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Complex Christ                        Luke 13:34                   February 28, 2010

Elton John is arguably the most successful solo singer/songwriter of my generation. Since 1970, he has sold more than a quarter-billion (that's billion with a "b") records and had nearly 60 Billboard Top 40 hits, including the world's biggest-selling single record, the mournful "Candle in the Wind," which he wrote in memory of his close friend Princess Diana.

Elton has received an Oscar for The Lion King movie and a Tony for the Broadway musical Aida. His current Broadway smash, Billy Elliot: The Musical, begins its national tour in April.

Little wonder, then, that the recent comments from arguably one of the most famous men in the world, published in one of the most widely read magazines in the world, have caused quite a stir.

"I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems," John recently said in an interview published in Parade magazine. "On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel."

You can imagine, I'm sure, the visceral reaction of some conservative religious groups to that statement. Perhaps you even share them. But Elton John is by no means the first person to suggest that Jesus was homosexual. Bible scholars and theologians have argued about our Lor's sexuality for decades, and there are dozens of books, articles and theatrical works that raise questions - or attempt to provide answers - regarding his supposed gay orientation.

In fact, our Gospel Lesson for this morning is often quoted by Christians who agree with Elton John's point of view. Particularly the 34th verse of the 13th chapter of Luke's Gospel.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem," Luke quotes Jesus as saying, "the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!"

The image Jesus paints with these words is stunning, when you think about it. It is a self-portrait. And to illustrate his point, he chooses an animal.

Given the number of animals available, or even the references to animals in the Hebrew Bible, it is curious that Jesus chooses a hen. He could have chosen a lion, a leopard or possibly an eagle. Compared to any of those, a mother hen does not inspire much confidence.

But a hen is what Jesus chooses, which - if you think about it - is pretty typical of him. He is always turning things upside down, so that children and peasants wind up on top while kings and scholars land on the bottom.

Jesus is always challenging our presumptions about how things should turn out by giving prizes to losers and paying the last first.

So of course he chooses a chicken - one that is willing to die protecting her chicks.

"Jesus chooses not to be king of the jungle in this or any other story," writes one scholar. "What he chooses to be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her own body.*"

Now, just in case you're getting nervous about the direction this sermon is going, let put your fears to rest. I do not agree with the notion that Jesus was gay.

Jesus was an observant Jew who, according to the Gospels, was often followed around by Pharisees and scribes who kept looking for ways to criticize him. He was charged with being possessed by Satan. He was accused of being a party animal; and one who consorted with the low-life members of society - prostitutes, tax collectors, and so forth.

Yet there is no record of any of these critics ever accusing him of being gay.

In 1st Century Judea, same-sex behavior among men was a very serious offense, punishable, in some instances, by the death penalty. If the Pharisees or any other of Jesus' many critics could have accused him of being gay, they almost certainly would have done so.

But if Jesus wasn't gay, and, as I said, I believe he certainly was not, he was also not the currently popular "Manly Messiah" - the macho savior, unbowed by pain or torment; the "Hollywood hunk" depicted in films like "The Passion of the Christ."

Actually, we could make a whole list of things that Jesus was not.

Jesus was not, as a chain of so-called "Christian" gymnasiums would suggest by their logo, a rippled, muscular strongman who does push-ups while carrying a cross emblazoned with the phrase "the sins of the world" across his back.**

He was also not the Birkenstock-wearing, pacifist Liberal Jesus; or the one who despised organized religion and advised people to cheerfully render their taxes unto whichever Caesar happened to be in power.

And he was not- as PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, suggested a few years ago - a vegan Jesus who would never dream of eating meat - or some 60s-style hippie.

But though Jesus was none of these things, in a real sense he was all of them. Jesus, when you cut to the chase, was one complex individual.

I still remember how shocked I was, more than 30 years ago, when I worshipped one Sunday in a mostly African-American, North Philadelphia Episcopal Church that had paintings of the Stations of the Cross on the walls of its sanctuary.

I had grown up thinking of Jesus as looking pretty much like the picture that hung in the main Sunday school room of my home church - the famous, sepia-toned Warner Salmon "Head of Christ." You can probably picture this portrait in your mind, as I can. At one time, it was everywhere. Jesus had long, lightish-brown, wavy hair and a neatly trimmed beard.

The Jesus depicted in those Stations of the Cross paintings looked nothing like the Salmon painting. This Jesus was a black man! With African features!

I couldn't take my eyes off those pictures. I do't remember anything else about that service, but I will never forget them. Which, I suppose, was precisely the artist's point.

There are no descriptions of Jesus in the Bible and no drawings of him have ever been uncovered. Countless artists have tried to render his likeness; resulting in images as disparate - and obviously slanted - as the African Jesus on the wall of that North Philly Episcopal Church, on the one hand, and the blond-haired, blue-eyed baby Jesus on that stained glass window over there on the other.

Yet despite all the images that have accumulated over the centuries, and the many so-called "scientific," forensic attempts that have recently surfaced, the truth, of course, is that we have no idea what Jesus looked like.

One medical artist made a composite cast of three Semitic skulls, a few years ago, taking first-century Palestinians and using them as the basis for his attempt at fleshing out the face of a contemporary of Jesus, if not Jesus himself.

The unsatisfactory result, one critic suggested, was a picture that "made Jesus look like a New York taxi driver."***

One common theme emerges as we look at artist depiction after artist depiction and attempt after attempt to characterize the essence of the historical Jesus: people - particularly people of faith - tend to visualize Jesus' image to be much like the image that appears when they look in the mirror.

And this is nothing new. Five centuries before Christ, the Greek philosopher and poet Xenophanes wrote about humanity's tendency to make gods in their own image. The Ethiopians fashion dark-skinned gods, he said, and those with pale skin and red hair fashioned gods with - pale skins and red hair. ****

Which brings us back to our Gospel Lesson for this morning; a text in which we hear Jesus lamenting the fate of Jerusalem, the city where, he knows, his life journey will end.

For Luke, this strange and wonderful city is full of history and meaning - and fascination. He mentions it 90 times in his Gospel, compared to only 49 other references to it in the rest of the New Testament.

For Luke, Jerusalem is the place for beginnings and endings. His story of Jesus' birth begins there, and it is there, Luke tells us, at the edge of this Holy City, that Jesus will be betrayed and put to death.

And most importantly, he writes, it is from Jerusalem that "the good news of forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in Jesus' name to all nations" (Luke 24:47).

So it is perfectly understandable that Jesus, in Luke's Gospel, would reflect on this city with great emotion. Jesus loved Jerusalem. And even more, he loved its people.

If you have ever loved someone who you longed to protect but knew you couldn't protect, you can understand the sadness of his words.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem," he cried, "the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!"

This wonderful image of Jesus as mother hen reminds us that our arguments over Jesus' appearance or his personality, in the end, are not important.

The complex patchwork of evidence we have about Jesus' stature, his appearance and even his attitudes toward the men and women who followed him are, and will always be, just that; a complex, often contradictory body of evidence.

The important thing about Jesus is none of these things. The important thing about Jesus is the height and breadth and depth of his love.

Jesus addresses Herod, the one who aims to kill him, as "that Fox." And then he presents the image of himself as a mother hen.

If the fox wants the brood of chicks, he says, he will have to first kill the hen.

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

Brothers and sisters, as we continue our walk, in this Lenten season, alongside our Lord, on his way to Jerusalem, let us not forget that he died like a mother hen, and afterwards came back with teeth marks from the fox to make sure we get the point: the power of foxes could not kill his love for us, nor could it steal us away from him. His love, indeed, is a love that was - and is - stronger than death.

                                                                             AMEN

* From an article by Barbara Brown Taylor in Christian Century magazine.
**      See Lord's Gym homepage.
***     NY Times, 2/21/04
****   Ibid
***** Op. Cit. Barbara Brown Taylor

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