Matthew 23:37 ~ Jesus in the Wildernesss ~ the Hen

 

In the Winter of 1938/39 the English artist, Stanley Spencer (1892-1959) set out to paint forty pictures of Jesus in the wilderness. He knew well the scriptures that tell us Jesus went there for forty days and nights and that at the end he was tempted. But the gospels are silent about what Jesus did the other days. Spencer fills that out for us in his creative, spiritual imagination. Of the forty paintings he intended, only eight were completed. Here is Jesus with the hen and her chicks. 

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You murder the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would never have it! Matthew 23:37.

The image is vivid. Jesus is on the ground with the hen. Young roosters are in the background. His body forms a kind of protective wall around the vulnerable bird and her chicks. He sits with his head in his hand looking down tenderly on the scene. The hen has three chicks. One is pecking the ground. One  peeks out from under its mother's wing and a third looks out from under Jesus' tunic. Notice the sleeves of Jesus are billowed open — forming a kind of tunnel or point of entry.

But what strikes me most is that there is a fourth bird — a little sparrow or wren flying into the scene. There is a circle of soft light around it. Maybe these other verses come to your mind at once:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's knowing it. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear, you are more valuable than sparrows. Matthew 10:29-31

But there's more, isn't there? The little sparrow is zooming in and Jesus is not brushing it away. He will welcome it, glad for its presence. There's no in and out with Jesus. No inclusion and exclusion. No shut doors.

Something very crude and exclusive has found a fresh way into our nation. Something very ugly has been unleashed recently. We think of ourselves as the great melting pot. Really? We are indeed a nation of immigrants, but every group that comes here is at first hated and then, after having found their way in (often through great suffering) they become the new haters. 

Before Pope John Paul II asked for every parish to enshrine the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I had a lovely space in my church where I placed a framed copy of the Guadalupe tilma and a fine hand printed copy of her litany. You could light a candle there. A beautifully carved box received petitions. When I visited an elderly parishioner I said, "Have you seen the new image of Our Lady of Guadalupe we've put up in church?" She answered with a dismissive waving of her hand, "O I don't even go back there; she's for the Mexicans." What a pity. You'd think she'd have known better, having supposedly heard the gospel for many years and her own people having long ago been immigrants to this country. 

There's not a little of this kind of thinking, much of it having taken nasty, menacing and even deadly turns. Hate crimes are on the increase across the land. Politicians portend violence if things don't go their way. Christian Nationalists thinks white people were the first ones here. They, and others who think as they do, show up at rallies with bibles in hand and loaded guns strapped to their hips.

Anyway, in this painting here Stanley Spencer (who was a field orderly during the most horrific fighting in the First World War) has given us a gift to contemplate for the expansion of our hearts. Contemplation is not nuns and monks flying around the chapel in ecstasy. Contemplation is seeing the sacred quality in the most unexpected places. "Otherism" is not allowed. Jesus-God has made a circle of protective and comfortable welcoming love around all of us — as has the mother hen with her chicks and the inclusion-seeking sparrow coming in for a landing. How can a Christian not understand these things?

Duccio's ~ Jesus Calls Peter and Andrew

Here is another panel from Duccio di Buoninsegna's Maesta (Majesty) altarpiece which was created in the  early 14th century in Sienna. Some 700 years later some foolish cleric with too much power and time on  his hands, had it sawed up and the dozens of paintings of the Life of Jesus and Mary were scattered around the world. This painting of Jesus calling his first disciples now hangs in the National Gallery in Washington D.C.

We heard this Gospel account Sunday Mass a few weeks ago. Here's part of the beautiful and important text.

18 As he was walking along the Sea of Galilee he watched two brothers, Simon now known as Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea. They were fishermen. 19 He said to them, "Come after me and I will make you fishers of men." 20 They immediately abandoned their nets and became his followers. 21 He walked along farther and caught sight of two other brothers, James , Zebedee's son, and his brother John. They too were in their boat, getting their nets in order with their father, Zebedee. He called them and 22 immediately they abandoned boat and father to follow him. Matthew 4:18-22

Duccio opens up the seaside scene in simplicity. He doesn't even paint in a background of mountains, trees and sky. It's as if he has drawn a great golden curtain behind the figures so as not to distract us from the main event. And that main event is this: In Jesus Christ, heaven and earth meet, God is one with us utterly, walking with us and calling to us in love.

"What the Word of God does for the ear, the icon does for the eye." Duccio shows Jesus-God walking along the shore and reaching out to us.

We tend to think the first apostles were peasant types, maybe even simpletons. But recent biblical scholarship suggests otherwise, that while yes, they were fishermen, they were intelligent successful business men. They had their boats and nets. It sounds like a family business. Perhaps they worked in this area because they were taking advantage of tax breaks.

If this is the case, then it would indicate Jesus has come for everyone and not simply those who are desperate or whose lives are wrecked. In another place we'll see Jesus calling a different kind of person—Levi, the despised tax collector. Later still, we'll learn there were women disciples. In my opinion, women tend to be more spiritually awake than men, so maybe Jesus never had to call them, they were just there out of their own un-distracted awareness and desire to learn from Jesus.

Notice how Duccio has made sure we see Jesus at the shoreline. The shoreline is the margin or the edge of things. The disciples aren't fishing far out in deep water, but are close enough to shore for Jesus to have had a conversation with them. But at one time or another, we are all on the edge. This is where Jesus finds us—on the edge of another war, on the edge of disaster, on the edge of collapse. When we're emotionally stressed out, we might say, "I'm feeling kind of edgy." Lawless, corrupted people are over the edge. And when Jesus finds us in these edgy places, individually or collectively, he calls to us, "Come follow me." 

He can say, "Come follow me" to a nation which is losing its bearings. He can say it to a parish or the universal Church which is distracted from the essential things. Jesus still says, "Come follow me,"  — and I will show you a new horizon, a new way, new purpose, new meaning, a new solution. And you'll be fishers of men—bringing in people to a new awareness of God's inconceivably deep love.

I imagine when Jesus appeared on the seashore with his invitation, it came as a surprise to the brothers. Look at Andrew's face  in the Duccio painting—is he muttering to himself, "I'm working; what's going on with this guy on the beach?" 

Our lives are filled with invitations. Do I pay attention to them, or just mumble protests? Do I detect God's presence in the interruptions that matter most?

• The television commercial asking help for the starving children or the animals. That interruption.
• The interrupting thought that I really should go and visit her; she's alone." 
• The interrupting thought, "I need to pick up the phone right now and call him; I didn't see him at Mass today." 
• The honest realization: "I only watch the channel that supports the way I think already; I'll switch for a few days and hear something new." Ah, that interruption!
• The interrupting thought of a new idea about God.
• The interrupting thought of my having been forgiven.