"We Give Symbols Their Meaning"

Sermon Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler – March 24, 2013

Centenary United Methodist Church

Luke 19:21-40

 

    When Lois and I experienced our first November in Bermuda, we were surprised to see the banner headlines in the Royal Gazette’s food supplements that read “Happy Thanksgiving.”  As we looked at the sale prices of a number of products, we saw turkeys, cranberry sauce, cans of corn, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pies.  We wondered if the pilgrims had first landed in Bermuda before reaching Plymouth, Massachusetts! 

    As we looked further in the paper, we saw ads proclaiming Bermuda’s first Black Friday the following day.  The few stores that opened at such ungodly hours had such robust sales that last year Black Friday was a fabulous success.   Most retailers had gotten the word and opened their stores for business at early hours and found lines of eager patrons waiting for the doors to open.

    When we mentioned these obvious symbols of the U.S. to a number of Bermudians, we were told:

If something is good for business in the United States you will learn that it will come here in one form or another.  Bermudians never miss the opportunity to celebrate anything.  Who cares if Thanksgiving is a national holiday for the States?  Now . . . if only we could get the government here to declare Thanksgiving as a national holiday, we’ll be set.

    I bring this up on Palm Sunday because symbols mean different things to different people.  We use them to suit our purposes.  Jesus was using a visual and well-known symbol when he entered Jerusalem however; he was giving his entrance a far different meaning from the one known to the Jews.

    One hundred and sixty-three years earlier, a Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphanes and his military occupied the entire region, notably Jerusalem.  This ruthless ruler had made it his mission to abolish the Jewish religion and replace it with the religion of the Greeks. He burned copies of the Torah and put to death anyone caught reading it.  He destroyed the religious symbols of the Jews and desecrated their Temple with the blood of pigs.  

    To say that the Jews were angry would be an understatement.  After gathering a sizeable group of men, Judas Maccabaeus defeated the occupying forces of this Syrian ruler in one of the most courageous defeats in history.  Then the rebel leader rode into Jerusalem and used the symbolism supplied by the prophet, Zechariah:

Rejoice, rejoice, people of Zion!  Shout for joy, you people of Jerusalem!  Look, your king is coming to you!  He comes triumphant and victorious, but humble and riding on a donkey – on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)

    The pageantry that Jesus used as he entered the city was symbolic of those earlier memories. The meaning that Jesus gave to the same symbol had more to do with Zachariah’s image of the coming Messiah found in the next verse: 

The Lord says, “I will remove the war chariots from Israel and take the horses from Jerusalem; the bows used in battle will be destroyed.  Your king will make peace among the nations; he will rule from sea to sea, from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.”  (Zechariah 9:10)

    Jesus had carefully planned his entrance.  He had made arrangements ahead of time to borrow the colt.  The timing of his entrance was impeccable; it coincided with the Passover when two and a half million Jews were visiting Jerusalem from all over the region. 

    Jesus already had a price on his head so this donkey ride did not come without risks.  In the Gospel of John we read, “The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, he must report it so that they could arrest him.” (John 11:57)  Jesus had a plan known only to him of what he intended to demonstrate.

    If we placed ourselves among the cheering crowd that day, what would we be thinking?  This is a very important question for us this morning.  The formula for what people want in any society has not changed.  People want freedom, lower prices, lower taxes, more services, a better justice system, quality education, equal opportunities to prosper and to live in peace.  People have always wanted their world to be better than what they are experiencing.  Many people have a highly personalized version of what that world looks like.

    Jesus came with his specific version of The Messiah that no one was prepared to recognize.  The people believed that some day, in the near future, God would lead Israel to victory as God allegedly did during the time of their ancestors.  It is not too difficult for us to imagine how “forgive your brothers and sisters” and “love your neighbor” sounded along side the thought, “One day God is going to send the messiah to rid us of this Roman surge.”

    Jesus knew what many of us know today.  No one is ever going to come to save the world!  What the world needed was not a wholesale bailout, but salvation from their ignorance.  People needed an idea on how they could liberate their attitudes and lifestyles from being held prisoner by fear and hatred.  Jesus’ life and ministry gave humanity a map that offered guidance for people that wanted to achieve a productive, healthy and fulfilling life. 

    However, the map had little relevance for the Jews. The message of Jesus sounded ridiculous.  No one thought that practicing the Golden Rule would make a difference in a world filled with cut-throat competition and attitudes that teach the survival of the fittest.  The symbols most societies readily recognized dealt with politics and economies.  Loving attitudes and timeless values had little meaning to people that are trying to survive amidst a military occupation. 

    What made Jesus so sure that his actions would work?  Furthermore, what happened to cause what Jesus did to help shape the future of humanity?   Jesus knew that by communicating compassion and understanding through his spirit and from his lips during every event that was coming, he would also be making visible the likeness of God’s nature.    

    In one week Jesus demonstrated the power of one response to everything that confronted him.  The first Palm Sunday was the platform for showing the world what the authentic, timeless Messiah looked like.  Almost immediately Jesus was made aware of the realities of his world.  His disciples had absorbed very little during their three years together.  His handpicked men were arguing during their Last Supper over which one was the greatest among them. (Luke 22:24) 

    Jesus knew that one of his friends would betray him. He saw that some of the disciples had come to the garden armed with weapons. He experienced the abandonment of his disciples following his arrest.  He withstood unjust treatment and being found guilty by a tribunal of the Sanhedrin. Jesus knew that Peter, his most confident disciple, would deny knowing him three times.  He experienced rejection from those gathered in front of Pilot.  When given the choice of which prisoner to release during Passover, the chorus of voices chose the known revolutionary, Barabbas, over him. He experienced crucifixion, a slow form of death reserved for those that had committed a Capital Crime.  

    Jesus allowed all of these experiences to happen to him without any defense or comment.  Jesus had followed the image created by the Prophet Isaiah of the suffering servant:

We despised him and reject him; he endured suffering and pain.  No one would even look at him – we ignored him as if he were nothing.  But he endured the suffering that should have been ours. All the while we thought that his suffering was punishment sent by God.  But because of our sins he was wounded, beaten because of the evil in us.  We are healed by the punishment he suffered, made whole by the blows he received.  All of us were like sheep that were lost; each of us going his or her own way.  He was arrested, unjustly sentenced and led to die, and no one cared about his fate.  He was put to death even though he had never committed a crime or even told a lie. (Isaiah 53:3f)

    The question we need to answer for ourselves this morning can be faith-shattering.  Have we misunderstood the symbol Jesus was giving to us?   We have all known people who proclaim, “Jesus died for my sins.”  Was this the message that Jesus wanted to symbolize? If this was such an important issue, why was it that Jesus never mentioned it during his ministry?  Did Jesus really take away sins of the world, or was he teaching people how one consistent response will reveal the nature of God’s spirit during the most painful and ugly hardships they have to endure?   This insight represents a sizeable shift in Christian Theology.

    During one of his lectures at Sarah Lawrence College, Professor Joseph Campbell had a student approach him at the close of one of his classes on The Power of Myth.  She had tears in her eyes.  She said, “Today, you have taken me from spiritual infancy to wisdom.  I want to thank you for awakening my spirit.”  Joseph said:

Thank you.  However, I have not given you wisdom.  Spiritual wisdom does not come from having information and knowledge.  Wisdom eventually comes from having lived a life where you struggled mightily during most of your days to bring love and peace to every conflict, every barrier, every disappointment and every dark moment.  Wisdom comes when you are absolutely convinced that there is no other way to respond to life than from the truth you have found. This world can only offer people what must stay in this world.  Spiritual wisdom gives people the skill to live in eternity right now.

    Jesus’ message from Palm Sunday to Easter symbolized everything he had taught during his ministry.   Holy Week is an eternal symbol for humanity of what has the power to end all conflict and to keep us spiritually healthy during every life-reversal and disappointment. No matter what comes up to challenge us from friends, loved ones or our vocational environment, he taught “Forgive your brothers and sisters.  Let go of every response save that of loving without counting the cost.” By living this way, we are bringing to our chaotic world the Spirit of the One that created it. We become participants in channeling God’s Spirit through our living.  Are we doing this or are we focused more on worshipping Jesus and celebrating what he has done for us?  There is a big difference.

    A well-informed nutritionist is someone who has dedicated his or her life to teaching people how to discard their unhealthy habits and replace them with new ones that will restore and maintain the health of our bodies. We would never think of worshipping that person or celebrating what his or her teachings have done for humanity.  Nutritionists have only shown their followers what the results will be once they begin applying health-producing attitudes and habits to their lives.

    Jesus went through a list of challenges that come up for us today, e.g., disappointment, betrayal, being misunderstood, injustice, abandonment, rejection and punishment.  The circumstances will obviously be different for us, but if Jesus is the nutritionist that provides guidance for nurturing healthy, dynamic spirits, it is we who must do the inner work throughout our lives to make those lessons visible.     

    In other words, Jesus did nothing to remove our spiritual immaturities.  His radiating compassion during his suffering, however, pointed to the one response all of us are capable of communicating.  When we bring “forgive them, they know not what they do” to every confrontation in life, God will fill in the details that will eventually lead to a healed world community.  This orientation toward life worked for Jesus and it will work for us.