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.