Palm Sunday

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )
Sermon


“  PALM  Sunday”

 April 17, 2011
Palm Sunday  A

Praise-hands or smack-down blows?

Text: Matthew 21:1-11
NRSV 1When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” 4This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
5   “Tell the daughter of Zion,
     Look, your king is coming to you,
          humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
6The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
     “Hosanna to the Son of David!
          Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
     Hosanna in the highest heaven!”


 Text: Isaiah 50:4-9A NRSV
4   The Lord GOD has given me
          the tongue of a teacher,
     that I may know how to sustain
          the weary with a word.
     Morning by morning he wakens —
          wakens my ear
          to listen as those who are taught.
5   The Lord GOD has opened my ear,
          and I was not rebellious,
          I did not turn backward.
6   I gave my back to those who struck me,
          and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
     I did not hide my face
          from insult and spitting.
7   The Lord GOD helps me;
          therefore I have not been disgraced;
     therefore I have set my face like flint,
          and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
8        he who vindicates me is near.
     Who will contend with me?
          Let us stand up together.
     Who are my adversaries?
          Let them confront me.
9   It is the Lord GOD who helps me;
          who will declare me guilty?




It has always been confusing to me how the same people in Jerusalem could be whole heartedly on Jesus’ side one minute and stoning and rioting against him the next. Sometimes I think it’s confirmation that wickedness really was funneled into Jerusalem that week two thousand years ago; that all the nastiness in the universe was drawn flying to Judea like jagged metal filings to a pulpy, vulnerable, magnet.

But.... then I look at the fickleness of the MODERN public over so many things and think “No, we really are genetically capable of duality at lightening speed.”
Martin Sheen. It’s like a reversal of what happened to Jesus.  Last week people loathed him, comedians were making fun of  him on live tv, news broadcasters couldn’t climb the moral high ground fast enough to wave flags of indignation over his exploits. And this week? He’s playing to sell out crowds who give him standing ovations, he’s a media darling with his custom embroidered personal mantra on his hat and a omnipresent glass of water. He was even asked to bless someone’s ashes on stage in front of a live audience this week.

Then a year ago, exactly,  an oil company caused the most horrific national disaster in the Gulf of Mexico  that the US has ever experienced, an ordeal that lasted months, in which  BP lied, the government lied, scientists lied and the gulf coast residents rioted in the streets and a year later, we’re happy to fork out nearly $4 a gallon so that ALL the oil companies can line their pockets. Oil spill? What oil spill? Most people in the US today can’t even remember which one oil company was responsible! (It was British Petroleum, but all the gas companies are using them as an excuse to raise prices)

We are fluid, variable, changeable, mercurial as Shakespeare noted: “fair is foul and foul is fair” (the witches in Act 1 of Macbeth).  We have only to look at our hands to understand much about the changeableness of our human nature.  Our hands are like nothing else on earth. Only other hominids like monkeys and apes have even the slightest capability that we have.  Paws and fins and claws are pretty straightforward, but not palms and hands and fingers! They are capable of such fair and foul things.  In this week before Easter we will see them do many things; palms raised in praise on a dusty road;  grasping tree branches and flowers to throw down to make a carpet of honor; an elegant snap of the wrist to swing a cloak with a fine flourish to the ground. Hands are floating in air to guide music and dancing in the streets,  raised to ask questions of a miracle-working rabbi,  palms lifting water to bless and wash dusty tired feet, and receive bread blest and broken for the brokenness of the world.
But the very same palms will be held wide to receive more and more temple lucre, --not to mention forty pieces of silver;  hands that know intimately how to put tables together will fling them over in the  temple. Palms will fly flat with a sickening crack across the bones of Jesus’ nose and face. Strong, sweaty palms will grasp ugly Romans dirks and swing leaded cats of nine-tails in a pig-eyed, focused way that makes an art of sadism.

And finally, innocent palms will be spread wide to meet the points of iron spikes, palms upturned as if to ask,  “WHY??”.

But all these hands are attached to our wrists as well, and those arms to our bodies. Praise-hands, and smack-down hands, and even suffering servant hands are our hands too.

In particular it is those ‘suffering servant” hands that we are wanting to witness in our lives as we move towards Holy Week and Easter.  Especially as we approach this most sacred time of year we want to see Jesus. And over the next week, all of the old testament readings for Holy Week are taken from the portions of Isaiah that are dealing with the concept of  the suffering servant of God.

Today's old testament text comes from the middle of Isaiah's astonishing words of comfort and hope to an exiled and mournful Israel. Within the last third of the book, there are four so-called "Servant Songs" -- poems that focus on the mission and witness of a "Servant" of God.

Isaiah talks about this person who will bring justice to earth, be a royal and prophetic voice, not with loud proclamation, but with quiet and confident acts (Isaiah 41.1-9). Then a little later, the next poem outlines how this person has been called by God before even being born. Yet even so, the suffering servant seems to be without success. (Isaiah 49.1-13)

In the third poem, the one we read today, the servant is both a learner and a teacher who follows God’s path without turning back, even though it is painful and hard. (Isaiah 50:4-9). Lastly, the fourth suffering servant poem declares that the "servant" intercedes for others, bearing their punishments and afflictions, but in the end, he is rewarded with an exalted position.

So who IS this suffering servant? I know you’re sitting there thinking “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus”, but just as a hand has two sides, and just as humans do too, so does this text, because the surprise answer to  “Just who IS this suffering servant?”....is YOU. 

Did you know that YOU are being called to bring justice to the earth? to be a royal and prophetic voice, not with loud proclamation but with quiet and confident acts using your own hands?
Did you realize that you were called by God before even being born? And that the fact that you are suffering and maybe even your work for God seems to be without success is following in the greatest traditions of  the prophets and of Jesus Christ himself?

And then there’s the passage we read today.  You have been given the tongue of a teacher and the ability to sustain the weary with your words.  You may be disgraced and reviled, feel like a failure, put to shame...but you are still chosen. You are still in God’s plan. You are still in control of  your hands and what you do with them.

And finally, you have the promise of vindication.  There is nothing that happens to you that is not taken notice of in heaven.

Now surely you are sitting there wondering “Where in world does he get this stuff?” I tell you, I get it from the text themselves. Long before Jesus the messiah came to earth, the people of Israel read Isaiah’s words and understood them to be talking about them.  The way the passages are written, and the context both before and after, point to the fact that Isaiah was being deliberately ambiguous so that the poem, like all great poetry, could refer to many possibilities.

So, like our hands that are capable of so much, praise, service, and prayer as well as  gestures of unconcern and greed, and brutality this reading is capable of  multiple possibilities.  Like our hands, it depends on how we envision  things.

On this “palm” Sunday, how would you use your hands if local politics are making a mess of our community?  Do you make a gesture of helplessness or do those hands start dialing the phone to get folks to the voting places on May 3d? What will those hands do if corporate policies begin to steamroll  over employees? Drum your fingers while racism, sexism or ageism sculpts the face of your workplace? It’s not easy to go against power and money, but  think about your calling from God to use those miraculous hands of yours. 

Baldly, the point of this sermon today is to invite you to control your hands. To use them for things that will serve God and God’s world, regardless of the cost. Be constant in goodness, and vigilant in your self-awareness. Be aware what your hands and your heart are doing, and align yourself with Jesus, and not the fickle crowds of Jerusalem that wave palms today and stones tomorrow.

During world war two, Clarence Jordan was the founder of the Koinonia Farm near Americus, Georgia. It was set up to be intentional interracial community before there was even a word for it besides ‘wrong’. Jordan himself was a pacifist as well as an integrationist and thus was not a popular figure in Georgia, even though he came from a prominent family. The Koinonia Farm, by its very nature, was controversial and, of course, it was nearly always in trouble. In the early ’50s Clarence approached his brother Robert Jordan (later a state senator and justice of the Georgia Supreme Court) to ask him to help the Koinonia Farm in a legal matter. They were having trouble getting LP gas delivered for heating during the winter even though it was against the law not to deliver gas. Clarence thought his brother could do a whole lot just by making a single phone call to an influential contact.

However, Robert responded to Clarence’s request:

“Clarence, I can’t do that. You know where I’m going politically. Why, if I represented you, I might lose my job, my house, everything I’ve got.”

“We might lose everything, too, Bob.”

“It’s different for you.”

“Why is it different? I remember, it seems to me, that  as boys you and I joined the church on the same Sunday. When we came forward I know the preacher asked me the same question he did you. He asked me, ‘Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ What did you say?”

“I follow Jesus, Clarence, up to a point.”

“Could that point by any chance be — the cross?”

“That’s right. I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross. I’m not getting myself crucified.”

“Then I don’t believe you’re a disciple. You’re an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple. 
Amen

Rev Fred J Powell, III, Pastor
Uriel Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)
Chester, SC, USA
April 17, 2011