| April 01, 2007 - Palm Sunday
You are welcome to reflect on this message
“The Lord has need of it.” Just a plain ol’ donkey that became somebody because of Who his passenger was. Mark wants us to see that under the firm guidance of Jesus, wild things become gentle! Reminiscent of the naked wild man in Gadara, called “Legion,” because he had so many personalities. But when Jesus landed at the Decapolis, he left him “Clothed, and in his right mind.” Jesus stilled the storms on the Galilee, tamed young donkeys, and left troubled people whole. This overlooked curiosity on Palm Sunday is a parable about the heart of the Christian faith. The Lord has need of ordinary folks like us, who are called to do the most extraordinary things. Think of the humility of it. If Jesus had a big ego, he could’ve gone first class. Like the political parade that day featuring Pilate on the other side of town. Church and state were competing way back then too. And the church has been participating in the wrong parade for centuries.
Jesus is doing his thing on a lowly beast. With him were his ordinary friends, to whom he had said, “The Lord has need of you.” But look what God did with ‘em! In a generation, this group of average people, under the discipline of Christ, extended the gospel as far to the east as India and as far to the West as Spain. They established the church of Jesus Christ and we’ve gathered in this old Meeting House today as part of what they set in motion 2000 years ago. It started with Mark’s peculiarity: “The Lord has need of it.” Have you ever thought about Jesus needing you? We’re so used to us needing Jesus. And we do: people need the Lord. Some might think they’re about as insignificant as that unridden donkey tethered in Bethpage. But that’s just the point–God needs people; and calls common people to do great things. Under the influence of Jesus, any one of us can do the most amazing things.
I can cite many examples. Not long ago Louise Doucette invited me to go visiting with her, to call on a man in Bristol in home-hospice, from Tennessee. He had no pastor and she thought I could do some good. Maybe at least he could understand me! He did. I was proud of Louise, who takes caring and kindness and faith to the dying, because somewhere back there, she responded to those Palm Sunday words: “The Lord has need of you.” Sam Beachen visits weekly at Rhode Island Hospital, bringing encouragement and assistance to the patients. Lifting their spirits, touching hurting people with humor, is so characteristic of people who took seriously those triumphal entry words, “The Lord has need of you.” Linda Bausserman, ordained last fall during worship right here, committing her gifts as a spiritual director, blessing people among us, said yes, when “the Lord had need of her.”
Normal things we see around here all the time. But conventional people, who’ve lived close to Jesus, are able to do uncommon things, because like the Bethpage donkey, they submitted themselves to the lordship of Jesus Christ when told he needed them. Have you ever thought about what God needs from us more than anything else? It’s not our money that God needs. Heaven’s streets are lined with gold. Nor does he need our time. One thing God’s got plenty of is time. Neither does God need our beautiful buildings, as nice as they are. The House of God is “not made with human hands.”
God needs our will. The human will like a rudder on a ship sets the course of our lives and focuses all our strength and resources toward reaching it. That’s the one thing the personal examples I mentioned have in common–they committed their wanters to Christ. What Jesus needed from the people of Jerusalem was their will. What he got was what he so often gets, in the church--the shallow enthusiasm that goes with a parade. He’s had plenty of shouting--hosannas, palms. In a world where the famous are the successful, for a brief moment, Jesus was adored. But he refused to be swayed by their expectations. And that always has predictable results. It’s dangerous to disappoint the crowd.
Shouting “hosanna” on Sunday served their own purposes. Because everybody thought he was the Messiah to rout the Romans. But by Friday, things looked different, when they realized he was a servant, and cleansed the temple because it wasn’t “a house of prayer for all nations.” Think of it. They turned on Jesus because he was too inclusive. Including others can be dangerous when you’re around a bunch who think they’re “chosen.” So it’s “Hosannahs and palms!” on Sunday. “Crucify him” on Friday. Flip-flopping our loyalties botches everything. Jesus needs our will because that’s what he gave to God. We want God to have our soul. We don’t care so much about our bodies, but you know, heaven and all that. So it’s to our advantage if God has our soul.
But worship is about redeeming the human will, from mammon and idolatry; or denial or self-deception. Whatever it takes to redirect it toward the Lord, whether we get something out of it or not. God’s greatest challenge with us has always been to change our wanters. Some things you can’t make people do. You can’t make somebody learn. You can send them to school. Buy their books, pencils, going-back-to-school-clothes, but any learning that gets done, they have to do it. Or it won’t be there. You can’t make somebody worship. Worship is something you’ve got want to do. How do you market a cross? Who on is consumer-driven earth wants to deny themselves? Love? How are you gonna make somebody love? Use the word “make” with love and its gone. I can perform a wedding ceremony. But I can’t make ‘em love. Rita Coolidge sings: “I Can’t Make You Love Me If You Don’t.” Love can grow or it can die. But to have it, you’ve gotta want it, nourish it. Some things can’t be made to happen. They must be evoked.
That applies to faith in God. Even God can’t make us trust him if we won’t; if we trust something else. “Have no other gods before me.” Only faith can make people obey strange instructions. “Untie it and bring it here.” (In spite of how it looks) “If anybody asks you, ‘Why are you untying it,’ say: ‘The Lord needs it.’” Have you noticed? Jesus is always untying/unbinding/releasing something and setting it free. What is it that’s tied your life up in knots and needs to be released? God has no desire for this world that cannot be achieved, no blessing that cannot be transmitted, no kingdom that cannot be established--if his spirit governs our wills.
In church you hear a lot about saving our souls. But I’m talking about pooling our wills. When we’re on the same page/pulling together, rather than apart -- the church becomes a great big ball of servanthood. When that never-before-ridden-donkey obeyed its Rider, that humble beast became a partner with the Lord God Almighty, and delivered the goods on his back. Today he uses your will and his spirit to take him where he’s needed most. The best evangelists were more interested in freeing wills than saving souls. St. Paul said: “It’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Jesus said, “Not my will, but thine be done.” The source of the deepest meaning in life, have been those times I’ve acted in consort with God’s spirit, when I tried to love somebody or serve somebody in Jesus’ name.
Consider this poetry: One ship goes East, another sails West, with the self-same winds that blow. But it’s the set of the sails and not the gales that takes them where they want to go. For the winds of the sea are the ways of fate, as we trudge onward through life. It’s the set of the soul that determines the goal, and not the calm or strife. What Jesus needs from us most is “the set of the soul,” the resolute, determined will, which can use either storm or calm to reach it’s goal; that lets him turn every obstacle into a ladder and every stumbling block into a stepping stone, until dreams become deeds.
In churches all over the world today, you can hear the story of what happened to God’s Son on Palm Sunday; whose reward for his perfect obedience, ended on a cross. Minimum protection, maximum support. No assurances. No magic bullets. No favoritism. Only a promise. Worth trusting in life or death. With or without protection.
One last thing about Palm Sunday, the story never ends. The same dynamics are always in place, anywhere there are people. Pilate and Jesus. Church and state. Love and hate. Pride and humility. It didn’t end with the original procession on a donkey, never before ridden, in Jerusalem. The old rugged cross, on a hill far away didn’t end it. And all Joseph’s borrowed tomb, where no one had ever been laid, did was start it all over again! The story continues, in the church and the lives of ordinary followers today, who dare to offer their will to God, answering the same call on the day of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem: “Untie it and bring it here. The Lord has need of it.” Strange instructions, nevertheless obeyed. |
