“Living Peacefully In Organized Chaos” Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – March
25, 2018 Centenary United Methodist Church
Psalm 118: 19-29; Mark 11:1-11
Palm Sunday This morning we
are going to discuss Palm Sunday in a way that may be different for a
number of you. Because this is
such a familiar occasion that is celebrated each year, I try to find
some nugget of information
that will help us to personalize such moments by giving them more
meaning.
Have we ever wondered
about the actual influence that Jesus' entrance into When we think
about the first Palm Sunday, we know that the event took place during
Passover. Most of us have
little or no idea about what it was like to experience the
organized chaos that routinely
took place annually in Celebrating
Passover was an occasion like we would celebrate Christmas and Easter.
This national observance was a major economic boom for Thirty years
after the first Palm Sunday, the Roman governor took a census of the
number of lambs that were slaughtered for the Passover meal. By Roman
methods of accounting, the number came to slightly over 250,000 lambs.
There was a
firmly established Jewish law that a person could only purchase a lamb
if he or she intended to feed at least ten people.
If the number of the Roman census is accurate, this meant that
two and a half million people were crowded into The atmosphere
of We have to
remember that the attention of most of the Jews during Passover was to
celebrate the memory of what happened 1250 years earlier.
These people were not thinking about toppling the Roman
authorities. No one was
thinking that the promised Messiah
would come in the fashion that Jesus entered Jerusalem.
If there was to
be a triumphant entry into Because of the
vast number of distractions happening among over two million people,
Jesus would have attracted very little attention as he rode into The only
excitement generated by Jesus' entrance into History would
have never recorded this event had it not been from the reported
appearances of Jesus on Easter morning. Following Jesus' resurrection
experiences, a great deal of attention was given by Jesus' followers and
the authors of the Gospel to details of his entrance into This act would
define the kind of Messiah that Jesus represented. He would become
the king of our inner world
that has no end. He would save
people not by changing the form of the government once again as King
David had done, but by teaching how to live creatively and lovingly in
our world just as it is. Ninety-nine
percent of the people attending the celebration of the Passover that
year missed the message Jesus was illustrating.
Jesus wanted to be seen as a liberator of people from being
tyrannized by the countless illusionary distractions of this world.
He taught qualities of spirit like peace, acceptance, community,
and cooperation. Paul listed
other qualities in one of his letters. (Galatians 5:22) What is
miraculous is that the memory of Palm Sunday and what Jesus was
communicating has been preserved for thousands of years.
The history of Christianity, however, tells us that
the headwinds to Jesus'
message became even more distracting and intense following his
resurrection experiences.
During the
centuries that followed, The Way of Jesus, as the
movement was described, slowly became institutionalized with a hierarchy
of Bishops, church leaders and clergy that continued
to
refine Jesus' message. The simple
seeds that Jesus sowed of love your neighbors, your enemies, and forgive others constantly
fell on the unfertile ground.
His seeds landed on the soil that sprouted The
Holy Roman Empire,
Papal authority, power-wielding clergy, marching armies during the
Crusades, the Holy Inquisition, the exclusive access of
Christians to God's love, and that
the true path of salvation
was lined by the beliefs of a person instead of by the spirit by which
he or she lived. Just as the celebration and meaning of Passover often became hijacked by the organized chaos of its preparation, so The Way of Jesus was evolving into a world religion. Christianity slowly began to lose its ability to help people personalize and internalize what Jesus had been teaching. If we were to
look in our own culture for how the essence and meaning of a sacred
celebration can become lost during its preparation, we need to look no
further than what can take place during some wedding ceremonies. Every pastor
that has officiated at a good number of marriage ceremonies could write
a book about the organized chaos involved in all phases of planning for weddings,
particularly when they become major
productions.
One bride came into my office during my meeting with the couple
with an organized binder that was six inches thick. I have
officiated at a wedding where the family rented the There have been
a number of occasions where the bride's father gave his daughter a
choice, "Honey, your mother and I will give you the 20 percent down
payment on the home of your dreams anywhere in the When weddings
involve a major financial expense, a pastor quickly learns that he or
she is reduced to becoming a necessary functionary in the midst of many
moving parts that must be synchronized with precision.
The attention given to the details of these major dramas becomes
far more important than celebrating the love of two people.
Weddings of this nature are seldom ones of which dreams are made.
There is the
purchase of a one-of-a-kind designer wedding dress, wedding rings that
are exquisite art forms, violin ensembles, soloists, florists,
photographers, videographers, the planning for an elaborate rehearsal
dinner, getting six fraternity brothers to behave themselves, getting
all the women to the beauty salon within the same time-line to have
their hair done, the planning of an expansive reception following the
wedding and the involvement of the all important wedding
coordinator who can have the personality of a dictator.
Well-seasoned pastors are way ahead of such games of organized chaos by realizing that their role is one of necessity whose opinion is seldom sought, valued, or needed. Pastors do well to surrender any control they normally have by realizing that "This, too, shall pass." AND, it always does. The result of
all the highly choreographed unfolding of this
dream wedding is a woman who
comes down the aisle on her big
day like a zombie, heavily medicated from all the stress. Many
brides seldom remember anything that was discussed during the rehearsal,
let alone recall what had just happened when the wedding is over.
This is when wedding pictures
become invaluable. Meanwhile,
everyone in the massive congregation wants the ceremony to end quickly
because their appetites and thirst are waiting to experience the bounty
of heavy hors d'oeuvres, carving stations, the ever important open bar,
the loud music and dancing. In
fact, the modern trend among their
dearest friends is to skip the wedding ceremony and head straight to
the reception. If the pastor
is invited to pray at the reception, many listeners are so unaccustomed
to hearing a prayer that they burst into thunderous applause at its
conclusion as though the prayer had been part of this
beautifully choreographed,
well-synchronized This is what
has happened to Jesus' easy-to-understand lessons for living when
pageantry, doctrine, dogma, sacred rituals, pompous clerics, domestic
needs, and financial assets have actually
hijacked the mission and
teaching of a humble carpenter.
It is nothing but a sheer miracle that anything of substance about
Jesus' mission has survived, but it did.
None of this would have lasted had it not been for
the divine architect behind
all the
organized chaos. Hardly anyone
noticed that first Palm Sunday while it was occurring.
Just as Jesus had become the leaven for the loaf by being a Savior that no one recognized,
so must we. With time,
God is changing the world through the ministry of a humble carpenter who
lived and died in one of the most remote parts of the world.
God also uses
Jesus' future disciples like us who are helping others to find their way
through the organized chaos caused by illusions, mirages, fake news, and of
fulfilling dreams that have no
substance. God's patience will
never become exhausted or disturbed by the numerous distractions,
detours, and smoke screens that the world continues to put in the path
of God's will.
All of God's children are loved
and they will come home when each is finished playing in the
organized chaos they found in
our physical world. With all that Jesus taught and demonstrated, what he
wanted people to understand was that
his kingdom is not of
this world. He was teaching people the qualities that will work when
they leave this life. We can live in
both worlds quite successfully when we have the greater insights that
are produced by seeing the broader picture. It is
then that Palm Sunday is of great value to us.
We know the kind of world Jesus was demonstrating both by his
entrance into CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER Thank
you, merciful God, for Jesus who helped humanity to think differently
about a Messiah. We know how many times we have prayed to be delivered from
painful circumstances and awkward moments. Rather than desiring
deliverance, Jesus taught us how to be part of finding solutions by
showing up as peace makers. Yet, many people remain blind to love. How
quickly the enthusiastic crowd of Palm Sunday was silenced by the cries
for the release of Barabbas! We have learned that being
the leaven for the loaf may
take thousands of years to accomplish.
Amen. PASTORAL PRAYER Loving and creative God, how wonderful it
is that we can remember Palm Sunday while imagining all the mixture of
emotions on display by the participants.
There was the pride of the disciples as they walked beside the
Master. There was the mood of expectancy that Jesus might be the Messiah
that was promised by the prophets of their ancestors.
How often we are
tempted to want someone or some event in our world to save us
from our fears.
We know
throughout history, people have looked for
saviors that appear in many different forms.
Sometimes we have searched for someone to end our loneliness.
We have longed for a pill that works for weight loss.
We have longed for the inspiration that helps us to believe in
ourselves so that we can reach our dreams.
We can easily misunderstand Jesus’ invitation to follow him as a
recipe for filling our lives with miraculous events.
Such a hope can block our remembrance that he wandered from place
to place, was publicly attacked by respected citizens, consorted with
people who society tolerated as undesirables, and was crucified between
two thieves. As we continue
our journey with Jesus, we do so knowing the imperfections of our world.
Comfort us with the knowledge that Jesus also experienced the same
darkness, the same temptations, the same uncertainties, and the same
lack of justice and fairness that can come to any of us.
Help us to refine our understanding that we are your children and
no one can take that relationship away from us. We pray these thoughts
through the spirit of Jesus, the Christ who taught us to say when we
pray . . . |