One of the saddest laments in all scripture - the anguish of Jesus crying out, Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how often I long to gather your children - like a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" That's the tragic part: "...and you were not willing!"

Jerusalem, Jerusalem. In the thirty or so times I've been there, Jerusalem has never seemed overly holy or outwardly peaceful. However, even though Sinatra sings with such gusto about Chicago, or New York, New York - Jerusalem is my kind of town.

This morning, the very morning I baptize Brooke and Benjamin, I cannot help but think of the time when their great-grandmother and I visited Jerusalem. Elisabeth was being berated by a shopkeeper who felt she had dishonored him by not buying his goods. I was the shepherd of the group; I intervened. Not like a shepherd; more like a sheep dog. Actually, a sheep dog doing a poor imitation of a pit bull! The scene in the street was not pretty. The shopkeeper screamed at me and swore. I screamed at him and swore Elisabeth to secrecy. As far as I know, Elisabeth has kept secret about my silly behavior.

How unlike Jesus - who seeks to influence people with gentleness, Not for me; not that time. Not gentleness - the jugular. How Jesus must weep over me! And Elisabeth, there's no need to elaborate more fully on this story!

There have been other occasions when I experienced the less-than-peaceful aura of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, there is no city I love more. Given the fact it has a mystical hold on three billion Moslems, Christians and Jews, there is no city in the world quite like Jerusalem.

For the Jewish people, it is David's City, the city of the Temple of Solomon. The capital of the Holy Land. The Jewish people speak of it as "the Naval of the Universe." The Moslem claim is less compelling, but just as real: Mohammed made a night journey through the heavens, from Mecca to Jerusalem, landing smack dab on a rock Jews believe to have been the altar of the by now destroyed Temple. And for Christians, Jerusalem is the site of the death of God ... the place of crucifixion. All that counts for nothing though, were Jerusalem not the site of Resurrection! In the case of Jesus, Jerusalem is a death defying city!

But we start in the north this morning, as our Gospel text takes place in Galilee - ninety hilly miles to the north. Jesus is in Galilee, but his heart is fixed upon Jerusalem. For those of us who know the story well, once Jesus made the decision to "turn his face toward Jerusalem," as the Gospel writers put it, it was already too late. His fate is sealed. Church and state were threatened by him, by his growing popularity. Jesus did not have to be a fortune teller, read tea leaves, consult the stars to know his days were numbered. He had only to be a student of human nature to recognize that in the ongoing battle between self-serving and the need to serve others, we chicks tend first to feather our own nests. People tend to protect their own little kingdoms. Jesus recognized as long as he continued to preach God's Word and God's Will to a selfish world, either people would die to their sins - crucify the preacher - or worst of all, ignore him. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem," sounds the painful lament, "How often I long to gather you - like a hen gathers her brood. And you were not willing!"

We know that lament. "How I long to gather...." Many of us have lived it. Do you have a child you just can't seem to reach? A child who has fallen in with "the wrong crowd" and thus becomes increasingly distant? Do you have a father or a mother with anger issues or alcohol issues or whose career seems more important than family? Do you have a love one you want to protect, would do anything to protect, but the cancer is such that's you can do nothing but shed your tears as you extend your arms. If so you can understand the pain and frustration of Jesus, as he reaches out to protect ... and people are unwilling or unable to respond.

One of the popular images of Jesus is that he is a man who can do anything. Walk on water. Turn a couple fish and a few loaves into a banquet. Heal the sick. Yes, even raise the dead. "That's our Jesus, he can do anything." Today's Gospel lesson flies in the face of that. Sure, Jesus can do many impressive things. But Jesus cannot make us love him. The parents of both Brook and Benjamin can hope and pray their children will love and respect them; but they cannot mandate it. They cannot make that happen. In the same way, Jesus is just as helpless. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How often I long to gather you - like a hen gathers her brood.. And you were not willing!"

Halfway up the steep slope of the Mount of Olives, there's a little chapel, shaped like an upside-down tear drop. The chapel is called Dominus Flevit, "the Lord wept." It marks the place where Jesus wept over the city. What a tribute to the nature of God: not a lightning bolt; not a weapon; a tear drop. A God who would weep for the children of God, rather than a God who would wipe them out ... as sometimes we so richly deserve! A lonely teardrop chapel stands in silent eloquence; our spurning of God's yearning. "How I longed to gather - but you were not willing!" For make no mistake about it, we are not so different from the people of Jerusalem. Not then. Not now. Our self-interests so often is counter to God's Will. And yet, still, always, forever - as if he were still on a Cross, the arms of Jesus are open wide, yearning to gather us in.

This morning, the arms of Jesus reach out for Benjamin and Brooke. Water will wash over them, as once water washed over us. Water, like warm tears from the eyes of Jesus. The Church proclaims that God makes claim to these two and God will continually seek to enfold and embrace them throughout their lives - even as God will always continue to reach out to us - we dysfunctional critters of the barnyard. We who tend to take holy cities and turn them into battlefields. We who pay lip service to God's claim on our lives ... while so often living and acting as if God were not real.

May today be the day we truly hear the cry of Jesus, "How often have I desired to gather you as a hen gathers her brood...." and may this be the day we are willing!