Just Us Chickens

Early on in my ministry I encountered a woman with an excruciating tale of abuse.  No, not her.  Her daughter was being sexually abused by her father.  She told of having fled in the middle of the night while he was off carousing.  She and her daughter had holed up in a cheap motel.  As the long shadows of that night darkened her soul, she grew more and more desperate.

She, finally, in the wee hours of the morning decided to turn to God.  Her situation was so pitiful and desperate she reasoned that only God could help her.  She had no inner resources left.  She was running on empty.

She found the Gideon Bible in one of the drawers of the dresser and thought that if she just opened it, just opened it anywhere, God would provide an answer.  She laid it on the bed, opened it with a finger and put it to a passage on the facing page.  “They conspired to kill Paul,” it read.

Was this the message God meant for her, that maybe she should kill herself?  Fortunately, good sense prevailed and she did not heed that message.

We had a notice on our church at the door leading into the worship service, “We know you often talk with God – but probably not on your cell phone.  Please silence it before worship.”

So, how would you know if you had received a message from God?  In what manner might it have come? 

Have you ever known with absolute certainty that the message was directed to the core of your being from the creative force at the center of all existence?

This is the experience of Ezekiel.  He relates his commission from God in our lectionary reading:

“’O mortal, stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you.’  And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me.  He said to me, ‘Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day.  The descendants are impudent and stubborn.  I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’”

Two things here.  First the commission is absolute.  You SHALL say to them.  Second, it’s not going to be a walk in the park.  Ezekiel’s being sent to a tough crowd, dead set in their ways.  Obdurate and recalcitrant.

This is exactly the same crowd Jesus encounters, folks who could not believe that any saving message could come from their own midst.  Just us chickens here.  No one else.

This Jesus fellow?  How’s he so special?  Where did he get all this?  Don’t we know his family?  He’s just the carpenter’s son.  As Nathaniel asks in John’s gospel, “Can any good come out of Nazareth?”  His hometown folks could not accept that a redeeming message could come from their midst.  The result of his visit was bupkis.  Nothing!

“And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.  And he was amazed at their unbelief.”

“So, he then left and went among the villages teaching.  He sent the twelve out, two by two, giving them authority over unclean spirits.”  Travel lightly, he instructed them.

The twelve, who were they?  Just ordinary fishermen he encountered along his walk.  No impressive credentials, just plain folks.  As my mom would say, “Just us chickens.”  No one special.

Yesterday I delighted in watching the PBS special, “A Capital Fourth.”  Sure, it was an over-the-top celebration of America.  But it wasn’t all the pomp and circumstance, or the military hoo-ha that was the source of my pride.  It was the crowd.

This was a good, diverse cross section of America, “just us chickens” –average folks out having a good time together.  Yes, there were a few exceptional “chickens” present.  Present was one of the original “Rosie the Riveters” who put together bombers to defeat the forces of tyranny during WWII.  These Rosies were just ordinary people who answered the call to duty when it came.

These were the people who returned from work to tend “victory gardens” and save metal and rubber.  They watched over one another’s kids and supported good schools.  “Just us chickens.” 

And that’s who Jesus sends out to spread the good news.  Yes, there are a few folks who need to amend their ways, as we all do from time to time.  But the overwhelming message is that God is good and so is the life we are given to live.

Take a look at what some of us ordinary folks are called to do.  Most of us will raise up the next generation to be self-sufficient, caring adults.  No mean feat in these troubled times with rampant drugs and cell phone addiction while immersed in a culture where “greed is good.”  Most will be of a generous heart and hold to the norms of respect and honest dealings. 

Most of us, like those twelve Jesus set out on “Mission Impossible” come from rather ordinary backgrounds.

This past week we lost one of baseball’s greats, Willie Mays.  His background was rather ordinary.  He grew up in a mostly Black industrial town in Alabama, Westfield.  His parents, never married, separated when he was three.  He was subsequently raised by his father and two aunts, with a good foundation from his AME church.

When he was only five, he and his father would play catch out in the yard.  By high school, he was showing evidence of his mother’s athletic ability.  He signed his first professional contract with a Negro League team before he was out of high school at seventeen.  And you know the rest of the story – one of baseball’s greats.

His nickname, the “Say Hey Kid,” stuck early on from how he would greet his team mates.  After a few home runs for the New York Giants, one sports writer Jimmy Cannon, would write, “There goes the Say Hey Kid.”

His over-the-shoulder catch in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series is one of the most famous baseball plays of all time.  Known as “The Catch,” hundreds of young aspiring baseball players would grow up practicing “The Catch.”  Famous as he was, he was not above playing stick ball with kids of his old neighborhood on visits back home.

Just one of us chickens, who with a bit of talent and lot of hard work became a very notable chicken.  Just like Peter and John and some of the others Jesus sent out.  Just like you and me, sent out to do the best we can, making our witness where opportunity opens up.  In our families, in our jobs and in our free time.

Let me tell you another story of some very ordinary chickens doing an extraordinary thing.  Have you ever heard of the “Wide Awake” movement?  Neither had I.  It was a forgotten force for ending slavery and getting Lincoln elected president.[1]  Jon Grinspan, curator of political history at the Smithsonian Museum has dug deeply into the forgotten past to bring us an amazing story.  Read his book, Wide Awake.

The story begins with an episode of mob violence following the presentation of an abolitionist speaker in Wheeling, West Virginia.  The mob howled, “The speakers! The speakers!  The northern dogs! Let us have them!”  James Brisbin, one of the speakers, could hear the shouting and hissing.

His only hope was to get out of town unnoticed, to get across the Wheeling Bridge across the Ohio River back into Ohio.  During his presentation an angry crowd had grown outside the lecture hall.

As rain poured down and the carriage rocked on the uneven road, passing the plaza before the bridge leading to the Wheeling Island, a large crowd blocked the path.  Brisbin, clearly identified as a northerner by his clothing, his white hat and long brown hair, was clearly identifiable as an outsider.

He’d have to run for it.  No choice.

“Then Brisbin was out of the carriage, trying to move briskly but inconspicuously through the crowds.  But his outfit gave him away.  Just as he neared the great bridge’s iron toll gate, a hand yanked him by his long hair.  Another grasped his shawl.  Brisbin sprang forward, losing a fistful of hair and breaking his shawl’s fastener.  He wheeled halfway around and struck one of his pursuers in the face.  Then, certain he was going to die, dashed for the bridge.”[2]

As he pounded down the wooden planks, a strange sight emerged in his field of vision.  He slowly made out a squadron of men, dressed in black, eighty strong.  At their head, a veteran officer kept them in a tight martial column.  “Some held banners with their stark symbol: an open and unblinking eye.”  Many held torches and some, revolvers.  These were the Wide Awakes.

This was a sight never before seen in American politics.

Later Brisbin would tell his Virginia hosts that he had marched into Wheeling with these “Wide Awakes and I would return with them dead or alive.”[3]

Who were these men?  And why do we know so little about their movement.  Most likely, they have escaped the pages of history because we write about the giants of our national story.  None of those assembled that night were notable.  The Wide Awakes were a grass roots phenomenon founded by a group of tailors on the spur of the moment. Their original purpose was to protect abolitionist speakers.  It would soon mushroom into hundreds of chapters with millions of adherents in most cities across the nation.  Just ordinary folks, livery stable boys, store clerks, handymen, farm laborers and assorted others.  Just us chickens, no one special.  Yet, they became one of the major forces propelling Lincoln to the presidency.  They were bound and determined that a group of some 600,000 slave holders in the South would not seal the fate of the American promise.  Read the book, Wide Awake, it’s a most amazing story.

Just average folks, much like those gathered out on the National Mall this past Fourth of July, doing their best to be good citizens and watch out for their neighbors, raise decent kids.  Much like those simple fishermen sent out to proclaim a new day of hope.  “Now is the moment of salvation.”  Stand on your feet and announce it to the hills and hollers, countryside and city: “God is doing a new thing.”  Join in.  This is our moment.  Yes, just us chickens.  We will save this democracy.  “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Amen.

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[1] Jon Grinspan, Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and spurred the Civil War (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024).

[2] Op. cit., x.

[3] Ibid.

July 7, 2024
Propers 9

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Ezekiel 2:1-5; Psalm 123;
2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13

“Just Us Chickens”