Growing Young/Best Neighbors

Sunday, June 16, 2019

            Religion is about rules.  Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship.  What an absurd statement!  When you look at the census form, where it says “religion,” Christianity is right there as one of the choices.  Doesn’t Christianity have rules?

What does Jesus say about this?

When asked what commandment (a/k/a “rule’) was the greatest, Jesus went straight to the rule book – the Law of Moses found in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Bible. 

            A Pharisee lawyer asked Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment is greatest” (22:36)?  Jesus responded by quoting Deuteronomy 6:5. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  This was not originally from Jesus.  He got this from Moses.  He doesn’t say anything about relationship.  This is a rule.  According to Jesus it is the rule, and if we want to follow him we are commanded to obey it. 

            Then, he adds a second rule which he says is like the first.  “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Again, this is not a Jesus original.  He’s quoting the Law of Moses here, Leviticus 19:18.  God says there, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”  That’s the rule.  Why?  God is Lord, Master, and God says so.  That’s all the reason we get. 

A lot Christians kind of ignore much of Leviticus because the instruction is a set of guidelines for sacrificing animals in worship.  We don’t do that.  Because Jesus was the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, we don’t kill animals and sacrifice them to show our devotion to God.  So, Leviticus is disregarded only to be read by the zealous Christians doing one of those read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plans, and they read it quickly so they get to more interesting stories in Joshua and Judges.  When Jesus was asked what matters most, he quoted Leviticus and Deuteronomy. He gave rules, rules that were already in place: love God and love neighbor.

So is Christianity a religion of rule, specifically these two rules?  So many Christians base their faith on their relationship with Jesus.  Is it a relationship?  Is it both?

The final core commitment of the Growing Young approach to church ministry is where we will find resolution to this tension.  Our church is committed to the Growing Young idea.  We’ve spent the last month looking at the core commitments of churches that are growing young. 

1.    Shared Leadership

2.    Empathy

3.    Take Jesus Seriously

4.    A Community of Warm Relationships

5.    Prioritize Young People Everywhere

6.    Be Good Neighbors

Growing young churches involve young people in leadership.  They empathize with the struggles young people face.  They prioritize the teachings of Jesus, about Jesus, and the relationship we have with God in Jesus.  They foster an environment in which people can develop deep, true relationships both with peers and intergenerationally.  They prioritize ministries to young people in all areas of church life.  And finally, today’s core commitment: Growing Young Church are good neighbors to the community.  This means we strive to help people in our community thrive.  We hope many unchurched people will come to our church.  We hope many unbelievers will encounter our ministry and through that encounter decide to put their trust in Jesus.  Whether they do or not, we want to be a force for God’s good in our community and in the world.

In many ways we are already doing this.  Earlier this year, we built a ramp for a family living about a mile from here.  We do ramp projects like that almost every year.  The middle school a block from here uses our parking lot when they need overflow parking, like this past Thursday when they had 8^th grade promotion.  We are also the school designated site in the event that an emergency would cause them to evacuate students.  Numerous churches in our community use our facility for funerals and banquets.  We do charge for some, not all but some, of these building uses, but those who pay are glad to do so.  They say our fees are among the most reasonable in Chapel Hill and they love using our space.  Our helping hand ministry is there for people in financial emergencies. 

These are just a few of the ways we try to be good neighbors.   Young people and unchurched people pay attention to the words we speak about Jesus when they see us doing good in the world.  Helping kids in Ethiopia get an education and job skills; sending backpacks loaded with needed school supplies and gifts to extremely poor families in Appalachia; hosting big events like Vacation Bible School and the Chinese New Year celebration and inviting the community; inviting the community to our Christmas Eve and Easter services; hosting the mobile dental clinic so low income families can get free dental care: in all these ways we strive to obey Jesus’ command to love our neighbors. 

We can improve the way we do many of the things I’ve mentioned.  We might add ministries, but even if we just did a better job of maximizing what we already do, it would magnify our effectiveness in showing our town what God’s love is like.  All these good works are examples of us trying to obey Jesus’ command to love our neighbors.

When love happens in a way that makes peoples’ lives easier, relationships start to happen.  So there it is.  Obeying the command is following the rule, but it leads to relationship and in the first place we try to be obedient because of the relationship we have with Jesus.  So, Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.  Right?

It doesn’t really matter to me how it’s defined.  I categorize our faith as the Christian religion.  I participate in this religion through ritual like the Lord’s Supper and baptism, a holy book (the Bible), and regular worship.  I try to show religious devotion to God. 

In this religion, which I believe is the path to God, I have found that because my sins are forgiven, I have been adopted as a child of God.  God is my Heavenly father, therefor I have relationship with Him. My relationship with God is more important than any other relationship or loyalty in my life.  I am my best self as a husband, dad, brother, son, friend, and pastor because of who I am in Christ. 

Because of who Jesus is, I want to follow Him.  I want to understand and obey when he says, these commands are the most important.  The words he speaks in Matthew 22 come in a series of confrontations that Jesus had with religious leaders in Jerusalem in the week between Palm Sunday and his crucifixion on Good Friday.

Different powerbrokers in the government and in the temple felt threatened by Jesus.  They tried to control people’s lives and to an extent they succeeded.  Then Jesus came along and severely criticized them.  Sadducees, Herodians, and Pharisees were kind of like political parties vying for the soul of the nation.  They exercised influence through control of the temple and synagogues and through their knowledge of the Law of Moses.  Jesus knew the law better than they did.  He saw these leaders manipulating people with guilt and threats of expulsion from houses of worship and he wouldn’t have it.

Jesus helped people find their way to God. Through healing, driving our demons, and teaching about the law in new ways, he drew his listeners close to God whereas the leaders who contended against him came between people and God.  If we are to be good neighbors, if we as the body of Christ are to help people come to know Jesus, we have to love our community as Jesus loved those who came to him. 

When he quoted the Deuteronomy command to love God, he wasn’t talking about a feeling.  This was not love as an emotion or impulse.  He meant love as a decision.  To love God meant – and still means – to give oneself to God with one’s entire person. 

Do we do that?  How much of you does God get?  How much of me does God get?  Loving God in this way – the way commanded by Jesus – is a lifelong pursuit.  It’s difficult to give oneself entirely to anything: a profession, a romantic relationship, a pastime.  He’s passionate about golf.  Maybe.  To be “passionate” about something is to love so much it hurts.  Does he love golf so much it hurts?  Do we love God so much it hurts?  Are we giving absolutely all of ourselves to God?  That’s what Jesus says is the most important of commandments.  There’s no option to follow him and have Christianity be a small part of our lives.  Loving God the way Jesus says we must is all-consuming.

It is also directly tied to the second great command: love others.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Again, the verb Jesus used to describe love indicates love is a responsibility.  When we follow Jesus, we have to give ourselves fully to the care of our neighbors.  We do this as a community and as individuals.  Jesus illustrated the point with his Good Samaritan parable.  Anyone you or I come across is our neighbor, one we are commanded by God to love.  Loving in this way gets us to “the essence of the way God created humans to live.”  We give ourselves to God and others to fulfill God’s purpose for us as the crown of creation.[i]   We were made to be in relationships of self-giving love with God and with people.  It’s why we exist.

When we come together as a group of Jesus-followers and together commit to love our community in this way, we will show our neighbors Jesus.  Seeing Him, some will see their own need for Him and turn to Him in faith.  We’ll be a “Growing Young Church.”  More importantly, we will be a faithful church and each one of us will meet Jesus in this gathering.  We will see Him in this place. 

Pray for our church.  Ask God to help us grow young and help us increase our love for each other, for him, and for the world right outside our doors. 

AMEN

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[i] M. Wilkens (2004).  The NIV Application Commentary: Matthew, Zondervan (Grand Rapids), p.726.

Where We Can Agree (Mark 12:28-34)

            One political group identifies with the man in power.  No matter how foolish he acts, these supporters will stand by his side.  They ignore his boorish behavior as they prop him up claiming he’s best hope for the nation.  They don’t really believe that.  In truth, they plan on sponging off his riches and privilege.  They want to advance themselves by walking in his shadow.  We’ll call them the brownnosers. 

            The brownnosers’ rivals are a group that’s committed to the letter of the law.  They are fully convinced that their interpretation is the only valid one.  They exert power over common people as they wield the law like a sword.  At their word, one is vindicated or condemned.   And everyone listens to them because they seem to know so much. We’ll call them the legalists. 

            The legalists and brownnosers definitely do not like each other.  They constantly clash in public verbal sparring matches.  However, the legalists are at odds with another group, a second rival.  This group holds the seats of power in the ruling body. They actually possess legislative authority.   We can refer to them as congress.  Some of those in congress have loose association with some of the brownnosers.  The actually despise the brownnosers, but are willing to use them, if it maintains their privileged position.

            I’ve tried to be coy, but you are too smart for that.  You can see right through my veiled references.  I’ve mentioned three groups that in different ways hold the people of the nation under heel with their misuse and abuse of power.  Three governing bodies vying with one another, sometimes entering dubious alliances, other times openly attacking each other; we all know exactly who I am talking about.  It is the first century in Jerusalem and I have just described the Pharisees as legalists, the Herodians, sycophantic members of the puppet King Herod’s court, as brownnosers, and the Sadducees who controlled the temple as the congress.

            These power groups had to wrangle under the oppressive eye of Rome the way today’s politicians have to deal with the inevitability of Election Day.  Powerless powerbrokers, they elevated themselves at the expensive of the common person.  And then Jesus broke onto scene with something neither they nor the Romans had anticipated.  He told the truth!  He was real.  He revealed what was real about them.  And this one truth-telling man exposed and disoriented those who had previously thought of themselves as untouchable.

            Follow Mark, the master story teller.  Imagining the scene, I picture this section being read in the home of some Christian in Ephesus 88AD.  A group of Christ-followers is gathered, 30 people.  It is a rich Christian’s home, big enough to host the church in that sector.  Among those 30 there to glorify God in the name of Jesus are the poor, the travelers, the weary and beaten.  They have been harassed by local politicians and constables. They’ve been intimidated by Roman legionnaires.  They’ve been kicked out of the synagogue for insisting that Messianic expectations have been realized in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  They know that to follow him is to be a people abused by society’s powerholders. 

            They come to an Ephesian church maybe hosted by an aged Timothy.  He’s invited an old friend to share a good word: John Mark.  He’s well known having apprenticed under Barnabas and Peter, and near the end having reconciled with and then worked alongside Paul.  We recognize names like Timothy and Mark as being among the younger set of disciples we meet in Acts and Paul’s letters.  But this particular Sabbath Day, it is 50 years past the resurrection.  These men we remember being young are now the last vestiges of the original generation of Jesus-followers.  Where has Mark been?

            With a gleam in his eye he begins reading what he’s been working on – his version of the good news; this is Mark’s Gospel.  By chapter 12, those 30 believers in the Ephesian house church are with him.  He pits the Pharisees in public confrontations with Jesus and the crowd cheers Jesus as he demonstrates wisdom, defeating their tyranny with a Gospel of freedom, overcoming their abusive theology with his Gospel of love and grace.

            Mark has Jesus deflecting all the rhetorical and legal assaults the Pharisees can muster. Defeated, they do something they would never do.  They conspire with the Herodians!  “They sent to [Jesus] some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him” (12:13).  Jesus meets their absurd scenario and in Mark’s abrupt prose we read, “They were utterly amazed” (12:17).  That’s Mark 12:13-17 if you want to read it later yourself.

            The Sadducees, perceiving themselves to possess a vastly superior intellect to the parochial Pharisees and pompous Herodians, take their turn at Jesus.  They tell an improbable parable about a woman who marries 7 brothers.  They want to disprove resurrection.  All they accomplish is the proof that Jesus is much more adroit than them.  You can read this encounter in Mark 12:18-27.

             The rhythm is easy to pick up. All the corrupt parties of Jerusalem politics have been thrown into an unwelcome alliance in a joint effort to put the village rabbi from Galilee back in his place.  A shot comes at Jesus from one corner, he swats it back byspeaking the bold truth of God.  Another shot comes from over here and Jesus is ready.  Their deceptions won’t slow him down in his determination to reveal God’s salvation to all who come to him genuinely seeking God.

            In the midst of this, Mark throws a curveball we need to see.  Within corrupt political structures whether the systems of 1^st century Jerusalem or 21^st century American politics, there are people who honestly want to serve.  Of the Republicans and Democrats hoping to win this Tuesday, some are truly good men and women.  Maybe you don’t vote for them because you disagree with their views on a certain issue, but you don’t have demonize them.  It’s OK to disagree with civility. 

            Mark writes in verse 28 that a scribe approached Jesus.  Most of the scribes in the temple were probably Sadducees.  This Sadducee watched Jesus go at it with Herodians, Pharisees and other Sadducees to the delight of the crowd.  But this one was annoyed.  He could see that the cheering crowd had no more interest in truth than the corrupt politicians bickering with Jesus.  These people cheering Jesus today would be jeering him as he hung from the cross just a few days later. 

But this man had a real question.  From one thinker to another, “Teacher, which commandment is first?”  If we want to live in right relationship with God and with our fellow human beings, if we want to honor God in our lives, where do we start?  Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”  People think Jesus invented that statement.  He was quoting law they all knew. 

He doesn’t stop though.  He then quotes Leviticus 19:18.  This comes right from the middle of the holiness code, a law they all knew. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Mark’s audience in that Ephesian church pastored by Timothy has been laughing along with Mark and Timothy as they all hear Mark tell of Jesus’ flourishes in overcoming the assaults hurled at him by Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians.  But they notice the change in Mark’s tone when he gets to this part.  Jesus never won arguments for the sake of winning arguments.  He didn’t want to defeat people. He wanted to enlighten people with truth so they could see their own sins and thus see their need for God.  Seeing their need for God they would then discover the path to God was the way paved by Jesus.

A hush falls over Mark’s audience as they hear him tell of this scribe, a Sadducee who is beginning to open his heart to Jesus.  We might describe the man as a Washington insider.  Mark holds before us the story of this insider stepping onto the path of discipleship through a thinker’s conversation about theology and faith. 

“You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and beside him there is no other;’ and ‘to love him with all the heart, and all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ – this is more important than all whole burnt offering and sacrifices” (12:33).  Astounding!  A scribe who worked in Jerusalem just said that relationships of love mattered more than temple ceremony.  Where did scribes work?  At the temple.  Who did scribes work with?  Priests!  He’s beginning to see that salvation doesn’t come in what happens in the temple.  Salvation comes when someone meets God in Jesus and responds in faith.  It can be a beggar or the most powerful of lawyers; a wealthy merchant, or a blue collar worker struggling to pay his bills.  Mark shows that in Christ we each come with the same need for grace, love, and forgiveness. 

Jesus did not bat this inquiring scribe away as he had the Herodians and Sadducees in the previous episodes.  Instead, in this instance, Jesus wins.  His victories are marked by the conversion of our hearts to God’s way of life.  God’s way of life is love.  “You are not far from the kingdom of God,” Jesus told that scribe.   He absolutely had to turn away from the temple and turn to Jesus.  And he did that. 

Then Mark writes, “After that, no one dared ask any [more] questions.”  Mark glanced around at the faces of the house-church members huddled in Ephesus.  He had made his point.  Those late first century Christ-followers needed to love the Legionnaires who intimidated them and the local constables who harassed them, and the synagogue leader who rejected and expelled them.  When they looked to Jesus and loved God, they could all agree on that.

We can too.  So many issues cause us to argue with each other, even our brothers and sisters in church; we argue, then we demonize the other side; then we divide the world into “us” and “them.”  This hateful bipolar way of seeing is one philosophy trying to win the day – this Election Day and in this moment in history.  Some arguments are fun: Pepsi or Coke?  Cats or dogs?  Apple or PC?  Tar Heels or Blue Devils?  Some arguments are more deeply divisive.  Do we welcome refugees or secure our borders with the military?  Can gay people get married in the church?  Can we own guns and defend ourselves or are we supposed to turn the other cheek? 

The demonic monster of political corruption wants us to turn on each other by forcing us to divide into camps based on these and other issues.  Mark promises we don’t have to fall for that.  We can be united in Christ.  Our starting point, and this is absolute, is loving God and loving each other.  This is something we can all agree on.  My neighbor is the person God puts in my path and I am called to love him as much as God showed love for me in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Mark’s audience understood that the love of God revealed in Jesus is the remedy for the ills that divide people in society.  They would take that Gospel he wrote and left with them.  Centuries before the printing press, they would preserve it, by hand copy it, translate it, and live by it.  Why?  They knew this writing was Spirit-inspired.  This was word of God.  This was life. 

I think we know it too.  We reproduce Mark’s Gospel when we respond to the corruption and fearmongering around us with a commitment to love and Godly hospitality.  As Election Day approaches, may we do that this week.  May we go out in love, determined to love people in such a way that they see their own deep need for Jesus.

AMEN

Rejected at the Church Door (Mark 2:13-21)

February 21, 2016 - 2nd Sunday of Lent

We passed out rocks on Ash Wednesday as a Lenten discipline. If you’d like to join us in this practice, come up and get a rock right now or at any time during the sermon.  You are invited. 

            My rock reminds me of the ways I neglect my faith.  I hold it and think of things that draw me away from Jesus. 

            I also hold my rock and remember that the Holy Spirit is with me.  I hope you’ll take a rock and carry it everywhere from now until Easter Sunday.  Be aware distractions and ask God to remove them.  Be aware also of the presence of God.

            This morning we will see another way this rock can serve a reminder in our lives as Jesus’ disciples. 

            Think of one or two people you do not want to see at church and write the names down.  Everyone turn those names in and we’ll make a master list and give it to our ushers.   They will man the door.  If anyone on your list shows up, they will put up a stop sign.  The “unwanted’s” will be rejected at the church door. But be careful.  You may be on someone else’s list.  The ushers may have to escort you out.  Or me; I may be able finish this morning.

            Anyone have Coach K on your list?  We live in Chapel Hill. We’ve got to keep the unacceptable people out. 

How about someone in a disreputable occupation?  We’ll ban bookies, telemarketers, and sensationalist fraudulent faith healers.  Who should we stop at the door?

 On a more serious note, has someone hurt you or taken advantage of you.  They betrayed you or gossiped behind your back.  Maybe the damage is lasting damage.  Could you stand and sing songs of praise alongside one who has caused so much pain and fear? 

What is someone is neck-deep in pornography?  It’s hard to imagine that person in church.  He doesn’t belong. 

When the Pharisees saw Jesus at Levi’s party, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners” (2:16)?  Jesus is a holy man, but he parties with the unclean, the unrighteous.  Why? 

In the early 1960’s Will Campbell made his way from his humble beginnings in poor, rural Mississippi to Yale Divinity School.  He became an aggressive civil rights activist and ended up back in the south where his Christian faith was tested when he saw white Christians reject black people at the doors of their churches. 

Newspaper editor P.D. East agreed with Campbell’s politics of racial equality but rejected his faith.  He dared Campbell to succinctly express the Christian message.  “We’re all rebellious losers,” Campbell said, “But God loves us anyway. 

P.D. East was unmoved.  Episcopalian priest Jonathan Daniels was a friend to both men and a fellow civil rights activist.  He murdered in broad daylight by Thomas Coleman, a Southern sheriff.  To East, this was evidence that there is no God.  Relentlessly he attacked Campbell’s definition of faith.

Was Jonathan Daniels a rebellious loser?  He asked.

Everyone is a sinner, including Jonathan Daniels.  So yes, he has rebelled.

Fine.  East continued his assault.  Is Thomas Coleman a rebellious loser?

The murderer?  O yes. Yes that murdering sheriff is a loser (Campbell thought of other words I won’t say).

Then, the unbeliever, editor P.D. East, nailed the Baptist minister Will Campbell to the wall.  Who does God love more, the murdered Jonathan Daniel who died fighting for equal rights, or his murderer, the sheriff, Thomas Coleman whose job is to uphold justice but is perpetuating injustice?  Who does God love more?

Will Campbell wanted to hate Thomas Coleman, but in the midst of that hot emotion a light went on inside his heart.  God’s grace isn’t grace at all until it extends to all sinners include the worst among us. 

Will Campbell, civil rights activist resigned from the national council of churches and moved to rural Tennessee where he bought a farm.  He became an apostle to rednecks.  He knew many who were fighting for civil rights.  He never let go of his believe in racial equality.  It is a Gospel imperative to work for justice in the name of love.  But he did not know anyone who was trying to penetrate the hearts of people in the Klu Klux Klan with the love of Jesus. 

He knew how evil the Klan was.  But he also knew the people in the Klan were sinners far from the love of God, as lost as people could be.[i]

Who do we want to reject at the church door?  Klansmen?  Members of ISIS?  Sex offenders?  The Pharisees asked, “Why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

The Pharisees were keepers of Israel’s law, the experts on the scriptures.  Their diligence was a gift to the community until that diligence led them to care more about upholding rules than helping people find their way to God.  When social mores mattered more than people, then the Pharisees went too far. 

A few years ago I met a Korean woman, an academic.  She was headed to North Korea officially as a visiting scholar there to train North Korean scientists.  But, she told me, her real purpose was to sneak Bibles into the country.  If she got caught it could mean years in prison, totally cut off from family and friends. 

She went for the same reason some people sign up to be prison chaplains.  She went because the North Koreans are from the love of God.  Some Pastors do not serve in churches or as hospital chaplains or in campus ministry.  They sign up to do their ministry inside of prisons.  Their congregations are full of felons.  Why serve there?  These individuals are far from the love of God.  They do this for the same reason Will Campbell was a missionary to the racists he spent so much of his life fighting.  Those racists are far from the love of God. 

Tax collectors were Jews who became rich working for the Romans collecting tolls.  The Romans had a fixed amount people were to pay.  The tax collector could force people to pay higher amounts and pocket the difference.  The people of Israel were broken under the oppression of Roman occupiers and their own fellow countrymen, added to their pain by working for the oppressors. 

Indeed, why would Jesus have table fellowship with them and with people who worked in unclean and unsavory professions?  Those tax collectors like Levi, and sinners like Mary Magdalene, needed God.  “Those who are well have no need of a physician,” Jesus said, “but those who are sick do.  I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The Pharisees are already upset about who Jesus is with.  Now, they don’t like what he’s doing.  The disciples of John the Baptist are going without meals as a spiritual discipline.  They’re fasting.  The disciples of the Pharisees are fasting.  Everyone fasting.  Jesus, why aren’t your disciples fasting?

Why are you eating with those people, Jesus?

Why are you eating at all, Jesus?

Jesus welcomes the peoples rejected at the door.  He is the Savior and His arrival is the onset of the new age.  His arrival means the Kingdom of God is here. 

There is time to fast, but not when we are in Jesus’ presence bodily.  We don’t fast in the Kingdom of God.  We don’t wear our funeral clothes on Easter Sunday.  The coming of Jesus is a signal that God offers life to – to the worst of sinners  including us.

To appreciate it, we have to love the tax collectors we’d rather keep away.  We each have our lists, those people we want to reject at the door.  When we hold on to those lists, we are old wineskins, stretched out, cracking, inflexible, not ready for the new, expanding truth of God.

New wine was still fermenting.  It expands.  That’s why the skins to hold is have to be flexible.  When we come to Christ, we are filled and stretched.  We don’t know what he’s going to do in our lives.  We don’t know the tax collectors and sinners he’s going to call us to love.  Never mind that we are as sinful and lost as those we think we can judge.  Stiff old wine skins cannot enjoy the Kingdom of God. 

To enjoy the kingdom and live it up at Jesus’ dinner party, we move from rejection, to welcome.  We open the closed doors of our hearts.  We throw away our gavels of judgment and open our arms for embrace.  We can only do this by the power of the love the Holy Spirit puts in us.  But when we are Spirit-filled, there is no limit to how much we can forgive, how greatly we can love, and how magnanimously we can welcome people we used to despise.  Hate in us is melted by the warmth of Jesus’ grace and it becomes love because of Him. 

Now you have your list – those people you’d prefer go somewhere else.  That is your prayer list for the next 6 weeks.  Pray for God to do wonderful things in the lives of the names on the list.  I know.  This is a list of people who are not nice.  Hold them up before God.

And start a new list.  This is one is of people you’re going to invite to church.  It is an invitation to drink the new wine Jesus gives. 

The rock that reminds us of obstacle to faith and reminds us that the Holy Spirit is with us also reminds us to pray for those people we just don’t like.  It is hard to do this, impossible without God’s help.  But the Holy Spirit gives that help.  Hold onto your rock, pray for clarity, appeal to the present Spirit, and Pray God will bless the people on your list and that they may find their way to the party Jesus is throwing.

AMEN 

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[i] P. Yancey (1997).  What’s So Amazing about Grace? Zondervan Publishing House (Grand Rapids), p.141-145.

Can you Hear the Hosannas

Do We Hear the ‘Hosanna’s’? (Matthew 21:1-17)

Sunday, April 13, 2014 – Palm Sunday

            Shane Claiborne is a writer, activist, speaker, and prophet who lives in an intentional community called the Simple Way in a Philadelphia neighborhood populated by addicts and dealers.  Children often go unsupervised.  There is violence.  Claiborne writes that whenever a fight breaks out near his house, he runs outside with torches.  He stands down the street from the rumble juggling the torches like clown.  He writes, “Perhaps kids will lose interest in the noise of a good fight and move toward the other end of the block to watch the circus.  I truly believe,” Claiborne says, “we can overcome the darkness of this world by shining something brighter and more beautiful.”[i]

            Fights are so common where he lives that he has a ready-made response, a beautiful response.  Give them something fun and whimsical to see instead of violence.  Provide a happy alternative to the corruption. 

            I may not ever see two people beating each other with fists and sticks and knives on the street where I live, but the world is soaked in sin and sin always leads to violence and death.  Cain always ends up killing Abel.  Sometimes the pathway to violence is indirect.  We don’t see the bloodshed but, the wage of sin is death, Romans 6:23.  And sin is everywhere.

            Claiborne’s attempt to divert attention away from the street fight by providing a circus shows in a playful way the serious alternative to a cycle of death that Jesus offered in the temple.  Jesus declared there is another way, a way that’s different and better than the way of violence and death.

Every year on the Sunday before Easter, Palm Sunday, we see Jesus praised on his ride into Jerusalem.  We watch him explode in righteous fury, driving animals out of the temple.  Matthew’s version of these events describes four definite actions of Jesus.  He rides into town as a king, passes judgment on the temple as a prophet, heals in a way that only God can, and receives worship, as only God should. 

In the Old Testament, the book of 2^nd Kings, chapter 9, Jehu is anointed by a prophet of God to be Israel’s next king.  Jehu and his men must get rid of the wicked King Ahab.  As he announces to his friends what God has said and what they must do, they hastily spread their cloaks before him, blow a trumpet, and shout “Jehu” is king (9:13). 

The crowd in Matthew 21 remembers the cloaks laid before Jehu as they reenact the impromptu coronation, laying their cloaks before Jesus.  The people hope he is will be the king of Israel.  UCC minister Nancy Rockwell suggests more than simply declaring the reign of Jesus, this is revolutionary.  It is an affront to King Herod the puppet monarch who answers to Rome. 

More significantly, it is a blatant rejection of the Roman Emperor.  Rockwell cites a book called The Last Week by Borg and Crossan[ii] that proposes that there was another procession the same day Jesus rode into Jerusalem.  While he came into town to cries of “Hosanna,” while riding an animal of peace, a donkey, Roman Governor Pilate processed into another part of town with a legion of soldiers on horses for the sole purpose of making a show of Roman force.  This was to discourage any potential rebellion.  Pilate had no idea how mistaken he was.  Even as he flexed the muscle of empire, the disciples acted out the kingship of Jesus.

Besides king, Jesus played the role of prophet.  The whole temple incident of turning over tables was a declaration of judgment.  In the Old Testament, the prophets do odd things to get their message across.  Jeremiah had a jar of rotting undergarments that symbolized the way pride had ruined Judah (Jer. 13:9).  Hosea had to marry a prostitute to illustrate how God would continuously take the nation back in spite of her infidelities.  These are just a few of many examples of how prophets sometimes used bizarre behavior to communicate the word of God.

Jesus did not cleanse the temple as this incident is sometimes described.  Something that’s be cleaned can be used again.  He rendered judgment.  The temple would no longer be the heart of God’s activity with people.  It was a den of thieves.  That phrase means that robbers – the religious establishment in Jesus eyes – felt like no harm would come to them in God’s temple.  They could get rich through dishonest means there in the house of prayer where people met God.  They felt their hold on the system made them safe.  They did not fear God.  Jesus’s violent acts, turning over tables, driving out animals, signaled the judgment that would be rendered when he died on the cross.

He came in as a king.  He spoke as a prophet.  And he received worship.  The people cried, “Hosanna,” a phrase from Psalm 118, verse 25, and it literally means, “Save us now, O Lord.”  We say this say to God when we are desperate.  Pinched between corrupt priests, Pharisees who laid a heavy load of legalism, the evil of Herod, and the oppression of Rome, the people were powerless.  They had nowhere to turn, so they turned to Jesus.  They invoked royal Psalms and words reserved for God alone and lifted those words upon Jesus’ arrival.

And Jesus accepted it all.  In this passage, our Palm Sunday reading, Jesus acted out what he truly was – prophet, king, and God.  The highest roles for ancient Israelites were prophet, priest and king.  Jesus was prophet and king, and the book of Hebrews over and over confirms what Matthew says implicitly – he was the supreme priest.  A priest is to stand between a human, marked by the profanity of sin, and the most Holy God.  Jesus was both fully human and fully God, so he was uniquely qualified to bring Heaven to Earth.  As we see in Revelation, Heaven and earth are joined in Christ as intimately as a bride and groom (Rev. 21).

What does this look like, in practical terms?  The Gospel of Matthew describes what Jesus did in the temple to show him to be who we believe him to be – Lord, Savior, King, God.  To get a sense of this, we need to do two things – remember, and look around and listen.

First, remember.  Specifically, we turn back in Matthew’s gospel to earlier in the story, chapter 11.  Jesus’ cousin John, called John the Baptist, was a prophet.  He called the nation of Israel to repentance.  He baptized people to show that they were cleansed of their sins.  He baptized Jesus. 

John preached without a filter.  So when Herod married his brother’s wife, John condemned the marriage.  Herod, the king of the Jews received his power from the Roman governor.  At any time, Pilate could oust Herod and have him killed.  Compared to other Jews, Herod was powerful and wealthy, but he was a puppet on the end of a Roman string.  Thus he was paranoid.

The fury and directness of John’s preaching infuriated the impotent monarch, so he had John imprisoned.  And John wasted away in Herod’s prison many months.  His energy waned.  He could not preach.  He did know what happened with Jesus after the baptism.  He had done his part in God’s plan, but in prison, he fell into depression.  So, his disciples, who were allowed to visit, came and he sent them to Jesus. 

There question to Jesus from John was, “Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?”

Jesus responded, “The blind receive their sight and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (11:3-5).  The blind receive their sight.  The lame are made able to walk.

These things would happen when the Messiah came.  These things were happening.  Jesus must be who John thought he was.  Now it is Palm Sunday.  A lot happened in Matthew’s gospel between that conversation with Jesus and John’s disciples, and the ride into Jerusalem that ended with disruption of temple money-changing tables.  But Matthew wants us, the readers to remember.  How can we know Jesus is from God?  The blind receive their sight.  The lame are made able to walk.  The dead are raised.

Matthew tells about Jesus riding in as a king, judging as a prophet, and receiving worship as God.  Then, in verse 14 it says, “The blind and lame came to him at the temple and he cured them.”  God is acting in history, changing everything, and the gatekeepers, the temple leaders do not like it at all. 

Matthew writes that they became angry.  After the excitement of the procession and the turning over of tables, and after the healing miracles, a confrontation between Jesus and the priests ensued.  There may have been 1000 adults in the temple area and they would be fascinated by an open confrontation between the high priest and the Galilean carpenter.  They would do what you or I would do if two people in public began arguing.  They would stop to gawk. 

Someone forgot to tell the children in the temple’s out court that the party had ended.  They kids kept singing the song – the song for Jesus.  “Hosanna to the son of David.”  Save us now, O Lord.  And he was doing exactly that. 

But the chief priests did not want to be saved.  Remember, den of thieves, the place where the criminals feel safe?  The temple leaders, like Herod, were under the heel of Rome, but they enjoyed status.  They may have been enslaved by Rome, but they were the rich slaves.  They did not need Jesus disrupting things, taking away their privileged position, bringing punishment on them.  They had no faith that he was of God and could bring freedom and new life. 

They saw the miracles and did not rejoice.  They heard the singing and did not join in.  “Do you hear what these [children] are saying?” The chief priests demanded (Mt. 21:16).  Yes, said, Jesus.  He quoted Psalm 8 to show that the children and anyone else who sang praise songs to him were the ones with understanding and the ones receiving the blessing God had sent. 

We’re trying to see and understand who Jesus is – Lord, Savior, God, King.  So we remember.  We know it is the Messiah of God when the blind receive their sight.  The lame are made able to walk.  The dead are raised.  Matthew tells of the healings in the temple that day.  The final act would come a week later when Jesus left the grave behind.

I mentioned that we needed to do two things to understand Jesus.  First, we needed to remember and we have looked back to John the Baptist and we have remembered.  This Thursday, we will wash feet and take communion and we will remember.  This Friday, we will tell the story of the cross and remember.  Next Sunday, we will see the sun rise and joyously, victoriously remember.

The second thing we need to do is look around and listen.  We see and hear Jesus when we hear the children singing “Hosanna – Lord, save us now.”  The Hosanna cry comes from people who need to be saved.  Who needs to be saved?  Children in households where they are neglected and abused; they need Jesus.  “Hosanna – Lord, save us now.”  Who needs to be saved?  Addicts – alcoholics, gambling addicts, porn addicts; you name it.  Addiction cannot be overcome without God’s help.  “Hosanna – Lord, save us now.”  Who needs to be saved?  People locked in poverty, trapped with no hope of escape.  They go to bed each night not knowing if they will eat the next day; not knowing where they will sleep the next night.  “Hosanna – Lord, save us now.”  Who needs to be saved?  People in the path of war need to be saved; Syrians, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Afghans.  “Hosanna – Lord, save us now.” 

Of course it is obvious that people in these situations need help.  It appears unrelated to the events of Palm Sunday.  Palm Sunday is supposed to take us into Holy Week and Holy Week culminates on Easter Sunday when we celebrate Jesus’ death for our sins and resurrection victory over death.  This is supposed to be spiritual and triumphant.  Why bring all these political and social justice matters into the conversation?  Domestic violence, addiction, hunger and poverty, war – how do these thorny issues worm their way into a nice Palm Sunday celebration?

On that day, Jesus declared the end of a religious institution – temple worship.  In the new way, the way of Jesus, People would come to him in order to come to God.  On that day, Jesus upended hierarchical systems.  In the new way, the way of Jesus, religious leaders are servants who walk with people instead of lording over them.  On that day, Jesus healed diseases like blindness because he loves people and abhors our suffering and also because his healing was and is a sign of who he is – Lord, Savior, God, and king. 

All of this is political.  All of this is justice and compassion, especially for the most down and out around us.  We hear the children’s song, the “Hosanna!” when we go to where the hurting people are.

We also hear it when we listen to brokenness in our own hearts and realize how desperately we need Jesus.  Until we hear the children singing for us, we will not really see Jesus. 

“Do you hear what these [children] are saying?”  The chief priests asked it indignantly.  We need to ask it innocently and humbly.  Do we hear the children?  Are we seeking Jesus, singing “Hosanna!” begging him to save us?  He gives us a choice.  We gather with the bloodthirsty crowd and watch the street fight and by watching and encouraging the combatants we are as guilty of the violence as they are. 

Or, we can take the Jesus alternative, the one where blind people are healed, the broken mended, and the lame made able to walk.  We can pray, “Hosanna!  Lord save us.”  We can pray it because God hears it and will answer and has answered in Jesus, his come, his death, and his resurrection.  His is the way of life and beckons us to it.

AMEN

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[i] S. Claiborne (2006).  The Irresistible Revolution, Zondervan, Grand Rapid, p.285.

[ii] http://biteintheapple.com/ride-on-ride-on/