Ever wonder
if Jesus started the first political protest?
It’s certainly something I have wondered. I am pretty sure he invented potlucks with
his ‘loaves and fishes’ events, and Palm Sunday does have a lot in common with
many of the political rallies and protest marches I experienced. There’s the heady feeling of community as we
gather in large numbers, knowing that we care about something bigger than
ourselves. There’s the laughter as we
read each other’s signs, especially the humorous ones. There’s the sense of purpose as we march
together singing songs and chanting protest slogans. But eventually everything is over, the
cheering is done, and the speeches finished.
We pack up and go home, wondering if we have really made a
difference. Sometimes we have, sometimes
we haven’t. Sometimes a few Pharisees
come out and tell us to tone it down, and sometimes other pharisees join
us.
The
pharisees are right to be skeptical.
Skeptics have their place and ask tough questions. They wonder if the message is appropriate and
what the long-term impact is going to be.
Recently there was a movement of young people going on strike on
Fridays, skipping their high school classes.
The skeptics warned them that there would be consequences for missing
school and dismissed the kids as opportunists looking for an excuse to cut
classes. But some of the students spoke
passionately and eloquently about the frustration they felt learning about
Global warming and the slow response they saw from the politicians. They argued that their future was being
compromised by big business and that they were frustrated that they weren’t old
enough to vote and didn’t have the political clout to be taken seriously. One of those students, Gretta Thunberg has
presented a Ted Talk about it, and been nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize. Her focus is on her message, and
she reminds her followers that it’s not about her becoming famous, it’s about
her cause and her call to action to make climate change a top priority around
the world.
Jesus too,
struggled to get his folks to make his message a top priority. Then as now, they struggled to understand
what he was trying to say. They thought
they were going to take over the government, get rid of the Roman occupation,
and set up home rule. Make Jerusalem
Great again was probably not far from what they envisioned. Again and again, Jesus would say to them that
it wasn’t about earthly powers or authority, but they didn’t understand. Maybe
they were so desperate that they couldn’t understand. Often we want a quick fix, and he wasn’t
advocating for some simple solution like a new king. He envisioned something remarkably different,
and his message was about justice, equality and a relationship with a loving God
that would expect all individuals to live to a high standard of holiness and
love.
Not an easy
message to understand then, and not an easy message to understand today. We have many skeptics in our lives, people
who have lost hope that there can be anything joyful or positive in their lives. We also have skeptics who test us to see if
we know what we really are saying, and have we thought things through. There are skeptics who test our message to
make it stronger, and skeptics who want to tear down our message because they
don’t want to be hopeful.
We can use
the skeptics to strengthen our message and connect with our message, but we
can’t let the skeptics stop our message.
Jesus was so focused on his message, he was prepared to die for it. That’s a pretty amazing commitment!
Some of us don’t
want to talk about our faith, we don’t want to go waving palms down main street
singing ‘Hosanna’. And that’s fine. Some of us are too new to this journey we
call the Christian Way, the way of servanthood and discipleship, and that’s
fine too. Keep listening and learning
and try practicing some spiritual practices by using the Bulls eye resources in
our front lobby or joining our study group or come to a bible study or
meditation group. Some of us have done a
lot of listening and are ready to start sharing our story. In that case, ask yourself these two
questions: Why did I come in the first place? And why do I keep coming back?
When we can
share the answers to those two questions, without trying to control others, or
pressure them to be included in something that they are not open to, and when
we listen to them more than we talk, we will find that our message, offered in
humbleness and hope, is heard by those around us.
Yesterday I
was at a speech contest (which I didn’t win, by the way), where a lot of the
speeches tried to convince people to ‘buy my product’, ‘support my cause’ or
even ‘choose my lifestyle’. They shared
what worked for them, well and good, but it was still about them. Jesus wasn’t about ‘my way’, he was about
God’s way.
The way of
truth, of justice, of compassion, of love and of hope. His message was more than just about
him. He didn’t want to be king, he
didn’t want to be worshipped, he didn’t want to be the chief priest in the
temple. He wanted to heal, to challenge,
to build a community centered around God.
That message has never died. It
continues to grow and develop, to rescue people from their depressions, their
addictions and their fears. It continues
to challenge the powerful and the greedy, the skeptics and the cynics alike. That message is what we call the Good
News. Let us share it when we can,
however we can, through living it, hearing it, and caring about the skeptics
that don’t have it. Hosanna!
