Shouting Stones - Luke 19:28–40 Jesus enters Jerusalem to cheering crowds

 What an image Jesus paints.  There is so much excitement and so much momentum that there is no containing the call for change.  That even killing him will not control the people hungry for hope.  Hungry for new ways of being in community.  Hungry for peace and freedom from fear and anxiety, tragedy and trauma.  That hunger was so strong they threw their coats down on the road and cheered a simple peasant riding a small untrained animal in public.  And so there was so much momentum that, like a snowball rolling downhill, picking up speed and size as it accumulates more snow, that it can ultimately flatten everything in its path, the crowd grew and cheered louder and louder.

No wonder some of the officials tried to silence the crowd.  His challenge to all in power was on full display.  And to be fair to the Pharisees who challenged him, they feared that this rally would degenerate into open rebellion and the Romans would slaughter everyone indiscriminately.  They were right to be afraid, as 30 years after Palm Sunday, the first Jewish-Roman war destroyed Israel as an independent nation until 1948.

They were right to attempt to dial down the rhetoric and the passion.  But Jesus was right to say that nothing would silence the people.

This is one of those stories that makes me wonder how one ordinary human being could be so clear on their purpose, so brave, and so determined to go through with what he felt called to do.  We are in awe of the sheer determination of the Ukrainian people right now to do what needs to be done for their country.  It’s like that, but I think it’s more.  Jesus had no hope that he would survive Good Friday.  His people didn’t understand that.  Even when Jesus bluntly told his disciples again and again, they denied it, scolded him, or tried to make him think in more positive terms.  They thought he was heading towards Jerusalem to replace Pilot and Herod, to create a political solution to their problems.

They were caught up in their small hungers, the hunger for power, the hunger for significance, the hunger for personal freedom.  Jesus was thinking of the larger hungers, of peace and healthy relationships, of accountability and authenticity and community.  Jesus had a sense of the historic, seeing that this was a time to push for radical change. 

Just as Moses saw his people enslaved in Egypt, being treated as tools to build pyramids and temples to stone Gods, or Jeremiah facing down the politics that had brought the Babylonians to the walls of Jerusalem, or Ezekiel having a vision of dead dry bones that needed to be preached at, or Isaiah guiding the exiles back to a devastated and destroyed city, Jesus saw that the situation was dire and people needed something fundamentally different.

Not unlike the times we are living in today.  At our Lenten Book chat on Wednesday, we talked about ethical dilemmas, and how many we face.  Even something as simple as which grocery store we walk into and whether we wear a mask when we go in, who do we sit next to, do we go for coffee, these many decisions become weighted with possibility and risk and challenge.

It’s exhausting to have so many decisions.  Sometimes it is downright depressing.  Some of us search for good news about Ukraine, some of us debate about who to vote for in the upcoming UCP leadership conference, some of us struggle to decide how to cast our ballots for our union recommendations, some of us celebrate the new union at Amazon, some of us lament the power of unions, some of us wonder about how to live more intentionally into the understanding that we are all treaty people.  And some of us wonder how we will get our kids to do their homework or how we will survive their brand-new school recorders.  And just like the ancient Hebrew people in Egypt, the exiles in Babylon, beleaguered Jerusalem, it’s too much; we need some hope.

So we call out “Hosanna” like the people watching Jesus on his colt.  Hosanna means help us or save us.  While it’s not mentioned in Luke, who was a Greek and wouldn’t necessarily know the Hebrew language, it is in all three of the other gospels.  Save us.  Help us.  And Jesus told the authorities that the need for help was so great that even the stones would cry out.

Not unlike now for many people around the world.  Afghanistan women crying out, first nations people, our young people who may never be able to afford their own homes, Koreans tired of war, Syrians struggling to get out of their country which is no longer in the media spotlight, people of color dealing with racism in Europe, and so on.  We call out for help even when it seems most helpless.

And while I would like to promise that all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well, we do need to call out for help in times like these.

Our faith story is full of communities asking for help.  The answer comes in unexpected ways.  Moses, a convicted murderer, leads the people on a forty-year hiking trip, Jeremiah starts a real estate company in the middle of a war, Isaiah inspires the grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of the exile to return home and rebuild. Unexpected help still appears today.  I stumbled across a poem written in Cologne Germany in a basement during the Second World War.  It was scratched in the wall by refugees hiding from Nazis. It goes “I believe in the sun, though it be dark; I believe in God, though He be silent; I believe in neighborly love, though it be unable to reveal itself.”  When we are calling for help, it is a reminder that we all can still call for help, and help comes.

When amazon workers ask each other for help, unions start to form.  When people in war-torn countries ask for help, dictators get kicked off the UN Human Rights Council, and when friends of Lee and Kelsey Thunder ask for help so that their graves will not continue to be unmarked, it is answered with stunning speed and generosity!

Jesus encourages us to call for help to build a world of peace for everyone regardless of the language they speak, the God they follow, the temple they worship in, the dream that have for the future.  Let us cry out Hosanna and be ready for God’s surprising answers us in this time of need. May it be so for us all!

God’s Great Love

There are days when I hear John 3:16 and I just cringe.  We see it at football games and hockey arenas, we see it on soapboxes and t-shirts, we hear it hollered at us on street corners and on our front doorsteps.  We see it on the letters tucked in our front doors that say, ‘neighbors, we are inviting you to come and celebrate the death of Jesus.’  Ick.  We hear it preached at funerals when the pastor stands up and says, ‘So and So is sitting at the foot of the throne of Heaven, and you will never see them again unless you have accepted Jesus as your personal savior.’  This scripture has been used and abused.  As the United Church’s Song of Faith puts it, “The Spirit judges us critically when we abuse scripture by interpreting it narrow-mindedly, using it as a tool of oppression, exclusion, or hatred.”

When we interpret scripture, when we come together to hear it and wrestle with it and hear it again, we in the United Church do our best to look at scripture in its context rather than an individual verse here or there.  How many times have you seen a poster that said John 3:17 on it? Or even John 3:14-21?

Context is important.  In this case Jesus is having a late-night debate with a Pharisee named Nicodemus.  Nicodemus snuck over to visit Jesus and ended up staying a long time.  Just like when we have a visit with a friend or family member that we haven’t seen in a while and before you know it, the clock has struck midnight and it’s time to call it a day.  Nicodemus didn’t want to meet publicly with Jesus for fear of what his friends and co-workers might think.  He wanted to be anonymous.  Jesus told him that people who are afraid, who do things in secret, who hide their actions and their thoughts, well, they might just be following an unhealthy spirit that will get them in trouble.  Genuine God followers are brave, and they show up in broad daylight, following the God of Truth and light.  The God that sent Jesus, not to condemn the world, but to save it.

The God that wants to make a covenant of love with us, not a covenant of shame, fear and resentment.  The God that wants to liberate us into a life of freedom.  A life of forgiveness, hope, healing and even, dare I say it, happiness and community.  A life of amazing grace.

Too many of us are living lives that are dead, too many of us are the children of rebellion.  One translation of Paul’s words says the children of wrath, of anger.  How often do we let our anger, our jealousy, our resentment, our frustration and our fear get the best of us?  We say things and do things that cannot be undone, that destroy relationships, that hurt and diminish the lives we live and the community we have.  We forget to be servants to those who need healing.  Too often we live in hiding, afraid to tell the truth of who we are and what we’ve done.

But when we step up to be honest, when we stop hiding, amazing things happen.  I was at the Pride conference yesterday at the Seniors Center and talked from my heart about why I believe we need to stop judging our neighbors and start loving them no matter what their body parts are and how they use them.  I read some scripture from Isaiah that talked about blessing folks who are not heterosexual, who diverge from what we label as normal.  One person came up to me afterward and hugged me so hard that the cherry tomato I was holding got so squished the juices started running down my hand.  And afterwards, they were brave enough to give their name to the Advocate reporter who took their picture.  Talk about coming into the light and being full of truth.

We are saved not by magical incantations of special words, but by the abundant love, the grace that God showers us constantly, if we are only brave enough to accept it.  And this is no namby-pamby love that can teach the world to sing.  Oh no! It’s braver than the two ladies who walk down Whyte Avenue holding hands even though they know they will be insulted and whistled at and harassed by the people around them. 

It’s braver than the young people who have the hutzpah to ask for a Gay Straight alliance in their schools, and it’s more passionate than the horniest teenager ever to walk the face of the earth!  Kahlil Gibran wrote a much more realistic description of God who is Love in these stirring words:

“When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.”

May we have the hutzpah, the courage and the honesty to step into the light and accept the great gift of God’s grace and love.