Thank you to the Mignerey's for the palms all over the church.
Thanks also to our worship committee for all the floral arrangements both today and Easter.
Please be reminded. AND THIS IS IMPORTANT.
Next Sunday
We'll have two Easter services.
8am in the parking lot. 10:30am here in the sanctuary.
And also, AND THIS IS MAYBE IMPORTANTER:
please be reminded that starting the first Sunday AFTER Easter, we're going to worship in the Gym.
That's because starting the day after Easter,
we're remodeling the CHOIR LOFT up here.
We're going to do an archeological dig.
We'll unearth the OLD organ, lift it out of the pit,
And move it to the side.
Then, we'll do what some people said say is impossible:
We'll take the choir.
We'll take the far left and and we'll take the far right
And join them together in harmony.
A musical example to our nation.
They'll no longer have to reach across the aisle.
There will be no aisle.
Sopranos, Altos, Tenors, and Basses
REUNITED, and it'll feel so good.
It'll sound so good, too.
Polling data says 43% better.
If the choir can do it, maybe Congress can, too.
Finally, we'll make things great again.
Now, you probably wouldn't have thought Choir Loft renovations could be a political statement.
Not every preacher could make that connection.
It's my spiritual gift.
As Steve Spurrier always said,
"It ain't braggin' if it's true."
I'll bet I'm the only preacher quoting St. Stephen this morning.
And I'm just an Interim.
Imagine what your real preacher is gonna say.
A good preacher, a REAL preacher isn't afraid to bring touchy subjects like politics and college football to a sermon.
Jesus wasn't.
He probably didn't talk football.
But then, he never met Nick Saban.
Face it: The man's a god.
But Jesus did bring politics to faith – all the time.
And it was one of the reasons the Roman Government had him crucified.
So, preachers be warned.
We modern Christians do our best to water down the politics of the Bible.
We turn the hardest parts of the Bible into children's stories.
We do it with Noah's Ark.
God gets tired of humans killing each other so God just wipes 'em all out in an apocalyptic, global flood.
Yet, we paint animals and rainbows in our babies' nurseries.
We do the same thing with Palm Sunday.
We turn it into a children's day.
We have the kids sing "Hosanna" like it means, "Hi Jesus! Welcome to town!"
But what Hosanna really means is far, far more dangerous.
Back in Bible Times –
You line the streets with palm-waving pedestrians calling a donkey-riding preacher a King, a Lord, a Savior – the authorities will notice.
Because the people who keep the peace with the point-end of military spears don't want anyone to think about challenging their power.
But that's what the people of Jerusalem did.
This trouble-making Rabbi Jesus drops like a soft detonation and suddenly, the commonfolk, the Jews, are one inch from insurrection.
They start laying their cloaks on the ground like you do for a Caesar, calling him names like "Lord" - and "Son of God" - names legally trademarked for Roman Caesar – and we've got trouble with a capital T, right here in River City.
People call out dangerous slogans, dangerous hopes, like, "Save us!" when that's the government's job.
And they don't stop there.
They add on that immediate word, that most demanding of word, they say, "Hosanna!"
Which means, not just "Save us!" But "Save us now!"
You put that NOW on it, and the men with weapons get nervous.
"What did you Israelites say?
"Save us… NOW?"
Hosanna, Now?
Uh-oh. Better get on the horn and sound the alarm.
This out-of-towner from Nowhere Nazareth on his rented donkey just might unite the right and the left in a religio-political uprising that won't end well for Jerusalem's peasant citizens.
"Y'all say you want Jesus to save you NOW?"
Be careful what you wish for.
Palm Sunday IS a political statement.
And, yes, Jesus will bring saving.
But maybe not the kind you're expecting
From a traveling preacher.
Hosanna!
Save us now? Really?
Yes, Lord.
Save us now.
Save us now – from the Romans.
Save us now – from the religious elite.
Save us now – save us now –
From ourselves.
Right now?
Or maybe next Sunday.
NOW is a dangerous word.
—
I love Palm Sunday.
Always have.
Since my own childhood.
It's the one Sunday in Presbyterianland when kids can be kids.
Grown-ups can be kids, too.
Waving our palm branches from our designated seats.
Like in a football stadium, when everyone's shaking pom-pons, and yelling sacred words, like, "Roll Tide!"
Or doing that Gator Chomp thing.
Some choose to ring handbells, er, cowbells.
(Danny's actually FROM Mississippi, so be warned.)
Everybody turns those bottles of "tap water" into wine or some other spiritual substance.
The sweet-natured crowds of a hundred thousand bring a devilishly competitive attitude.
But it's all in good, clean fun.
Right? Right?
We don't really mean it when we say to "Kill" the refs.
They'll soon be replaced by robots, anyway.
Like in baseball.
You get a bunch of people wearing the same colors, chanting ridiculous slogans, like, "Go Vols!" – spooky things can happen.
I've seen it with my own eyeballs.
But, hey.
We're Presbyterians.
We're decent.
And orderly.
We sub out out celebrations to the children.
They're too innocent to hurt anyone.
We give them Palm branches.
Palm branches are like the Nerf guns of parade paraphernalia.
Way less dangerous than Mardi Gras beads.
Kinda like the Bible.
A man wearing sandals, riding on a borrowed donkey.
Seriously?
I mean, really?
Talk about soft.
When you compare that to how a Caesar, a Pontius Pilate, real king, a ruler, a man with real power –
rides into town on an armor-plated white stallion, surrounded by military guards, with trumpet fanfare and roaring crowds –
It's almost like this preacher from small-town Nazareth is… making fun?
I mean, really, Israelites.
How's this scruffy man going to "Save us now?"
This week's version of a people's savior that's you just know – is going to get cancelled before the week is over?
"Save us now?"
Right.
–
When I was a boy, when we were scribbling homework on our cave walls, and our phones were mounted on our walls, and our computers were our fingers –
Back then, our Blessed Saint Sunday School teachers used to tell us how Palm Sunday was all a miracle.
They'd say what a miracle it was that Jesus just KNEW that there'd be a man with a spare donkey one town over.
And even then, we'd think,
"Wait. Weren't donkeys the primary mode of transportation?"
"Didn't everybody have one?"
It's not like they were Cadillac Escalades.
(And, by the way, if you drive an Escalade, you roll like a gangsta. Especially the new model that parks itself.)
They'd say, it was God's will that the owner let the disciples borrow Jesus's ride.
And we children would say, "Wait. Wasn't hospitality and sharing with the poor mandated by Jewish law?"
West Virginia's country roads are filled with Biblical scholars that way.
The miracle – if you want to call it that –
is that Jesus and his raggedy band of followers could pull off their little Palm Sunday demonstration without getting arrested.
The Romans didn't tolerate any kind, or any hint of sedition.
The penalty was crucifixion.
And crucifixion NOW.
That's how they saved people from their delusions.
It's a miracle the protest, or parody, wasn't crushed the day it happened.
Yes, the first Palm Sunday was a religious event.
But any religious event becomes a political statement to a non-believer.
Especially non-believers with power.
Especially to the people whose power to save, whose power to persecute – was threatened by a man who taught crazy religious ideas, like:
Love your enemy.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Turn the other cheek.
I mean.
Imagine.
Imagine what would happen, if everyone believed stuff like Jesus was preaching.
I wonder if we can.
–
Palm Sunday is a beautiful, beloved tradition.
And you know how things become tradition in church.
You do it once.
"We did it last year!"
"It's a tradition!"
And I've been in enough churches to know the rules of Palm Sunday, like the laws of God, are written upon the hearts of believers.
It's a tradition.
The same things always happen.
The same faithful few corral the current crop of kids at the same door and give the same speech that kids never listen to.
We hand them palms we always get at the same place.
We sing the same song.
"All Glory, Laud, and Honor."
Possibly "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna."
And the kids march the same circle around the sanctuary while the parents film video,
and the grandparents accidentally take pictures of themselves,
and everybody loves it.
Same every year.
It just happens.
It's one of those unwritten "Thou Shalt's" that if thou don't, a preacher could get thyself crucified.
Because there's a delicate passive aggression to ALL traditions.
Even church traditions.
Do it.
Do it NOW.
Or else.
The people who staged the first Palm Sunday sang, "Hosanna," – save us now.
Save us now… or… or what?
Well, they were kind enough to give Jesus until Thursday to get things done.
Save us now.
Or, fool around and find out, Jesus.
–
I can't help but believe that Jesus's divine ears could hear the crowds in stereo.
In in one ear, "Hosanna!"
And in the other… the whispers, the murmurings, the unspoken "Or else," of, "Crucify!"
Like when you're wearing headphones and listening to classics from the 70's when stereo was novelty,
and the sound would switch from left to right, right to left, until Pink Floyd was as disorienting as they intended.
And there was Jesus's head, in the middle, with the "NOW" and the "OR ELSE" swirling among the cheering, yet dangerous crowd.
It's like George Carlin used to say,
"I love people. Individually.
"It's when they get into crowds that bad things start to happen."
Jesus should have known what was waiting at the end of the parade.
He actually did.
He told his disciples.
It's almost as if God had a plan.
Because people.
Because people are people.
Whether waving palms.
Waving pom-pons.
Waving rifles.
That's crowds for you.
And yet, Jesus chose to ride on.
Chose to ride on to that cross he knew was waiting for him.
Our NOW always has the sharp edge of OR ELSE, doesn't it?
Clean up this room, NOW… OR ELSE.
Go back to your seats, class. NOW… OR ELSE.
Put down those signs, return to your homes, surrender NOW… OR ELSE.
The people on the first Palm Sunday had their SAVE US NOW…
And they had their OR ELSE, too.
Would barely be four days from Palm Sunday, they'd be shouting it.
CRUCIFY!
But what they didn't know.
What they couldn't have predicted.
What they couldn't wrap their heads around, even though Jesus had told them again, and again, and again…
Is that God has an OR ELSE, too.
But God's OR ELSE isn't death.
God's OR ELSE is life.
God's OR ELSE isn't punishment.
God's OR ELSE is forgiveness.
Forgiveness even for people who dare do their worst.
God's OR ELSE is Easter.
But not yet.
Not NOW.
Salvation in God's OR ELSE is more of a process.
It's not a magic snap of god-like fingers.
God's amazing, saving grace can take a few days longer than we expect.
You see, God's parade doesn't end at the cross.
But that's where we see it.
God's OR ELSE stops at the cross…
And then, the funniest thing happens.
God's OR ELSE keeps on marching.
Keeps marching from the top of the cross, to the bottom of a grave.
To the dawning of a new Easter.
A day of life, a day of life eternal.
A day of the best OR ELSE there could ever be.
When God decides it's time, the right time.
To Save us NOW.
[eos]
|
