How many of us are familiar with Aesop’s Fables? I ask this question simply because Jesus talks about the fox and the hen. I imagine if Jesus grew up hearing the fables of Aesop as well, which is not really impossible to think about. Aesop was born earlier than Jesus about 600 years. Speaking of the fox and the hen, I like to tell you one of Aesop’s fables which I found on line (http://shortstoriesshort.com/story/the-hen-and-the-fox/):
Once a hen was pecking some grains in a field. The hen was alone in the field. Nobody was there nearby. A fox which was passing by saw the hen. The hen was quite stout. The fox wanted to eat the hen. It was hungry also. It went up to the hen and said. “My dear hen. Oh! how fine you are looking today. Your face is so beautiful. After a long period I heard your voice. Your voice is so sweet. What a wonderful sight it is to see you with your sweet voice?” The hen turned its face and saw the fox. It believed the flattery of the fox. The hen closed its eyes and started crowing loudly “Kho Kho Kho.” The moment the hen started crowing, the fox jumped on it and caught hold of it by its neck and ran into the forest. The fox was running. Some hunting dogs chased it. The fox heard the barking of the dogs and soon it ran faster with the hen still in its mouth. The hen got on idea. It said to the fox, “Oh! fox, actually the dogs are not chasing you. They want to eat me. You just stop and tell them you caught me first.” The fox believed what the hen said. It turned towards the dogs and opened its mouth to tell what the hen has told it. It was the chance for the hen to run away. It jumped out of the fox’s mouth and flew up a tree. The hunting dogs tore the fox into pieces. While I think this ending of the fable is rather too real, it’s got the point. The moral behind this fable according to this short stories website says “Cleverness saves you even in the face of death.” Now, in comparison to today’s gospel lesson, that moral doesn’t seem to be the case. It’s clear Jesus considers himself as the hen. And this hen does not use her cleverness to save herself. She not only stays in the mouth of the fox but also allows herself to be eaten and killed while gathering and protecting her brood under her wings. This fable is no longer a fable that teaches us a lesson but the gospel in which we proclaim and follow. (Off the topic, but do notice Jesus refers himself as a feminine analogy of a hen.) There are two foxes in Jesus’s version of the fable of the hen and fox. You might wonder why two. But remember who Jesus is talking to. It’s the Pharisees who are the political enemy of Herod. The Pharisees are a group of nationalists who believe that the Jewish people are the chosen people of God who only belong to the kingdom of God. Jerusalem is then the city that is supposed to rule other nations. And Jesus calls this holy city of God that the Pharisees believe only belong to the Jewish people as “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” Since that’s what they believe, the Pharisees and Herod are political enemies to each other. There is absolutely no chance of them informing Herod about what Jesus said of him, especially calling him as a fox. What this tells us is the situation Jesus is forced in. He is in between the nationalists who somehow expect Jesus to be on their side and Herod and his followers who are on the side of the colonizers. It’s clear Jesus will not take any part with the Herodians. This doesn’t mean he is with the Pharisees. Jesus constantly calls them a bunch of hypocrites for being self-righteous and narrow-minded as they willfully disregard the suffering of others. We know the end of this gospel fable. These two foxes do succeed in capturing and murdering the hen. To put it more accurately, Jesus allows himself to be betrayed by the nationalists to the colonizers. (Herbert McCabe, God, Christ, and Us, p. 129) He is on the way to Jerusalem, knowing what will happen to him. At this point, we should wonder what compels Jesus to go on his journey to Jerusalem that kills him. We can’t simply take his mission-driven act for granted. We can’t just say that he has no problem walking into the city that waits to kill him. Let’s recall his prayer on the Mount of Olives where he says, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” (Lk 22:42) In this prayer, he struggles with fear. His fear of death speaks, “Remove this cup from me.” But his courage speaks, “...yet, not my will but yours be done.” And let’s recall last Sunday’s gospel lesson that He is led to the wilderness in the desert, tempted by the demon as he is full of the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Holy Spirit doesn’t get us out of troubles like magic but is actually dangerous. I’m going to borrow Fr. Herbert McCabe, a Dominican friar’s words here: “Mixing God with things [in our case, being filled with the Holy Spirit in our lives] is extremely dangers. God is an unpredictable explosive substance, and when he is around people are likely to get urt, even crucified. The best thing to do with God is to insulate him carefully inside churches, or better still, inside small groups of like-minded devout people.” (Ibid., p. 126) And (here my words) this divine explosive substance gives us the power to deal with them in the way that serves God’s will. Out of all the virtues Jesus has, what stands in this case is the virtue of courage or fortitude that goes against fear. The real courage is not getting a gun in our hands which is actually a sign of fear which paralyzes one’s reason and takes one away from the reality into a unreal fantasy. The real courage is to be real, realistic enough to face what’s happening around us rather than denying. It is about standing firm, steadfast, and persistent in the midst of all kinds of assaults. Mark Twain’s understanding of courage is right on point. He says, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.” And this virtue of courage isn’t possible without the help of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit breathes into our souls the courage to persistently and lovingly stand firm against all the struggles. My friends, how are you living your life? Is it with courage, resisting fear? Or is it fear-driven, being so afraid to live your life more fully? In the psalm we recited this morning, we hear, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? *the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?” I think this concept of fearing God has a bad reputation because it incorrectly portrays the image of a punitive and scary deity. But to fear God really means to fear nothing else other than God. We only fear God, nothing and nobody else in this world. Jesus, with the virtue of courage which derives its strength from fear of God alone but nothing else, walks to the cross to save, rescue, and redeem not only the oppressed but also the oppressors. In this world that dominates us with fear, let us walk with Jesus who is the very source of courage. And whenever fear haunts you, say to yourself or those who are in fear, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?” In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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