The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for March 16, 2008 (Palm/Passion Sunday)

Lessons: Isaiah 50:4-9a/Matthew 21:1-11/Matthew 27:11-54

Title: “The People’s Choice”

              The account of Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem has excited the imaginations of generations of us who grew up in the church.  It has inspired reenactments of the event by the score.  The typical Palm Sunday service here at Lakeview has opened with our children processing in, palm branches waving, as the congregation has sung “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.” 

              The five solemn Sundays in Lent behind us, Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem comes as a welcome relief, something to celebrate at last.  In Wisconsin where I grew up Palm Sunday and Easter arrived about the time the first signs of spring were visible, though Holy Week’s early arrival this year may dampen the enthusiasm. Back then, Palm Sunday and Easter pretty much merged together as one celebration. No, we didn’t ignore the events occurring between the two Sundays, but the events of Holy Week, by and large, weren’t really on our agenda. The Protestant churches in our town commonly did not plan special Holy Week services, though many left their doors open on Good Friday for anyone who might wish to stop in for prayer.

              Over the course of the last two or three decades many Protestant churches have chosen a new approach to Holy Week.  The Maundy Thursday service, Maundy, from the Latin “mandatum,” or “commandment,” Maundy Thursday, or “commandment Thursday,” recalls Jesus’ charge to his disciples to love one another. On Maundy Thursday we recall Jesus last supper with his disciples, an emotionally charged supper where Jesus’ disciples were forced to contend with the reality that Jesus had been betrayed, and their own lives would be turned upside down.

              The Good Friday service, though less common in Protestant churches today, recalls the persecution and suffering our Savior was forced to endure in his last hours.  Many churches, Lakeview included, have chosen to acknowledge the pathos of Good Friday with a Tenebrae, Latin for “darkness,” service during which light is gradually extinguished yielding to darkness, the earthly life of Jesus eclipsed by the shadow of death.

              More recently a third Holy Week service has been added to the mix.  The Easter Vigil, a service for the Saturday evening preceding Easter, is a service that retraces the whole history of salvation under God, beginning with readings from Genesis, the Bible’s first book to Revelation, the Bible’s last. It is a service of readings, music, Holy Communion, baptism, or the reaffirmation, of baptismal vows.  Once again this year, Lakeview has scheduled each of those three services 

              The Protestant church has rethought Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday.  Those of you who regularly worship here know that this Sunday has two emphases. This Sunday is now known as Palm/Passion Sunday.  Both Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and the sobering events of the Lord’s passion, his rejection and agony, are treated.

              In our remarks this morning Emily and I will reflect upon both the triumph and the passion of our Lord, the enigma that the one hailed with hosannas as a prophet, but also king of the Jews, could in the space of the week be condemned and executed as a threat to the empire. But a related issue, and one we will emphasize today, is the question of how the cross, an implement of torture and execution, could become for us today a symbol of eternal hope, God’s ultimate victory over the forces of evil and death.

              He entered Jerusalem as the people’s choice, a prophet, but also a king, a man many thought would inaugurate the Lord’s reign on earth. He died on a cross outside of Jerusalem the people’s choice to suffer, even as the “notorious prisoner,” Barabbas, was released.     

              READ Matthew 21:1-11

              We know how the story begins.  There was the birth in a non-descript small village to two young parents.  Each of the two gospels that treat the birth emphasize that the child born to the couple is special, Matthew informing us that this child, Jesus, is the Messiah.  While scholars continue to debate the specific role the Jews expected the Messiah to play in their future, most would agree that he was expected to return the Jews to the glory they enjoyed under David, their most celebrated and greatest king.      

              Though each of the four gospels share the conviction that Jesus was God’s son, no public announcement was made from on high that Jesus was anyone special.  We are left to assume that Jesus lived a pretty ordinary life before his public ministry began.

              Speculation about Jesus’ background spread from the beginning of his ministry in his late twenties or early thirties of the first century. The young adult Jesus was a source of wonder to those who knew him as a child, those who knew his family. In fact, he would become a source of wonder to his own family.  Where did he get his knowledge? His education in the traditions of the elders in no way exceeded that of his peers.  He was intelligent, of that there was no doubt, but it wasn’t mere intelligence that established him as different, instead Scripture repeatedly states that “he spoke with authority.” 

              Most commonly Scripture differentiates the authority Jesus possessed from that of the scribes and other religious officials. His reputation spread as word of his teaching and healing traveled from person to person, and village to village. Soon crowds gathered when word of his presence reached a town or village. 

              If the source of his authority differed from that of the scribes and other religious types, so too did his message. His message was not what the people were accustomed to hearing in the synagogue, but instead was addressed to the ears of those who lived on the fringe, the outcast and the sinner. He taught the commandments, but he was no servant of the commandments or the religious laws.  Service to others was the centerpiece of his teaching. 

            We know well the record of his deeds.  He cast our demons. He cured the sick. He touched the mute and they spoke.  He touched the lame and they walked.

             He declined all attempts to make him king, leaving the quest for power and privilege to others. Instead he taught that “the first should be last,” and true wealth was not to be calculated in resources accumulated, but in blessings bestowed. 

              An enigma to the powerful who came to distrust him as one who could not be bought, the powerless absorbed his teaching with new found hope and thanksgiving. As his ministry spread so did the speculation that Jesus was indeed the long expected heir to David, the Messiah.

             The whole trajectory of Jesus’ life from a humble birth in Bethlehem, to a ministry traversing the Galilean hills, led to Jerusalem, the seat of the Temple and the Jewish religious authority.  It was God who set the itinerary, and Jesus was the willing traveler even as he understood that his earthly life would end there.

            His reputation preceding him, Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly, but not on some fine horse, nor in a chariot pulled by fine horses, he entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. No, he didn’t look like a king, but it didn’t matter.  He was the people’s choice. “Hosanna, to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” 

               READ Mt. 27:11-54

              It is rooted in a sense of deprivation.  Someone else has something I value, or has more of something I value.  Feelings of entitlement, resentment, and anger arise against the target of our complaint. Why her, and not me? He hasn’t earned it.  She doesn’t deserve it. It should be mine.  The “it” to which I refer could be recognition, an award of some sort, or some privilege. 

             Jealousy reared its head at the dawn of creation when Cain killed his brother Abel in a pique of jealousy. Jealousy arose among Jesus’ twelve disciples when one or more of them were perceived to be receiving preferential treatment from the Lord.  Time and time again the Bible even refers to God as being jealous, angered as Israel devoted her attention to other gods.

            Present to hear his message and observe his powerful deeds, people in the towns and villages of Galilee began to call him “rabbi,” “teacher,” but what qualified him to be accorded such a title?  The suspicion, and yes, the jealousy, of the religious establishment was aroused.  What was this Jesus up to?  How to explain his popularity? 

              The establishment had nothing to fear if he exposed himself as a fraud. Give him some time, they concluded, and he will do or say something that will ruin his reputation.  Give him some time and they might find some charge upon which to try him in the religious courts. Give him some time and he might incriminate himself as a threat to the empire.  The Romans came down hard on anyone perceived to be a threat to their rule.  It was only a matter of time before this Jesus stumbled. And so Jesus’ enemies waited…and they waited.

               Jealousy has an insidious way of justifying itself, looking for any pretext in a given situation to prove that its complaint or suspicious has merit.  Almost anything the target of jealousy says or does provokes some adverse reaction from the jealous one.  Jealousy builds and feeds upon itself.

             While the authority’s various complaints against Jesus may not be summarized neatly under the title “jealousy,” we cannot go far wrong if we credit jealousy for being most responsible for the string of events that would make Jesus a marked man, prompt his arrest, and eventual execution. 

            The authorities, we are told, were looking for a pretext to arrest Jesus, and in Judas Iscariot they found a willing accomplice. The Scriptures do not reveal what he said or did to incriminate the Lord, but considering the fact that Jesus was a marked man before hand, what Judas said or did was probably not all that important.

The verdict was pronounced swiftly.  A brief appearance before the high priest
          Caiaphas, the chief religious authority, the handoff to the Roman governor Pilate, and Jesus’ fate was sealed. Or was it?

During Passover it was the custom of the governor to grant amnesty to a prisoner of the people’s choosing.  Barabbas or Jesus?  Which one would live, which one die?  The assembled crowd made their decision swiftly, “Let him [Jesus] be crucified!”

Jesus was the people’s choice, on entering Jerusalem he was hailed as the successor to King David.  Jesus was the people’s choice.  This same Jesus, hailed as the successor to King David, becomes, day’s later, the people’s choice to be executed.

            The people made their choice. But when the verdict was cast God also made a choice. Would his jealousy for the life of his son cause him to turn his back on the world that persecuted and put his son to death?  Or would he do something else?

             The answer, friends, can be found in how you and I have been taught to regard the cross.  An implement of torture and execution has become for us a symbol of eternal hope, a symbol of God’s ultimate victory over the forces of evil and death. In Jesus’ victory over death God forgave the sins of those who called for his son’s death.

               I will give the final word to Bishop N.T. Wright of the Anglican church. The bishop writes, “When we look at Jesus….we discover that the cross has become for us the new temple, the place where we go to meet the true God and know him as Savior and Redeemer.  The cross becomes the place of pilgrimage, where we stand and gaze at what was done for each one of us.  The cross becomes the sign that pagan empire, symbolized in the might and power of sheer brutal force, has been decisively challenged by a different power, the power of love, the power that shall win the day.”

              “The power of love shall win the day.”  I invite you to come back here next week, there is much more to learn about how that is accomplished.  AMEN   

            PRAYER

            O Christ, you were the people’s choice, lauded as the successor to David, the great king, you entered Jerusalem to Hosannas and waving palms, in a matter of days you were executed, the people’s choice to suffer and die.  O Christ, we who would choose you were first chosen by you, by grace we are saved, no, not for what WE have done, but for what you did for us on the cross. The cross a symbol of violence and death has become for us a symbol of life and hope. 

               We rejoice in the victory your resurrection achieved, but we also remember the suffering through which that victory was obtained.  As we enter Holy Week we do so aware that the sin that put you to death still lurks, still maintains a grip on our lives. As we encounter the treachery of Judas this week, and the cowardliness of Peter, we are forced to account for the ways we deny you by our disobedience, and our preoccupation with self at the expense of others. Yet, O Christ, we know we have not fallen so as not to rise, but that we are forgivable, indeed that we have been forgiven.  Help us, O Lord, to believe that Good News and be prepared to act on it by living into the future you have prepared for us.

               O God, we pray for the Church as we enter Holy Week.  Abide with ministers and congregations as we plan Holy Week observances, that those services may faithfully communicate the drama of salvation Christ enacted. We pray, O God, that your Spirit will open minds and hearts to the depths of commitment you have made to us in those few days that changed the course of human history. Even as plans are laid for Easter services, may your Spirit move in the hearts of those preparing those services, that words being prepared to be spoken, prayers being prepared to be prayed, and hymns being prepared to be sung, may make more vivid and real the victory Christ’s resurrection achieved.

              Abide, O God, with those who live in harm’s way today, those who live their lives under the specter of violence not knowing where the next bomb will be detonated or the next kidnapping occur.  Be with children who in their daily lives witness terrorist acts, who have no safe haven to which they can go to escape death and destruction.  Be with those who daily risk their lives to oppose the terrorist and assassin. In your mercy, O God, help people of good will find the ways and means to end the spiral of violence before it’s too late.

                 Lord, we thank you for friends who have come to this city to assist us in rebuilding.  Even as we are blessed to offer hospitality to our friends from Tennessee, we cherish the opportunity to experience the vastness of the Church, the body of Christ. May our common faith continue to inspire a continuing commitment to expand the body of Christ into the world.

                 Lord, you know our inmost thoughts, you know what we need even before we ask, grant us the confidence to open our entire lives to you, and not just those parts we choose to display. Embarrassed to confess that which might publicly shame us, embolden us, O God, to open our hearts to you that we might in turn open our lives to your direction.

                With the confidence born of faith we lift special petitions on behalf of those who have special needs.  We pray that Pam, Mary Ann, Rudy, Shane, Joyce, Wayne, Jeffrey may be strengthened as they continue to wage their battles with cancer.  We pray for the family of Terrell Miller as they grieve his death.  We pray for the transformation of our church.

                 O God hear our prayers, both those spoken and those unspoken, even as we pray…