“What Was Jesus Seeking To Change?” Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – March 20, 2016 Centenary United Methodist Church
Psalm 118:21-29; Luke 19:28-40 Palm
Sunday This morning we are going to
explore what Jesus was confronting emotionally and spiritually with his
triumphant entry into
Jerusalem. What was he
seeking to change? Before
we discuss this, let us first consider the
religious heritage that Jesus
inherited as a Jew. Perhaps we will better understand why Jesus entered
Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday the way he did and what he was
communicating. Primary for the Jews was
their exclusive relationship with God that began thirteen centuries
earlier. There are over 170
references in the Old Testament that reflect a promise that writers
claim was made by God made Abraham, "The Lord appeared to Abram and said
to him, 'This is the country that I am going to give to your
descendants.'" (Genesis 12:7) The
land of Canaan corresponds to present day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and
Israel. The Jews understood themselves to be
God's Chosen People. No other
population in the world had gotten in on this exclusive arrangement with
God. Because of this powerful
belief, the oral and written history of the Jewish people was viewed as
the unfolding of God's will. Everything
that happened to the Hebrews was caused either by their
faithfulness to their
Covenant with God or by their
turning away from it. God was viewed as their protector, defender and the one that
provided aggressive leadership when the time came for the Hebrews to
enter the land of Canaan. God
was understood by Jewish writers as leading His people to invade,
conquer and destroy the agricultural communities that were already
living there. Under Joshua's leadership, Jericho was totally destroyed.
Every living thing was sacrificed as an
offering of thanksgiving to
God. (Joshua 6:17)
God was described as designing the strategy the Hebrews should
use to destroy the inhabitants of the city of Ai.
This time, however, God told them that they could keep the goods
and livestock for themselves.
(Joshua 8:1-2) There are few Scriptures in the Old Testament that could define
this reign of terror any
better than the following passage: Just as the Lord
your God promised your ancestors, God will give you a land with large
and prosperous cities which you did not build.
The houses will be full of good things which you did not put into
them, and you will gain possession of all the wells that you did not dig
and vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant.
When the Lord brings you into this land and you have all that you
want to eat, make certain that you do not forget that the Lord rescued
you from Egypt, where you were slaves.
(Deuteronomy 6:10f) Before we become judgmental over the savagery and ruthless nature
of the Jews, we need to remember one essential fact.
The Jews were taught by their leaders that the total destruction
of Canaan's inhabitants was God's
will. They never
thought, "Why are we doing this?
These people are like us. This is insane!"
Individual character was formed
by doing what each had been told to do by God.
The Hebrews were taught that the people who had settled
Canaan were infidels that
worshipped various Canannite goddesses.
If we ever wanted to know why a young woman with a Masters Degree
in Psychology would strap to her body an explosive suicide vest and walk
into a crowded marketplace to kill as many people as possible, we must
understand that she had been trained to believe that she had been
handpicked by Allah to
perform a sacred duty of destroying
infidels. Islam means
submission to Allah.
Much that we witness today, where the “conquer
and destroy” mentality is on display by media sources, comes from
teachers that were very much like Joshua.
Over a
thousand years later, Jesus had awakened to a totally new understanding
of God's nature. His
challenge was to teach this more enlightened spirit of God even though
it stood in stark contrast from what centuries of tradition had
instilled in his people. How could Jesus influence the widest possible
audience that wanted salvation
to come in a form that was reminiscent of the days of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob? Jesus decided to make a
triumphal entrance into Jerusalem at a time when the estimated
40,000 permanent residents could swell to over a half million people.
Every year Jews returned to Jerusalem from numerous countries to
celebrate Passover. Jesus
planned to ride into the city fulfilling the
Messianic prophecy from
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 -- a colt, the foal of a donkey.
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 9:9-10) Jesus' entrance definitely got people's attention.
There were wild demonstrations that appeared so threatening that
the Pharisees said, "You see, we have not been successful in containing
him. Look, the entire whole
world is going after him." (John 12:19)
However, Jesus' passive response
burst the bubble of hope that
he was the Messiah for which
generations had been longing. The crowd dissipated as families rejoined each other to celebrate
Passover. Try to imagine the enormity of
the headwinds that Jesus
faced. He had to broaden
his people's understanding of God's nature as one that loves all people
equally. He had to
urge people to move away from their strict obedience to the
Laws of Moses, and in its
place, learn to live lives of unconditional forgiveness toward everyone.
He had to teach that God was not
an external controlling deity who threw thunderbolts and decreed
hundreds of highly specific laws, but rather a loving, gentle,
compassionate, guiding presence within them. Jesus knew that the power
from the illusionary influences of the external world were overwhelming
for most people. Very few people would hear or even want to hear what
Jesus had to say. According to
the religious elite, Jesus was teaching total nonsense. From the solitude of working alone in his carpentry shop, Jesus
observed that in every argument, every social upheaval and every war,
both sides were always
just, fair
and perfectly justified,
according to the perspective of each.
Giant empires like Egypt,
Greece, Persia and Rome had flourished and crumbled because of this
tension. This is the way
the world has been for the last 20,000 years. People in every generation have remained committed to fixing what
they perceive as being wrong
in their social, economic or global environments.
Living a life of struggle
is a noble path.
Knowing that people devote a lot of energy to adjusting what
is happening in the external world is what prompted Jesus to teach that
there is another way, "The path to life is narrow and the way that leads
to it is hard to find, and only a few people ever arrive."
(Matthew 7:14) What did
Jesus mean by this teaching?
He was teaching nothing more than another alternative to
struggling with what appears
right and appears wrong. When the Laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy came into contact with
the Sermon on the Mount, there was conflict.
When Sharia Law of Islam comes into contact with teachings of
universal love, forgiveness and compassion, there will be a sustained
struggle. This is what
happens when both sides believe that their guidance for living was
divinely inspired. We should never become discouraged. Such struggles are all part
of a refining process. The
energy of love is in charge of the slow evolutionary progression of the
human species. Each
time two values struggle for dominance, everyone must adjust to the
results achieved by the winner. If that result does not work, other
struggles will occur again and again. One day the conservative women of Islam, who dress so that only
their eyes are visible, who are denied the opportunity to become more
educated and who are denied entry into the job market by
divine law, will rise up
and confront their male dominated societies and demand equality. Change
will happen! No ideology can convince people over time that God commanded that
major populations must remain second class citizens and be denied the
freedoms others experience. Gandhi knew this as did Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. While massive adjustments in human behavior are required, with
the passage of time change happens! This is part of an on-going refining
process of the human consciousness. Among other things that Jesus was doing on that first Palm Sunday
was planting seeds for future generations.
After traveling all the roads that produce
only fleeting peace, one by
one, people will discover that what they were seeking has been here
since the beginning of time. The
Kingdom of God,
a consciousness that no one can see, is inside of people.
However, since reality is more readily understood by sensory
perception, people look for
salvation to come from outside themselves from saviors, kings,
armies, gods, religious leaders, parliaments, political parties,
presidents and supreme courts. Many Christians have numerous beliefs about what happened on the
cross, none of which Jesus ever mentioned during his ministry.
What he did teach from that
cross was a thread that wove its way through his entire ministry.
Love others, even when
they hate and despise you.
For Jesus, this attitude toward others was the only one that
mattered.
It will take eons for people
to understand this. The
recycling of humanity's major struggles will not go away until the
moment when people awaken to the presence of
their
divine consciousness within
them. What message can we take home with us this morning?
Jesus once taught, "In my
father's house are many rooms." (John 14:2)
Could it be that these rooms are
already here and what we are doing with our lives is choosing which one
we want to call our home?
Life will always be the way
we choose to experience it.
Our social condition cannot be fixed in a way that will satisfy everyone because people are all living at different stages and levels of maturity in our spiritual growth. However, when we heal our vision by understanding our life-experiences through the eyes of love, we will see that we are already living in paradise. Next week, we will discuss why this is true for all of us. |