Today I want to talk about chickens.

I love chickens. I especially love to eat chickens. I have been able to do this all my life because my father convinced me at an early age that chickens are the dumbest animals on God's green earth. Anything that stupid deserves to be eaten.

The other day when rambling around the Internet, as I sometimes do, I ran across an article defending the intelligence of chickens. This I had to read. Turns out some man was relating a first hand experiencing of a mother hen out in the barnyard with her chicks. Suddenly the hen stopped what she was doing and froze neck up in a posture that singled danger must be near. Soon the writer became aware of a hawk flying overhead. The hen saw it also and scampered under cover for protection. Then the man saw the hen staring back at her chicks left out in the open defenseless. In an act that surprised him the hen ran back out to the chicks and covered them with her body so that the hawk would take her.

This selfless act, the writer contended, proves that chickens have more to them than most people suspect.

Well, maybe, but I still like to eat chicken

After all, that hen only did what most of us would do for our kids. Many creatures have a parenting instinct to protect their young even at the cost of the parent's life. So, while admirable, what the hen did may not be all that unusual or special.

And then there is this saying of Jesus reported in John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends.” At the last supper. Not long before he was to die a terrible death on the cross. Not

just for the friends seated around him at the table, we are told, but for all of us. The whole world. And not just for the whole world today, but for everybody for all time. Well maybe not chickens.

And we get the feeling that because this was one of the last set of instructions that Jesus gave before his death, that he wasn't just talking about what he was about to do, but about what we should do also.

What's that you're saying Monty, that we should act like that hen with her chicks, for everybody? No, I said it seems to me that's what Jesus wants.

Think about it. If everyone was willing to lay down their life in service what kind of place would the earth be. Wouldn't that almost be, well, Heaven?

Monty you know that's ridiculous. Everyone would never live like that. And the ones who did would soon end up in the belly of the hawks

Maybe so. But what if just a group of people, say a congregation, took up the charge of greater love. What would happen then? Maybe they would become hawk meat. In any case I would bet other people would notice, admire, and even wish they could have some of that kind of love. Maybe those other people, even if they didn't completely take up the charge of greater love, might just try living that way once in a while. Even that would make a pretty big difference in the world wouldn't it?

Maybe that hen is smarter than I thought after all.

8/24/20090