staying with my Mom for summer vacation. At 87, she is strong and healthy although her memory is shaky -at least about current events but not about past stories. We have been listening to many. And the recurring theme is how she aches for her brood and wishes she could some how gather her family up and make all the broken pieces better, the angry soothed and the bitter released. Like every family we have our control freaks and the hot heads, the attitudes and the misanthropes. Mt momma is a mother hen and I seem to take after her.

And so it is both odd and sweet it is to imagine God aching like a mother hen to gather us all up. Jesus acting in the mother's role, the midwife, the stage manager, wanting, more than anything, for everyone to have their place and everyone to do well. And how often we are all warring, jealous siblings, aching for parental affirmation and thinking we are above all that. The ache of humanity for love and our regular rejection of it.

Today, I want to be strong enough to accept the role that God has given me and humble enough to share the stage and the family with everyone else. I pray that God will find a way to sweep me up, hold me in the shelter of tender and warm wings, long enough so I will trust God for every breath of life, every movement of love and the spirit. May we all embrace the love we have been given and the roles we have to bear the love of Christ to others.