Palm Sunday “The stones would cry out”

 “The stones would cry out”

March 28,2020 First umc Carroll

Palm Sunday

 

1. Everyone likes a parade. Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus’ paraded into Jerusalem. We celebrate it every year. The story is told in all four Gospels. But let’s see how much we really know about Palm Sunday with these true or false statements.

2. According to the Gospels, the people waved palm branches when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

1. False (Matt. 21:6, Mark 11:8, Luke 19:36, John 12:13). None of the four Gospels say the people "waved" branches but that they spread garments and branches in Jesus’ path. Only John 12 passage mentions palm branches.

3. The date of Jesus’ triumphal entry five days before Passover was a special holiday in his time.

1. True, It was the day of selection when those who will host the Passover lamb.  It would be kept under observation of the priests until the day of killing the lambs. 

4. By their actions, the people were publicly proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah.

1. True. When Solomon was anointed king, he rode into the city on a mule, to the shouts and praises of the people (1 Kings 1:43-45). Zechariah prophesied the Messiah would arrive the same way "gentle and riding on a donkey" (Zech. 9:9).

5. The fact that Jesus rode a donkey portrayed him as a warrior king.

1. False. Conquering kings would ride war horses; the donkey symbolized peace and humility (Zech. 9:9, 10). 

6. The shouts of "Hosanna!" meant "Praise the Lord!"

1. False. The Hebrew word Halleluia means "praise the Lord;" Hosanna means "save us!" or "save!" The Palm Sunday crowd falsely assumed that Jesus would bring political liberation.

7. When the people spread branches and garments in Jesus’ path it was to pay him honor.

1. True. The people were boldly declaring that Jesus was their king, an accusation eventually written in condemnation above his cross. It was common in Bible times to spread garments in the path of princes and kings, especially at their coronation (see 2 Kings 9:13).

8. The shouts of "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" were words of a Jewish hymn.

1. True. The phrases "Hosanna" and "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" both come from Psalm 118: 25-26, one of the "Hallel" or praise psalms (113-118) used every Passover. These Jewish hymns would be as familiar to the Jewish people as Christmas carols are to Christians.

9. How did you do?  Even if you didn’t do well, be comforted that entrance into heaven is not dependent on this test. 

10. There is more to this little story than we might at first realize. This is not just a cute children’s story.  There is deep meaning and earthshattering significance in the triumphal entry. 

1. You have probably heard the religious significance before. We referenced it in the opening quiz.  The Jewish nation had been expecting and waiting for a messiah. Many expected a warrior or king to liberate them from Rome. Jesus came to set people free, but not from Rome.  They looked to Zechariah who said, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." -  (9:9) and said that the messiah would come from the  Mount of Olives. (14:4)

2. We know that the people along the road were thinking of this because they sang this song of salvation as Jesus rode by. 

1. Save us,(hosanna) we beseech you, O Lord!
       O Lord, we beseech you, give us success! (Hosanna in the highest)

2. 26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.[a]
       We bless you from the house of the Lord. (Ps 118:25-26)

3. The coming of the messiah was the realization of all the hopes of the people of Israel through the ages. And they are responding with great joy and celebration. As they sing and watch Jesus ride by. 

4. The other side of the religious significance, of course, is the perspective of the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law. It seems like they would be the first to recognize the Messiah and announce his coming to all the people. We don’t know why they didn’t. The most common assumption is that they saw Jesus as a  threat to their power and wealth.  Therefore, they just refused to see it. What it did, set up a dynamic where Judas betrays Jesus and drives a wedge between the leaders of the Jews and the Leaders of the Christians in years to come. 

5. Whether you see Jesus as a fulfillment or a threat, there is no denying that Palm Sunday is of great religious importance. 

11. The triumphal entry was also of great political importance.  Now some folks believe that religion and politics shouldn’t mix. As faithful disciples, however, everything we do we do through the perspective of Christ. Every decision we make is made by measuring it up to the example of Christ.

1. Jesus was not a politician, but some radical political statements came out of his life and teaching. Statements about how we treat outcast groups, statements about taxation, statements about the destruction of the temple.

2. Rome was the greatest empire in the world at the time. But it didn’t take much to make Rome feel threatened. They were accustomed to squashing rebellions, and they did it with no mercy. Crucifixion was the most common way of executing insurrectionists… and in their mind, that is what Jesus was. It also had the benefit of being so horrific it made folks think twice before they planned the next revolt. 

3. Jesus, of course, never claimed to be the king of the Jews. He never thought of himself as a king. But when he talks about a coming kingdom or his kingdom, there is little room for interpretation from Pilate’s perspective.   Rome interpreted the triumphal entry as a  “March upon the city” and Jesus’ popularity was undeniable.   So we have to acknowledge that Palm Sunday was a political event. 

12. It was also a Symbolic action. 

1.  Not just in the fulfillment of the prophecy, but remember I said this happened on the day of selection.  The people were selecting their lambs.  Jesus was the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.  It is impossible to understand the terrible sacrifice God made on the cross without understanding the symbolism that Jesus is the Lamb of God. 

2. It is also impossible to understand Palm Sunday without realizing that riding the donkey was a symbol of a king who came in peace. A warrior king would come on a stallion.  Jesus came on a humble donkey. And the great servant -king.

3. The palms are symbols of victory. 

4. So you can see palm Sunday was also a symbolic event. 

5. Palm Sunday was an event of Cosmic importance. God’s incarnate son was on his way to the cross and death riding on a humble donkey. Surrounded by a few friends who would all fall away, and besieged by Jewish ad Roman political authority. The world was about to change we see that represented in the thunder, clouds, earthquake, and darkness portrayed in conjunction with Jesus’ death.  This was all of creation reeling from the impact of the death of God’s son. 

6. Jesus refers to this cosmic importance in today’s story. Did you catch that?

7. The Pharisees tell Jesus to quiet his followers.  And Jesus’ reply is “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”  That is actually the sentence that caught my attention this year. “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” 

8. So what does that mean? It means that the events of that week would have cosmic significance. They would change the way the world works.  Think about it. Stones are inanimate objects. I have never seen a stone shout or sing or even nod its head.  But Jesus said “if these are silent” there’s going to be a rock concert right here in front of God and everyone.  I knew Mick Jagger was old, but apparently, the rolling stones were waiting in the wings just in case they were needed. 

9. Seriously, this word that was from the very beginning, the one who did not count equality of God as something to be grasped, but 

 

13.                             

14. Cosmic significance!  A name above every name.  Every knee bowed, every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is lord.

Le the trees of the field clap their hands,

Let heaven celebrate! Let the earth rejoice!
    Let the sea and everything in it roar!
    Let the countryside and everything in it celebrate!
    Then all the trees of the forest too
        will shout out joyfully — Psalm 96:11-12 (CEB)

 

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
    the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you;
or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you;
    and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know
    that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hand is the life of every living thing
    and the breath of all mankind. — Job 12:7-10 (ESV)

He makes Lebanon leap like a calf, ps 29:6

The voice of the Lord strikes
    with flashes of lightning.
8 The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;
    the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the Lord twists the oaks[c]
    and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, “Glory!” ps 29:7-9

All in the temple cry glory.

All in the city cry glory

Let all the world, cry glory

Let all God’s people cry glory.

Let all the people cry halleluiah

Let all the people cry he comes in the name of the lord

Let all creation cry Hosanna… hosanna in the highest

 

And then they crucified him.

15. He bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

17. 28 After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

18. 29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They said, “The Lord needs it.” 35 Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying,

19. “Blessed is the king
        who comes in the name of the Lord!
    Peace in heaven,
        and glory in the highest heaven!”

20. 39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Sermon 5: change your habits, change your life March 21,2020 First UMC Carroll

 Sermon 5: change your habits, change your life

March 21,2020

First UMC Carroll

1. Michael Phelps is probably the greatest swimmer who ever lived. With 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold, he is certainly the most decorated.

1. He tells about a race at the Beijing Olympics where his goggles leaked. 

1. As soon as he hit the water, he knew something was wrong, but it was the Olympics so he pushed ahead hoping things would not get too bad. By the second turn, everything was getting blurry.  By the third turn, headed into the final lap, the goggles were completely filled with water and he was blind.  He couldn’t see the black line on the bottom of the pool. He didn’t know how many strokes were left because he couldn’t see the T on the wall ahead.  So his habits took over. 

2. He had done this a zillion times. He knew in his basil ganglia how it felt to swim in the middle of the lane. He knew how long the pool was and it felt like 18 maybe 19 strokes to the finish.  At 18 he started to prepare to hit the wall. At 19 he was ready it took one more stroke and he was there. The crowd was going wild, but he couldn’t see if it was for him or someone else. As he ripped off the goggles he saw “WR” next to his time.  Swimming blind Phelps had broken another world’s record and won another medal. 

2. How did he do it?  Habit. Years and years of habit built up in his basal ganglia.  In addition to the hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times he swam that race in the pool, he swam it in his head many more times. Part of his training was imagining every detail of the race going perfectly. When getting up the morning of a race he had a very specific plan for the day that ended in standing in the center step during the medals presentation.   It was like a tape playing over and over in his head. It was so deeply ingrained that all his coach had to say was, “Michael, start the tape.” And he could play it back.

1. When his goggles failed, he relied on the tape in his head; the habits he had developed.  He had the vision of a perfect race in his head with no option for failure. In the crisis Michael didn’t have to think, his habits took control and it worked. 

3. Remember what the habit cycle looks like. The cue was his exacting behavior before the race up to the starting whistle.  The behavior was swimming like the fastest man in the world. The reward was a gold medal. 

1. A habit saved the day when things went wrong for Michael Phelps in Beijing.

2. Do you know that organizations have habits too? Organizations like… oh I don’t know churches. 

1. Let me give you an example. The cue is a death in the congregation. Everyone goes into automatic. I go to the funeral home, the kitchen crew starts their preparations, Michelle makes the place sparkle, the musicians go to work, Sherri does her thing, and the funeral happens. Do I have to supervise all of that? No. Does Sherri or anyone else? No. When there is a crisis, (and a death in the congregation is a crisis.) The habits take over and the job gets done. 

2. It was fascinating to watch your habits spring into action during the pandemic. When the rug was pulled from under our feet none of us knew what to do. Our goggles were flooded, and we were running blind. Then the habits stored in the innermost parts of our collective basal ganglia took over. 

1. We kept worshipping every Sunday morning. There were some rough places, but habits served us well. 

2. Then our habit of serving one another kicked in. You were picking up groceries, prescriptions, and helping each other wherever you could.

3. Then the habit of caring for others kicked in. Remember, for example,  the parades that were held for various people, whether they were sick, had a birthday, or were graduating from Highschool. We always found a way to serve, even under strange circumstances.

4. Then the habit of generosity kicked in. As unemployment skyrocketed, our local mission giving did too. I’m grateful and proud of the generosity of the congregation. 

3. I didn’t DO any of those things.  You didn’t DO any of those things, it was as though the church as a body was run by a single set of shared habits. Charles Duhig calls those “Keystone habits” the “Keystone” is  the stone at the center of the arch that keeps the sides from caving in on one another. These habits hold us up when everything is shaking around us. And those habits served us well,  because we are coming through this pandemic just fine. 

1. These are our communal keystone habits. Worship, serving, caring, giving.  To some degree, since we are part of the community, those may reflect our keystone habits too.  Think back. What was your priority when we couldn’t have in-person worship and everyone went into hiding? 

1. For some it was worship, that is great.  

2. For others prayer or scripture reading that’s great.

3. But I want to suggest today that the habits of loving, serving, and giving seemed to come to the forefront for many of us.  Now I want to wrap up all of those in the word “serving.”  Loving one another means we serve one another. Giving generously to others is a way of serving them. So, we will call it all service. 

3. In todays’ scripture, Jesus lifts up the value of serving. 

1. In John, this scene takes place in the middle of the gospel rather than the end. Chapter 13 out of 21. And it takes place shortly after Mary of Bethany washed Jesus’ feet with expensive oil and dried them with her hair. 

2. Jesus would take a more traditional approach, washing the disciples’ feet with water. It was customary when someone came into the house for a slave to wash their feet. The speculative interpretation is that the disciples thought they were too good to wash each other’s feet. I don’t know if that was true or not, but I do know that Jesus didn’t think he was too good to wash their feet. 

3. This was scandalous.  But Jesus was not afraid of scandal. Being born in human likeness and taking on the form of a slave, he changed his clothes to go to work. 

1. He bent down at their dirty, dusty calloused feet. He didn’t stand over them or make them put their feet up for him.  I can see Jesus sitting Indian-style on the floor washing feet.

2. Peter gives voice to the scandal saying, “No, Not my feet.”  Maybe he was embarrassed that they hadn’t done it yet, but the other possibility is that it is just hard to accept help.  There is something I have observed It seems we can’t serve effectively until we know what it means to be served. If we are not humble enough to allow someone to serve us, we certainly will not be humble enough to serve others.

3. And Jesus said. “If I don’t wash your feet you have no part in me.” Serving and being served are two sides of the same coin. That’s what community does. There is a rhythm between serving and being served. 

4. And then the scandal deepens as Jesus says, “And you are clean, though not all of you,” and the narrator explains, “For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean” (13:11).

5. Jesus raises the stakes when we realize he is washing the feet of Peter who would deny him, and Judas who would betray him, and knowing all the others would scatter like sheep in his moment of greatest need. It raises the question of how we decide whom to serve.  Jesus didn’t discriminate against any disciples even knowing what would happen.  I think there is a lesson there.

6. Then there is the debriefing. Jesus asks, “Do you know what I have done to you?  Do as I have done.”  

1. Couple that with “love your neighbor” and “if you have done it to the least of these, you have done it unto me.” And you have a picture of the habit of Christin service. 

4. Our congregation has a wonderful history of serving.  Through missions; through local services like food pantries and New Opportunities and Family Resource Center; and then add in the pastor’s discretionary fund we do a lot!   I mean a lot. I pat you on the back for that.  Well done good and faithful church.

1. But let me push you a little. 

1. Our congregation as a whole does all of these things.  

1. How invested are YOU in serving others?  Although I am grateful for all the money you give, there is no substitute for serving face to face. 

2. I wonder how invested you are in serving others beyond money… with your time, your energy, your mind, your love, your compassion, your wisdom.  

2. Rick Warren writes, “We serve God by serving others. The world defines greatness in terms of power, possessions, prestige, and position.  If you can demand service from others, you’ve arrived. In our self-serving culture with its me-first mentality, acting like a servant is not a popular concept”. 

1. Let’s change that. To make serving as Jesus served a spiritual habit in our lives takes more than money. 

2. Jesus didn’t hand each one a $10 bill and say, go find someone to wash your feet.  He invested himself. 

3. Do you find time to invest in serving people face to face, one on one just because Jesus said, “Do as I have done.”

1. Do you find ways to invest your mind,  teaching others some of the skills or knowledge you have enriching their lives?

2. Do you have the heart of a mentor? Many people need a mentor, a guide, from children, to single moms, to newly unemployed or newly disabled persons, to seniors facing the challenges and changes of aging. Are you mentoring anyone?

3. Do you have the ears to listen in love?  Just listen.   Listen to their problems, their joys, their hopes, and dreams.  Sometimes that is the greatest service we can provide is being a listening ear. 

4. Do you give your hands and back and legs all your strength to generously serve and love others?

4. All of you… your face, your mind, your heart, your ears, and of course your hands are built for serving and loving. 

5. Mother Teresa said it well, “Give your hands to serve and your hearts to love.”