Sermon: April 1, 2007
April 1, 2007
OFFERING MEDITATION: (11 a.m. – Dr. F. Wayne Bryant) Someone a long time ago wrote, “Lord, when we pray ‘Thy kingdom come’ and then fold our hands without a care for souls Thou hast died to save, we do but mock Thee with our prayer.” The offering is a time to show, in a very tangible way, our concern for those who benefit from the gifts that we bring of our tithes and offerings.
PRAYER OF DEDICATION:
(11 a.m. – Sandi Page) O Lord, on this Palm Sunday, our hosannahs ring from every corner of the earth. We shout joyously as we recall Christ’s ride into Jerusalem. As we celebrate this victorious day, though, we ask that you guard us, O God, from the wrong use of money, from selfishness, carelessness or waste. Enable us to be good stewards of what is entrusted to us, to give or spend or save according to your will, so that neither poverty nor wealth may hinder our discipleship, harm our neighbors, or destroy our life. We ask that these gifts may restore hope and joy to all. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
MORNING PRAYER:
(11 a.m. – Dr. Bryant) In penitence, we approach your Throne of Grace, O God. Forgive us our transgressions and our failures of intent and will, which we confess in the quietness of our own hearts. Guide us in paths of righteousness and use us as instruments of your wisdom and grace as we seek to be faithful in discipleship. We pray for all those today in our midst who are confused and uncertain about the future. Help them to live fully in the present, trusting your guidance in the way ahead. We ask your comfort upon those with deep sadness, seeking peace and strength for difficult duties. And we pray for those who are confined at home or in hospitals because of illness. We ask your grace and strength for those suffering addictions, that they may find help in recovery and satisfaction in sobriety. We pray for couples struggling to keep marriages intact, seeking to reconcile to one another. And for those whose relationships have already been broken, may they find harmony and the joy of new beginnings. Bless our church, dear God. Help us to focus on our most important tasks as a community of faith, with our eyes turn to Him who has called us into discipleship, even Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.
THE SCRIPTURE: Luke 19:28-40
THE SERMON: “King for a Day; Lord Forever” (Dr. Bryant)
Palm Sunday is ordinarily a festive day. When we moved to southern California to assume the pastorate of University Christian Church in 1975, our very first Palm Sunday that spring was one that caught my attention. We decorated the church with palm branches, but some of the palm branches were 12 feet long. We had truckloads of palm branches in the sanctuary on Palm Sunday. So when I came to Portland, I thought, what a wonderful idea; I’ll introduce the congregation of First Christian Church in Portland to Palm Sunday, so, not having any palm trees in our backyard, I ordered two dozen palm branches from a florist. Expecting that they would come in a truck, I met him on Saturday to pick them up, only to have them delivered to me with rubber band tied around them and held in one hand. So I discovered that celebrations can be different in one part of the country from another. It’s ordinarily a festive day; less so for us this morning because our thoughts and our concerns are not festive and we would be less than honest if we pretended otherwise. But hopefully, we will center our thoughts on the good news of Christ for this little while as we consider the Scripture text and its relevance this morning.
The day, that is the Sunday before Easter, differs from previous Sundays of Lent, because it was a day of celebration for the followers of Jesus, and churches have tried to emulate that joyous mood on this Sunday ever since. Jesus and his friends were joined in their journey toward Jerusalem by other pilgrims heading for the Holy City to celebrate the Passover, which was and is perhaps, the most important holiday in the Jewish year, remembering Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt and the slavery they had suffered there. Some in the crowed, recognizing the teacher from Galilee, welcomed him, shouting, “Hosannah to the Son of David!”
Now, all four Gospels contain the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem in what some have termed as his triumphal entry, but only John tells of the waving of the palm branches. It wasn’t in the text that Dale read for us this morning, there is no mention of palm branches. Matthew has branches, but he doesn’t say what kind. Only the Gospel of John has that word, just those two words, in the telling of the story, that the people tore palm branches from the trees along the road and waved them as they shouted. It is from this account that we derive the term “Palm Sunday.” As incidental as it is to the whole story, it has taken on an unusual meaning for us, for the Sunday that some refer to, not as Palm Sunday, but as Passion Sunday by many biblical scholars preceding as it does the Friday crucifixion.
It really is a strange story. There is a host of symbolic meanings in this account, which most likely was staged by the disciples themselves for just the effect it would have on the crowds. We don’t have time to talk about the symbolism, but it’s there, read it, in the four Gospels, and note the various kinds of illusions that it contains. But it was a festive occasion and the people loved it. For a brief moment, Jesus was king in the hearts of Israel, or at least king for these pilgrims who were on the road, who were near enough by him to know what was happening. By evening, they would all be about their business, seeking lodging, preparing the evening meal, getting ready for the holiday that would begin on the morrow, but for a little while, the people felt the stirring of the ancient promise in their breasts and dared to thumb their noses at Rome by declaring Jesus their king, at least king for a day.
Now, Jesus had no illusions that their praises would continue. Some had already turned away from him, disappointed that he had refused to lead a rebellion against the Roman occupiers in Israel. In a few days, he would stand alone, bound and guarded, deserted by his friends. Peter would deny that he even knew Jesus. That was the most painful thing of all, to both Jesus and Peter. For Peter’s intent was commendable, but his will and his courage proved as weak as ours in some remembered moment, and who here today does not have some memory we would like to erase if we could, but we cannot. And though forgiven, it remains there, a dark shadow on our happiness. And Peter said “Lord, though all others forsake you, I will never forsake you,” but he did. So, his memory seared in that deep regret, Peter would spend the remainder of his years in faithful service to the lordship of Christ. But I suspect also a part of that service was atonement on his part, trying to make up for that failure that he had committed. So at the end of his years, facing his own crucifixion in Rome, Peter requested to be crucified upside down, because he said, “I am not worthy to die like my Lord.”
Fortunately, the success of Jesus’ mission and his purpose in coming to the world did not stand nor fall on the continued praises of the crowd nor on the courage of his friends to stand firm in their devotion. Later they would do that, but not now. But his mission did not depend upon that. Jesus looked beyond the kingdom Israel hoped to see to a larger destiny, a destiny that Handel caught of the eternal significance of Jesus in his music, “The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever, Hallelujah.”
Palm Sunday was the first day of a terrible week, a difficult road to follow. Now comes the rub, the hook in the story. Jesus invites us to travel it with him; in fact, expects us to follow him, not just on his Palm Sunday processional king for a day, a glory ride of heady jubilation, but to follow him as Lord forever. The reality is that the path we are called to take is sometimes a difficult road with potholes of pain and disappointment, and pop Christianity to the contrary, the faith life is not all “sunshine in my soul.” The apostle Paul spoke of “a pain that never leaves me.” Martin Luther was subject to fits of temper and once threw an ink pot at the devil. Harry Emerson Fosdick, that American preacher of renown of an earlier century suffered a nervous breakdown. Faithful discipleship sometimes sends us on a painful journey that we would not choose, but beyond the cross we may be called to carry for a little while is a promise, the fulfillment of hope, the satisfaction of a trust kept, the expectation of hearing the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter Thou into the joy of Thy reward.” Through the centuries, many have accepted the challenge, their names of which we may or may not even recognize unless we are students of church history, but those names form an endless list of persons who are more than halfway disciples, people like Augustine and Polycarp, Ridley and Lattimore. Ridley and Hugh Lattimore died at the stake in England for their insistence on giving the Scriptures to people in the vernacular, in their own language, and as the flames licked at his feet, Lattimore said to his young friend, “Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, for we have lighted this day in England a fire that shall never be quenched,” and it wasn’t. There is Carey and Judson. Adoniram Judson preached in Burma for seven years before he enjoyed his first convert the Christ. Jesse Bader, the father of ecumenism. Virgil Sly, Mother Theresa and Goldie Ruth Wells. This church also has had its share of giants, a catalogue of saints and heroes from this congregation just as surely as those names out of Ephesus and Alexandria and Rome, Eugene Sanderson, Elmer Muckley, Araxie Hekamian, Dorothy Parker of past generations, and Harold Glen Brown. Then we add Roland Wirt, John Pragner, Alfred Sulmonetti, Bill Boland, Ruth Tomlinson, Earline Hembree, Dorothy Borkowski, and on and on the list goes, because there have been so many persons, not only in the distant past, but in the most recent past who have served faithfully and well. This church has produced saints of deep faith who serve with great commitment, sometimes in difficult times, that tried their faith and their courage, and it will continue to do so, adding the names of many who serve with dedication and commitment today. Common and ordinary folk whom the world may never recognize as heroes, but who, in the history book of God’s accounting, are giants on the earth. Persons who are not content to hail Jesus king just for a day, but to claim him Lord forever. Kings shall rise and have their days, Jesus Christ our Lord will live always. Please pray with me.
God, in your grace do we seek to serve the Christ who calls us into discipleship. Help us that we might, in some sense, measure up to these giants of the past, who have left us this tremendous legacy of faithful dedication and service. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.
INVITATION TO COMMITMENT:
(11 a.m. – Dr. Bryant) It was my last Sunday after a 10-year ministry. I had resigned to go San Diego from Albany, and there were persons who were, I suppose understandably, disappointed that I was leaving, upset, wondering what the future would hold, questioning whether the church, which I had managed to leave well in debt, could continue its mission under whatever leadership might follow. It was my last Sunday, but I issued an invitation hymn and a young physician and his wife came forward, a couple who had been attending our church for just five or six weeks, and they came forward to transfer their membership to that congregation. Afterwards, visiting with them, I said, “I don’t how to ask this, but you know, it’s really kind of strange to have you come forward and join the church on my last Sunday. I’m not sure what that means.” He said, “It means that we have great confidence in this congregation, that whatever leadership may come, we believe in the people we have found in this church to be faithful in discipleship and we want to be one with them.” The invitation we make is to join with us in discipleship, to demonstrate our confidence in this congregation’s future. We’ve been here 127 years, we’ll be here a long time to come, faithfully serving the lordship of Christ. If you would like to make your confession of faith or transfer membership, I invite you to come and stand with me as we sing our Hymn of Invitation, When I Survey The Wondrous Cross (#195).
COMMUNION MEDITATION:
(11 a.m. – Dr. Bryant) Among all the symbols of Christian faith or the actions that we take, there is none that speaks more to the unity of God’s people in Christ than the communion service. For it is here, regardless of who we are, regardless of our status in life, whether rich or poor, whatever marks of status we may or may not have, we become one as we surround the table and partake of the bread and the cup that Jesus instituted for us that we might be reminded of whose we are.
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:
(11 a.m. – Rodney Page) O Lord, with the shouts of Hosannah ringing in our ears on this Palm Sunday, we realize that our convictions to be your faithful followers to the end sometimes ring hollow like Peter’s. We do the things we should not do and we leave undone those things which we should have done. Our church, fragmented and broken, seeks the unity of this people, of this table together. Not some mindless kind of uniformity, but a unity in Christ. We marvel at the privilege of eating at Christ’s table, for we are made one with Christ in the fellowship of this meal. We seek your blessing upon this bread and this cup that it may raise us to a new life in you. Strengthen our faith, increase our love for one another, and engrave upon our hearts your message of compassion and reconciliation. O Lord, we look to the day when we shall all be made one in the fullness of your reign. Amen.
