A Palm Sunday Sermon-Whose Side You On?
Such a contradiction this morning,
Entering into this sacred space
Entering into the sacred city of Jerusalem
With praise
And
Thanksgiving
To suddenly be
In the midst of uncomfortableness
Silently praying,
Perhaps as Jesus had,
“In you O Lord,
I have taken refuge
Deliver me into your righteousness”
(pause)
Psalm 31
Could be seen as
A Prophets prayer,
Amid
Difficult
And
Violent
Crisis
As they choose to speak truth.
Prophets,
Teachers
Those who hear the Word
The Whisper of the Creator
Seeping into their once dry bones
The call to serve Creator
To witness
To evangelize
To call out the evils among the world
Evils of injustice
Oppression
Especially
When that affects one another
Against one another
Calling us Back to the THRONE
To the CROSS
(pause)
I was reminded of this,
Of the journey in those last days,
Of Dr. King’s life,
That Early morning,
April fourth
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky.
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride.
U2’s,
Pride (in the name of Love)
Always rings truer
As we remember,
Dr. King,
Being welcomed as he had
In so many cities
In so many communities
Where people were hurting,
Where his people,
Peoples of the African Diaspora
Were hurting
Where those,
Who could not pull themselves
By any bootstraps
Impoverished peoples were hurting
And when people heard that Dr. King was coming
And marching,
They gathered to hear him proclaim,
Unabashedly
The Good News
Of Jesus Christ,
That all people,
All people
Would be free
Would be LIBERATED
To live as the beloved community.
And Dr. King knew the risks,
Every place he walked
As people cheered and welcomed him
There were those,
In the shadows
Angered over his prophetic word
And stance
Against injustice
But Dr. King would not back down
He had come tirelessly
To Speak Out
Show Up
Live Out his FAITH
For those forgotten
By the status quo
And the power hungry.
(pause)
God,
Sends prophets into our midst
They cry out to us,
“Dry bones!
Here the Word of the Lord!”
And in turn,
Those prophets
Are crushed
Like bones
Into dust
In the midst
Of our anger
Because we,
As humanity
Don’t want to be reminded
Of our failings
Of our sins,
That ultimately,
We must submit
To God
And
God alone
(pause)
How could the people,
Who welcomed Jesus Christ,
In our Gospel this morning
Welcome Him with JOY
And
Thanksgiving
Be the same
Who threw stones
And
Mocked
Jesus?
(pause)
We have to fess up!
That we as humanity
Tend to be
Lukewarm
Noncommittal
We always want to be on the winning side of power
Of comfortableness
At all costs
No matter whom we step on and over
Or push aside,
Because we see them as a liability
Or exploit who they are and their culture
Or exploiting them as the reason
We must enact violence,
Destroy with machines and with bombs
All in the name
Of flexing our
Proverbial muscles
To show the rest of the world
Whose truly on top.
(pause)
Being obsessed with power
Should be an alien concept
For followers
Of Jesus Christ!
And yet,
In our Gospel
This upsurgence
Against Jesus
Was brewing
In the midst of those
Who should have been standing with Jesus!
The Rabbis,
The Sadducees
The Pharisees
Who instead,
Clung
To the tangible
Limited
Political power
Offered up, might I add
In crumbs
By the dominant
Roman
Empire.
(pause)
Because humanity
Was blind
In seeing
The total benefit package
In following
Jesus Christ.
Jesus,
They scoffed
Wasted His time in healing poor people
Wasted His time in raising impoverish people from the dead
Wasted His time in being involved,
Sitting with
Caring for people with no stature or status
What was the incentive,
In following
This poor carpenter’s son
This Jesus Christ?
(pause)
Then again,
We ourselves
Question
What is the incentive
In following
Jesus
(pause)
Or even,
What Word should we be testifying
To our sisters and brothers
In Faith and in Love
About this,
This text,
So sacred
And yet
So challenging
And still
Jesus’s testimony,
Which empowers our lives!
(pause)
How can we,
Be embolden
To preach
What the Good News is
In Here (hold Bible)
And
In here (heart)
When we are faced with the every day
Of those who are twisting God’s Word
Into this gospel
Of tyranny?
(pause)
Yes,
In the midst
Of sitting at the Table
With our enemies
(slight pause)
By that
I mean,
Those who rather bow at golden altars
Of greed
Of selfishness
Rather than humbling themselves
At the Savior’s feet
At the CROSS
Rather than submitting to the ONE
Who formed the cosmos
The universe
And US, beloved
Creator God!
(pause)
Are we,
Willing to be prophets
Standing as witnesses
Just as Jesus did
In the midst of the Empire,
Just as Bishop Miller
Has stood as a witness
Has risked arrest
Against unjust laws
Against unjust violence
Just as King did,
Invited to the table
Of those in power
(pause)
Are we willing
To be prophets
Standing as witnesses
For those who had felt abandoned by God
Even when people are screaming in our faces
That we are wrong,
That we deserve to die,
Just as they did
Screaming
“Crucify him!
Crucify Him!”
Just as they screamed ugliness
In my Sister in Christ,
Elle’s face
When she chose to stand
With her community
In Ferguson
Just as I
Was pushed
Was called names
As I stood with other clergy
On Captiol Hill,
Speaking out
For health care
For all
(pause)
Are we willing
To put our sacred bodies on the line,
Just as Andrew, James and Michael,
Working for voting rights, murdered for their work in Mississippi
(pause)
Just as Jesus,
Jesus who was stretched out on that CROSS
For US?
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul?
(pause)
What is our incentive for following Jesus Christ?
What is YOUR incentive following Jesus Christ?
Thanks Be to God.
