Jerusalem, Jerusalem, a sermon based on Luke 13: 31-35, preached on March 16, 2025

One of the greatest challenges in preaching is maintaining the congregation’s attention. The key to success comes from following the advice of the great comedian Groucho Marx, who said, “Every sermon should begin with a joke and have a really good ending, and those two parts should be as close together as possible.” Some Sundays, I feel as though I’ve followed his advice and succeeded in keeping your attention. Other times, I know I’ve failed by the number of you who have fallen asleep. The other great sign that I’ve failed to keep your attention is to find a bulletin on Monday morning, left in a hymnal, covered in tic-tac-toe games. This is the challenge of every preacher, every teacher, every person or ad agency who is fighting for your ear. The number of advertisements we see each day is between 4,000 and 10,000. A 30-second slot for an ad during the Super Bowl costs about $8,000,000. All kinds of voices are fighting for your attention. I would go so far as to say that multiple voices in your life are fighting for your soul. To whom do you pay attention? To whom are you listening? Some speak because they want the best for you; others whisper in your ear because they want something from you, will take it, then throw you aside once they have what they want. Discerning between all the voices is a crucial skill, and it isn’t always easy. According to Jesus in our Gospel lesson, Jerusalem couldn’t tell the difference between which voice to listen to and which one to ignore. There, we read Jesus say: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 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 yet you were not willing!” By making this statement in our Gospel lesson, Jesus is positioning Himself on the one hand with King Herod on the other. Jesus calls Himself the mother hen who just wants to protect the people from harm. On the other hand is Herod, whom Jesus calls “that fox.” Herod is the fox who wanted to eat the people of Jerusalem as a fox eats the chicks of a mother hen, and while it defies logic, Jesus goes so far as to say that not only does Jerusalem chose to listen to the fox, but Jerusalem will stone the hen. So it is with humanity. We can’t always tell which voice to listen to. Sometimes, we reject the one who loves us to rush towards the open jaws of the one who will devour us. That happens in all kinds of movies, like Pinocchio for example. Do you remember Pinocchio? Pinocchio is a powerful movie. I was watching the remake that came out a couple years ago the other night when I couldn’t sleep. In this recent version, Tom Hanks plays Geppetto, Pinocchio’s father, because Tom Hanks can play anyone apparently. All these voices are fighting for Pinocchio’s attention. Pinocchio is learning which voices to listen to. On the one hand is Geppetto, this kind, lonely man, who so longs for a son that he builds one out of wood. The wooden boy comes to life, and Geppetto cherishes him. He loves him. He clothes him, feeds him, provides him a bed to sleep in and treasures him as a precious gift. This is what parenthood is supposed to be like. We parents pour our hearts into our children, only then, our children are seduced by voices that are not our own. Pinocchio tries to make his way to school, but on his way, he hears the voice of a fox named Honest John who knows that the great puppeteer Stromboli would pay handsomely for a puppet like Pinocchio. After this fox encouraged Pinocchio not to pursue an education but to take to the stage to see his name in lights, he’s thrown into a cage by Stromboli, who locks his new source of income behind bars. They make that guy so nasty. He eats an onion like it’s an apple. Do you remember? Had Stromboli led with that kind of behavior, Pinocchio might have known not to rush towards him, but the promise of fame comes first; the onion eating comes later. Because the fox is seductive, Pinocchio struggles to learn which voice to trust and which to ignore. By listening to a series of other people, all who want something from him, Pinocchio drifts further and further from his father who loves him. Eventually, he ends up on Pleasure Island, a cursed island with all the junk food a boy can eat and all the free cigarettes a boy can smoke, but all the boys seduced to this island are turned into donkeys. Do you remember all that? Voices are fighting for our attention. Many of them just want something from us, but the most sinister lead us to destruction, and we listen. Like headstrong toddlers, we reject the hand of those who love us because we want to walk on our own. Like self-assured teenagers, we think we know everything already and won’t listen to wisdom or advice. Like lost sheep, those who love us call us home, but we blunder down broken paths that lead to ruin. That’s who we are, so we must be careful about whom we listen to. Will we listen to our doctors, who tell us to cut out saturated fat and to exercise more? We don’t want to hear that. Or will we listen to our children’s teachers, who offer us an assessment of our children that we don’t like and can’t agree with? Likewise, the Bible so frequently tells us what we don’t want to hear. Scripture calls us to stay out of debt and to beware of lending money. Interest is mentioned in Scripture not once, but nearly as often as we are warned not to commit adultery are we warned not to lend with interest, yet the fox encourages us to spend money that we don’t have to buy things that we don’t need. Such voices as these who will us lead to enslavement are everywhere because we live in a culture full of foxes. Thousands upon thousands of voices call us towards what they say is an easy way sure to lead to happiness, and we are listening. We listen to the fox while we push away from the hen. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 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 yet you were not willing!” I wonder if here Jesus sounds a little like your mother. In some ways, Jesus sounds like mine because there were and still are so many things that she wants to protect me from. Years ago, she wanted to protect me from cigarettes, and not only was she on my case, but I am confident that she enlisted the help of my doctor who told me during an appointment when I was 13 or 14 years old that my asthma was so bad that if I ever so much as tried a puff of a cigarette, I might just die there on the spot. Regardless of whether that was true, I don’t know because I’m still too scared to try. That’s not entirely true, but she was successful overall. She kept me under those wings and away from smoking, but she couldn’t keep me completely away from my friends who did. The mother hen has her work cut out for her because there comes a time when the chicks want to go out into the world and desire the approval and acceptance, not of their mother so much as their peers, so Willie Nelson sings, “Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys,” Mama can try to “make them be doctors and lawyers and such” but they may not be willing because if all their friends want to be cowboys, then they want to be cowboys, too. My mom couldn’t keep me from wanting the approval of my peers, and when it came to several other temptations, I was unwilling to be gathered under her wings because I wanted not her protection but their acceptance. Do you remember how much it mattered to have the right clothes in high school? Every teenager pushes her parents away and is tempted by the voices of those from whom she wants approval and acceptance. And that never changes. Longing for approval and acceptance, we listen and we follow, and we find ourselves in the jaws of the fox. Like puppets, we are pulled and manipulated by so many messages, but our Gospel lesson is not primarily about the fox and his seduction. This Gospel lesson is about the mother hen who so longs to gather us under her wings that she never stops calling us home. Do you remember how the story of Pinocchio ends? The story of Pinocchio is really the story of a father who never stops looking for his son. While that son did things that he was surely afraid to tell his father about, Geppetto didn’t love him any less no matter what he heard his son confess. He just wanted his beloved child back under the safety of his wings. Such love as this reflects the awesome love of God. Sometimes, the shame that we feel keeps us silent and afraid to return home. If the fox has caused you to do something that you’re afraid to mention, if in underestimating the allure of the fox, you’ve turned down that road that led to your ruin, do not underestimate the love of Christ Jesus our Lord and His power to redeem. The Mother Hen would rather die than see us harmed. The Mother Hen would sooner be pelted by stones than abandon us to violence and destruction. The Mother Hen will face death, die, and rise again, for so wonderous is the love of God. Trust in His grace. In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Come home to the wings of mercy. Amen.

Be Reconciled to One Another, a sermon based on Isaiah 58: 1-12, preached on Ash Wednesday 2025

My sister has been in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. While the roots of Mardi Gras are religious, she’s not there on a pilgrimage. Mardi Gras is a big party that ends today, with Ash Wednesday. Traditionally, the high point of Mardi Gras was yesterday, Fat Tuesday, the last day you can eat all the things you give up for the season of religious fasting that we call Lent. Lent, which begins today, leads us to Easter. The 40 days of Lent are days of preparation and fasting, meant to remind us of the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness tempted by Satan, and the 40 years that the Israelites spent wandering after leaving slavery in Egypt before they reached the Promised Land. For 40 days, beginning today, we prepare for Easter, Resurrection, and the Promised Land. Now is the time to leave behind that which stands in the way. It’s a time to let go of heavy baggage that’s holding you back. Now is the time to repent and be saved. Many Christians give something up like wine or chocolate during these 40 days as a daily reminder of what they’re doing without. That seems like a good thing to do, but our daughter Cece used to always say that she was going to give up church for Lent. It’s a good spiritual practice to give up something for Lent, but you must be careful about what you’ll give up. Giving up something for Lent wasn’t something that I ever did until I was a student in seminary. Going through seminary and becoming a pastor can make you a more observant Christian in a lot of ways. Once you’re a pastor, you’re going to church every Sunday. I didn’t realize how many Sundays I wasn’t going to church until I was working every Sunday. Even 4th of July weekend. I also didn’t develop much of a prayer life until I was praying all the time and encouraging people to pray. Likewise, I didn’t tithe until I had to ask people to tithe. Now I start each day with prayer and a devotion, and we give 10% of my income to the church because I can’t stand up here telling you to do those things unless I’m doing them. I also started giving up something for Lent in seminary, and seminary students are competitive, as all students are competitive, but because seminary students are preparing to be pastors, it’s weird the things that seminary students are competitive about. I remember classmates competing over who was giving up the hardest thing for Lent. I was thinking about giving up dessert until I heard that a classmate was giving up meat. Then another was giving up driving a car. For the whole season of Lent, he’d be walking or riding a bike. Someone else was giving up coffee. Another alcohol. Regardless of the severity of what we were giving up, we were all missing the point. What kind of fast does the Lord require? Our second Scripture lesson from the book of Isaiah draws a clear comparison: there are those who fast, who humble themselves, but do so expecting God to notice how hard they’re being on themselves. Don’t fast trying to impress God with your suffering. Jesus warned His followers not to use religious observance to impress anyone. What kind of fast does the Lord require? It was there in our Scripture lesson from Isaiah. Is not this the fast that I choose, To loose the bonds of injustice. To undo the thongs of the yoke. To let the oppressed go free. And to break every yoke that God’s people labor under. In other words, give up that which stands between you and your neighbor. Give up doing the things that cause your neighbor to resent you. If the way you are managing your business is building resentment among your employees, if they’re complaining about you at the water cooler and behind your back, then change the way you’re managing people. If your family is in conflict, then consider what you’re doing that makes things worse. What are you doing to add to the conflict? Don’t give up chocolate or French fries. Give up resentment, anger, or stress. Don’t give up something that makes you harder to be around than you already are. If giving up coffee makes you grumpy, then keep drinking it. If giving up beer keeps you from hanging out your friends in the neighborhood, then keep drinking it, but if drinking gives rise to anger, then let it go. If you drive your car through the neighborhood and never slow down to greet your neighbors, then consider with me that your car is keeping you so isolated that it’s getting in the way of better relationships. God doesn’t care about fasting for the sake of fasting. The goal of Lent is to consider everything that we’re doing that keeps us from being reconciled to each other. Back to alcohol. If you’ve seen my favorite TV show, Ted Lasso, then you’ll remember in the first season the strained relationship between the young superstar, Jamie Tart, and the aging veteran, Roy Kent. Seating them at the same table for a benefit dinner, Coach Ted Lasso brings over a round of beers and says, “This is either going to make things a little better or a lot worse.” So often, this is the case with alcohol. So many substances and devices in our lives started out as making life a little bit better, a little bit easier. They were fun until they took over so much of our time that they started making our lives worse. Some of our habits are like pet boa constrictors. They’re little and cute and easy to control, but they grow so large that they can suffocate you. What is suffocating you? What is isolating you? What are the bricks that you’re using to maintain the wall between you and your sister? What would it take to bring that wall down? You don’t have to give anything up for Lent. You can start doing something new. I wonder what would happen in your life if you gave up playing Candy Crush on your phone to take up texting a different member of your family every night. I wonder what would happen if you gave up watching TV and started inviting the neighbors over for dinner. I wonder what would happen in your life if you gave up ordering Starbucks coffee in the drive thru in favor of going in and learning the name of the tattooed graduate school student who is working behind the counter. Do you know how fun life can be if you take the ear buds out of your ears to listen and greet the people in your neighborhood? Sara asked me to walk our dog, Izzy, last week, and I was putting the ear buds in my ears so that I could listen to a podcast while I walked, when Sara said, “That’s a good way to let everyone know that you don’t want to talk to them.” I felt a little resentful when she said that. Not only was she asking me to walk the dog, but she was also telling how to walk the dog, but she’s right. What am I doing that is shutting other people out, and why am I doing that when it’s other people that make me happy? Where are your damaged relationships and what can you do about them? Wouldn’t it be nice if you got back together with that friend whom haven’t talked to? Maybe you had a falling out. She said something mean. Then you got defensive. Maybe it all took place on Facebook. As it turns out, Facebook is a good place to destroy a friendship, and it’s not a good place to rebuild one. What if you gave up Facebook for Lent and took up face-to-face meetings with someone whose feelings you hurt? What if you gave up running on a treadmill in your basement and invited your mom to walk the neighborhood with you? Speaking of moms, my mom’s favorite thing is to walk with me around the neighborhood, but when I walk the dog, I just listen to this history podcast about the emperors of the Roman Empire. I don’t need to establish a relationship with any of them. With whom do I need to establish or reestablish a relationship? Which friendships of mine are frayed and why? What are you doing that is taking so much of your energy that when you get home, there’s nothing left for the people you love? Ike Reighard, who runs MUST Ministries, is known to have defined success this way: Success is when the people who know you best, love you most. Do the people who know you best love you most, or would they describe you as distracted, frustrated, and preoccupied? Give up over-functioning. Give up turning on the TV as soon as you walk through the door. Give up listening to the biggest complainers in your office and take up a new practice of writing thank-you notes to the people who make you happy. It’s been said that the opposite of addiction is relationships. We substitute so many substances and so many mindless activities for relationships. Give up the substances. Give up the distractions. And be reconciled to somebody. If we all tried to lay down the grudges, to speak to each other with respect, to try to understand, to be curious rather than judgmental, can you imagine where we would be at the end of these 40 days of Lent? It would be a lot more like Heaven. It would be something like the Promised Land, which is where He’s taking us. Lay down your burdens, your bad habits, your addictions, and follow where He leads. Amen.

What Happens on the Mountaintop, Stays on the Mountaintop, a sermon based on Luke 9: 28-42, preached on March 2, 2025

Last Monday, Ken Miner invited me to attend a special lunch at NorthStar Church in Kennesaw. Leaders in the community were invited to glean faithful leadership skills from Scripture. Our focus was Joseph, whom we read about last Sunday in the book of Genesis. Joseph was a leader in Pharoah’s Egypt. What did he do, and how did he conduct himself? What lessons might we learn from his example as we work and lead in this community? There are seven days in a week, but how often do we leave faithfulness to Sunday? What about Monday? That’s a challenge. It’s a challenge to lean on your faith in a world where people are ashamed to ask for help. That’s a challenge for us. That was a challenge even for the disciples who saw Jesus up on a mountaintop. In our Gospel lesson for this morning, notice with me that the miracle of the mountaintop doesn’t last. It doesn’t last for the disciples as they make their way back down into the valley. Today, we celebrate what happened up on the mountaintop. Today is one of those high holy days of the year that no one pays too much attention to. You might say that Transfiguration Sunday is the Arbor Day of the Church year. It’s an official holiday, but no gifts are exchanged. No one plans a big family meal to celebrate the Transfiguration. Does anyone even know what it is? The best example from popular culture is probably in Star Wars. Either Star Wars or Harry Potter. In both, the hero faces death. In Star Wars, our hero, Luke Skywalker, goes to fight his great enemy, Darth Vadar. Likewise, in Harry Potter, our hero, Harry, the boy wizard, goes to face the evil Voldemort, but before either goes to face his foe and his probable death, he’s suddenly joined by figures from beyond the grave. In Star Wars, it’s Luke’s greatest teachers, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. In Harry Potter, it’s Harry’s parents and the two most important figures from his days at Hogwarts, Professor Remus Lupin and his godfather, Sirius Black. My point is not to reveal to you how many times I’ve watched these two movies, but to assure you that you know more about the Transfiguration than you think you do. You just didn’t know that Star Wars and Harry Potter got the idea for those scenes from the Bible. As Jesus fully recognizes that He’s going to the cross to die in order to defeat the greatest enemy, death itself, He is encouraged up on that mountain by the two great heroes of our Old Testament: Moses and Elijah. The disciples recognized them, and I remember that once, in a Bible study, someone asked, “How did the disciples know that it was Moses and Elijah?” They had never seen a picture of them. No one knew what they looked like. Someone else in the Bible study said, “Maybe they had on nametags.” They didn’t have on nametags. The disciples just knew, and how they knew isn’t as important as considering why they were there. Why did Moses and Elijah appear to Jesus? It was to encourage Him as he prepares to face the cross. You can’t overcome life’s greatest challenges all on your own. That was true for Jesus, and that is true for you and me, and yet, the next day, they had come down from the mountain, and a great crowd met Jesus. Just then, a man from the crowd shouted: “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Why not? Disciples can’t always do what the Master can do, but if the Master is with them… Bring your son here, Jesus said. While he was coming, the demon dashed the boy to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. My friends, Jesus can do things that we cannot, and He is with us, not just on top of the mountain but down in the valley below, but are you trying to heal the world’s demons all on your own or will you call out for help? Now, that’s not easy. I don’t like asking for help. I don’t like people knowing that I need it. Just last Thursday, I was trying to get out of the hospital’s parking lot. I’d just been to visit a member of this church who’d had surgery, and I was trying to pay for parking at the kiosk. The machine didn’t like my debit card. A young woman asked if I needed help. She was in her 20’s. She asked me if I needed help, and I was too proud to accept it. I decided just to stay trapped in the parking garage, as though what I say from this pulpit has no bearing on how I live my life. Are we not always in need of help? Then call out for it. Ask and you shall receive, but so long as we go along this road thinking it’s all up to us and we know all the answers, we will be paving our way to Hell with our good intentions and our best-laid plans. Yet, the moment we turn to Him to confess our sins and rely on His grace; He will lift us up and take us to the Promised Land. My friends, we call him the Savior because we need saving. Watch the news if you don’t think we’re broken. Yet after watching, call on Him for help and trust Him to cast out demons and make us whole. Amen.