“Need a Change in Attitude?”

Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – April 14, 2019

Centenary United Methodist Church

Psalm 118:19-29; Mark 11:1-11

Palm Sunday

    The first Palm Sunday was loaded with pageantry, symbols, and historical references for the Hebrew people.  Mark is the first Gospel to record this event.  There is little evidence, however, that Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem was seen by many people. What few people may have witnessed occurred just prior to the Passover celebration.

    Passover was and is an enormous global event attracting Jews from all over the world.  Thirty years after the first Palm Sunday, a Roman Governor wanted to know a more exact number of the people who were returning to Jerusalem. The Governor had made a rule that everyone who purchased a lamb had to be feeding at least ten people.  From the twenty-five thousand slaughtered lambs that year, the Governor figured that the approximate number of gathering Jews was two and a half million. The normal population of Jerusalem was seventy-thousand.

    It was nothing but a sheer miracle that the event of Jesus was even remembered.  Most people in Jerusalem had never heard of Jesus. He and his little band of disciples was nothing but a provincial matter for most visitors. 

    The atmosphere of Jerusalem was one where women were gathering the absolute necessities for their main Passover meal.  Vendors were selling all manner of memorabilia, groceries, and lodging for the people.  The occasion was the reunion for many families. Everyone was highly distracted by personal concerns.

    We have to remember what the Passover symbolized to the Jews. God had been flexing his divine powers in order to break Pharaoh's grip on the captivity of the Israelites. The final deed was to send the angel of death to murder the first born among the Egyptians.  It was this event that caused Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.

     Try to imagine what these people believed about the nature of God.  Here is the reference in Exodus:

Take a sprig of hyssop, dip it in the bowl containing the blood of a lamb and wipe it on the doorposts and the beam above the door of your house. No one should leave their dwelling until morning. 

 

When the Lord goes through Egypt to kill the Egyptians, He will see the blood on the beams and the doorposts and will not let the Angel of Death enter your house and kill you.  (Exodus12:22-23)

              Jesus would have nothing to do with this belief that the Hebrews treasured.  To kill people indiscriminately was not a part of Jesus' understanding of God's nature.  Jesus had earlier taught, "Let the children come to me.  Do not hinder them for to such is the Kingdom of God."  (Mathew 19:14)

    However, the mindset of the Jews was that of the powerful war-God, Yahweh, who fought on behalf of the Jews.  To counter this image, Jesus chose to feature the power of someone riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.

    For those who recognized the symbolism of Jesus' humble entrance, they remembered the time in their history when Judas Maccabeus did the same thing before he led the successful revolt against Seleucid Empire (167-160 B.C).  However, in this case, Jesus had no military, no rebels, or major following behind him that would have been threatening the Roman occupation.  The people who appeared threatened by Jesus, ironically, were the religious leaders. (John 12:19)

    What was Jesus message to his onlookers?  Jesus was not a politician.  He did not make any promises.  He made no claims of wanting to give people liberty from the Romans, relief from their tax burden, or rule in any fashion like King David had done. In fact, he did not want to give people anything but another choice.

    What Jesus offered was an invitation to become a citizen of the Kingdom of God that would give them spiritual freedom.  The only cost to his listeners was to make a choice to enter the Kingdom and to begin enjoying what a complete change in their attitudes would bring to them.

    The only enemy that could successfully confront its citizens was found among their everyday experiences. Today, we can think of it this way:  The members of this disguised enemy appear in front of us as our supervisors who may have toxic personalities.  These are men and women who have little or no people-skills to manage those under them.  

    These are the frustrations that come from living. It's the car that won't start because the car's battery was drained of its energy due to a teenage son that did not close the car's door properly allowing the internal ceiling light to burn over the weekend.  It's the daughter who came home from a date at 3:30 a.m.  It's the flight that was cancelled and the information did not reach the passenger in time. It's the response to being passed over for the promotion or not getting a raise in salary. 

    It takes real skill to live in such a Kingdom once the real enemy to our spiritual welfare is recognized.  It means that all of the abrasives of life, the reversals, the little frustrations, and inconveniences must be viewed with an attitude that these are tools to smooth-out our rough edges instead of our responding in a typical fashion with resentment, frustration, or a lack of patience.

    A very close friend of ours had a power-struggle with a supervisor from within her company.  Thankfully, this supervisor worked in a different department. Our friend's task was to correct this supervisor after our friend was ordered by her to leave a certain number of corporate chatrooms where such issues were typically resolved.  She became enraged at this supervisor's arrogance.  But she knew that anger would never help her to give this supervisor a different approach from the one she was using.   

    The final conversation between the two brought a resolution to the issue.    She was successful because she had changed her attitude.  Her immediate supervisor, who had listened to their conversation, had this to say once the matter was resolved:

Sue, you are the only person in the world who could have dealt with this obnoxious woman. No one else wants to deal with her. By the way, just so you are aware, a number of others higher up in the corporate food-chain were also on that call with me.   They were most anxious and curious about how you would handle this issue with her. Sue, you were priceless.

    If anyone tells us that living in the Kingdom of God is all about religious beliefs, they are completely misinformed.  Living in this Kingdom is all about developing a constellation of attitudes that comes when we realize that life is not about getting something right.  It is all about the spirit by which we live.  It has to do with the skills that we develop in dealing with people whose values are in another universe, whose understanding of love has to do with feeding their ego, and whose only tool in their toolbox is a hammer.  People can be found all around us exuding energy like this.  Their role in our lives is to draw-out our best when we change our attitude about what they represent to us.

    Jesus was clearly living his message.  God had no intention of intervening in what Jesus was about to demonstrate.  We could not have a clearer illustration of how to love our enemies than what Jesus demonstrated from the cross minutes before his death. 

    Jesus made it clear that often there is no justice in this world even for the Son of God.  What justice there is, remains among those who hold the power in this world.  Perfect justice, however, is clearly defined by what is going on inside of us on a daily basis whether or not anyone else notices. 

    The person that we can never deceive is the one whose reflection we see in a mirror. Throughout eternity, we are what we are.  We remain what our thoughts and emotions have made of us.  Who we are has nothing to do with our appearance.   God loves all of us.  God's forgiving nature extends to all of us. God's love and forgiveness, however, cannot replace the missing or flawed parts of a person's character, values, and humility.   Those tasks are ours and ours alone to develop, manage, and control.  Jesus only supplied the tool that would heal such things – a change in attitude.

    That first Palm Sunday was a simple invitation that flowed from a humble carpenter who was holding on to the treasure that really mattered.  Such power would not be attractive to the power-brokers of this world.  However, the treasure that Jesus was holding on to will serve us greatly in our next world where our qualities of spirit ultimately matter. That treasure was his attitude that was molded and shaped by his loving spirit.

    If we need a change in attitude because some things are not working in our lives, Jesus would teach us, "Change your attitude and you will change how you see the world."

     

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

Thank you, merciful God, that Jesus helped humanity to think differently about a Messiah. We know how powerful our beliefs can become in governing our understanding. We know how many times we have prayed to be delivered from facing our more challenging circumstances.  Rather than thinking in terms of deliverance and salvation, Jesus taught us to love those that many consider to be of lesser value. Inspire in us the development of the same level of trust in your loving presence that Jesus demonstrated.   Amen.

     

PASTORAL PRAYER

How wonderful it is, O God, that we can remember Palm Sunday and review the mixture of emotions that were displayed by Jesus’ followers.  There were a host of distractions of which very few had to do with Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem.  We can hardly imagine the chaos and confusion caused by an influx of people that boosted the population of the capital city by more than three hundred percent.  The miracle is that Jesus entrance into Jerusalem has been preserved for us to remember.

As we continue our journey toward Easter morning, we do so knowing that our travels take us among others whose awareness of truth may be different from ours. We do so knowing how confusing and chaotic many of our societies are even in today's world.  Jesus entered Jerusalem knowing that few would understand his reason for doing so.  Few would know that his Kingdom could only take form within people and that there would never be a Messiah like the one in whom they placed their hope.  No King David was coming to save them.

Open our spirits, O God, to Jesus’ message.  He encountered similar ignorance, pettiness, those who still were clinging to old images of a savior, and the deceptive nature of power that is present in every culture.  The noise and chaos have not been powerful enough to put out his light, a light that has burned brightly for thousands of years.  We look forward eagerly to celebrating Jesus resurrection. With grateful hearts, we pray the words Jesus taught his followers to say when they prayed . . .