“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.