Sermon110417

St. Philip’s, Tucson

Palm Sunday

Matthew 21: 1-11 (at the Liturgy of the Palms)

When Jesus and his disciples had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,

“Tell the daughter of Zion,

Look, your king is coming to you,

humble, and mounted on a donkey,

and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Collect

Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Isaiah 50:4-9a

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher,

that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.

Morning by morning he wakens, wakens my ear

to listen as those who are taught.

The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.

I gave my back to those who struck me,

and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;

I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.

The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced;

therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame;

he who vindicates me is near.

Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together.

Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me.

It is the Lord GOD who helps me; who will declare me guilty?

Philippians 2: 5-11

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who,

though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

Matthew 26: 1-13

When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, ‘You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.’

Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and they conspired to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, ‘Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.’

Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, ‘Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.’ But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’

Matthew 26:14-25 (at the end of the service)

One of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I betray Jesus to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.

On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’” So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover meal.

When it was evening, he took his place with the twelve; and while they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” And they became greatly distressed and began to say to him one after another, “Surely not I, Lord?” He answered, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.” Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” He replied, “You have said so.”

Primary Sermon

Entering Jerusalem.

What must it have been like for the disciples to enter the city?

With cheering crowds and waving palm fronds?

Would it have seemed like a fulfillment of their discipleship?

The praise they and Jesus deserved

after years of tromping around the countryside like vagabonds?

Would if have seemed like entering the lion’s den?

With the Temple and the priests and the authorities

breathing down their necks.

Did it feel claustrophobic?

I can’t imagine the intensity of that experience.

A huge crowd shouting Hosanna as they walked into the capital.

This is how Holy week should feel:

the crush of expectation, not knowing how everything will end,

but knowing something big is about to happen.

Like the drop in pressure before the rain starts,

or the charge in the air before a thunderstorm.

Holy Week is about anticipation.

Can you feel it?

We have a tendency to avoid conflict,

in religion, in politics, in relationships.

Sometimes this is good.

It can give us a chance to cool down and look at things rationally,

take time to see things from another person’s perspective.

Sometimes it’s bad.

Our country has a lot of the bad kind off avoidance at the moment.

It sounds like we’re confronting difficult issues,

but more often we find groups of like minded people

and complain about the opposition,

rather than confronting them.

Few things distress me as much

as the rise of partisan news reporting in the US.

No matter what your opinion is,

you can find people who agree with you,

people who will reinforce your opinions,

so that you can avoid actually talking with the other side.

Even our language has become polarized.

We use words like Pro-Life, Obama-care, Liberty, and Class

more for propaganda than for communication.

Jesus did not avoid conflict.

Jerusalem then, as Jerusalem now,

was a hotbed of conflicting ideologies.

The Romans wanted control over the region

and saw Jerusalem as a strategic hub for the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Zealots wanted the Romans out,

by whatever means necessary.

The Priests in the Temple,

whom we call Sadducees after Zadok, the high priest at the time of David,

wanted to retain control over the religious and economic life of Israel,

by managing the Temple.

The Pharisees, or “separatists,”

wanted to end the Sadducees’ monopoly on religious power

(and possibly the local royalty’s monopoly on secular power).

Entering Jerusalem meant more than going to the capital city.

It meant that Jesus was going to find his greatest supporters

and his greatest enemies.

It meant that Jesus, the Prince of Peace,

was entering into chaos.

For Zealots this meant great opportunity.

Maybe Jesus would cast out the Romans and retake the city,

as scripture said the Messiah would do.

For the Pharisees this meant that maybe

someone would finally stand up to the Temple

and get people thinking more about God than about power.

The Romans and the Sadducees were a good deal less happy.

Literature and movies have tropes:

recurring themes or scenes that appear over and over.

One of my favorite tropes is the story of overwhelming force.

You’ve all seen it.

The pauper, through a twist of plot, turns out to be the King

and, once that’s been revealed, he punishes the evil Duke.

King Richard returns from the Crusades to reward Robin Hood

and marry him and Maid Marion.

The bully who discovers the little old Chinese man

he’s been harassing is really a Kung Fu master

You know the drill.

It’s all very satisfying to see good triumph over evil,

by the use of overwhelming force.

Justice wins in the end

and the villains are properly chastised by the might of the hero.

The trope of overwhelming force appears again and again in Christianity and Judaism.

We tell tales of God striking down unbelievers with lightning,

of fire and brimstone,

of the rapture.

If you’ll excuse my language, they are stories of God

being a bigger bad ass than the competition.

And that makes me think,

Because the trope of overwhelming force is just as satisfying emotionally

when it’s the villain who wins.

We cheer Darth Vader in Star Wars, Severus Snape in Harry Potter,

and a host of others who use overwhelming force with style.

Inglorious Bastards, and for that matter anything by Quentin Tarantino,

is really popular in the movie theaters.
It’s harder to sympathize with the bad guys,

but there is something satisfying

about seeing someone be overconfident and lose.

Overwhelming force is a trope,

even a trope that appears occasionally in the Bible,

but it is not a Christian trope.

Jesus steadfastly refuses to act this way.

Jesus does not enter Jerusalem to conquer.

Jesus enters Jerusalem in order to have a real conversation with the people there.

I have no doubt that Jesus expected the results he got,

but expectation is not the same thing as certainty,

and can never be actual relationship,

because overwhelming force never solves conflict,

it can only eliminate one of the sides.

When Jesus died, there were still Romans and Zealots,

Sadducees and Pharisees, followers of Herod,

and hundreds of others.

When Jesus rose again, the same was true.

Whether or nor we find it comforting (I do),

whether or not we find it emotionally satisfying,

Jesus entered Jerusalem for the sake of all the people in it,

just as Jesus entered the world for the sake of sinners,

and for all the people of Israel, and for all the people of the nations.

No doubt some of the people lining the street knew this.

They were rejoicing that the Messiah, the light to the nations had come.

Others most certainly were rejoicing because they expected Jesus

to obliterate the opposition.

I invite you to enter Jerusalem with me this Holy Week.

No more avoiding, we must enter into the conflict

with honesty and humility,

because that’s the only way we can form actual relationships.

We live in the city of Tucson and the state of Arizona.

How many of you actively talk to people of another party about politics.

Yes, you should really raise your hands.

The big issue on campus has to do with concealed weapons,

but budget issues are huge everywhere,

as are border issues.

The wonderful thing about communicating with the opposition

(not just talking at each other) is this:

if you convince them, it’s evangelism –

if you don’t, it’s education.

But it’s going to require an open mind.

I’ve had many conversations where neither one of us

changed our position substantially,

but both of us came to understand the other,

and our own thinking, better.

How many of you have looked at the Anglican Covenant?

Or talk to people you disagree with about church matters?

I won’t ask you to raise your hands this time,

but I know St. Philip’s has had some conflict over the budget.

How many of you have had real conversations with the people you disagree with?

How many of you have been open enough to express

not just what you think,

but how you feel about it all,

to those who think and feel differently?

How many of you talk about your faith with atheists,

or fundamentalists, or Muslims, or even the local Presbyterian.

Who makes you grit your teeth?

Who makes you angry that they could even say such things?

These are the people to talk to –

in addition to the people who agree with you,

and the people in between.

I like to quote John F. Kennedy, who said we do these things

“not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Even when we ourselves are clear of conscience and unconflicted,

we enter into places of strife and discord because God needs us there.

We have a message that is more than something to believe or something to do,

it is something to be –

peacemakers.

We walk in the path of a man who entered Jerusalem almost two thousand years ago.

We go where people cannot speak to one another

and hear their voices.

We go where people cannot face one another

and see them,

and look them in the eye.

It is Holy Week,

and we are entering Jerusalem with those confident, confused, and brave souls

who followed a man on a donkey,

not knowing what would happen next,

but knowing something big is about to happen.

We are entering Jerusalem to see the people who live there,

those who praise us and those who would see us obliterated,

because both groups are dear to us,

both are our brothers and sisters,

both are children of God.

To everything there is a season.

This is a time of waiting, a time of bated breath,

but it is not a passive time.

This is a time to hear the wind blowing,

to learn what the world is saying and to ask why.

This is a time to look for peoples hearts

to learn who they are.

And, in the midst of all this chaos,

to follow Jesus.

Children’s Sermon

Today we hear the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem.

It was a strange time for the city – a time of great confusion,

much like Jerusalem today.

The people in the city didn’t get along well with each other.

The Romans were in control and used their armies to keep everyone in place.

The Zealots wanted what the Romans had.

The Temple priests had control over religion and money.

The Pharisees wanted what the priests had.

It was a mess.

That’s the type of place Jesus and the disciples were walking into.

Who hear has been to a new place for the first time?

A new school perhaps?

Who’s been to a whole new city?

What does it feel like – not knowing?

Will people like you or not?

Jesus and the disciples knew there were people in the city that didn’t like them at all,

just like they knew there would be people who welcomed them with open arms.

The trouble was telling which ones were which.

Jesus went to Jerusalem not only for his friends, but for his enemies as well.

Jesus wanted to talk to them, to see them, to really understand people,

because it can be really easy to judge people before you’ve had a chance to see them,

to hear them.

How many of you have met someone that you didn’t think you’d like at all –

and then they turned out to be friend?

How many of you met someone you thought would be a friend –

and they turned out to be not nice at all?

You have to listen to people before you can understand them.

How many of you watch movies?

What movies do you watch?

How many of you have seen a movie where the good guys blow up the bad guys?

Or shoot the bad guys?

Or just make the bad guys look really stupid?

When Jesus went to Jerusalem,

he was greeted by a huge crowd shouting Hosanna!

Can you shout Hosanna?

It meant “save me” or “help me.”

And the people thought that Jesus had the power to save them from one another.

The Zealots thought that Jesus would save them from the Romans.

They shouted Hosanna,

and I think they would have been really happy if Jesus had blown up the Romans.

I think some of the Pharisees would have been happy if Jesus shot the people in the Temple.

But did he?

You know the story, what happens next?

There’s a surprising lack of violence in the New Testament.

The Gospel ends and nobody gets blown up.

Nobody gets shot.

No one is even made to look stupid.

The Romans are still there, the Zealots are still there, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees.

Jesus talked to all of them and didn’t hurt a single one.

God doesn’t smite anyone.

Jesus didn’t go to Jerusalem to win; he went to the city to talk,

because the Romans didn’t like the Zealots and the Zealots didn’t like the Romans

and everyone thought someone else was the bad guy.

Except Jesus.

Jesus treated everyone like a friend.

It doesn’t mean that he trusted them all, or even that he liked them all,

but he listened to all of them.

I think he knew that things would go badly when he went to Jerusalam.

I think Jesus knew there were people there who hated him.

I think he knew that he would die.

But he didn’t know the people yet, he only saw them at a distance.

And he wanted to know them.

And he wanted them to know him.

Jesus went to Jerusalem to meet people,

not just see them or hear them, but meet them and get to know them.

I think God asks us to do the same thing,

to follow him into the crowded places,

with all sort of people we don’t know,

people that like us and people that don’t like us.

I think God asks us to be the kind of people that build bridges,

that make friendships and start families and groups.

When you go to the movies, you get good guys and bad guys,

winners and losers,

and quite often someone gets blown up.

When you go to scripture, there are only people,

some people are better than others, but God reaches out to all of them,

and we need to reach out to all of them,

most especially the ones we don’t like,

or fear,

or don’t understand.

And no one gets blown up,

because all of them are interesting

and the only way to start liking people is to learn cool things about them,

and the only way to stop fearing people is to really and truly listen to them.

Holy Week, while we wait for Easter,

is a time to be patient and listen to the people around us,

it is a time to make new friends,

especially with people we never thought we would like

Because Jesus saw past the labels,

He did not go to Jerusalem to destroy his enemies

He did not go just to spend time with his friends either;

Jesus went to Jerusalem with an open heart and an open mind,

to actually meet the people there.

May we have God’s help to be equally open to others.

Hosanna!