A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

the grand entrance

Luke 19:28-40, Preached at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, March 28, 2010

It was Palm Sunday but because of a sore throat, 5-year-old Johnny stayed home from church with dad. When the rest of the family returned, they were carrying their palm fronds. Johnny asked them what they were for. "People held them over Jesus' head as he walked by," his mother told him. “Wouldn't you know it," Johnny fumed, "the one Sunday I don't go and he shows up."

Throughout the entire history of the known world, rulers have conquered cities and emperors have conquered nations. There have even been rulers who have strived to conquer the entire world. Today we celebrate one of the great days of the Church calendar, Palm Sunday, Christ’s entry into the city of Jerusalem. If you take a moment to imagine, to put yourself there, you just might hear the crowd, the cheers and a chant: "Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!" If you look around in your imagination, you can see brightly colored holiday clothes of festive pilgrims gathering all around you. You can feel the press of people as they gather along the road, hoping to get a glimpse of this Jesus of Nazareth, this prophet, this worker of power, the Messiah.... You can sense the excitement in the air, and soon you find yourself straining to see through all the waving branches. And there he comes, entering the main gate, palms of victory, of military command, are waved all around, and his disciples shout out: "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!"

After so many years of Roman occupation, the people long for change. And while during much of Jesus' ministry he preached his message and exercised his power on the outskirts and margins, among the poor, outcast, lepers, he now enters the political center. And the response is immediate. You heard the Pharisees, didn't you? "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." They'd heard that with Jesus came trouble, but now they hear it with their own ears. To which Jesus cryptically responds, "I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out." This day will be this day, no matter what any of them want.

Life is like that. Many days come and go, but every once in a while, one day makes a grand entrance, or one person makes a grand entrance. One trouble arises to the top, one victory is sealed, one good act reveals God's will as no other has. And history changes; lives change; society and the world change. Most of us are not really ready for the change, but God has said, "Yes, today is the day. I have waited too long." We just never know who will usher in the new day.

If you look at that Jerusalem crowd, you know they were, simply and bluntly put, a bunch of nobodies. This ragtag army invading Jerusalem, with their palm fronds, singing and shouting, and their leader on donkey back, was a motley collection of irrelevancies. The Pharisees were completely unimpressed, and quickly became angry at them. “A bunch of fools, ignorant country bumpkins, know-nothing, nobodies. Who do they think they are?!” Nobodies are those who are expected to know their place. Nobodies are supposed to understand that nothing changes. But the truth is there are too many good people who may just be nobodies, but with God in their heart and Jesus as their leader, and courage in their spirit, and hope in their soul, they become the Lord’s somebodies. On December 1, 1955, one woman refused to give up her seat to a man who considered her less than he. Rosa Parks remained seated. She changed a nation because she was just too tired to consider that day the same as all the others. Because of her we are all a much better people and country.

A king rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Like most of Jesus stories, something is odd. Something twists or just isn't what’s expected. With Jesus, rotten sons are welcomed back with banquets. An enemy Samaritan is the one who helps rather than the establishment priest. The smallest mustard seed becomes a big tree. When this kind of king arrives, our expectations are challenged. The crowds believed Jesus was the “King,” that is, they believed he was the Messiah who as their leader had come to establish Israel’s independence from Rome, to liberate them in a very concrete, political and economic way. In fact, the whole scene replicates a King or General’s triumphant entry into a city. It all seemed so perfect and hopeful...except for that darn donkey.

And even today too often and for too many it's this type of Messiah that is wanted, a Jesus who will bless politics, wars and battles. And maybe Christ does, but maybe Christ doesn't. As Jesus said, "Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword."

So what was Jesus' glory? What kingship awaited Jesus when he entered Jerusalem? We believe nothing short of a universal kingship; but first something else: just five days later, crowned by thorns, convicted by a crowd of his peers, like the one who applauded his entry, and made to walk this time, beaten, bloody, dismissed and derided as a joke and criminal, on a barren piece of rocky, worthless land outside the city gates, this man was enthroned upon a cross, mercilessly murdered: The end, or so they thought, of him. Here was the king of nobodies, of no destiny, of no more days, or so they thought. One day, and done.

You see, what they didn't comprehend and what we too often don't understand is that God's time is not ours, and God's days are not ours. What we still can't fathom is God's merciful patience, and then how this comes to an end with the Lord's righteous impatience. People often can't fathom how this man, how this one person's death could ever mean life, eternal or otherwise. And not only does this look upside down, but if this is so it merely begs the question as to why God doesn't just continue in this vein for everyone on every day since that day. Why not grant life, overflowing and eternal life, changed life, for all? Or if this did happen, on that day, why didn't God do this centuries or even millenia earlier? The problem with this way of looking at things is simply that we are only considering them from our very human perspective, from our incredibly one dimensional view of time, from our mortality-laced sense of impatience--not that we can do much better.  But God doesn't behold creation, destinies, and days from this side; nor should we want God to, because, well, we don't do very well with it anyway. The truth is, whether we want to admit it or not, God will decide; God will declare; God will claim one day, and not another as his, as a day on which the Lord will make a grand entrance, and a day in which the new thing will happen. So be ready for that day, for the entrance, for the new and wonderful thing to happen. Be a person who spies them out, whose heart listens for God's coming, who teaches others that the kingdom is near, that heaven shall come down again, that the Lord has a plan. Help yourself to see that you have been touched and blessed by days and people divine and  angelic.   

On Palm Sunday, March 22, 1959, returning to his pulpit after an absence of nearly two months, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about Mahatma Gandhi. It was one sermon preached about one person and the decision made on one day. Here is what King said about Gandhi.      

Now you know in India you have what is known as the caste system, and that existed for years. And there were those people who were the outcasts, some seventy million of them. They were called untouchables. And these were the people who were exploited.... And Gandhi looked at this system. Gandhi couldn’t stand this system, and he looked at his people, and he said, “Now, you have selected me and you’ve asked me to free you from the political domination and the economic exploitation inflicted upon you by Britain. And here you are trampling over and exploiting seventy million of your brothers.” And he decided that he would not ever adjust to that system and that he would speak against it and stand up against it the rest of his life. And you read, back in his early life, the first thing he did when he (returned) to India was to adopt an untouchable girl as his daughter. And his wife thought he was going crazy because she was a member of one of the high castes. And she said, “What in the world are you doing adopting an untouchable? We are not supposed to touch these people.” And he said, ‘‘I am going to have this young lady as my daughter.” And he brought her into his ashram, and she lived there, and she lives in India today. And he demonstrated in his own life that untouchability had to go.

One day he said, “Beginning on the twenty-first of September at twelve o’clock, I will refuse to eat. And I will not eat any more until the leaders of the caste system will come to me with the leaders of the untouchables and say that there will be an end to untouchability. And I will not eat any more until the Hindu temples of India will open their doors to the untouchables.” And he refused to eat. And days passed. Nothing happened. Finally, when Gandhi was about to breathe his last, breathe his last breath and his body-it was all but gone and he had lost many pounds. A group came to him. A group from the untouchables and a group from the Brahmin caste came to him and signed a statement saying that we will no longer adhere to the caste system and to untouchability. And the priests of the temple came to him and said now the temple will be open unto the untouchables. And that afternoon, untouchables from all over India went into the temples, and all of these thousands and millions of people put their arms around the Brahmins and peoples of other castes. Hundreds and millions of people who had never touched each other for two thousand years were now singing and praising God together. And this was the great contribution that Mahatma Gandhi brought about. And today in India, untouchability is a crime punishable by the law. And if anybody practices untouchability, he can be put in prison for as long as three years. And as one political leader said to me, “You cannot find in India one hundred people today who would sign the public statement endorsing untouchability.”

Not all days are created equal. Not all moments are the same. Sometimes God makes a grand entrance, right through the gates of our lives. Who was Jesus? He was king, king for a day, king for God's day, and the Lord of all of God's days. May Jesus make a grand entrance into our lives, for just one day, for one moment, and change us, and perhaps even the world, for the rest of them.

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