Listening for the Shepherd's Voice

4 Easter, Year C
April 29, 2007
Readings: Acts 9:36-43, Psalm 23, Revelation 7:9-17
Gospel: John 10: 22-30
The Rev. Laura Gottardi-Littell

First and foremost, today’s passage from John tells us who Jesus is. He is the Good Shepherd, who shows us the path of life, who is life, who lays down his life for us. He is united with God, one with God in work, in purpose. His loving and mutual relationship with God is on some level a model for how we are to be with God and one another. This passage also tells us some things about who the Church is, about who we are.

In today’s gospel, Jesus is asked, once again, just who he is. He’s addressed by some Jewish authorities at the Temple. It’s Channukah, also known as the Festival of Dedication. The Jewish authorities want Jesus to say publicly who he is, to “confess” that he is the Messiah. They ask him: “How long are you going to keep us in suspense?”

And Jesus says essentially: “I’ve already told you and shown you who I am, but you don’t believe me, because you’re not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and they know me.”

“My sheep hear my voice and they know me.” This speaks to some essential truths about shepherd and sheep. Apparently, when you mix a group of sheep from different flocks together in a pen, and their respective shepherds call them, each sheep will respond only to the voice of its own shepherd. They know their own.

I think Jesus is talking about a very intimate, almost primal relationship we can have with him, a way of knowing that goes beyond our conscious minds. A kind of belonging to Him that may go back even before we were born. But then there’s also a conscious choice of faith each of us can make, we can choose to belong to Christ.

Our faith has many paradoxes, many puzzles. Jesus is both Great Shepherd and sacrificial lamb, as our passage from Revelation says. Jesus was both leader and servant. And so are we sheep and shepherds, servants and leaders. As members of the body of Christ, we’re all sheep, with Jesus as our Great Shepherd. And as members of the priesthood of all believers, we’re also shepherds, although not on the same order as Jesus. We are called to help guide others into and onward on the path of life.

John’s gospel holds up a vision of servant leadership. Jesus is the good shepherd because he guides his followers into right paths, and also because he lays down his life for his flock. As his disciples we may not be called to lay down our lives, but may be called to do some hard work and make difficult choices in our own lives, and as Church. We’re called to listen to Jesus’ voice as best we can, and serve and lead accordingly.

Many people in the larger Church – the Church as a whole -- are wondering today, how do we hear Jesus’s voice and follow him in the new paths to which we’re called? How do we, as followers of Christ, speak in our own authentic voices and lead authentically? What does it mean to be and do church? What should ordained ministry look like? And lay ministry? Where is the church heading?

The mainline churches –Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists and others– are faced with shrinking numbers of their flocks. Church leaders and scholars are talking and writing about the changing church, the dying church, the church undergoing a new reformation. How we need to create new ways of being church.

And here we are, in this room, an ecumenical body, living out a new way of being church. All of us having heard Jesus’ voice in our lives, in some way, and followed him. We’re trying to stay true to Him and to ourselves, as we forge a new path. It can be challenging. Sometimes we, like people in Jesus’ time – may not know exactly who Jesus is. He’s a puzzle in many ways, this God made flesh, this one being with the Father, this paradoxical Shepherd and Paschal Lamb. And we may not always know how best to follow him. We may lose track of his voice from time to time, and hear other voices that call to us and distract us. It may be hard to separate his voice from other voices that tell us to play it safe, to be self-interested, important, powerful, cynical, materialistic, relevant, results-oriented. Faced with the amazing, confounding puzzle of who Jesus is, we grapple with how best to Serve him, in a changing world, in a changing church.

In the process, we need to have confidence that we’re God’s children. That whatever path we take in serving God, it’s going to be OK. We live in ambiguity, so we need grace. If we seek to hear Jesus’s voice and respond to it faithfully, we’re doing our best. If we make a mistake in so doing, it’s not the end of the world. There’s a difference between mistakes made out of carelesness vs. those we make when we’re trying to do our best. It’s a different thing to chip a few dishes when washing them than to break dishes because we were throwing them up the air and juggling them when we were supposed to be washing them.

If we’re following the Great Shepherd, it doesn’t mean we have to be perfect. Nor does it mean we have to be docile, dumb, or…well, sheeplike, in the negative sense. It turns out sheep are rather intelligent. Listening to Jesus’s voice doesn’t mean tuning out our individuality, will, or doubts. I think we have all that stuff for a reason. I don’t think God wants a bunch of spineless clones following him in a robotic fashion. Sheep are different from cattle, sheep need to be led rather than driven. We can increasingly discern and follow the voice of the one who calls us, who has always loved us, who continues to love us into being. Who seeks to lead us into right pathways, and guide us to the water of life, not dominate us and break our wills.

You see, we aren’t just followers. We’re also leaders. Jesus’s voice can be heard – not just externally – but also within us. Sometimes it’s the still small voice within. We take Jesus into us, when we accept Him in faith, when we take Communion. We take Jesus into ourselves. And so his voice becomes a part of us, as conscience perhaps or deep consciousness. How do you best listen to it? What helps you get in touch with it? For many of us prayer, meditation, Scripture, music, art, are a few of many ways to get in touch with the voice of Jesus.

And also through community. In the wisdom of loving friends, fellow Christians, and trusted guides. In our common worship life. Through the gift of community, when people are allowed to listen and speak for themselves, we can increasingly hear the Shepherd’s voice, and speak authentically out of our own voices.

God knows us. Jesus knows us. Psalm 139 says God has known us from when we were in the womb. Jesus says he knows his sheep. And all of us in this room know something of Jesus. How and when has Jesus spoken to you? How has he led you into green pastures and restored your soul, even though you may have walked the darkest valley, even thought you may have walked the valley of death? How does he speak through you in authentic ways and help you lead others into the path of life? What are you learning about his voice and your voice?

I’m all ears…

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Reconciler Update

We are now fully in the Season of Easter: a festive and yet reflective season. The need for reflection comes when our world reminds us that we are still in between the promise of the Resurrection and its ultimate fulfillment. I choose to interpret the use of Revelations in the Revised Common Lectionary as a reminder of the end toward which we are moving. In that sense the festivity of Easter is a challenge to us to continually internalize the meaning and significance of the Resurrection. Certainly this is a great resource of hope for our lives in what is as often as not a chaotic and pain filled world. Given this reality the question continually before us is do we live as though the Resurrection is truth and that through our baptism we have been fully identified with Christ both in his death and his Resurrection. The truth and reality of the Resurrection is both promise and the reality we live in now as the Church. So we sing out Alleluia!


Announcements:

Bible Study:
Continues this Wednesday at 7:30 PM in the side chapel of
Immanuel Lutheran church. We are studying the Pilgrimage itinerary of Egeria a 4th century nun who visited the Holy Land and recorded the various worship practices and holy sites she found on her way. The study will focus on how the worship she describes became the source for the development of lectionaries, the church year and the celebrations of Holy Week and Easter. There will be four sessions. First session will focus on the interaction of place, prayer, scripture text for marking foundational events and people for the Faith. The second and third sessions will focus on the Holy Week and Easter liturgies in Jerusalem, which eventually spread throughout the church. The fourth session will focus on worship at Reconciler as it relates to the forms of prayer and liturgy Egeria witnesses to in her itinerary. This final session will lead into the worship committee open forum on May 23rd.
Worship Committee:
Would like to invite all interested Reconcilers to come to a worship
committee meeting 7:30 PM Wednesday May 23 at Kaffeine in Evanston -- to discuss such hot-button liturgical items as: Which version of the Lord's prayer we want to use? What kind of processional
cross do we want to purchase? And....what about inclusive language
Summer Community Outreach:
We are planning to have a booth and be a presence at The Glenwood Arts Festival and the Edgewater neighborhood street festival this summer. Both Festivals are in August. Please consider including helping out with the booths as part of your summer plans. More information to come.
In Christ,
Larry Kamphausen

Authority or Authorship

(lectionary)

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia.

It may be hard to believe, but it is still Easter. This is the second Sunday of the Easter Season…so be ready, everyone, for who might walk through that door. You don't know when the risen Christ himself may come in.

What? Do you think that's foolish? Well, perhaps it is. But in reading today's gospel passage, it seems that one can never be too sure when Jesus is going to show up and show you his wounds and offer you peace.

Yes, peace.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." (John 20:19)

There they were, in fear, and a fair bit of doubt. Everything had come to a screeching halt. And there they were on the first day, a Sunday mind you, and Jesus walks in and says "Peace be with you."

Peace.

The disciples were in terror. The religious authorities hunted them. Their beloved teacher had been killed…and had somehow been taken away. Raised? Even after last week's Easter proclamation, the disciples still feared. Sure, maybe Jesus had been raised, but what of them? What of them? They still faced the Sanhedrin, the face of the religious powers. They still faced Pilate and the power of the Roman Empire. They were afraid. So they locked the doors and sat with one another.

Sometimes, in the presence of such authority as the disciples faced…be it a government, a religious body, or in our time, a corporation, it is difficult to imagine that someone or something can stand…

…stand in opposition

…or stand in truth.

It is difficult to imagine standing much anywhere with any kind of strength or hope. I imagine this is what was running through the minds of all the disciples on that morning.

What now?

Where do we stand?

How do we go on?

No wonder they doubted. No wonder they feared.

But then Jesus appears. And he offers peace. They all touch his wounds in his hands. They all touch his side…all but Thomas. I think Thomas gets a bum rap in some ways. It is not that he is an exceptional doubter. It is simply that he was not there on the first Sunday when Jesus came before the disciples.

But Jesus comes again.

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."

Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." (John 20:26-27)

"My Lord and my God."

There, Jesus stands. And Thomas recognizes him. Like the other disciples before him, he touches the wounds. Like the other disciples before him, his faith is restored. Ancient sources also suggest that it is safe to assume that Thomas, too, received the Holy Spirit as Christ breathed on him that day.

Thomas' faith proclamation of "My Lord and my God" was not only a response to the assurance of wounds, the proof that the disciples were telling the truth. Let's not make that mistake.

The response was also to the fact that the wounds were overcome.

Yes, overcome.

It is that Jesus, in spite of what the authorities did, stood before Thomas and offered peace. He was risen. The wounds that the world gave him did not end him.

The wounds that the empire offered, both Rome and the religious authorities, did not end him. God overcomes the empire. The marks of the cross, the marks of empire, of human authority, are overshadowed by God's mercy revealed in Christ's resurrection.

"My Lord and my God."

Christ's wounds do not end him. They do not even define him. They announce solidarity with us. Grace, love, and our very salvation, as someone once said, are authored by God. We are drawn into the story of resurrection, a story that trumps the powers of the world. It does so with shouts of mercy, and with the announcement of peace. It does so bearing the wounds of the world….your wounds…my wounds...the wounds of the oppressed and persecuted.

God's mercy endures forever, says the Psalmist.

Now, the disciples do not remain behind locked doors contemplating the story. They do not simply sit on this stuff. Nor do not stir up violent resistance. But they do stir up trouble. Peter and the apostles will stand before the religious empire of their day and say, "We must obey God rather than any human authority." (Acts 5:29) They will stand and proclaim the story, the story of a risen Lord and the peace that he offers. They will stand in the face of the empire and proclaim "mercy."

"Mercy!" is the church's response when the empire cries,

"Fear!"

"Scarcity! We need more!"

The church cries, "Mercy!"

The church stands as Christ in the world. The community of the faithful stands as Christ did before the disciples, before those living in fear and says, "Peace be with you." The wounds are never denied. The wounds are real. Trouble is real. Death and mayhem are real. There are horrible things in this world. Empires still exist. And they still live on fear. And the church must stand in opposition to such things.

In our day and age, we stumble across empires all the time, some are almost hidden from view…corporate empires, political empires, media empires, military empires, entertainment empires…and, yes, religious empires. In Acts, the disciples stand before the theocrats and cry "mercy" when they would rather cause people to fear.

Every institution is tempted to become an empire.

Empires want to stand in their authority. The spirit of empire wants you to believe that you need what it possesses.

But Christ, and those who profess Christ, stand in the story. We stand in the story where empires come to an end. Eventually Rome falls, brothers and sisters, but God's mercy endures forever.

We stand in the story. We stand not in authority, but in authorship, in the presence of the "author of our salvation." For the word of God, the word uttered at the beginning of creation is "Peace."

"Mercy."

We proclaim the forgiveness of sins.

We proclaim mercy and not fear.

We proclaim peace and not scarcity.

The failure to do so can be calamitous. For, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "The church is only the church when it serves the other."

Sometimes, brothers and sisters, an authority can rise up, an empire can rise up, and it can decimate what lies before it. Thus the church's message must be constant. The church must always proclaim the story; it's faith in a risen savior. It must proclaim that authorship belongs to God, that human authority is fleeting. It must proclaim mercy and peace to all the world.

And when the world wounds people, when powers rise up, the church must stand as Christ did, bearing the wounds…in solidarity with all who suffer.

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Thanks be to God.

Reconciler Almost Weekly Update (Happy Easter!)

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

Today is the first day of the Great Fifty Days of Easter. We have finished up a wonderful Holy Week, in which we participated in Triduum services with Immanuel and St. Elias Lutheran Churches in Chicago.

The services of Holy Week -- Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil, and Easter Sunday -- are designed to give us a wide range of Christian experience. Some say they are designed to make the unconscious conscious. Journalist and Episcopalian Nora Gallagher writes that Holy Week services strip away our defenses, layer by layer. There is no question that these services, each with its own unique character and fragrance, work together to allow us to enter more fully into the Paschal Mystery: the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. I hope that you have found this to be true in your Holy Week celebration with us this year, and that these services are memorable and meaningful for you as you continue your walk in faith.

I want to leave you today with some of my favorite Easter hymns -- to sing, read, muse over in a quiet moment -- as we celebrate the Resurrection of our Savior, this happiest time of the church year.

Easter joy and blessings,

Laura+

Noel Nouvelet, medieval French carol -- Episcopal Hymnal #204

"Now the Green Blade riseth from the buried grain,

wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;

love lives again, that with the dead has been:

Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,

he that for three days in the grave had lain,

quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:

Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,

thy touch can call us back to life again,

fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:

Love is come again like wheat that springeth green."

Vruechten, Episcopal Hymnal #192

"This joyful Eastertide, away with sin and sorrow!

My Love, the Crucified, hath sprung to life this morrow.

Had Christ, that once was slain, ne'er burst his three-day prison,

our faith had been in vain; but now is Christ arisen, arisen, arisen, arisen.

Death's flood has lost its chill, since Jesus cross the river:

Lord of all life, from ill my passing life deliver,

Had Christ, that once was slain, ne'er burst his three day prison,

our faith had been in vain; but now is Christ arisen, arisen, arisen."

Gaudeamus pariter, Episcopal Hymnal #200

"Come, ye faithful, raise the strain of triumphant gladness!

God hath brought his Israel into joy from sadness:

loosed from Pharoah's bitter yoke Jacob's sons and daughters,

led them with unmoistened foot through the Red Sea waters.

'Tis the spring of souls today: Christ hath burst his prison,

and from three days' sleep in death as a sun hath risen;

all the winter of our sins, long and dark, is flying

from his light, to whom we give laud and praise undying.

Now the queen of seasons, bright with the day of splendor,

with the royal feast of feasts, comes its joy to render;

comes to glad Jerusalem, who with true affection

welcomes in unwearied strains Jesus' resurrection.

Neither might the gates of death, nor the tomb's dark portal,

nor the watchers, nor the seal hold thee as a mortal:

but today amidst thine own thou didst stand, bestowing

that thy peace which evermore passeth human knowing."

+++

Announcements

Bible Study

We'll begin a new Bible Study on Wednesday, April 18. This will be a four-week series focusing on the travel diaries of Egeria, a fourth-century Spanish nun and pilgrim. Through Egeria's diaries we have compelling information about how early Christians worshipped. Come and see how early Christian worship relates to what we do on Sundays at Reconciler, and bring your questions and thoughts about worship.

Worship Committee

Would like to invite all interested Reconcilers to come to a worship committee meeting -- likely at Kaffein in Evanston on a Wednesday night -- to discuss such hot-button liturgical items as: Which version of the Lord's prayer we want to use? What kind of processional
cross do we want to purchase? And....what about inclusive language?

Suggested dates are Wednesday evening, May 16 or 23. Stay tuned and let us know which date would work better for you.

Community Outreach

It's not too soon to start thinking about -- and planning for -- the summer neighborhood festivals. We'd like to have a booth and be a presence there. Talk with one of the pastors if you are interested in participating.

The Reverend Laura Gottardi-Littell

for The Pastoral Team

Good Friday Sermon

This sermon was preached at the joint Good Friday Service of Immanuel Lutheran Church, St. Elias Christian Church, and Church of Jesus Christ Reconciler.

Readings:

Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12
Psalm 22
Hebrews 10:16-25
John 18:1 – 19:42

***

As we gather tonight, the mood is solemn, to be sure, but not despairing because…we know about the Resurrection. There is no Christianity apart from the cross; on the cross hangs all our faith. But we are an Easter people, and so we gather tonight in hope as well as to mourn.

Tonight we find ourselves at a worship service that embodies a great deal of paradox. Many opposing themes are held together in tension by the cross.

Gail Ramshaw, a Lutheran laywoman and liturgy scholar, writes: “Christians mark this day of death as a day that paradoxically brings forth life.”[1]

Nature demonstrates that there is often no life without death, that something must die in order for something new to be born. We call this day Good Friday, not because it’s good that Christ suffered, but because of the joy and hope of Resurrection that come through the cross.

Our faith embodies much paradox. Christ is both victor and victim, shepherd and lamb, king and slave. The cross is a meeting place for many forces we usually think of as opposites: God/humanity, heaven/earth, sin/grace, despair/hope, life/death. The cross holds all these in tension, in wholeness.

Just as the cross embodies many contradictions, we ourselves are bundles of contradiction. Each of us has many sides, many aspects. We are simultaneously guilty and innocent, broken and whole, strong and weak, living and dying. We may wish we were only the positives. We may deny and marginalize parts of ourselves we fear or dislike. We often feel we must put our best foot forward to the world, even to God.

But we can bring our whole selves to Jesus. We can come to the cross, that meeting place where contradictions intersect. There we can be fully known by God, and know ourselves more fully. In such knowing, we can be transformed.

Since the early days of the church, Christians have seen the cross not just as symbol of death but also as tree of life. Gail Ramshaw writes: “Much Christian art has placed side-by-side depictions of the tree of good and evil in the Garden of Eden with the tree of death and life on Calvary. It’s as if with the eyes of faith, when the church looks at the cross it sees not an electric chair, but a vibrant tree.” [2]

I invite you to see the cross not only as a place of death, but also as the tree of life.

As you come to the cross tonight, is there something you want to leave behind there? Guilt, fear, suffering, resentment, disappointment? Is there something in you that needs to die? Excessive pride, self-centeredness, addiction, a tendency to be unkind?

As we come to the tree of life, is there something is you that needs to be born? What do you most need? What are you longing for? What in you needs to be transformed, resurrected, made new?

Christ accepts us in our totality. Just as he accepted the poor, and broken people of his time. He accepts the parts of ourselves we deny, despise, refuse. As he himself was denied, despised, refused. The cross, once a symbol of hateful rejection, is now paradoxically a symbol of loving acceptance. We can come to the cross with our whole selves. We don’t have to be on our best behavior with Jesus. We can let it all hang out by the cross. And by hanging out with the parts of ourselves we don’t fully know or like, we can be transformed.

In her book Things Seen and Unseen, journalist Nora Gallagher writes of her experiences working in a soup kitchen and being an active member of an Episcopal Church. She says about her encounter with the cross on Good Friday: “ I see the faces of the men in the soup kitchen, those human beings made into rags, into debris. Their faces shine here at the cross in a way that no other faces do. They know what this man hanging here has suffered, as he knows their suffering. He was made into trash here on the cross…The parts of myself that are alive among those men are the parts I hide everywhere else. Crazy, inarticulate, imperfect, in need. The person humiliated by simply being born a woman. How often I apologize, desire to please. All the parts of myself that I colonize, make into trash. In the darkness, I see them, hidden in my shadows, and I understand then how it is that seeing them makes me whole.”[3]

Tonight as we come to the cross, that meeting place of contradictions, let it be wholeness that we seek. The words "wholeness," "holy," and "healing" all come from the same root. By being present to humanity in our brokenness, and being broken for us, Christ in his holiness paradoxically makes us whole. Let us be present with Christ and ourselves, to allow His saving health to take root in us. The Holy cross binds together our many contradictions, and makes us one in Him. Let us come to the cross, to honor Christ whose burden makes us free. To mourn what needs to die in us and celebrate what will be born. Come to the cross, the tree of life… with your whole self. AMEN.
+++

The Reverend Laura Gottardi-Littell
April 6, 2007

Footnotes:

[1] Gail Ramshaw, The Three-Day Feast, Augburg Fortress, 2004, p. 42.
[2] Ibid, p. 43.
[3] Nora Gallagher, Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998, pp. 128-129.

Maundy Thursday Sermon

This sermon was preached at the joint Maundy Thursday Service of Immanuel Lutheran Church, St. Elias Christians Church, and Church of Jesus Christ Reconciler.
Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35

We gather here tonight at the end of our Lenten journey, and to begin the celebration of the three days. We are at the center of our faith. Tonight we remember who we are as members of Christ’s body the Church. No ideology, no identity should trump what we find here in these liturgies and sacred texts. We come tonight and hear the call to love and serve, not as the world loves and serves but as Christ. We are called to live as God lived and lives, to enter into the life of the Holy Trinity, named for us as Father Son and Holy Spirit. On the night of the institution of the Lords Supper Christ invited his disciples to enter into this living loving relationship through two things; The bread and cup of the Eucharist and Christ’s washing of his disciples feet.

We come here on the day of the command, the command to love and to eat and drink. We watch as Jesus, the master the rabbi, God in human flesh, takes on the role and the task no one wanted, the task of a slave. What is the connection between bread and wine, and washing of feet? What is the connection between our liturgy of the Three Days and our daily lives? These questions should resonate in our very being as we move from Lent to Easter.

The connection is that they both embody the Gospel: they are the Gospel. If we do not see the Gospel in both service and ritual meal then we miss the Gospel. If we locate the Gospel only in the midst of the church gathered around ritual table we have no Gospel. If we locate the Gospel only in our actions in the world, in working for justice and against oppression for liberation, we have no gospel either. The reason for this is that the one leads to the other and then back again. If we receive Christ in Bread and Wine, we have God continually Giving God’s self to us. In communion we are suckled at the breasts of God nourished and cared for, but for a purpose. On this night of command, the command to love, God shows us that such motherly care and nurture in being found in communion is to strengthen us to serve each other and the world. In the Bread and the Cup we find the source to love beyond our abilities or strength.

This is the Gospel my sisters and brothers: what the world needs what will bring and has brought freedom justice and peace, is the Death Resurrection and ascension of Christ. It is the cross where we find the fulfillment of all human longing and find the strength to serve and resist all that stands against our true humanity. We gather together tonight to remember our calling and to what we all were ordained at our Baptism. We are to proclaim the Gospel in all we do and in all we are. We are called to serve each other and the world. As a reminder this evening we wash and allow our feet to be washed, we serve and are served. Tonight we remember and fulfill the vow of our baptism, our ordination into the priesthood of all who believe.

May we come from these Three days strengthened in our faith more sure of the gospel more at rest in the loving relationship that is God, Father Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday, Year C
April 1, 2007
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler
The Reverend Laura Gottardi-Littell

RCL Readings: Liturgy of the Palms: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Luke 19:28-40
Liturgy of the Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a, Ps. 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 22:14-23:56

***

Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem starts out so well. A crowd has gathered to welcome their champion. They strew his path with palms and shout “Hosanna!” What a wonderful welcome into the city of prophets.

And so today, as we re-create that hero’s homecoming, we begin with a joyful noise, palms, and a procession. But not far into our service we sense the change. What started off well is not going so well. Suddenly we are singing mournful hymns and there’s tension in the air, foreboding. Jesus has come to Jerusalem not only as beloved hero but also as martyr. He has come… to die.

Many had hoped he would be a great leader, a warrior king to free them from the oppression of Rome. They will be gravely disappointed. Those who love him and have to watch him die, will be heartsick.

Many in 1st century Palestine wanted a liberator who with great power and might would topple the dominion of Rome. That’s not what they got. They got Jesus, who was not about force. The revolution he sought was not a violent uprising. His power to liberate was of another kind. Although he has delighted and healed so many, Jesus has angered and disappointed others.

We are not so unlike the people of Jesus’s day.
We have many of the same hopes and fears.
We too can feel angry and cheated when we don’t get what we want. Or what we think we want.

I remember a song from my coming-of age-years, a Rolling Stones song, that said: “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find….you get what you need.”

How does Jesus give the world not what we want, but what we need?

As it was in Jesus’s day, our world is a competitive, stratified place that tells us what we should want. Status. Power. Money. We should be winners, we should be tough, and it’s OK to step on other people to get where we’re going.

But Jesus was a savior who emptied himself, as Paul writes to the Philippians. Jesus didn’t try to exploit his power, like the Roman emperors and other power brokers of his time. Jesus didn’t see his equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself of the need for power, status and wealth. He hung out with poor and sick folk, outcasts, and people on the wrong side of the Law. He didn’t placate the Roman or Jewish authorities. In fact he challenged them.

SO if Jesus walked among us today, and we didn’t recognize him, would we label him a fool, loser, or rebel? And cast him aside? Would we say that he was not the kind of leader we wanted? Would we shout “Crucify him!”

As it was in Jesus’ day, our world is not only hung up on power and money, it’s also a violent place. And Jesus was not into violence. When Jesus is captured in the garden, one of his disciples cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave to try to free Jesus. “No more of this!” Jesus tells his disciple. If violence is what’s needed for Jesus to save himself, than he wants none of it.

So if Jesus, who rejected the use of force, walked among us today, and we didn’t recognize him, would we call him a wimp, a crazy pacifist, unpatriotic? Would we reject him and shout: “Crucify him!”

The Christian message is deeply challenging. It challenges what we want, or think we want. What our world tells us to want.

But God likes to give us what we really need.

God gave us Jesus to meet our deepest human needs.
To show us where real power lies. Not in status or money. Not in the use of force.

Jesus is a winner but of a different kind.
By losing at the world’s games, he wins by the heavenly standards.
By emptying himself, he changes the world forever.
In dying, he destroys death.
Now that’s power.

Ghandi, Martin Luther King and others have known the power of this self-emptying, nonviolent love. And living it out, made enormous changes.

As Christians, we live in tension between earthly and heavenly notions of power. The power of the sword versus the power of the cross.

The Christian life, if taken seriously, is largely about self-emptying. Giving up our desire to be first, right, powerful. Giving up, or at least questioning, much of what we want and becoming more and more open to what God wants. Trying to weed out parts of ourselves that are self-absorbed cruel, that accept the need for violence. The parts that shout “Crucify him!” and mean it in today’s passion play.

To be honest, there are times when I’m not sure how much self-emptying I’m willing to do. I’m a human being, and Jesus is asking me, asking all of us, to evolve, to be nearer to the angels than the beasts. To go against, or at least seriously grapple with, some core values of the world. I love Jesus so much and yet…he asks so much. It’s hard.

So if you feel conflicted today, at this Palm Sunday service, you’re not alone. And you have good reason to feel that way. A king rides into Jerusalem in majesty and ends up on a cross. We start out thinking we’re at a party and end up at a funeral. We watch a good man, the best kind of person, God’s own son, handed over to an inhuman death. And worst of all, he dies in part because of us. Because of the way the world is, how human beings are. Because of what we think we want: power, status, the use of force. He hasn’t played those games. So now he must die. All hope seems lost.

And yet………God knows our deepest needs. God knows we don’t need more domination. We don’t need more violence. We need a savior who through self-emptying, non-violent love can show us the path of life. Can help us evolve. And God provides that. God has given us a way out of our endless cycles of sin and death. It is joyful and liberating to break out of those cycles by following Christ. Yes, there are some losses when we empty ourselves, but the gains are incalculable. We gain freedom and peace when we lose our bondage to self-seeking and violence. And that is the good news today on Palm Sunday. That is the joy of Easter. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has given us not what we thought we wanted, or what the world tells us to want, but what we needed most. AMEN.