Sermon: The green days of March.
Our calendar writes March 2022. We are in the beginning of the first days of March: the green month, the month of hope, the month of Spring.
March is the green month, where we begin Daylights Savings and as spring officially begins, even if we who are living in CA have felt Spring since February. But in Denmark, March is indeed the month of Spring. I have just visited Denmark, came back Thursday – and March was as unpredictable as March could be in Denmark: with cold, frosty nights and sunshine and small flowers to tell us that spring is indeed here.
March is the month, where the season of winter changes to the season of Spring, - and especially in the far Northern places like Scandinavia March is truly a sign of hope, of rebirth and renewal. “We are heading towards brighter days,” we say, and despite the unpredictable days of March every Dane feels happier, lighter, and freer.
March is the green month: the month of hope, growth, spring, renewal, rebirth, luck, nature, health, creativity and St. Patrick of course. We dress in green in March: not just physically but also spiritually and mentally. Because hope is green.
According to our calendar it is March again, but in so many ways it seems as if we never really left March. It is March 2022, exactly 2 years ago that the world and our time changed. The global Pandemic challenged and changed.
Two years ago, we were gathered here in the church for a Danish Service and Evening – a special celebration as it marked the first 25 years of this church on this location. The Danish Lutheran Church in LA was founded back in 1906 in downtown, but this beautiful church in Yorba Linda was inaugurated in March 1995 as the church and congregation relocated to set roots in a new corner of CA. That is what we celebrated 2 years ago, - only to experience the chock of being shut down just 2 days after. 2 years has passed with sorrow and grief, death and precautions, lockdowns, work and school from home, mask mandates and unpredictable political divided days. Today, 2 years later, we are slowly emerging from the shadow of Covid19 to a changed world. And how could we even have imagined that after awakening from the Covid19 sleep, we would awaken to the nightmare of war in Europe.
Here in our church, we have done our best to navigate through this unknown territory with care, commitment and creativity. As a mother hen your danish church has tried to gather her chicken under her virtual wings and tried to keep courage, faith and hope high.
Now we are here. And now it is March again. And it is time to paint our days green.
“Jerusalem, how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, “Jesus said.
It is a beautiful image: this mother hen gathering her brood, her chicken, under her wings. It is a beautiful symbolic image, but even more a beautiful factual image of a real mother hen with her chicken under her wings. It is even a beautiful symbolic image of a true human mother hen gathering her chicken. These images I know so well and find great comfort in them as well. As the daughter of a chicken farmer who grew to be a mother hen.
Our language is wonderful and creative, and we often use the images of animals to describe certain features or characteristic. Many of you might know the old famous Fabel’s by Aesop.
The fables of Aesop is a collection of stories about talking animals who demonstrate human wisdom or lack of same. The fables are funny and entertaining, but always with a moral. Aesop’s fables are old, about 2500 years old, that is why Jesus might have know them. Jesus does warn against the false prophet, who are wolves in disguise, just like the famous Fabel of Aesop told about the Wolf in Sheep Clothing.
You might know the story about the Fox and the grapes: where the clever fox simply claims the grapes are sour when he cannot reach them. Today there is also a fox in the Gospel. The cunning fox King Herod who is called out by Jesus.
The fox is cunning and clever but also deceitful. You never trust the fox to guard your hens or geese. “We lock our doors at night,” we sing, because the fox is out there.
The fox is cunning, clever, and deceitful. The snake is tempting and hypnotizing; the hare is quick, the owl is wise, the lion is dangerous, the geese is dumb.
The fox is cunning like this world’s rulers. A despot, a ruler, a power man who has no concern for others but only cares about his own. (How true this sounds in the wake of the fox Putin’s actions…..)
The hen on the other hand is a good symbol. A good mother hen who spreads her wings out to protect and give warmth. The hen is like the good shepherd an image of God.
As I have told you before chicken are close to me, as my dad was a chicken farmer with the nickname Pip Hans and mine was Pipper. My dad was a chicken farmer,- a busy one producing about 1.2 million chickens a year. Even if it was more production than farming, some of my fondest memories from my childhood has to do with these small yellow trusting chicks. When they were delivered, my sisters and I loved to have a long row of trusting chirping chicks following us as their instinct told them. They longed to find their mother hen and her wings.
I loved these chickens. The smell of hay. The chirping and the many many small yellow chicks following me and trusting me.
And now I, the daughter of a chicken farmer, has become a mother hen. When our boys were small, they gladly followed me and longed to be under my wings, - but as time went by, they naturally wanted to try their own wings.
The image of the mother hen is a beautiful and trusting image of God. Of gods love. It is not the deceiving, lurking, tempting kind of leadership like the fox, the snake or the lion. It is the trusting loving image of a mother hen.
I have just visited Denmark and my wonderful parents. The memories of a long-lost childhood as the daughter of a chicken farmer might be distant now as my parent are older and has moved from my childhood home, - yet still I often think about the chicken. With fondness. It was fine exercises in care and commitment. Mercy and grace. And a constant reminder that our deepest instinct as humans is to long for a warm and safe place to be – under the wings. That we can follow and trust and find comfort.
When we gather here in church, we are gathering under the wings of God. In trust, comfort and faith. Let us leave church and go into our green days of March with hope and faith - and try to bo good mother hen rather than believing in the cunning foxes of the world. Amen.