The Fox and The Hen

My great-grandmother lived in Cleveland, Georgia. She was a beautiful woman. She was a wonderful storyteller. Her house was a converted barn with a wood stove that sat in the middle room. There were two doors at each end of the house that stayed opened most months unless the weather outside was too much. We would visit her almost weekly on Saturday’s and as a child my brothers and I loved to explore all the wonderful things on the farm. She always had chickens that roam the yard, not only the yard but the house. They would walk in one door and strut through the house as though they lived there and eventually making there way out the other door. It was always a funny site. Sometimes those chickens would have chicks. And those chicks would always follow close behind. Wherever mama went the chicks were sure to follow. If the mother hen sensed danger she would squat, spread her wings and by instinct the little chicks would take shelter under the mother’s wings. All the mother hen had to provide in the form of protection was shelter. In that position she became most vulnerable. Spread out, hard to move, and yet the chicks felt as though they were hiding under a boulder of love. The scene reminds me of a passage from Scripture, “For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent” (Psalm 27:5).

If Jesus would have grown-up in my house he would have gotten his mouth washed out with soap a few times. He was not afraid to call people names. In Luke 13 Jesus calls Herod a fox. Our children books paint the picture of a fox as a sly, sneaky, and dangerous animal. We focus on the threat that the fox brings to the ones it is pursuing. Jesus and the Hebrew listeners had a slightly different view of the fox. By calling Herod a fox Jesus is not saying necessarily that Herod is sly and sneaky. He implies that the way that Herod conducts business is under the table. Jesus was commenting on Herod’s inability to control. Herod was an outsider with no power. In the eyes of Jesus he was ultimately powerless. He does not mess with those who are of equal or greater power than he has instead he picks on the most vulnerable. The fox preys on the chicks. The most vulnerable.

The modern day fox does the same. He exploits the immigrant. He takes advantage of the widow. He robs the innocence of children. The modern day fox prowls around offering great promises under the disguise of destruction. He takes away a woman’s self-worth. He judges based on color. The modern fox preys on those who are vulnerable because in reality he has no power. His power comes by means of dominance over others. If you took away his control over those lesser than he, you would be left with nothing. There is no soul, no heart, and no love. His main objective is to destroy or else he may self-destruct.

Jesus offers protection from the fox. It is not a protection that guarantees our complete safety. We may have to suffer. It is a nurtured protection: a protection that speaks to the reality that foxes exist in the world trying to rob us of our love. And yet at the same time extends to us an offer of inner peace, grace, and hope. The stretched out arms of Jesus speak to us as an offer of undeserved love. He extends an offer to receive a peace that passes all understanding, a peace that remains through the fears of life. Living in His Kingdom gives hope that the fox will not have the final word. A better day is dawning. God’s justice will flood the streets. Jesus desires, long, and seeks to provide nurture for all our weary souls.

Barbara Brown Taylor gives us further insight in this idea of the fox and the hen when she says, "In some way we are all vulnerable. Even the fox. We are all little yellow chicks running around chirping for security and a sense of meaning. We are all in need of something. You may be the chick that feels disconnected. You look different than the rest and that makes you stand out uncomfortably. You may be that little chick that tries to cover up her insecurity with a sense of self-pride. Only to see your true self when you look in the mud puddles of life. You may be that little chick that was born last. The runt of the litter. You may be the little yellow chick disguised as a fox. You took on that disguise because you have been living with the foxes for too long and that is the only way you know how to survive. But instead it is becoming the death of you.

If the fox wants the chicks, he will have to kill the hen first. Which he does, as it turns out. He slides up on her one night in the yard while all the babies are asleep. When her cry wakens them, they scatter. She dies the next day where both foxes and chickens can see her -- wings spread, breast exposed -- without a single chick beneath her feathers. It breaks her heart, but it does not change a thing. If you mean what you say, then this is how you stand."

Barbara Brown Taylor teaches at Piedmont College in Demorest, Ga. This article appeared in The Christian Century, February 25, 1986, page 201; copyright by the Christian Century Foundation.