April 9, Passion/Palm Sunday

Lessons: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; John 12:12-16

Sermon Title: Join the Festal Procession

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INTRODUCTION:

Retrieved from: Garrison Keillor, The Writer's Almanac for Saturday, April 8, 2006. (1)

Poem: "The Waitresses" by Matt Cook from Eavesdrop Soup. © Manic D Press. Reprinted with permission.

The Waitresses

The waitresses
At the restaurant
Have to keep reminding
The schizophrenic man
That if he keeps acting
Like a schizophrenic man
They'll have to ask him to leave the restaurant.
But he keeps forgetting that he's a schizophrenic man,
So they have to keep reminding him.

  1. Palm Sunday serves as a reminder

    1. Palm branches are still being waved.

    2. Cloaks are still being set out.

    3. Hosanna's are still being shouted.

    4. Do you feel it?

    5. Or, are you bored with the whole thing?

  2. Bored, Boredom comes from en·nui. Pronunciation Key (n-w)

    1. n. Listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom: ""The servants relieved their ennui with gambling and gossip about their masters"" (John Barth).

    2. Boredom is dangerous.

    3. You cannot afford to be listless.

      1. The great Russian writer Solzhenitsyn, in 1992, self-exiled in Vermont, wrote on the difference between communist countries and democratic America: (2)

"In the United States, the difficulties are not a Minotaur or a dragon - not imprisonment, hard labor, death, government harassment and censorship - but cupidity, boredom, sloppiness, indifference. Not the acts of a mighty, all-pervading repressive government but the failure of a listless public to make use of the freedom that is its birthright."

      1. Could the same thing be said about Christians in today's world?

      2. Quite possibly, yes.

    1. You cannot afford to be dissatisfied.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. The only way to avoid boredom is to see that Christianity is not only a religion of intellect, but also of emotion.

    1. There are some who disagree.

      1. C. S. Lewis quotes George McDonald, who died September 18, 1905. (3)

        1. He was a Scottish author, poet, and a Congregational Christian minister.

    "That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him: 'Thou art my refuge."'

    1. There are more who agree.

      1. Gerhard von Rad defined the Old Testament prophet as one who "participates in the emotions of God."

      2. John E. Smith in Edwards' Religious Affections writes: (4)

        1. "One of the earmarks of an establishment religion is the dearth of emotions and the suppressed emotions both John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards worked to revive the emotional life of the people of their day.

        2. "In Edwards' words:

      'Although to true religion there must indeed be something else besides affection; yet true religion consists so much in the affections, that there can be no true religion without them. He who has no religious affections is in a state of spiritual death, and is wholly destitute of the powerful, quickening, saving influences of the Spirit of God upon his heart.'"

      1. Albert Einstein once said (5):

      "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed."

      1. Photographing recovering addicts at a Minnesota high school triggered powerful memories for Mark Peterson. (6)

        1. As a teenager, he had problems with alcohol and drugs.

        "I've been in recovery for 20 years," says the 44-year-old New Jersey-based photographer. "I could relate."

        1. For three weeks in 1998, Peterson documented life at Sobriety High, a tiny school outside Minneapolis where students struggle daily to stay straight.

        2. His aim was to capture their confessional moments, their sense of camaraderie, their intense joy upon graduation. He was moved to tears by what he saw.

"They're expressing emotions that they anesthetized with drugs for so long," Peterson says. "They love each other, hate each other, worry about jobs, while trying so hard to stay sober. It was inspiring."

      1. Jim Valvano, the exuberant coach of the North Carolina State University's 1983 NCAA basketball champions, was known for his up-front, cards-on-the table attitude. (7)

        1. When he quit coaching at NC under a cloud of scandal, instead of seeking some low visibility position, Valvano took a job with ABC and ESPN as a sports announcer.

        2. Then, a few years later, he was diagnosed with a virulent, fast-spreading form of cancer.

        3. Again, he chose to stay out front. Instead of retreating to the sidelines of life, he kept working -- through chemotherapy, hair loss, weight loss, radiation therapy, gray days and good days.

        4. Just before he died, he was given the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage.

        5. In his acceptance speech, Valvano spoke about how dying of cancer had taught him how to live:

          6. "We should do this every day of our lives, he said. Number one is, laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears. If you laugh, you think, you cry, he said, that's a full day."

      2. Isaac Bashevis Singer writes a marvelous story called The Spinoza of Market Street.

        1. It is an account of Dr. Nahum Fischelson who spent 30 years of his life studying Spinoza's Ethics. Fischelson grew weary and old as he observed his fellow human beings in mindless pursuits, immersed in the vainest of passions, drunk with emotions.

        2. Wisdom, he believed was found in reason, and the highest perfection of the mind was found in the intellectual love of God.

        3. Therefore, it came as a surprise that his failing health recovered and his embittered attitude sweetened, not by reason, but by an unexpected encounter with a neighbor next door.

        4. Wisdom found him!

        5. The story concludes with a prayerful and-in the context of the story-humorous confession: "I have become a fool."

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  1. The Jesus who rides into Jerusalem is the consummate example of a person who unconditionally loves people.

    1. Love is more than a feeling of gratification or well-being.

    2. Love includes a concern for what is happening to the people.

    3.  

      1. We can safely say that Jesus is a compassionate Savior.

      2. COMPASSION = Empathy, a feeling with and an acting towards.

  2. As Jesus looks out over the crowd of people he is emotionally overwhelmed by this experience.

    1. There are all kinds of people in the crowd.

      1. Sick, Lonely, Disenfranchised who want to be healed, loved and empowered.

      2. Poor who need the basics like housing and food.

      3. Single Issue Folks like those who concentrate on Abortion or Term Limitations

      4. Fanatics: Zealots who would fight to gain their objective

      5. Religious who seek to eliminate a threat.

      6. Oppressed who seek relief.

      7. Military who seek to rule.

      8. Politicians who seek to maintain power.

      9. Middle class who seek relief from taxes.

      10. Friends and supporters confused and bewildered by the commotion and their own misplaced hope.

      11. Enemies.

    2. People who are looking for someone to meet their needs.

  3. Jesus sought as only one person, even a divine person, to help all of them.

    1. Each of these groups of people knew what it was that they wanted.

    2. What they did not realize was that there was something better.

    3. This something better was hidden from them.

      1. Not because anyone had hidden them.

      2. Jesus had talked and demonstrated with great clarity the true principles of life and the advantages of positive actions

  4. Jesus saw beyond the people's immediate needs and personal issues to a different future than they imagined.

    1. This leads to his tears of compassion and love.

    2. Their true need lead to the rest of his statement to all who would listen.

  5. He wanted to help but they could not be helped.

          6. Yogi Berra once said, or at least is credited with saying:

          What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure that just ain't so.

    1. We pause in this Sunday before Easter to observe a parade, a people, and a future.

    2. Jesus would open our eyes.

      1. Open eyes, an understanding minds, are the best weapons against fear and future consequences.

      2. He also would help us to understand the beauty of emotion in its religious context.

      3. In the words of the Psalmist

19 Open to me the gates of righteousness,
        that I may enter through them
        and give thanks to the LORD.
20 This is the gate of the LORD;
        the righteous shall enter through it.
21 I thank you that you have answered me
        and have become my salvation.
22 The stone that the builders rejected
        has become the chief cornerstone.
23 This is the LORD'S doing;
         it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day that the LORD has made;
        let us rejoice and be glad in it.
25 Save us, we beseech you, O LORD!
        O LORD, we beseech you, give us success!
26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.
        We bless you from the house of the LORD.
27 The LORD is God,
        and he has given us light.
Bind the festal procession with branches,
        up to the horns of the altar.
28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
        you are my God, I will extol you.
29 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
        for his steadfast love endures forever.

    1. I dare you to read this portion of the Psalm without emotion.

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CONCLUSION:

  1. We use what we have to create what we need.

The cross planted by the Ku Klux Clan burned on the front lawn of a black minister.

This cross is designed to generate fear and create intimidation.

The black pastor went to the kitchen and got some marshmallows and going outside gathered a few longs sticks.

With his wife and small children, they toasted marshmallows over the ashes of the cross.

 

  1. Entering Jerusalem on a donkey, Jesus faces the cross to be raised by Romans and some of his own people.

    1. He has no marshmallows to toast.

    2. Rather he has a promise of life.

    3. Rather he has the fullness of life.

"The famous 'dark night of the soul' on the path of illumination should not be spoken of in the singular, writes Dan Wakefield in his book How Do We Know When It's God? He has learned that there is not just one but many such tests and passages, and probably will continue to be, as long as one is on the path, as long as one is alive and seeking.

He likes the following prayer by Ted Loder:

Help me to believe in beginnings,
to make a beginning
to be a beginning
So that I may not just grow old,
But grow new each day
To this wild, amazing life
You call me to live
With the passion of Jesus Christ.

    1. Passion can mean the events leading to the crucifixion.

    2. Passion can also mean passion, being a passionate and compassionate person.

  1. Is this that to which Jesus calls us today and every day.

Amen!

1. Retrieved from: The Writer's Almanac for Saturday, April 8, 2006. The Writer's Almanac [newsletter@americanpublicmedia.org]

2. Alfred Kazin, Cry, the Beloved Country in Forbes, 14 September 1992, 156.

3. C. S. Lewis, ea., George MacDonald: An Anthology (N.Y.: Macmillan, 1974), no. 1

4. Edwards' Religious Affections, ed. John E. Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 120.

5. Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (New York: Crown, 1954), 11.

6. "Sobriety High," Life Magazine, Spring 2000, 39.

7. As told by John Buchanan, Fourth Presbyterian Church.

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