Getting the Message

Sermon for April 24, 2022, Easter 2 C

Video will be posted at the website of the Central Presbyterian Church, Fort Smith, AR. following the service.

 John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

The stories of Jesus’ appearances after his death, some New Testament scholars have pointed out, have a dreamlike quality to them.  Jesus appears to people who knew him well, but they don’t recognize him at first.  He can appear and disappear, be in Jerusalem and the next moment in Galilee.  

But like dreams that reveal important truths, these stories told by the followers of Jesus, have powerful messages to teach; messages that the followers of Jesus then and now need to hear; messages that both nurture faith and challenge us to action. 

A Radically New Jesus

What are we supposed to make of a story in which someone, specifically Jesus, can suddenly appear in locked rooms, and yet has the marks of crucifixion on his body?  

The only conclusion that makes sense to me is that Jesus is being presented as a living reality, though no longer 

“a figure of flesh and blood confined to time and space” 

as Borg and Crossan have written.  Jesus is still experienced, but 

“in a radically new way.”  

Jesus’ Last Week, Borg and Crossan

But it is important that this experience of Jesus not be separated from what just happened: he was crucified.  He was an innocent victim of capital punishment.  

The Jesus who is a living reality for Christians has permanent scars.  He challenged the oppressive powers that be, when he shut down the temple on behalf of the poor to whom he had come to bring good news, and was killed for it.   

The Jesus we continue to encounter as a living presence was one who died fighting for justice. 

Like a repeating dream, this story has two parts that are similar, but with one exception: Thomas is absent from the first scene, but present for the second. Taken together, these two scenes include six messages of Jesus.  We will look at each of them and notice why we need these messages today.

Peace be with you

The very first thing Jesus says, as he suddenly appears in that locked room on Easter evening, is 

“Peace be with you.”  

Jesus says this to the very people who totally abandoned him at his arrest.  To the people who should have stayed with him, who should have stood up for him, who should have tried to protect him but instead, ran for their lives, he said, 

“Peace be with you.”  

By those words, Jesus was putting into practice the very kind of tough forgiveness that he will call his followers to practice.  Though he had reason to feel resentment, he rejected resentment.  Though he had reason to make them grovel in shame and guilt, he did the opposite.  Though he could have demanded at least an apology, he did not wait for one nor ask for one.  He simply forgave them, saying, 

“Peace be with you.”  

The message for us is that God’s orientation to us is positive, not negative.  We need not fear God, but rather understand that God is the source of our sense of peace and well-being, regardless of our circumstance.  

So I send you

Not only did Jesus forgive them, he still saw a future for them.  They had abandoned him, true, but they were not, therefore, damaged goods.  He still believed that they could be significant.   So he said, 

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  

You have a mission.  It is not about your past record; there are people who need your help.  There is still oppression: resist it.  There is still discrimination: dismantle it.  There is still hunger, disease, poverty, homelessness, loneliness, and mental illness: be an activist.  Risk everything, like I did, he is saying.  Go up against structures of injustice; be bold; say “no” to the status quo.  

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  

We hear in this our commission.  Followers of Jesus are not called to the couch; we are called to be active on behalf of a world that hurts so badly.  We cannot use the excuse that something in our past disqualifies us.  If people who abandoned Jesus can be commissioned to service, so can all of us. 

Receive the Spirit

But you cannot think you can do this in your own power. In a way that echoes the scene in which God breathed breath into Adam, making him a living being, according to the Creation story, Jesus breathed on them and said, 

“receive the Holy Spirit.”  

What do we mean when we say Holy Spirit?  Many years before the church came up with the word“trinity” Paul seems not to have made much of a distinction between the Spirit and Jesus.   He often calls Jesus “Messiah” — or, in the Greek version of that word, “Christ.”  He says that the Spirit is both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. (See Romans 8)

That Spirit is both everywhere present, and also dwells within us. This means that the way Jesus is present to us today is through the presence of the Spirit.  And this Spirit, Jesus has called, the Spirit of truth that will lead us into truth, helping us come to know things that Jesus said we were not ready to hear in his lifetime.  (See John 14–16)

We are witnesses of this message.  In those days, they could not have imagined a world without enslaved persons.  Thank God the Spirit of truth has guided us out of that horrible institution.  

Back then, the idea that women should have equality with men, in the home, in eduction, in the marketplace and in government, was all but unthinkable.  

Back then, racism was rampant.  Classism was endemic. The poor had no protections.  Almost nobody could dream of a world that was different.  They had no understanding of sexual orientation or gender identity as we do today. The Spirit of truth has led us to see our world in a new way. 

Forgive

The Spirit has led us to be an open, inclusive, affirming community.  But we are imperfect humans.   We need each other in this community, but we make life difficult for each other.  So Jesus’ next message is, 

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  

I love Eugene Petersons’ rendering of this in his Message translation, 

“If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?”  

We have the power of forgiveness.  Just as Jesus said “peace” to the ones who abandoned him, so we have been charged with the mandate of forgiving each other.  It is the only way a community of imperfect people can flourish.  

Communities that do not practice forgiveness become toxic, even if they have a noble mission.  Communities that do practice forgiveness, as Jesus molded and taught, are communities of healing and restoration.  

Believe

Is this possible?  Sometimes it does feel like it is only a dream.  Sometimes the vision of a reconciled world in which everyone is respected, protected, loved and forgiven seems hopelessly idealistic.  

It seems like a dream to imagine a world in which there can be resurrections: love again, after betrayal; trust again, after abuse; hope after so much evidence of the capacity of humans to be evil.  So Jesus’ final message in that Locked room is, 

“Do not doubt but believe.” “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  

In other words, hold onto the vision.  Keep telling the Jesus stories over and over.  Keep believing that, as Dr. King said, 

“the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”  

We may not be seeing it now.  We may not even see it from the perspective of one lifetime, but keep believing it.  Keep getting the Easter message from scarred but living Jesus:

“Peace be with you.”  
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 
“Receive the Holy Spirit.”
“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;
“Do not doubt but believe.”
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  

They Remembered His Words

Sermon for April 17, 2022, Easter Sunday, C

Video will be avaiable at the website of the Central Presbyterian Church in Fort Smith, AR. after the service.

Luke 24:1-12

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

In Egypt, in December 1945, they discovered a buried ancient group of manuscripts,  including one they call the Gospel of Thomas which could be as old as the canonical gospels.  

It is a group of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus.  It includes no stories of Jesus, no accounts of his birth, death, or miracles, just a collection of words attributed to him.  Clearly, it was important for early groups of Christians to remember his words.  

There is another collection of Jesus’ words that scholars believe is embedded in the gospels as we have them.  Often the gospels quote each other word-for-word, in ways that show that they were quoting from the same ancient source, now lost to history.  

When you put those quotations together, you find that you have another group of sayings of Jesus.  Like the Gospel of Thomas, there are no stories in that source, only sayings.  The earliest Christians knew it was important to remember his words. 

In the heart of the Easter story, at the empty tomb, we hear the two men in dazzling clothes say to the frightened women “remember his words.”  And then, Luke tells us, “they remembered his words.”  

What does it mean for us today to say “Christ is risen?”  It means that Christ is not merely a figure of the past.  Christ is alive in us, and in our community, as we gather to remember his words.  

His words are living and powerful for us, just as they were for the first Christians.  His words give us comfort and hope.  His words inspire us and challenge us.  His words give us purpose and meaning.  

What could be a better way to celebrate the living presence of Christ among us today than to remember some of his words together?  

We have to begin where the gospels begin, though they each begin differently.  One of the earliest scenes in which Jesus speaks as an adult, in Luke’s gospel is when he came to the synagogue service in Nazareth.  He read from the prophet Isaiah who said, 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.”  

We remember Jesus’ words which followed, 

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  

Historians tell us that the category of people called “the poor” was not even used in the ancient Roman world.  They were simply overlooked as a matter of anyone’s concerns.  They were non-persons.  

But Jesus turned his attention to the poor, and in doing so, made persons out of non-persons.  We celebrate Easter every time we bring good news to the poor, that they are loved by God, and we put that love into action by finding ways to help them out of their poverty.  Because, we remember his words. 

We remember that the first thing Jesus says in Mark’s version of the story of Jesus is 

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent [that is, change your thinking], and trust in the good news.”  

We remember that the theme of many of Jesus’ parables was the presence of the kingdom of God.   No longer are we to think that God’s kingdom is a chosen people and a promised land belonging to them alone.  

The kingdom of God has no territory, no boundaries.  The kingdom of God, as Jesus described it, is not an ethnic kingdom but, as Paul will tell the Christians in Galatia, 

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one.”  

The kingdom of God, according to Jesus, is within you.  The kingdom of God, Jesus said, is when God’s will is done, “on earth as it is in heaven.”  The kingdom of God is as inclusively wide as the human experience.

Therefore, every time racial bias is exposed and dismantled, God’s kingdom has come.  

Every time gay and transgendered people are welcomed and loved, God’s kingdom has come.  

Every time the people who are food-insecure have plenty to eat, and every time unhoused people find safe shelter, God’s kingdom has come.  

Each time someone or an organization finds ways to reduce their carbon footprint, God’s kingdom has come.  

Each time forgiveness is offered, each time loving words are spoken, God’s kingdom has come, Jesus words are remembered, and Christ is present. 

We remember the beautiful and hopeful but quite challenging words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  

Blessed, he said, are the poor in spirit, the meek, and those who hunger and thirst for justice.  Blessed, he said are the merciful, the pure in heart and the peacemakers.  

These give us a vision of life as it should be.  They inspire us to let go of ego-demands and selfishness so that we can live other-centered lives of compassion and service.  We remember Jesus’ words about forgiveness, even forgiving repeatedly if need be — remember “70 times 7”?; even forgiving enemies.  

As challenging as those words are, we know deep down that if we lived in a world that practiced Jesus’ teaching, it would be beautiful.  That is our quest, as we remember his words.

Most of all, we remember Jesus’ words about God.  Jesus talked about God in ways that celebrated one particular view of God that came from his Hebrew Bible tradition, but completely set aside another view of God from that same tradition.   

Jesus talked about the God who was the good shepherd that the 23rd Psalm pictures, but not the God of judgmental fire and brimstone.  

For Jesus, the Creator-God is the One who is concerned for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, and if so, how much more does God care for us?  God, Jesus said, cares for us to the point of numbering the hairs of our heads.  

When we get off track, God does not go after us to punish us, but seeks for us as a shepherd seeks for a lost sheep, and rejoices upon finding her.  

So with this understanding of God, we can let go of fear and anxiety; we can simply fall back into arms that uphold us every day, trusting that God is with us.  This is the confidence we feel when we “remember his words.” 

When we remember Jesus’ words, that God causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the fields of the evil and the good, without distinction or judgment, we are set free from the belief that our suffering is God’s punishment.  

Rather, according to Jesus, God is like the father of the prodigal son who keeps looking down the road for his return, and when he sees him coming, disregards his dignity and runs to meet him.  He doesn’t even let him finish his rehearsed confession speech, but orders a feast for him.  

That is the beautiful vision of God that Jesus taught us.  Remembering Jesus’ words fills us with joy, knowing that God is for us, not against us.  

We remember Jesus’ teaching the golden rule, as nearly every religion teaches in one form or another, and we know that a world in which everyone treated each other the way they wanted to be treated would be a near-perfect world.  

We remember Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan that challenges us to self-sacrificial service on behalf of people in need, while at the same time calling us to reject racial and ethnic prejudices.   

Remembering Jesus’ words, we dive into ministries of compassion like feeding the hungry and ministries of advocacy for the ones who get trampled on in our culture.  Christ is present in every act of service on behalf of the ones Jesus called “the least of these.”  Service and advocacy is what we do when we “remember his words.”

We remember that Jesus said “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them”.  We do not see Christ with our physical eyes, but when we break bread, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus that first Easter evening, our spiritual eyes are opened.  We celebrate the Lord’s Supper because Jesus said, “do this remembering me.”  

Back to the story, Luke tells us that when the women reported everything they had just experienced, the male disciples did not believe them.  Peter had to see for himself.  

Luke said that when Peter arrived at the tomb and looked in, all he saw was the linen clothes by themselves.  His reaction?  Luke says, he 

“went home, amazed at what had happened.” 

We should be amazed too.  A carpenter’s son from a no-account village of peasants on the fringes of the Roman Empire has spoken words that still live today.  

His words have the capacity to transform us and the world.   So it is right that especially on Easter Sunday we do what those women did: we remember his words.  And we respond like Peter: we are amazed.  

By This

Sermon for April 14, 2022, Maundy Thursday

Central Presbyterian Church, Fort Smith, AR.

John 13:1-17, 34-35

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.  loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

I heard about a condition that people with certain brain injuries experience that makes it impossible for them to realize that someone is not telling the truth.   Normal, healthy brains have the capacity to notice micro muscle movements in the face that indicate the tension someone feels when they are saying something that is not true.  

Basically, we can tell when people are lying to us much of the time.  

At what moment did Jesus and maybe other disciples realize that Judas was not who he was pretending to be?  Clearly by that night in that room, Jesus had already figured it out.  Nevertheless, there he was, in that room with them.  

This is a story about love, but it is also a story of betrayal.  This then, is a story about a love so great as to overcome anything, even betrayal.

I picture a dimly lit room, only candlelight.  I picture the people there feeling tired at the end of a day spent on their feet.  Now they are hungry for supper.  

They take their places reclining at the low-lying table, propped up on one elbow facing the table, feet stretched out away, like spokes of a wheel.  Those feet are dusty and bare.  No servants have washed them because they have no servants.  This is not that kind of community.

This is an honor-shame culture.  There are roles that people play according to their station. 

In this culture, they have learned since childhood that there are places people may take around tables that reflect their status. 

This is not a community without internal leadership, Peter, James and John are leaders, but leadership in this community has been complexified by the community’s often strangely-behaving chief leader, Jesus.  Tonight it gets even stranger.  

Jesus gets up from the table, takes off his outer robe, puts a towel around his waist. At this point, I picture the disciples starting to get uncomfortable, even embarrassed.  

Let’s try to imagine how they felt.  We can picture how odd and off-putting it would feel if someone knelt before us, took our hand and kissed our ring; we would pull back that hand in surprise and feel quite uncomfortable.  

That must have been how they felt when the chief leader of their community stripped down and donned a servant’s towel.  They are about to become even more uncomfortable.

Jesus did the unthinkable.  He poured water into a basin, moved around to each pair of dusty feet, cupped his hand in the water, lifted it up and poured it over those feet, then dried them with the towel in his hands.  

He actually did it.  

There must have been awkward silence; no sounds in the room but the dripping, splashing water. 

Peter cannot take it.  He objects, as we would have objected.  It just doesn’t make sense.  It breaks protocol.  

He gets angry like we do when we feel outmaneuvered and perplexed.  How far is this going to go; all the way to the bath?  He is being hyperbolic; reductio ad absurdum.  

Jesus is not drawn to counter-argue.  He simply states verbally what he has just stated symbolically: 

“I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

There are ten commandments that occupy the attention of the faithful Israelite.  Ten “thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots” that govern life.  Ten rules for living sum up our obligations to God and our neighbor.   

But with deep insight, Jesus has distilled them down to two: love God, and love neighbor.  

At this moment he goes even further.  He condenses these two even further into one. With that original set of ten commandments in mind, Jesus now adds a new one.  This is the new, distilled mandate, (“mandate” being the word from which we get the name Maundy for this Thursday of Holy Week):

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The insight Jesus was expressing by making the command to love each other the one, final distillation of God’s will is that loving God essentially means, as Richard Rohr has written, loving what God loves.  

What does God love most?  People; us.  God loves the people God has created! So, loving what God loves means loving people, just as Jesus did.  

Loving them all, even betrayers. Loving them to the point of being willing to break all social conventions, all expectations, even scandalously assuming the role of a servant to soothe their tired, dusty feet and to help them feel respected, even honored.  

That is the model.  That is the degree to which Jesus was calling his followers to love.  That extent of love is not just for good times, or even neutral times, but for the hard times too.  

That’s why that kind of love involves forgiveness, even 70×7 occasions of injury.  That’s why it involves absorbing violence and turning the other cheek and going the second mile.  

How do you get there?  How do we ever become people with this kind of capacity to love? How do we overcome our ego defenses that make us resist humility?  

How do we overcome our tendency to take offense at the slightest whiff of insult?  How do we get past our defensiveness when we or our group feels threatened?  

How do we become open-hearted to that extent?  How can we possibly follow Jesus’ example?

John drops in one hint of explanation.  As Jesus gets up from the table, John lifts up the curtain so that we can see behind the action. He gives us a glimpse of Jesus’ motivation saying, 

“knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table…”

Jesus had become convinced of two facts that allowed him to shun convention and take the role of a servant to show the model of sacrificial love.  

First, he knew that God had given all things into his hands.  We too, have everything we need from God.  God has given us the Spirit that is with us in every moment, luring us towards the good.  

God’s Spirit is with us, as the Divine Presence, experiencing the unfolding of life, offering possibilities to act in humble loving ways.  God’s Spirit is the Spirit of the Good Shepherd that walks with us, even through “the valley of the shadow of death” so that we need not fear the evil around us.  

Jesus, on the following day, even in his hour of deepest suffering, will be able to say, 

“into your hands I commend my spirit”  

concluding that God was there, suffering with him.

There is a second motivation that Jesus had as he poured the water into that basin and put on the servant’s towel, John says he knew that, 

“he had come from God and was going to God.”  

If we too can say that we know that in our bones, then we have the ability to act in humble love.  If we know that what is deepest in us is not opposed to God, but longs for God, if we know that we are made lovingly in God’s image, and will return to God at the end, then we can be free to love.  We can be free to risk loving.  

When we have sat silently in meditation as a regular practice, as we know Jesus did, we, like him, can come to know that we come from God and are going to God.  

When we practice the kind of ego-denial that is part of the process of meditation, as we refuse to let random thoughts dominate, as we focus on the present moment, accepting it just as it is, we become aware of our deepest selves in God.  

We feel relieved of the burden of self-justification or vengeance.  We come more compassionate and loving because we spend less energy thinking of ourselves. 

When we know that God has given us all we need through the Spirit, and when we know that we are from God and will return to God, then we will love one another.  

And by this, the world will know that we are Jesus’ followers.  They will not know it by our beautiful buildings.  They will not know it for our perfect polity.  They will not know it by the sophistication of our theology or the elegance of our liturgies.  

By this everyone will know that we are Jesus’ disciples; that we love one another.

Palms of Liberation

Sermon for April 10, 2022, Palm Sunday, Year C

Video will be available at the website of the Central Presbyterian Church, Fort Smith, AR. after the servie.

Luke 19:28-40

After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 

So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

“Blessed is the king
    who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
    and glory in the highest heaven!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

My goal for today is to try to put us into this story, as Luke tells it and then to ask, what does this story have for us today?  But what kind of story is it?  Is it history or some form of historical fiction?  That is not to discredit it in any way.  Most New Testament scholars agree that the gospels, as we have them, contain both history remembered, and history interpreted.  

Here is why it is hard to unscramble: there are so many quotations from, and allusions to the Hebrew Bible that you could almost conclude that this story was arranged to correspond to them.  

Alternatively, you could make a case that Jesus and his followers intentionally used images and quotations from the Hebrew Bible very consciously.  Or perhaps it was a combination of the two.  

Let’s briefly look at them.  In Zechariah, there is a passage in which the prophet imagines a coming day with hope, in which, people will get a new king — a better king — who will lead them to a time of peace.  

The king, Zechariah said, will come, not on a war horse, but on a donkey colt.  So, in this story, Jesus comes to Jerusalem on a donkey colt.  Zechariah said the coming king would stand on Mt. Zion, so in this story, Jesus comes from the East, down Mt. Zion, across the Kidron valley, and up to Jerusalem.  The point is that Jesus announced the Kingdom of God, in contrast to the kingdoms of the world.  The kingdom of God is a kingdom of peace, of reconciliation, and harmony.  So Zechariah’s text fits his mission to a T.

The Hebrew  Bible tells the story of when Jehu was anointed king.  In celebration, the people spread their cloaks on the ground and proclaimed him king.  So, in this story, people spread their cloaks on the ground singing,

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”  

The Psalms say that people will celebrate God’s goodness by going to Jerusalem’s gates saying, “save us” or “Hosanna” and “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” which is what Jesus’ supportive crowd says.  

We need Jesus to save us from all kinds of things; from our ego’s self-centeredness, from our resentments and bitterness, from our materialism; from our implicit biases, from all kinds of things, so yes, we affirm the psalm’s words.

When the Pharisees object to all of this Jesus quotes from the prophet Habakkuk who said,

“I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” 

Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God and his practice of inclusion inspired people then and now, with enormous gratitude.

The waving of palm branches may be another echo.  They waved them to celebrate the time when the Maccabean heroes won independence from the Greek Seleucids.  

So, almost every element in the story is told with Hebrew Bible quotations and allusions to Israel’s history that help unpack what Jesus was all about.  

Why tell the story with all of these Biblical allusions?  Because John wants us to understand Jesus as the fulfillment of what God had wanted for his people all along.  So let us put ourselves in this story and try to see what this means for us today, whether it is literal history, or history interpreted theologically.

Putting Ourselves There

First, when you picture the streets of Jerusalem, picture narrow streets, like those in old European cities, too narrow for automobile traffic.   

Next, picture them packed with people, shoulder to shoulder.  This was Passover time.  Passover was one of the pilgrimage festivals that brought people to Jerusalem by the tens of thousands.  

Now, picture lots of armed men, Roman soldiers, in their helmets, shields, and swords, keeping a stern watch in intimidating numbers.  They were on high alert.  

Passover was the celebration of Jewish independence; freedom from the Egyptian Empire, the great story of Exodus.  So, a huge mob of tens of thousands of people who all wanted independence from the Roman Empire was a potential flashpoint  for revolution.

There was a garrison of Roman troops permanently posted to Jerusalem, but it was Rome’s habit, every Passover, to reinforce them with additional troops.  Pilate would come each year, on his great white war horse, with his shiny, clanking and stomping soldiers up from their Mediterranean headquarters to the West.

Could it be that Jesus’ entry from the East was timed to match Pilate’s entry from the West?  New Testament scholars Borg and Crossan suggest just that possibility.  All the attention the story pays to the arrangements about the donkey suggest that this was all pre-arranged; like a password,

“The Lord needs it”.

The Comic Colt-Ride

Now try to imagine what Jesus’ entry looked like.  Remember, desperately crowded streets.  His people chanting slogans from the Psalms, proclaiming him king, and putting their cloaks on the ground as they did for king Jehu.  

What does Jesus look like on that donkey?  There is an important detail to notice.  The donkey, according to John, had never been ridden.  

I lived my first six years in Kansas, and for a time we lived out in the country where I got to watch my father saddle break horses as a hobby.  

I watch how first he would throw a blanket onto the back of the horse repeatedly, putting it on and taking it off, to get the animal used to having something on its back.  They do not like that at first.  

The saddle comes later, after they have grown accustomed to the blanket.  But they do not like that either.  Only after several days of this is it possible to attempt to get on the horse, and they really do not like that.  Some resist quite vigorously.  

So I imagine Jesus trying to keep himself seated on a young donkey that is not used to anything on its back, resisting as donkeys do; lots of braying and showing teeth.  The colt was probably being pulled by someone — certainly, it had not been taught to neck rein.  

In other words, it probably looked comical.  It must have looked carnivalesque.  The contrast between Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem from the East and Pilate’s powerful imperial parade from the West was complete.  

In fact, it would not be a mistake to think that Jesus’ entry was an intentional mockery of Pilate’s.  A prearranged counter procession, as Borg and Crossan call it. 

A Contrast of Ideologies

Here is why this is important: it was not just meant as a visual contrast, it was a contrast of ideology.  The Roman emperor Tiberius, according to Roman propaganda, like his father before him used a number of titles.  He was called “lord,” “savior” and even “son of God”.  The Romas had brought peace on earth, the famous “Pax Romana” but their method was peace by pacification  —  which is what all those troops were there to maintain.  Crucifixions for suspected treason were quite common.

But with the echoes of the Zechariah being shouted, Jesus was proclaiming the kingdom of God as a kingdom of peace.  Zechariah said that the king who would come on the peaceful donkey would 

“cut off the chariot… and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations;”

Zechariah 9

So Jesus’ entry was a form of nonviolent protest against a repressive regime whose oppression had dominated Israel for the past 90 years.  It was a corrupt and brutal empire, enabled by the local Jewish aristocratic families, at the expense of the vast majority of people, most of whom lived in abject poverty.  

This is not what God wanted for his people.  The prophets imagined conditions of justice and security in which all the people,

“shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,” on their own land,  “and no one shall make them afraid” 

Micah 4:4

So, Jesus entered that crowded city on that ornery donkey for the celebration of Jewish independence, mocking imperial power and imperial theology.

That is why following Jesus includes not just private faith and devotion, but also public action on behalf of people who God wants to liberate from oppression.  We are God’s means.

The Second Symbolic Act: The Temple

Jesus’ mockery of Pilate’s parade was one of two symbolic, public actions he took as he arrived at the capital city.  The next thing he did was to go to the temple.  

The temple was in the hands of, and controlled by, those local elites, the aristocratic families who were benefiting from Roman domination, and further adding their own forms of oppression, including temple taxes and land confiscation.  And what is even more deeply disturbing, the temple was providing religious legitimation for that domination.

So, Jesus went to that temple and shut it down.  At least temporarily and perhaps only for several hours, but the message was sent; the symbolism was understood.  As he forced out the money changers and the animals, he said, quoting Isaiah, 

“My house shall be a house of prayer’; and adding, “but you have made it a den of robbers.” 

Jesus had confronted the abuses and injustices of both Rome and the Temple.  And that is, no doubt, what got him executed.  

God Wills Liberation

So what is our “take away” from this story?  John intends us, with all of those quotations and allusions to the Hebrew Bible, to see this as the fulfillment of what God has always wanted for his people.  God wants liberation.  God wants justice.  God wants wellbeing, or, in Hebrew, “Shalom.”  God wants his people to be free from systems of domination and oppression.  

It is worth noticing that the big, central story of the Hebrew Bible is the story of the exodus: liberation from oppression.  That story began as this one does, with Passover. And here, at the climax of the Jesus story, we find confrontation of oppression, by both Empire and its religious legitimation system at the temple.  

The gospel writers intentionally use all of those titles that the Caesars of Rome took for themselves, and gave them to Jesus: Lord, Savior, Prince of Peace, and Son of God.  Jesus came proclaiming the presence of the kingdom of God, and calling people to follow him.  So the Palm Sunday question is, whose parade to be in: Pilate’s or Jesus’?  

To be in Jesus’ parade, to proclaim him king, is to adopt his active, public resistance to domination in all its forms and to seek the liberation of all who are being oppressed, which is God’s will for all people.  

Palm Sunday is a perfect time to do what Jesus did: look around at the systems of oppression and say, “No! Enough!”  We are not okay with these results.  

We, the people who have been called to the Jesus-parade must take the lead in calling out oppression in all its forms.  

Otherwise, what does it mean to wave palm branches and call Jesus “King”?  We are Jesus-followers.  We are in the Jesus parade.  It may sometimes look as ridiculous to some, as Jesus on a donkey colt, but we are as serious as he was.

The Death of “Meaning”

Sermon for April 3, 2022, Lent 5C

Video is available at the website of the Central Presbyterian Church, Fort Smith, AR.

 John 12:1-8

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

I think if Judas were alive today he may be a lobbyist for big Pharma.  I just learned that a lobby group working for big Pharma is suing the state of Arkansas.  

Why? Because our state passed a law with bipartisan support, that would require the drug companies that reap lucrative rewards from Medicare and Medicaid to provide discounts for uninsured and underinsured patients.  

Big Pharma does not want to discount medications for needy patients; it would mean less money for them.  They would probably argue that they are looking out for their shareholders.  If so, they must be assuming that their shareholders all value money more than helping poor sick people.  

They are assuming that we have bought into the lie that more money will make us more happy.  Judas, it seems, bought into that lie, but Mary did not.  

Happiness

In the Monday Morning Seeker’s group we are watching the video “I Am” in which a filmmaker Tom Shadyac interviews people about the meaning of life.  

Tom who made the film has made many others that have earned him enormous wealth.  In the video he shows us the mansions he has owned in Beverly Hills and on beautiful beaches.  

But a biking accident left him with severe head injuries, depression, and constant thoughts of death.  He said, 

“Facing my own death brought an instant sense of clarity and purpose.”  

His newfound purpose was to tell people that the game he had been playing, the success game, the accumulation game, the competition game, the game he had been winning, was a lie.  It did not and could not produce happiness.  

He recalls standing in the foyer of his first 7,000 square foot Beverly Hills mansion after the movers had left, looking at all his beautiful furniture, carpets and decorations realizing, 

“I am not one bit happier.”  

So Tom set out to interview many leading thinkers, asking them the two questions he believed were most pressing: “What is wrong with our world?”   And, “What can we do about it?”  The film we are are watching features those interviews. 

The Truth and the Lie

There is a reason so many of us fall prey to the lie and believe that the game is real is that it is based on, not just the lie that material things will make us happy, but the combination of a truth and a lie.  

One of his interviews is with Thom Harman who spelled it out.  The truth, he explained, is that if you are out in the woods, its cold and raining, you are hungry and you have no coat or shelter, then you will be feeling quite unhappy.  And if you stumble upon a cabin and are welcomed in, given a blanket, a place by the fire and some warm soup, you will instantly become happy.  

A little bit of “stuff,” like shelter, a blanket and soup will make all the difference.  But the lie is the the belief that if the little bit of stuff made you happy, then ten times that much stuff will make you ten times happier, and 100 times as much stuff will make you 100 times happier.  That is the lie.    Bill Gates does not live in a constant state of bliss.

Jesus on Wealth and Death

The community that Jesus formed around his teachings had learned that lesson, as Mary showed.  The story we read from John’s version of the Jesus story illustrates the depth to which they  understood.

When Jesus taught “blessed are the poor,” he was not idealizing poverty, but rather recognizing the moral hazards of wealth.  For Jesus the moral condition of having wealth in the face of grinding poverty made it less likely for a rich person to enter life in the age to come than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.   

For Jesus, the rich man who needed bigger barns to hoard his grain, who told himself to 

“eat, drink and be merry” 

Luke 12:19

regardless of the condition the people who served him, was called a “fool.”  He died wealthy, but that wealth did not make him less dead.  

Death has a way of deconstructing the meaning of money.  Nobody takes it with them.

In this story we see that Jesus has accepted the nearness of his death and has made no secret about it.  Mary too, has accepted it, and no amount of money in the bank will change that.  She has learned from Jesus that that 

“life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 

Luke 12:15

So she takes perfume that was worth a year’s wages and anoints Jesus’ feet as one might anoint a body for burial.  

This story is about the paradox that death, instead of undermining the meaning of life, actually enables it.  In the face of death, the truth comes out: money is not magic. 

Jesus and the Poor

 Jesus said many things that, though true, were controversial.  But the least controversial true thing he said was that 

“You always have the poor with you.”  

That is a truism.  It is also is an echo of the book of Deuteronomy which said, 

“Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land”  . 

(Deut. 15:11)

We do not have Jesus physically with us today, but we do have the poor, and they are in need.  They need things like discounts for medicine.  They need to eat.  They need safe places to sleep.  They need good schools.  They need good jobs that pay a living wage.  They need people like us to speak for them, advocate on their behalf, write letters, organize, vote, and be active when we see their interests suffer.  

We need to be like Mary, people who show that our values have been transformed by Jesus.  That transformation is worth more than just one year’s salary.  That transformation goes the core of the meaning and purpose of our lives.  

Jesus taught us that the purpose of our lives is greater than ourselves.  He taught that we are all connected and that we are all responsible for each other.  The rich man is responsible for Lazarus, as he lies at the gate.  

He taught us that there are two commandments that sum up the whole law and the prophets: we are to love God, and our neighbor.  The early Christians kept teaching this perspective saying, 

“How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” 

(1 Jn. 3:17)

We may not be as extravagant as Mary, but we too have been transformed by Jesus’ teaching.  We know that the meaning of life and happiness are not on sale.  That’s why we invest in service.  

It was amazing to see all the generosity with which people supported the fundraiser for Ukraine.  We give to the special offerings of the Presbyterian Church, we support the frozen food ministry, we invest in suppers for the Salvation Army and sack lunches by the hundreds.  

All of this we do, not grudgingly, but from hearts filled with compassion and love of God and neighbor.