Listen, live, and let the message out!

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!