One Fell Swoop

What Macbeth (and God) have to say about the times we live in.

falcon

Note: The following is a sermon I preached on March 26, 2025. The church I serve has been invited to take part in the Lenten meal and worship service at the Lutheran church where we share space. I preached from Psalm 52, and it is part of a series I am doing as part of the Iowa Preachers’ Project. Psalm 52 is an Imprecatory Psalm, which is a psalm where the writer goes after those who have caused him harm. While I don’t mention our president and don’t speak about our current political situation directly, it is there. I don’t normally share sermons on this site, but I do want to give a word of hope at a time when many of us are not feeling hopeful and also feeling rather angry at the injustice all around us. Feel free to read the text, but I think you get the sermon by listening to the audio above.

‘All my pretty ones? Did you say all?

O hell-kite! All?

What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?’

I’ve remembered those words from Shakespeare’s Macbeth ever since I first read the play back in high school. They’re uttered by MacDuff, the Thane of Fife and the heroic protagonist in the play. He is sharing these words after hearing the awful news that his wife and children were murdered by Macbeth, the usurper king of Scotland. Macbeth sees Macduff as a threat to his rule and seeks to take him down not by killing him, but by killing the people he loves.

I’ve always wanted to know what hellkite means, and in preparing for this reflection, I learned that it is a reference to a bird of prey that silently swoops down and takes its prey, which is usually smaller and helpless. But we aren’t done with the avian imagery here. The phrase one fell swoop, is a phrase we are all familiar with. We might think the word fell here is talking about falling in the past tense, but the word here is more related to the word felon or felony. Macduff is describing this act, the act of murdering his entire family, including his children as a criminal.

We just read from Psalm 52, which is considered by some to be what is called an imprecatory psalm. These psalms speak of judgment, revenge, and curses on the writer’s enemies. Maybe the most familiar of these kinds of Psalms is one of the most horrific; in Psalm 137 the Israelites are in exile in Babylon, suffering humiliation and sadness. It ends with the psalmist saying to his captors “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”

Psalm 52 isn’t as shocking as Psalm 137 but the writer is upset at the unfairness of the situation. They see this person boasting of their evil. In their eyes, this isn’t a good person, but someone of not low character, but no character. And the psalmist looks forward to God confronting this evildoer. But the writer doesn’t just want this person to be held accountable, no. The writer wants him removed from the face of the earth with the righteous laughing at his downfall.

I’ve never liked the imprecatory psalms, but as I get older, I’ve come to understand them. We might not want to admit we feel this way, but the fact is, we do. Like Macduff crying over his dead children, we feel a sense of vengeance because we feel a sense of injustice. Back in the mid-80s the Canadian songwriter, Bruce Cockburn, wrote a song about the killing of people in a Central American village by the military called “If I Had a Rocket Launcher.” As he tells the story of the injustice happening he ends the song growing that if he had a rocket launcher, “some son of a bitch would die.” He didn’t mean he was going to get a rocket launcher and start taking out Central American soldiers, but he felt the rage of injustice and felt something needed to be done to write the wrong.

I have the feeling many of us are feeling this way now. We might see injustice happening in the news and maybe even in the lives of our family and friends. We cry to God not just for relief, but for justice- for sin to be called out and for the world to be set to right.

The Psalmist believes in the goodness of God and believes God will respond to his cry. God does answer injustice, but not like some religious version of Batman taking revenge on evildoers. God’s justice is rather different.

hen and chicks

There is one more avian theme that I didn’t share. Remember that Macduff talked about chicks? In Luke 13, Jesus was warned by the Pharisees that Herod, another murderous king, wanted to kill him. After calling him a worthless fox, he then likens himself to a mother hen gathering the chicks together. Jesus is the hen that gathers with us as the kites come in to destroy. And they do come in for the kill. His answer to the injustice of the world is shown on the cross, where he gives his life for the sake of the world. The one with the nail scars is the one that stands with us as a hen. None of this means we will be protected from bad things, but entering into the life of Christ and his sufferings is better than facing those sufferings without him. In Christ, the powers that oppress find their days numbered. Evil will rampage and will, like a murderous kite, might succeed, but it will never prevail over the cross of Christ.

We live in an age where we feel a lot of injustice. The kites of hell circle above, ready to take people in one fell swoop. We cry against injustice because it is injustice. But we also know that God hears our cries and responds. It doesn’t mean good days are around the corner, but it does mean God has not abandoned us. Our mother hen is present and will never forsake us. Thanks be to God. Amen.