The Political Palm Sunday (Luke 19:28-40)

March 20, 2016

            “Make America great again!”

            “Feel the Burn!”

            Words.

            A political rally was canceled due to threats of violence and physical altercations between protesters and supporters.

            At a political rally, a supporter punched a protester in the face.  The candidate at least for a time considered paying the legal fees his supporter would face for committing assault.

            Response.

            In words and in the ways people respond to words and to events and to movements, we have a window through which we can gain perspective on our country’s political scene. 

In words and in the ways people respond, we have a window through which we see Jesus’ actions on that fateful Sunday prior to his crucifixion.  I will not talk directly about the political movements of our day.  I certainly won’t endorse a party or a candidate.  We will look at the Jesus movement and how Jesus forms us.  Who we are in Christ absolutely plays into our approach to politics today and it shapes our response to what happens in politics. 

We are called to praise God, even in trying circumstances.  That’s the end game of Luke’s depiction of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on the day we now commemorate as Palm Sunday.  The actions of Jesus, as told by Luke, are invitation.  We are beckoned into love and hope, called to worship and praise God. 

How do we get there? 

            As Luke sets the scene, there are many disciples following Jesus and the group has been growing ever since chapter 9, verse 51, when Jesus set his face to get to this point.  Through parables and teaching and actions, Jesus has over and over emphasized how challenging it is to be a disciple, yet people find him so compelling, they follow anyway.  They give up their money, they realign their relationships, they adjust their priorities, and they fix their lives upon following Him.

            A group, with Jesus in the lead, is nearing the city of God, Jerusalem.  He sends disciples ahead to the village on the outskirts of the city, Bethany.  They are to get a colt for Jesus to ride.  When they go to untie the owners ask what they are doing, just as Jesus anticipated.  They answer as he told them to.  “The Lord needs it.”  Nothing more is said or needs to be said. 

            This doesn’t appear particularly interesting, but in the Greek language the word translated “owners,” as in owners of this colt, is kurioi.  The word translated “Lord” as in the “the Lord needs it” is kurios.  It’s the same word. 

            The people who own the colt are the colt’s lords.  We might call them the animal’s masters or owners, but we wouldn’t say they are the beast’s ‘lords.’  We don’t use the word ‘lord’ that way.  However, when we see the contrast and also when we see how submissively the animal’s owners give it up when they realize who needs it, a deeper understanding comes into view.

            In our world, people are owners and masters, presidents and kings, CEOs and lords, lower case ‘l.’ Jesus is Lord with a capital ‘L.’ Everything in the world is under him.  He owns all including everything in my house, every penny in the church’s bank account, this building, everything in your pocket, and everything we can see or imagine and all that is beyond what we can see or imagine.  There are lords.  He is the Lord. 

            Words.  When we say “Jesus is Lord,” we are saying something significant.  We pray to God as Father and God as Savior and God as Lord.  What if we prayed to God as owner?  It feels weird to me, cold, impersonal.  But for us capitalists, it might make a lot of sense.  We recognize that however hard we might work to acquire capital so as to have an advantage in our capitalistic society, because we are Christians, we know Jesus is the Owner.

            Words.  Consider the words of the crowd as they herald the coming of Jesus to Jerusalem.  The crowd quotes Psalm 118:26, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”  That is how it reads in the Psalm and that is how it is quoted in Matthew and Mark and John.  Luke renders the quote differently.  In Luke it says, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.”

            Did Luke just make that up?  For his own purposes did he change the story, making it say “king?”  I don’t think so.  The wording is different in John, but John also makes the point that the crowd proclaimed Jesus to be king.  And I don’t think we’re dealing a contradiction.

            The gospel writers quote both Psalm 118:26 and Zechariah 9:9, which heralds the coming of the blessed king.  If crowds really line the roads shouting this prophecies like political slogans, they would have shouted over and over.  They would have conflated the quotations.  Luke selects a quote from many that were shouted as Jesus road into the city.  The question is not who was right, Luke or the other gospels.  The question what is Luke trying to convey in his decision to include the shout of the disciple who merged the Psalm and the prophet Zechariah as he praised Jesus?  What is about that word, “king?”

            There can only be one.  If Jesus is king, then Archaelus, the son of Herod is not king.  More significantly, if Jesus is king, then the Roman Emperor is not.  To declare the royalty of Lord Jesus is to declare one’s allegiance to the death.  And, after the resurrection, which is when Luke’s gospel was written and read, disciples were sent to the death because they insisted Jesus, not Caesar, is king. 

            Words.  Lord.  King. 

            Enter the Pharisees.  They won’t use these words for him.  “Teacher,” they say, “order your disciples to stop.”  ‘Teacher’ is an honorable title and they show respect in using it.  However, with this word, they view Jesus as their peer.  As his peers, as they see themselves, they assume the right of communal authority over him.  For the good the community, he needs to quiet this furor down immediately and they see it as their place to impose this.

            Word.  Lord – Jesus is to be worshipped and all belongs to Him.  King – Jesus is to be obeyed and given complete allegiance, even to death.  Teacher – Jesus is my peer and if he gets out of line it is my job to rein him in. 

            One more word demands our attention and it is tied to a response, so I will come back to it. 

            The disciples are the first to respond.  Jesus tells them to go ahead to the village, enter a yard of a home they have never visited and take a colt that is not theirs.  They respond in obedience.  I suspect the owners of the house and the yard and the cold were also his disciples, just unknown to those in his traveling party.  They also obeyed without question, giving up the colt. 

            Obedience is a response. 

            Praise is too – the response of the crowd.  They make noise as Jesus rides into Jerusalem because Jesus is worth the noise.  Their praise is not just a predetermined act of worship and political protest.  Luke says they raise their voices joyfully.  It is a response of the heart.

            The Pharisees offer a response of fear.  They hear how much noise the disciples are making.  They know that if they hear it, others will too: temple police; Roman soldiers in the area.  They fully understand the words they have heard, so they know any priests who hear this will fully understand it too.  They fear the powers that be – the temple, the puppet King Archelaeus, Roma – more than they fear God.  God is the one worshiped in the temple and the one who allows Rome to exist, but the Pharisees cannot see that God is in this man before them, Jesus.  So they try to shut the whole thing down. 

            Jesus’ response to the Pharisees raises the last word, the most important word.  We have seen that he is Lord and our response is worship.  We have seen that he is King and our response is obedience and loyalty.  We have seen an attempt to reduce him back to human size by calling him teacher.   He is teacher, but not now, not in this moment.

            Jesus tells the Pharisees if all were silent, the stones would praise him.  The only way the created order – animals, waters, trees, earth – the only way the natural world offers praise is if the praise is going to God.  That’s the only way stones shout out.  Jesus is God.

            He continues through the praises, through the Pharisees and their fears, and into the city.  And God weeps.  Jesus weeps and says to Jerusalem “You did not recognize the time of your visitation.”  God is here and you cannot see it. 

            Words:  Lord. King. God.

            Responses: Obedience.  Praise.  Worship.      

            We have confidence today in the truth in these words and responses to Jesus.  I don’t know if this past Tuesday’s primary results made you happy or fearful.  Maybe you believe Donald Trump can make America great again.  It doesn’t matter.  Maybe you are horrified at the prospect of a Trump presidency.  Doesn’t matter.  Maybe you feel burned because voters didn’t feel the burn for Bernie Sanders.  Doesn’t matter.  Maybe you are super excited at the thought of Hillary as president.  It does not matter.

            From the standpoint of America’s democracy, our presidential election is of course very important.  It always is.  But we are in church.  We have an eternal perspective.  We vote and play our part as law abiding citizens who contribute to society, but what happens in society, who is president, whatever crisis comes up, whatever war is going on – it does not change the fact the Jesus is Lord, King, and God.

            As despair mounts,  society crumbles, and people are at each other’s throats, we speak a word of hope amid the chaos.  The Lord and God and King who rides into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday died for our sins and then defeated death in the resurrection.  Our Palm Sunday politics transcend the temporary troubles that worry the world. 

Because of Jesus, we have a politics of life.  We know his visitation was a visitation of God and he brought salvation with Him – our salvation and the salvation of all who put their trust in him.  More than that, he came to save world including the rocks and stones.  No wonder they are ready with words of praise.  But praise is our job. 

AMEN 

Evangelism Through Maximizing Your Life (Acts 16:11-15)

Sunday, February 10, 2013

            Paul traveled throughout ancient Greece, what is now called Turkey but was then Asia Minor, and Rome.  He was evangelizing and started churches and he had a team that included Timothy, Silas, and Luke.  The story of their stop in the Macedonia city of Philippi is found in the fifth book of the New Testament, the book of Acts, the narrative of the first Christians after the resurrection of Jesus.  In Chapter 16, the apostles come to Philippi. 

Paul always started by finding the Jews in the city and telling them about Jesus.  In Macedonia the Jewish community was so small there was no synagogue and the leaders were women.  Jewish practice required at least 10 men to form a synagogue.  Lacking that, a handful of Jews, gathered for prayer on the Sabbath.

            Where did they meet?  Paul and his companions were unsure.  The Roman authorities governing this Greek city would not permit a Jewish gathering within the city proper.  The author of Acts and Paul’s travel companion, Luke writes, “We went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there” (16:13).

            In Jerusalem, eyebrows would raise.  Why would a group of men, itinerant religious teachers, speak in public to a group of women?  It was the Sabbath and they were gathered for prayer.  In a gentile city, far from the city of David, ethnic and religious solidarity were sufficient reasons to buck social conventions.

            Still this Philippian Jewish prayer group was different.  It dominated by woman and one woman in particular; a Greek woman who had turned to Judaism.  Her name was Lydia.  The euphemism rendered “worshiper of God” as rendered in the NRSV is how Luke indicated that this woman was ethnically Greek but was practicing Jewish worship.  Lydia was truly a seeker.  She knew she had not found God in the pagan practices in either Philippi or her home town of Thyatira.  So, she turned to the foreign religion, the religion of the Jews.  She turned to monotheism.

            She and the rest of this prayer group uttered the Psalms and contemplated the Torah and sought God each Sabbath.  A group of men from out of town now joined their Sabbath worship time.  In the group was a man named Paul who had Pharisee training and amazing knowledge of the scriptures.  The Philippian Jews listened as Paul told them that the anticipated Messiah had come.  It was Jesus and he was actually God in the flesh.  In his death, he took on himself the sins of the world.  In his resurrection, he conquered death and invited all who would follow him to enter his kingdom and to go throughout this world spreading his gospel.

            The Philippians listened as Paul, Luke, Silas, and Timothy talked about Jesus.  These apostles showed how Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy.  It’s likely that these Jews in Philippi had heard about the events of Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit of God on the followers of Jesus.  As Paul told them the Gospel story, they had a frame of reference.  They knew some of what he was saying and his sharing filled in the blanks. 

            This is especially true of Lydia.  She must have been one remarkable woman.  She’s the only one Luke mentions by name.  She was probably a widow because no husband is named. She was probably also at least affluent if not very wealthy.  She managed a household which would probably include resident servants and children.  She had a business, which is probably what drew her from Thyatira to Philippi.  She sold fine purple cloth. 

In a male-dominated world, Lydia was a woman of power.  It’s likely that her business earned her such respect in the community that no man or no one tried to horn in on her operation or her wealth.  The community would not allow it.  Her customers could not afford to allow anything to interrupt her work. 

After the prayer and teaching and conversation by the river outside Philippi, as the Sabbath was waning, Lydia did what she often did in that community. She took the initiative.  She invited Paul and his evangelistic band to come and stay at her home.  The home of Lydia the dealer of purple cloth became Paul’s base of operations.  I don’t know how the apostles felt about this woman’s invitation, but Luke writes, “She prevailed upon us.”  It is as if they could not say no. 

We never read of Lydia preaching a sermon.  Much of what I have said about her is pieced together by her situation.  Many facts are not known, but the circumstances and way Luke writes the story lead us to the scenario I have laid out.  Luke never records Lydia convincing another person to believe in Jesus.  But he tells us she was a business woman, a homeowner, and a woman with a persuasive personality.  And we can clearly see that the Gospel would not have taken hold in Philippi if it had not been for her. 

From Paul’s later letter sent to the Philippian church, we realize that not only did this small church grow.  It became one of Paul’s most trusted and beloved churches.  It was a persecuted church.  While Paul was in Philippi, he drove a demon out of a girl.  The demon had enabled the girl to forecast the future.  She was a slave, so she made her owners extremely rich.  When Paul vanquished the demon, the owners were enraged.

They incited the town officials against Paul and Silas.  The apostles were flogged and thrown in jail.  What happened to Lydia and her budding house church while the founders were locked up?  How would the frustrated owners of the now former fortune teller continue venting their anger?  Would they attack the purple cloth dealer and church based out of her home?

Luke’s telling of the story stays with Paul and Silas.  We don’t know what took place at Lydia’s house.  A midnight earthquake led to Paul’s freedom.  It also opened the way for him to witness to the Roman who ran the jail.  That rough and tumble warden was reduced to kneeling and weeping before Paul who led him to Christ.  The entire household of the jailer came to faith.  Before Paul and his group departed from Philippi, they had to make one last stop at the church.  They had to see Lydia one more time, just to encourage her.  I suspect they were also encouraged by her.  I also suspect the jailer who previously never crossed Lydia’s path now came to her seeking to join the church of Jesus Christ in her house. 

How does all this happen in the life of a woman in the male-dominated first century world?  It happens the same way things happen in your life and mine.  It happens at the prompting of God.  And the prompting of God comes within the circumstances of our lives.

 

Equipped for Sharing Jesus

1 – Listen First

2 – Know the Gospel

3 – Love “The People Jesus Misses Most”

4 – Recognize the Moment

5 – Develop a deep Longing for God

6 – Practice a Group Approach to Evangelism

7 – Maximize your Own Life

 

            We have seen six ways we can be equipped to tell people about Jesus and invite them to consider the salvation he offers.  Today in the life of Lydia, we have a seventh.  When we maximize our own circumstances, we will have opportunities to share our faith.  It won’t be identical to Lydia’s situation, but we can gain good perspective by looking at her a bit.

            First, she was committed to excellence in her work.  That she was able to succeed in a competitive mostly unregulated marketplace in a society that afforded limited protection to unmarried women speaks to her inner strength.  I also think it implies that her business was notable.  Why doesn’t Luke describe any other person in Philippi?  She stands out.  My speculation is that if she her purple cloth was anything short of superior she would not have lasted.  But because she had a reputation for excellence in this area, people would listen to her speak on other topics; topics like religion and theology and spirituality.

A modern example of this is former football coach Tony Dungy.  He took the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the NFC championship game.  In Indianapolis, his teams won 11 or more games every single year.  They went to multiple AFC championship games and won Super Bowl.  He is a committed Christian who has given up his football coaching career to write Christian books, to found an organization that promotes good parenting practices, and to mentor young men in prison.  People listen when Coach Dungy talks about Jesus because of his excellence as a coach.  If his teams went 4-12 instead of 12-4 every year, he might not have the same platform.

What is our purple cloth?  What is it that we do with such commitment to excellence that people notice?  It may be your job.  You do the little things to make sure you are doing your work to very best of your ability whether your work is waiting tables or doing research.  It may be a relationship.  You commit yourself to being an outstanding, attentive, involved parent and others notice your efforts in parenting.  First they ask about your approach to parenting; that conversation can transition to a conversation about other topics, and you are respected because your conversation partner respects your parenting so much.  Or your commitment to volunteering.  Or your excellence in your work.  What is the purple cloth in your life, in mine, that gains for us credibility?

            Second, Lydia opened up her home.  Many people in our church family do this also.  If you love having people in, follow the model of Jesus, and go beyond inviting just your friend.  When the church announces a need for housing for visiting musicians or ministers, volunteer.  Volunteer to host small groups and special meetings in your home.  Look for opportunities to use the gift of hospitality God has put in your heart.

Not everyone has a great home for hosting large groups.  Not everyone has the temperament or spiritual gifting.  What are other ways we can practice hospitality?  We can proactively go out of our way to meet people for lunch or coffee.  I have discovered my neighbors are surprised and delighted when I say, “Hey can we get together during the week?  I’ll come to where you work.”  The offer is unexpected and they like the idea of meeting socially, without professional or home pressures.  You may not have the time flexibility I have.  But there are Saturday mornings.  There are Sunday afternoons.  It might require some creativity, but it is worth it.  For the sake of inviting people into our lives and hearts, we need to discover how we create space to meet that is unthreatening, peaceful, and inviting.  This leads to the possibility of conversations about matters of deep importance.  And what is more importabt than Jesus?  How can we practice hospitality?

            Third, she was courageous. We have mentioned how Lydia had to be a woman of great strength to achieve all that she did in her life.  We have looked at the initiative she showed in hosting the prayer meeting of Jewish women, even though she was a convert.  And she saw her assertiveness in getting the apostles to stay in her home.  After Paul exorcised the demon from the slave girl, the church was persecuted and she had to endure that.  Yet, the church carried on as the letter to the Philippians can attest. 

Our context is different, but speaking evangelistically still sends shivers up our spines.  We might do all that we’ve talked about in this series and still get to that point where it is time to share Jesus and we wilt in the moment.  It could be because of circumstances or a particular relationship.  We might shrink because of our own sins.  But we are covered.  Jesus has declared us innocent, justified, right in God’s eyes.  He has taken away our sin and makes us new creations. 

What is our purple cloth?  We do we do with a commitment to excellence?  How can show hospitality?  Where in life do we need to show courage?  When we answer these questions, we are in the process of maximizing our lives, and we are positioned and equipped to share the gospel.

I close our series remembering an experience I had.  I was invited to do the chaplain service for a high school football team on game day.  I shared a story from Mark’s gospel.  I talked about courage and character.  When I was finished, the head coach got up.

He was respectful to me, but I could tell, there was something he wanted to be said, and I had not said it.  This was a public high school, but the chaplain service was voluntary, so he could say what he wanted to say.  He knew these players extremely well.  They were in the midst of an outstanding season.  He got up after I had finished and with passion in his eyes said, “I love you guys.  I want you to be in Heaven.  I want you to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior because nothing matters more than that.” 

All that we have said about evangelism builds to the moment where people we pray for give their lives to Jesus.  This theme will continue to be a core part of what we do at HillSong Church.  I pray that you will know the blessing of sharing your faith and that our church will be known as a church of people who, gentleness and love, share Jesus with the world.

AMEN

Fat Cows

Honestly God, "fat cows"? Was that you, or is that Amos' paraphrase? Did you say it with more dignity, more aplomb?

I am asking these questions of God because I read of God's displeasure expressed in Amos 3:13-4:3.
^"15I will tear down the winter house as well as the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall come to an end, says the Lord.

4Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on Mount Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands, “Bring something to drink!”"

The wealthy women of Samaria lived large, so Amos called them "Fat Cows." It reminds me of the unfortunate response from the queen in France shortly before the French Revolution. She was told the starving people where riotous because they had no bread. Her brilliant response? "Let them eat cake." Why didn't some court attendant pull the clueless monarch aside and say, "Um, excuse me your blindness, er, I mean, your highness. But they don't have bread. They certainly can't afford cake."

Or earlier in history, to the rich women in Samaria demanding "drink" from their husbands. "Excuse me ladies, but while you are loafing, consuming all the resources of the nation, the people in your country are starving and your opulent, extravagant life styles are contributing. And GOD SEES!!"

That's one thing I take away from Amos - God sees. God always sees when there are a few people soaked in riches and a lot of people wallowing in hunger and scarcity. God sees me - my life. In my honest talk with God, I have to honestly acknowledge where I have lived wastefully. I have to confess when I have demonstrated indifference where God would want me to express compassion. I don't want to be a fat cow demanding drink and living in summer and winter houses (Amos 3:15).

If you read Amos and try to localize his piercing prophesy so that you would say he only speaks to ancient Israel and ancient Samaria, hear the words of 19th century Bible scholars Johann Frederick Karl Keil and Franz Delitzsch. These scholars refute any attempt to dismiss Amos as a prophet for back then but with nothing to say today. Keil and Delitzsch write "The sin of these women consisted in the tyrannical oppression of the poor, whilst they asked their lords, i.e., their husbands, to procure them the means of debauchery." God's judgment speaks to wealthy people today.

Amos said they would end up dragged into slavery by hooks in their noses (4:2).

Really, God, did Amos need such graphic imagery?

Perhaps the real question is do I realize how disgusted God when people of privilege ignore people on the margins?

I hear enthusiastic Christians talk of the urgency of evangelism. They want to "get people saved," get them into Heaven. I don't deny it. With Heaven and Hell at stake, Christians need to share Christ with people. However, we also need to understand what it means to say Heaven and Hell are at stake. Read Matthew 25:31-46 or Luke 16:19-31. In those passages Jesus condemns to Hell anyone who has neglected to help the needy. Would that include me?

Or read Amos. The language is colorful and the reader might feel like Amos is calling him a "Fat Cow." But it is better to hear that, awaken, and take spiritual stock. It is better to change one's life and live compassionately today. That is better than to continue to live in blissful ignorance and then discover on the "Day of the Lord," that God was really angry, judgmentally angry, that we didn't notice those around us and help and love them.

The book of Job and God's heart for Needy People

A key component of God’s vision for God’s people is that we show his love to the needy. This is a major theme throughout scripture. But not in the book of Job! Oh yes, read Job 31. Job is not a book about heeding God’s call to justice and mercy. Those topics are the fare of the prophets (especially Micah, Amos, and Hosea). And yet … read Job 31.

In that chapter, Job is declaring his own innocence as he has throughout. This time though, he goes to great depths to show that he understands sin.. He does so by repeatedly saying, “If I have …” and then he names some sin. Obviously, he makes two assertions. (1) The behaviors he cites are a sinful acts. (2) He is not guilty of those sins. By recounting what Job lists, we can ascertain his worldview. We can know what was generally assumed by society the basics of right and wrong.

Here are some of the sins Job recites: denying justice to the slave class (v.13); denying the desires of the poor (v. 16); neglecting the widow (v.16); failing to share bread (v.17); failing to aid a needy man by providing him new clothes (v.19); using political power to exploit young people whose fathers had died (v.21); trusting in money and rejoicing in wealth (v.24-25); rejoicing over the enemy’s misfortune (v.29); and, neglecting the foreigner (v.32).

Look closely at all that is mentioned in Job 31. It was understood by Job, by his friends, and by the original readers of Job that everything mentioned in the previous paragraph goes directly against the ways of God. It’s a catalogue of sins related to poverty, hunger, and social justice.

So, while we wouldn’t turn to the book of Job as a textbook on social justice and compassionate love of neighbor, it sure is a good secondary text. Job’s speech in chapter 31 is absolutely a fine support text one can read after one reads the Sermon on the Mount and the Gospel of Luke and the book of James and the three fiery prophets mentioned earlier. All this reading makes it clear that God loves people, and those who truly want to worship God and follow God must likewise love people, and make it a life mission to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.