About a month ago I visited to
Lancaster for the first time in 25 years. It’s not that I have
anything against Lancaster. It’s just that I am especially fond of
some attractions in its neighboring towns, like Universal Studios,
Disneyland, USC, Dodger Stadium and China Town. I was in Lancaster
for a pastors’ conference and was talking to the host pastor—I
had noticed he had a chicken coop on his property, for the parsonage
and church were built on the same parcel of land.
“Do you let them out?" I asked? He
said he did. “Don’t the coyotes get them?" He said the dogs
kept the coyotes away. Except…his voice trailed off. One time he
found some feathers in the yard and traced the blood back to the
carcass in the dog house. Bye, bye, Rover.
“Yeah, you don’t want the foxes
guarding the henhouse," I told him.
Who in their right mind would let the
fox guard the henhouse? You’ve got to guard the hens from the fox.
Yet, it is so ingrained in our nature, the fox guarding the
henhouse, that we’ve even made a proverbial saying of it. We’re
not alone. The Romans would say, “Quis custodiet custodes?" Who
will guard the guards?
We’ve got a real fox and the henhouse
situation in front of us today.
The Fox and the Henhouse
Protect us from our enemies, Jesus
(31-33).
But especially save us from
ourselves (34-35).
“At that time some Pharisees came to
Jesus and said to him, ‘Leave this place and go somewhere else.
Herod wants to kill you (31).’"
Quite likely. Jesus had done most of
his work in Herod’s territory. Jesus had been safe working in
Herod’s territory because Herod could care less about religion. He
built temples to the Roman gods with abandon. Murder and theft,
graft and slander, those vices were almost always on his “to do"
list. Let’s just say when you steal your brother’s wife, you are
not going to be looking for a close relationship with some clergyman.
In fact, to keep from getting the boot from the synagogue, the
Herods had been building a wonderful Temple in Jerusalem—for the
past forty-six years. Get the point? We’ll keep financing (and
milking) the Temple construction, as long as you don’t criticize
how we live.
This pay for pray arrangement worked
wonderfully until an honest man of God came along—John the Baptist.
Within six months of his preaching that Herod was an adulterer to
have his brother’s wife, Herod arrests John and has him beheaded.
With the swoosh of an axe he turned the “People’s Prophet" into
the “People’s Martyr." It didn’t sit well with folks. Along
comes Jesus, another of these “can’t be bought do-gooders."
Herod could have very well hatched a plot to silence Jesus before he
starts preaching the same sermons.
Ordinary, honest Iraqis trying to put
their country back together again leave Bahgdad when they get an
anonymous death threat tucked under their door. Not Jesus.
“He replied, ‘Go tell that fox, “I
will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the
third day I will reach my goal." In any case, I must keep going
today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die
outside Jerusalem (33)!’"
No intimidation. No retreat. Jesus is
going to go about his work, doing what he has to do until he has
accomplished his purposes. That’s what that Hebrew phrase “today
and tomorrow and the next day" means. We might say we’re going
to do so-and-so “until the cows come home" or “until the fat
lady sings." You get the point. But look at the word Jesus uses
for Herod. “That fox."
Sly, sneaky. He eats up people, like a
fox eats up poultry. He is dangerous. To think this is the guy who
has risen to the top to rule over so many of God’s believers in
Jesus’ day! Who needs enemies when you’ve got such a government?
Protect us from our enemies, Jesus.
But especially save us from ourselves.
Now you might think anyone who resists
the fox is going to be the best friend of the chickens. Only in the
world of animals. Here’s a case where mankind is dumber than
beasts. With the mention of the fox, Jesus thinks of chickens. The
danger a fox presents to chickens brings to Jesus’ mind the goal he
has, that of saving people from the destruction which, by nature,
awaits them.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill
the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to
gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her
wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you
desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say,
‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (34-36).’"
Look at the amazing picture language
Jesus uses. Herod is the ruling fox. The chickens are in danger
from such a murderous ruler. Jesus pictures himself as one of the
chickens, a mother hen. This mother hen courageously wants to
protect her chicks by spreading her wings out over her brood which is
trying to get as close to momma as possible. A marvelous picture!
But the people do not want protection. The people do not feel
danger. They don’t want to be saved. They don’t want to have
Jesus as their Savior.
Judgment will surely come, the judgment
that their house, that wonderful Temple being built by Herod’s
filthy money, will be desolate, empty, a shell. It won’t be God’s
house. It won’t be a place of prayer. For most of the people in
Jerusalem that Temple will be just another way of fooling themselves
that they are all right with God when their hearts are far from him.
The next time God will be in that Temple is when Jesus comes to
Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and the people shout out in misguided
enthusiasm, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."
Just wait until Good Friday and see what they will do to him then.
Forget about the fox, Herod. He could only kill their bodies. They
were the ones, by their continual and persistent rejection of Jesus,
who were killing their own souls.
We Americans are in a similar
situation. We are worried about the big, bad world out there. I
hear it in people worrying about their local schools. I hear it when
they say this or that neighborhood is going downhill. I hear it in
how people who are moving out of town suddenly find a dozen reasons
why southern Nevada is a rotten place to live (though they never
complained the dozen or more years they called it home). Let’s
call that big, bad world out there “the fox."
And so we have caller ID on our phones
so we don’t run the risk of getting swindled by some con man.
We’ve got a security system on our home, I mean besides the Smith
and Wesson under the pillow. We live in security gated communities.
We vote for more policemen almost every election cycle. We pay
security fees on each leg of an airplane ticket and let the TSA take
pornographic pictures of us with their newest imaging machine—and
we are worried about radioactive dust kicked up from a bomb test?—and
our trunk is searched every time we go to the Bellagio. We feel
safe. As long as we don’t watch the next newscast or listen to the
next presidential candidate’s stump speech.
But the things that can guarantee us
our soul’s salvation, they don’t even get a lick and a promise.
Traveling team baseball games and swim practice takes priority over
that! A good walk ruined on the golf course is more important than
that. Sleeping in is more important than hearing about Jesus, our
Savior, and his goal for our life and the story of the efforts he
made to make that goal a reality.
Why are we so foolish as to let the fox
guard the henhouse of our lives? Why do we put so many locks on the
doors to protect ourselves from earthly devils only to give the keys
to our sinful human nature? Are we, like Herod, trying to buy our
way into a sense of an earthly security and lie to ourselves that
that is also a spiritual security?
Wake up, before it’s too late. Wake
up and see that the real fox in our lives is our sinful human nature.
Wake up and see the damage that sinful human nature has already done
to us and our uncaring neighborhoods, the damage it has done to our
impersonal and cowardly public places.
And then run, not from Jesus, but
toward him. Put all our trust in him that his goal is our salvation,
that his work is the payment of our sins and that, just as no one
could keep him from his appointment with the cross, so no one will
stand in the way of his ushering us into our heavenly home when this
short life is over.
The Fox and the Henhouse
Protect us from our enemies, Jesus
(31-33).
But especially save us from
ourselves (34-35).
There’s a reason corrupt government
officials want to investigate themselves. There’s a reason why
incompetent organizations love to conduct self-studies. If they can
keep the fox guarding the henhouse the only ones that are going to
get slaughtered are the people who pay their salaries! It sickens
us. It disgusts us.
So why let the fox keep guarding the
henhouse of our lives? Do we really want to end up like that mauled
chicken in a Lancaster dog house? A better Savior is standing by
right now.
Rev. Don Pieper is a minister in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. He has devoted his life to sharing the Gospel of Christ to all of Gods people. For more information about the Green Valley Evangelical Lutheran Church visit us at www.gvelc.com or call 702-454-8979 .
Ask for Pastor Don or Pastor Matt.
