2026-03-02
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Federated Church of Chagrin Falls
Rev. Michael Anthony Howard
March 1, 2026
Lent 2 | Luke 13:31-35
I have come to understand the gospel as the mighty and dangerous story of the unfolding of the dream of God.
It is mighty because it speaks of the force that brought creation into existence.
It is dangerous because it threatens to dismantle the world as we have constructed it — to rework us and reorient us toward the dream of God.
It is the good news of that dream unfolding in Jesus’ body two thousand years ago.
But it is also the good news of that dream unfolding in our body — the body of Christ — here and now.
And I am deeply interested in how our understanding of the gospel shapes the dreams we have for the places we inhabit.
If our gospel is small, our dreams will be small.
If our gospel is defensive, we will build defensive communities.
If our gospel is only about survival, then our vision of humanity shrinks — solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short — organized around fear.
But that is not Luke’s gospel.
Luke knows Psalm 8.
“What are human beings that you are mindful of them?”
“You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.”
That is Luke’s anthropology.
Humanity crowned with glory.
But Luke is not naïve about glory.
Glory without discernment is not divine — it is distorted.
Honor without self-knowledge is not strength — it is self-deception.
Humanity crowned with glory, without passing through the desert, does not bring salvation. It brings destruction.
And that is why the first act of the baptized Messiah is not applause.
It is wilderness.
After the heavens open and the voice declares, “You are my beloved,” the Spirit leads Jesus into the desert.
There he faces distorted glory.
Turn stones to bread.
Throw yourself down.
Take the kingdoms.
Power without humility.
Glory without obedience.
Control without love.
This is shadow work.
Before Jesus heals, before he teaches, before he confronts Herod — he refuses to become what he opposes.
Only then does he return in the power of the Spirit.
Only then does vocation begin.
And that matters right now.
This weekend brought sobering news:
reports that the Ayatollah of Iran has been killed.
The U.S. and Israel are now at war with Iran
—and the broader Middle East.
Many of you have mentioned this in conversation. It’s stirred fear,
fatigue,
disorientation,
even anger
— very human reactions
to a world that already feels too fast
too loud,
too unstable.
In moments like this,
the impulse is to latch onto the loudest narrative,
to define ourselves by the threat,
to organize our attention around danger.
That is exactly the logic Jesus refuses.
In Luke 13, the Pharisees say, “Herod wants to kill you.”
And Jesus says, “Go tell that fox…”
He names the fox
— the power that thrives on spectacle and reaction — but he refuses to let the fox become the center of his story.
He refuses to organize his life by fear.
He refuses to let threat dictate vocation.
That refusal does not mean denial of danger.
It means facing fear clearly
— naming it
— and then choosing not to become defined by it.
There is a great deal in our world right now that feels loud.
There is fatigue in the air.
Disorientation.
Anger in some places.
Anxiety in others.
A constant stream of spectacle and reaction.
There is a kind of power that thrives on self-aggrandizement.
A kind of power that keeps the spotlight fixed on itself.
Glory without discernment.
Honor without self-knowledge.
And it tempts us to organize ourselves around it.
To let fear define us.
To let exhaustion scatter us.
But Jesus refuses.
He names the fox
— and then he keeps moving toward Jerusalem.
And then he says:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets…”
Jerusalem was called to be a gathered city.
A city of peace.
A place where tribes came together.
But fear fractured it.
Anxiety scattered it.
And so Jesus laments:
When Jesus laments, he does not say, “How often I wanted to defeat you.”
He says,
“How often I have longed to gather you as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…”
That word is the center.
Gather.
And notice the image.
Not a warhorse.
Not a throne.
Not a fortress.
A wing.
Warm.
Close.
Protective.
What does gathering do?
Gathering makes us stronger.
A scattered people is fragile.
A gathered people is resilient.
What does gathering do?
It makes us safer.
Not safe because there are no threats —
safe because we belong to one another.
What does gathering do?
It allows us to become who we actually are — together.
Under God’s wing.
Not organized by fear.
Not organized by spectacle.
Not organized by survival.
Under God’s wing.
And under that wing, something remarkable happens.
We become full.
Not full of ourselves.
Not full of noise.
Full to the brim with belonging.
Full to the brim with courage.
Full to the brim with shared life.
This is not sentimental.
This is salvation.
When we gather without projection…
When we gather without domination…
When we gather as people who have passed through the desert…
We begin to look like what creation has been waiting for.
Paul says creation has been groaning.
Groaning for the revealing of the children of God.
And at the end of the story — in the vision of the New Jerusalem — we do not see scattered tribes.
We see a city.
We see a river.
We see nations gathered.
We see healing.
We see leaves for the healing of the nations.
Gathered humanity.
Under God’s wing.
That is the dream.
That is the telos.
Not domination.
Not spectacle.
Not scattered anxiety.
Gathered life.
And here we are.
In this place.
In this moment.
We do not deny the fox.
But we do not enthrone the fox.
We do not organize our life together around distraction.
We organize around Christ.
We come under God’s wing.
We do our shadow work.
We refuse to become what exhausts us.
Because God is gathering.
God is gathering what fear has scattered.
God is gathering what fatigue has frayed.
God is gathering what anxiety has divided.
And if we will follow Christ — not into noise, not into reaction, not into spectacle — but into faithful presence,
then we, too, can gather.
Let us gather.