Entry of Triumph

Luke 19. Triumphal entry Sermon notes

3/24/13                    

·         History and value of Passover. 

·         People desperate to be saved [from Rome], celebrating God’s saving work in Egypt, asking God to do it again.

·         Jesus enters the scene

o   Hailed as king

o   Honored as king

o   Prophesied details

§  Green colt

§  Didn’t follow the social norms for a king, should have been a stallion

·         Celebrated by people as king (like Jehu from OT)

o   Threw their cloaks on the ground for him to walk on

·         Lauded by the disciples (a lot of them) with what is considered a “normal Passover greeting” OR a greeting for a king

o   “Blessed is the KING who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven.”

§  Not just words. Not just a greeting. Part of a Psalm. Psalm 118.  For the Jews the Psalms were like songs, to know them is like knowing our hymns.  If I sing part of a hymn, you can sing the rest of it. In a similar way, if a Jew quoted part of a Psalm, the rest of it would start to come to mind for the other people.  So in using this phrase from Psalm 118, it’s not just these words that are important, it’s also the rest of the Psalm.

·         Pharisees come in and tell Jesus, “Tell your people to stop!”

·         Jesus: If it weren’t them, it’d be the rocks.

o   The rocks would shout

o   The rocks would cry out

o   The most lifeless part of creation would come alive to make this proclamation

o   “HIS LOVE ENDURES FOREVER”

o   GOD IS COMING TO SAVE US!

o   GOD IS HERE!                              

·         And the response that comes: “Oh Shut Up!”

·         And it breaks Christ’s heart. 

o   “Good grief, you just don’t get it. I am the answer. You’re gathered here remembering who God was and what God did and praying or God to please save you, to release you from the grip of the Romans and yet when that answer comes, when that prayer is finally heard, you REFUSE to see God at work. The disciples are proclaiming healing and forgiveness and new life and acceptance and inclusion—the TRUE works of God—our lie source, the true peace makers of our world, and you’re so blinded, you’re so lost all you can think to say is, “Oh just make it stop!”

·         GOD IS HERE. HIS LOVE ENDURES FOREVER.

o   God has sent an answer. His love endures forever. I am here to bring peace. I have been bringing peace—to people, to bodies, to relationships, to communities, and yet you refuse to even stop to look. FINE!

o   If you want to keep your head in the sand, then stay there. See what happens. But remember this—I gave  you the path. God showed you where to go. We offered you the chance and you, in this moment, are refusing to go.  I hurt for you. My heart breaks or you.

o   I may sound angry or harsh, but it’s because I wanted something better for you. We want what’s best for you and I hate to see you suffer.  But you are free to make your own choices. That path, the one away from God, it leads only to destruction: famine, death, fear, hopelessness, war, bitterness, resentment.  Thos aren’t what God wants for you.  But that’s what’s down that road.  I hate to see you go that way. That’s why I came, to convince you to come back over here, to remind you what God has promised, but you’re so set in your ways. 

·         For most of us, I imagine this part of scripture is really dissatisfying. It is for me.  I imagine many of us are clamoring or their second chance.  We want to cry out on the Pharisees’ behalf. 

o   “But wait! God’s love ENDURES FOREVER! You can’t do this to them. Save them! Help them! The story can’t end this way.”

o   But it does. At last today. But let’s be clear—it’s not because Jesus forsakes them.  It’s not because God is all of the sudden indifferent.  THEY CHOSE THIS! THEY PICKED THIS PATH. THEY WALKED AWAY.

o   If we look at the story as a whole, the Old Testament and the New, God has offered 100s of second chances, so many that that’s what we now bank on.  We tell ourselves that this sin or that lie or this injustice or that prejudice is ok because God’s a God of love and there’s always a second chance. 

o   We flippantly say to God, “Yeah, not this time, I’ll catch ya next time. I promise next time it will be different. “

§  It’s as if what God offers us, and in turn asks of us, is worthless.  Not in our heads.  Of course not. We don’t actually think that grace and mercy and forgiveness are worthless. No. Of course not. And yet, often, when presented the opportunity, we just walk away from the path God has for us.  And by choosing away from God, or burying our heads in the sand and refusing to even look at righteousness, or peace, or justice, we have undervalued God’s gift for us.  We’ve counted it as worthless. Because honestly, if we really wanted it, wouldn’t we go after it with all we have and all we are?

·         Jesus was there with the Jews, the disciples, the Pharisees, all of them.  The face of God staring them in the face; the TRUE answer for peace knocking at their door and yet he didn’t fit their mold. He wasn’t the answer they anticipated, wasn’t what they wanted, or what they thought they needed. And so they pushed him away. The best of what God had to offer—deemed worthless--expendable.

·         The point for us is not “oh man they were clueless” or “how dare they?”  Our point should always lead us to self reflection—how closely does this resemble me?  Am I pleading and praying and waiting for God to answer and then refusing to follow when God tries to lead me?  Am I choosing my own path or have I chosen God’s? 

·         Do I value peace and justice and mercy and forgiveness and reconciliation and inclusion as invaluable or do I only use them when they come in handy?  Do I seek them when it’s hard, when it goes against the grain? Or only when they have the popular vote? 

o   We like to demonize the Pharisees as the bad guys. But the reality is they were faithful people stuck in the old views and expectations of God.  They were unwilling or unable to see the new things God was doing in Christ.  We can become like them when we refuse to veer from the path we’ve deemed as God’s and instead choose the path God deemed as God’s.

Matthew 2:1-12 The Magi

Sermon notes: 

Matthew 2:1-12

·         A familiar story of the Christmas holiday

·         Familiar take (use the congregation to highlight these points, have them tell you the story)

o   3 kings (Even though the scripture doesn’t identify how many men, only how many gifts)

o   Followed a star in the sky and came from the East

o   Brought gifts to the Christ child

§  Gold = for a king

§  Frankincense and Myrrh = embalming spices and oils, which foreshadow his death.

o   This familiar story asks us, “what do we bring to the Christ child?  What gifts of our own will we offer?  How we will recognize his kingship?  And the importance of his sacrificial death?

·         Less common take

o   “Magi” not kings.  Magi could have been wise men, but more commonly probably would have been astrologers.  So we have these zoroastrianists from the East who are assumed to be gentiles.  And yet they recognized this special sign and came to greet the King of the Jews.

o   That may sound like no big deal to us, but we need to remember that we are reading from the Gospel of Matthew and Matthew is a fairly traditional Jewish writer who writes to a Jewish audience.  He quotes and points to Jewish scripture far more than any other gospel writer. 

o   And here, at the forefront of his gospel, steeped in Jewish tradition is a story of gentile astrologers coming a very long distance to honor and bless the King of the Jews.

o   That’s highly unorthodox.  In Jewish perspective, the Messiah, God’s chosen and anointed one, was sent for them, to lead them, to deliver them. There weren’t strong notions of a deliverer of the world of a Savior for other peoples. The savior they awaited was to save the Israelites. 

o   And yet, somehow, in the middle of their story, these magi from the East show up.  And they aren’t there by chance.  They didn’t just happen to be passing by—they traveled explicitly for this purpose—to pay homage to the Christ child—to the king of the Jews.  And they came with gifts—expensive gifts loaded with value and loaded with meaning.  Who were these men to greet the Messiah?  Who were they to anticipate a Jewish baby?  They were outsiders. And they were outsiders who *got it* long before most anyone else. 

o   And to me, that’s a funny little irony that suggests this whole story is going to turn what we know and what we expect right on its head.

o   Even in the midst of the tradition tied up with Jewish prophecies and all that God promised to do and be is something unexpected.

§  And maybe it’s enough just to know that God did that—that the Magi were a strange and unexpected guest and that that in itself flips things on their head for the Jews.  But it’s rarely enough to leave things in the 1^st century.  It’s insufficient to say that’s their story, not ours.  At least when it comes to the Bible. Part of the reason the Bible is so powerful is because it relates to people of all ages, races, and notions from every century.  And it does that through the Holy Spirit keeping the stories relevant for us.

o   So, we are challenged to ask “how does this apply to me?” 

§  What traditional expectations are we holding onto?

§  Where have we become rigid in our beliefs?

§  Who have we decided are insiders and who are the outsiders?

§  And how have we read our tradition to mean that they won’t be able to make it in?  That who they are or what they’ve done excludes them from God’s grace or forgiveness or our acceptance and hospitality?

·         What we see from very early on in Matthew’s gospel, is that the Christ child will influence and affect more than those located within the tradition.  People will come to him, will see him and honor him even if they haven’t heard the prophecies, even if they haven’t been expecting him for generations.  People who don’t fit our notions of acceptable will offer him the best of what they have to offer.  They will be lead to him by a variety of roads and paths.  And while none of that fits our expectations, it fits God’s purpose and becomes ours to cherish and appreciate.  

·         And on this day when we celebrate Holy Communion, let us remember that though we have all come on different roads for different reasons, we are welcome here.  The Christ child was sent for each of us!  Praise God!

Genesis 3:1-10

Advent 1:

Sermon notes

much credit should be given to J Elsworth Kalas and his book Christmas From the Backside

Normally Christmas is bathed in “loveliness”

• ·         Baby
• ·         Star
• ·         Angels singing
• ·         Men on a quest

So why start here? Why begin Advent with the story of "the Fall"? 

We need to understand the scandal in order to grasp the full magnitude of the impact of Christmas

It wouldn’t be Christmas, there wouldn’t even be a need for Christmas if not for OUR scandal.

Adam and Eve represent all of us.  They had everything going for them. They lived in the garden of exquisite beauty and perfection and then they made decisions that turned their life to shambles.  With that sin enters the scene and the human race becomes a race of sinners. 

The word “sin” often makes us think of only a certain type of action—pornography, addiction, murder, adultery.  All of these qualify but they also distract us from “the larger more compelling facts”

Fact: Sin affects all of us.  Our most basic sin is disobeying God.  Whether our sins are crude or sophisticated, naïve or knowing, the issue is still the same:  us being too consumed by us and not consumed enough by God. 

                We often like to sugar coat our sins—we justify them giving all kinds of *good* reasons for doing what we already new was wrong or hurtful or offensive.  And our excuses and explanations only make it clear how problematic our actions really were.

                Now, we may not feel all that scandalous in this moment, but I bet we could easily take a moment to recall moments we’d rather leave hidden and forgotten.  But it’s not just the moments that make us want to run and hide that are the problem. It’s the simple moments in between where we knew better but we did it anyway. 

                Author and theologian, J Elsworth Kalas, says it this way, “When we live below our best potential, when we’re mediocre when we out to be fine, cheap when we ought to be noble, shoddy when we should be upright—this is sin.” “When we are anything less than godly, it is because we’re involved in sin.”

                Now, back to Adam and Eve, they knew what they were not supposed to do and they did it anyway, together, both complicit and active in that sin (let’s not get carried away blaming things on Eve and leaving Adam blameless, both participated in full knowledge of what was right and what was wrong).  And then when God appeared on the scene, instead of asking for forgiveness, instead of trying to fix their relationship, they hid.  And then they tried to justify their actions….”well, we did it because we were naked.”  God created them naked, didn’t have any issue with their nakedness.  It was their sin and their shame that needed hiding, not their nakedness.  

                And we then follow suit and do the same thing, over and over again.  We know what is wrong, but we choose to do it anyway.  And whether you start it or I start it, it doesn’t really matter if we both participate in it.  And like Adam and Eve, when we get caught, our first reaction is not to apologize and set things right, instead our first course of action is to justify why we had to do what we did and why we shouldn’t be punished for it.  And when that fails, we point at something else, we blame all the other stuff in our life avoiding the heart of the matter, which is our disobedience. 

                And there you have the problem with the human condition: we are a scandalously sinful bunch and when we get caught, we are rarely the model of humility and repentance.  

                But that’s not really what we want to hear now is it?  You probably didn’t come to worship hoping to hear about what a compulsive sinner you are, we are.  But that’s our truth.  The fact is we are sinful, not beyond-redemption-evil (though I’m not sure such a thing actually exists), but scandalously disobedient and defiant running form God and hiding behind self-justification and excuses. 

                And that’s why we need Christmas.  Not the holiday, but the incarnation.  We need to meet Emmanuel.  We need to receive God’s abundant gift of redemption, forgiveness, and new life through Christ.  Those are all desperately needed in our world.  Not just because of Adam and Eve but because of us. Not just for “those people” in prison but for “these people” here in these pews. 

                Our deviance provokes God’s action…an action we see most clearly through the person of Christ. 

                J. Elsworth Kalas points  out something interesting.  He says that secular stories often say it better than some of the Christian merriment.  Think of “A Christmas Carol”, the story of Scrooge.  Charles Dickens wrote that “[Scrooge] was a tight fisted hand at the grind stone…a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!”  Did you catch that?  A sinner.  Scrooge was a sinner.  And at the end of the story, he was converted (not Dickens term, but relevant nonetheless).  He became a generous, compassionate and benevolent man—that was as much a conversion as any.  

                Or we could take the story of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss.  Again we encounter a curmudgeon who embodies the greed and meanness that epitomizes all that is wrong in the world.  And at the end of the story, again we see a conversion.  (Not Dr Seuss’ term either, but again it’s relevant).  At the end Grinch works to insure a merry and happy Christmas for everyone. 

                In a way, the secular stories say what the original Christmas stories always have. We have a problem—Scrouge, Grinch, Adam, Eve, Bob, or Sally—all need to be converted, all need their hearts transformed from selfishness and disobedience, to holy humility. 

                And so God offers that opportunity.  God gave us Christmas, not for the sake of the holiday, but for the Holy-day—so that we might be changed and moved out of our sinfulness and into God’s wholeness, away from our disobedience and into awesome relationships with God and with others. 

                It really is no wonder we look forward to Christmas and anticipate it for months.  Sure, some of our focus has been co-opted by consumption and materialism—but the heart of it is, we look forward to the conversion—the good news that we don’t have to be stuck in the sins of our past or forever labeled a Grinch or a scrooge.  Instead, we can be the bearers of joy and hope.  But that doesn’t happen without the gift of the Christ-child.  We need to meet Emmanuel, God with us, to be transformed.  We must encounter real love in order to share it with others.  And God offers that to us through Jesus.