True self with true God - Luke 13

True self with God

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Sermon based upon Psalm 27, Luke13:31-35 and Philippians 3:20-41

Opening Prayer

The farmhouse turkey. 

The “Lean-to” chicken coop.

The scripture reading shows Jesus describing Herod as a fox and God as a hen with brood under her wings. How curious it is that Jesus does this because Jesus terms earthly power as a predator and God as a protecting hen. 

Yet if you watch a hen (chicken, goose, turkey or otherwise) they are not afraid to raise feathers in the face of a threat. Just when we might wonder if the fox might win, the hen will tell you otherwise. 

If we look at the images closer we see that the predator will continue to hunt - seeking to kill. The hen, on the other hand, will always protect her chicks, providing warmth and guidance. Chickens are playful, friendly, and teach each other. 

Doesn’t that sound sort of like God? God is friendly, protects us and guide us. God does not keep us hungry but instead sustains us - calms our anxieties and hungers.

We know plenty of examples of human leadership like the fox.  We have a perfect example in Russia today where people are in positions for their own glory, power and hunger. These types of leaders, this type of power only seeks selfish gains regardless of the cost and people are always expendable. 

This is not the assurance of ourselves but revealing of fears and hungers. When everything and everyone is expendable, we lose sight of who our neighbors are, who God is and who we are - who I am. 

We as Christians have to be wary of these for those that promise fame, fortune, and power at the expense of others do not serve God or us but themselves. We must dig deeper and ask for something more than rhetoric or quick appetizers. We don’t need a pile of emptiness and lies when we need to quench our thirst for authentic truth and love. 

Thus, good leadership embodies that of God’s power - taking care of the people through protecting against predators, comforting us when we are cold and teaching us. Good leadership assures us even when things feel dire and listens not just to our praises and blessings but to our petitions, our confessions, our intercessions without judgment. 

Thus, we talk to God via prayer. Psalm 27 can help us find words for different types of prayer wrapped into one. 

This psalm encourages and proclaims confidence - a prayer amid a chaotic world and personal trials. There are folks with terminal illness and great catastrophes in their lives that find great strength and hope through this psalm. Here, you may find calm and assurance in the center of so much hectic emotion and anxiousness. 

In the moments when you feel overwhelmed or discouraged , you might reach into psalms like this because a measure of what you seek can be found here. In these, you may see yourself and offer all of you. You may find more of you and what you need.

One might read the whole psalm or meditate upon sections for a deeper, hopeful, and encouraging experience, (an authentic experience) and such an experience is what we seek. For in our sighs, concerns, and prayers, we connect to God and then breathe with God’s assurances comforting our hearts. Most of all you connect with your true self in those moments.

Why? When we (authentically) confess to God (and to each other), this power, this God, teaches us to do what: forgive and to be forgiveness. When you lament, let God hear you; let God be with you in your struggle. As the letter to Philippi reminds us, our humiliation,  our brokenness will be transformed in the face of God. 

When God shows power, witness this power is not by force, by gun or by sword, but power by grace and transformation. Whether we are happy, blessed, broken, or questioning, bring those to the mother hen, God. Be humble before the power that is God; then be healed in your true self. 

Be thankful in your prayers and give honest praise in your offering.Be thankful that your gifts do not just manifest themselves but are there because God has blessed you.

Be and then Find your true self in your honest petition. Request of God what you can be and will be knowing that God can and will answer you. 

When you intercede on behalf of someone, (it is not just please help them be better so I don’t feel irritated), make an honest plea for them on their journeys. Chances are, what they need, you need also.

Find your true self and what you need by offering your honest prayer for yourself and for others around you. That is authentically what God wants. 

Know then that you don’t have to worry about harsh worldly power, because God, our hen, lifts her wing for you to warm and protect you. Let God’s power reveal for you and with you.  Be transformed in your humble acceptance of that warmth and protection and discover what God has for you. Discover you.

Thanks Be to God.