Saturday, February 20, 2016

Community Meal: 12 noon, Undercroft

Reading: Luke 13:31-35

Luke 13:34b “How often have I desired to gather your children together [Jerusalem], as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”

            Jesus knew that life can wound and wear away at people. Just surviving the danger of existence can be a challenge to the vulnerable.

            Young chicks, like most baby birds, are covered with a fluffy layer of down after they are hatched. This down puffs out and insulates their body, so they can maintain their body temperature of 104º-105.8º F even in cold weather. It is crucial to a chick’s survival that the downy layer not become wet, because wetness flattens out the down, causing the chick to lose body heat 3 times faster. But the adult hen has wing feathers and body contour feathers over her down feathers that shed rain like a roof, and so for the survival and warmth of her chicks, she keeps them under her wings, giving them shelter until they develop their own adult feathers.

            So does Jesus offer protection and shelter to the vulnerable, until they also have wings.

O God, our shelter, blessed are you, for you protect the vulnerable, May we always sense that we are sheltered under your wings. Amen

• Write a card to or call someone who is experiencing hardship.