Chicken Little

Today we move from the cattle pasture and goat pen over to the chicken coop. If you don't know how the story of Chicken Little goes, it's old and there are lots of similar versions. Here's one:

Once upon a time, there was a chicken named Chicken Little who was busy pecking around in the grass and made its way through the yard over to an oak tree. An acorn fell from the tree and hit Chicken Little on the head. It was a surprise and hurt a lot. In that moment of pain and fear, it occurred to Chicken Little that not only had something fallen out of the sky but maybe THE ENTIRE SKY WAS FALLING!! This was terrible to think about and it made a sort of sense inside the chicken's throbbing head. The more the chicken thought about it, the more afraid and frantic it felt. If the whole sky was falling then all the farm animals were in danger and something needed to be done as soon as possible.

The chicken ran across the yard and found Lucky Duck. “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” shouted the chicken. Lucky Duck had been minding its own business and wasn't prepared for such frightening news and was pretty soon just as afraid as Chicken Little. Both of them kept on running and found Loosey Goose. “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” they shouted at the Goose. The goose was having a difficult day to begin with and was not prepared to hear more bad news so the chicken and the duck caught it completely by surprise. Soon the Goose was excited and afraid too and the three of them ran across the barnyard until they found Turkey Lurkey. “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” the three of them yelled at the turkey. The turkey had a hard time staying calm at the best of times so with three friends shouting in its face it wasn't long before the turkey was flapping around too.

They flapped around so frantically that without realizing it they flapped right out of the barnyard fence and were soon out in the field. Before long they were breathless in the woods shouting, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” They found themselves out of breath, exhausted, and not sure where they were as the sun set. That evening the fox came along and ate them all.

It's a strange story, weird and dark in the way that many of the Grimm fairy tales are, with a brutal, abrupt ending. Overall it doesn't really matter how the story ends as long as it's bad and each time it's told the end gets tweaked to fit the situation. In 1943, the United States government hired Disney to make an animated version. There's a German version from the 1800s in the collected Grimm fairy tales. Apparently, in England, the chicken is called Henny Penny and there are versions of the story specific to the Brits. North American newspapers have been using the Chicken Little phrase to make light of people who claim terrible things are about to happen since the 1840s but also publishing all the claims those people make. I don't know when I first heard the story, I feel like I've known it my whole life. The gist of the story is always the same – the chicken's over-reaction spreads through the rest of the animals and all of them suffer for it.

How exactly the chicken and other animals should have acted differently depends on the version. The WWII Disney version, which you can watch here on YouTube, was an effort by the American government to get people to stop speculating about various wartime conspiracy theories and concentrate on the practical steps of sustaining the war effort. There's a less dire animated version from 2005 with a more generic lesson about not paying attention to rumours. The fact that the story is so common across cultures and through time says that people have been jumping to conclusions for a long time and also warning against the dangers. But whatever the message, there's a sense in which the finger of blame points at the chicken. If Chicken Little hadn't made such a stupid assumption then there would have been nothing to flap about and everything would be OK.

I would like to suggest a different conclusion that I think might sit better with biblical teaching and Jesus' life. Chicken Little did make a mistake but that mistake came during a surprising moment of pain and fear. A chicken's head isn't that large – not much larger than an acorn. If you were walking around minding your own business and a wooden block the size of a volleyball fell out of the sky and hit you in the head you might jump to unusual conclusions too. The chicken's error isn't the important thing in the story – that's a mistake that could have been made by anybody in crisis. The important thing is that the chicken did not have a caring, discerning community of faith during its time of crisis.

If Lucky Duck had said, “Whoa Chicken! That's a nasty bump you got on the head! And you missed lunch too! Sit down and tell me about it, let me get you something to eat and a glass of water” the frantic level would have gone down some. Then when Loosey Goose came along and said “Chicken buddy, you got blood on your shirt I've got a clean one here why don't you wear it,” then the chicken could start to calm down a bit and think more clearly. And when the bunch of them called Turkey Lurkey to come over and visit while they helped the chicken clean up the whole thing soon becomes a shared story that they can help each other understand more clearly. At the end of the day, the fox goes hungry, the chickens stay calm, and a mistake made in pain and crisis becomes a healing story that strengthens the bonds of love, support, and compassion. The crisis still happens – this is not a glib way of saying that hurtful things don't happen. Whatever injury the chicken received still needs healing but the initial crisis gets unravelled and managed by the group instead of ramped up and made worse by the group.

The story of Chicken Little is always relevant but it does seem particularly relevant now. There are lots of crises to choose from. They include the Covid virus, public health or government efforts to manage it, tensions around election season in America, hurricane season on the east coast, fire season on the west coast, and the variety of political, religious, economic, and social things that torment people all around the world. People lose their lives, homes, and opportunities in terrible ways every day. These crises also include the injuries, illnesses, disappointments and losses that we each experience in our private lives, our family, church, and community. All of these are real crises that hurt us, scare us, and might make us feel helpless and frantic. We might wonder if the sky is literally falling and when people come along who claim that it is, we can join in the flapping. Sometimes those people are Christians and the flapping comes along with words of faith taken from Scripture and attempts to foretell future events in a way that Jesus forbids at the end of Matthew 24.

But, as people of faith, we can also choose not to join the flapping. This is not to minimize the seriousness of the situation or of the crises around us but we can choose to react in different ways. We take our cue from Jesus who starts his ministry quoting from Isaiah 61 in his home town, “he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor … freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour” (Luke 4). Then, later on, John the Baptist wonders whether Jesus is the one sent by God or not. John is in real crisis - he's about to be executed. Jesus' response in Matthew 11 is that John's friends should report what they have already heard and seen, “The blind see, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” It's practical steps of stuff that's already going on. No flapping. It looks more like the daily details of a medical mission. Then, in case anyone has missed the point, Jesus wraps up his teaching in Matthew 24 by listing all sorts of terrible things that people will claim to be the end of all things but really aren't and then even after all of that God's presence will sneak up on people 'like a thief in the night”. How should we respond? Jesus is clear in Matthew 25, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

That sounds a lot like the stuff that Inner City Youth Alive or Siloam Mission or Mennonite Central Committee or Samaritan's Purse has done every day for years. Surely something should be different when the world is in a time of so many crises! ‘Nope,’ says Jesus, ‘nothing changes.’ The way we are called to respond to crisis is with food, water, an invitation to strangers, clothes, and care for those who are sick or in jail. It's the same at the beginning of his ministry as it was for the prophets before him. It's how Jesus announces himself, how he confirms himself during John's time of crisis, and his final words of teaching. This is what could take Chicken Little from wild-eyed fear and assumptions to clear-eyed, practical caring discernment. This is what prevents the animals from flapping off to the waiting fox. This is what announces us as Jesus' followers now and opens the door to further conversation about faith and invitation. This is how we help each other and our friends whose anxiety levels are going up and up. This is what will draw our church together towards greater faithfulness, stronger relationships, and growth in faith.