Rev Kate has asked me to share her sermon from March 25, 2001.
This will become a regular feature on the web site as requested by the
Ministers. I will include a link to the appropriate e-mail address for
feedback and discussion, each time a sermon is shared.
Sermon for April 8, 2001. Palm Sunday. Luke 19:28-40. Even the Stones
"I tell you, if these were silent, even the stones would shout out." Luke
19:40
__________________________________________________
Don't you just love a parade? I remember parades when I was a child: the
Grey Cup parade, the Santa Claus parade, the circus parade, the Rose Bowl
parade on TV. Floats and flowers and clowns and music and horses and elephants!
As an adult now I can see that all of those parades had one thing in
common. They all have an ulterior motive. Ultimately, they were all
advertising a money-making event, and stirring up business.
While it may not be true that all parades are aimed at making money it would
seem that all seek to advertise something. It was like that Jesus' day,
too. When a King or Emperor went to war, a great parade was held. When the
victors came back from battle, they came in a parade. Kings and prophets
alike knew that a parade was a good way to gain the public's attention. This
parade that came to be known as Palm Sunday was deliberately planned by
Jesus. In it he was making a statement of his purpose as the Messiah, the
king of peace told about in prophecy.
Jesus paraded into Jerusalem knowing full well that there was a price on his
head. Earlier in the gospel, he had been warned that his life was wanted.
This parade, then, was a deliberate act of defiance, one planned to draw
attention. The choice of a colt was deliberate, too. It fulfilled another
prophecy: Zechariah 9:9, :"Lo, your king comes to you; / triumphant and
victorious is he, / humble and riding on a donkey, / on a colt, the foal of
a donkey." The colt was not considered to be a lowly beast, as we think of
it today, but it was the animal that kings would ride if they came in peace.
By that time everyone knew about the things that Jesus had been saying. The
word was out that he was the Messiah, come to save them from the Romans. To
have ridden in on a horse would have meant that Jesus was proclaiming war.
The people greeted him as the king of peace.
And so we have this deliberate parade, in which Jesus is at once telling
everyone he is their Messiah, and yet telling them that what they had hoped
for in a Messiah -- someone to go to war with the Romans -- was not to be.
Without words at all, Jesus gives them the message. Jesus does not have to
speak. It is the crowd that speaks and cries out the words: Hosanna! (Save Us!)
In other passages in the gospels Jesus has told people to not tell what they
had seen, or to go and tell no one that they have been healed. He even told
his mother that "It is not my time". In contrast, at the Palm Parade, Jesus
refuses to quiet the people who are his followers, saying that the stones
themselves -- even the stones -- would shout if the people were silenced.
Jesus was now taking full claim of his destiny. The time was right.
What about today? Here, this morning, we had the children crafting
artificial palms, in remembrance of a land where, and a time when, palm
trees grew abundantly. We sing 'Hosanna' in a language we have never known.
For the people in the original parade, the time was right to proclaim Jesus
as Lord. For us, too, it is still the time the time. Since Jesus rose from
the dead and sent the Holy Spirit to be our helper, we have been the hands
and feet of Christ, and it is we who must do all that Jesus wanted his
disciples to do. To the original directions the disciples were given the
modern Christian must add environmental concerns, humanitarian concerns, not
just in a small town, but in the global village.
Certainly some people, including Christians, have been crying out over the
centuries, but it has not been enough to keep up with all of the injustice,
poverty, famine, war, pollution.
When Jesus answered the Pharisees, he referred to the stones, the least
likely things in the landscape to be able to cry out to proclaim Jesus as
Messiah. Now, the stones must speak. Now, the people who think they are
unlikely to make any difference need to proclaim Jesus as Saviour. We may
be unlikely disciples, but we cannot forget that Jesus surrounded himself
with unlikely ones: a hated and cheating tax collector, a political zealot,
a prostitute, men who were not orators, but fishers. We are not any more
likely to be able to speak up than they were. Yet they are the apostles,
the founders and leaders of the Christian faith.
Other who we might consider to have no power to change things have made a
difference. Recently I heard of a boy named Ryan who lives in Kemptville.
He is only nine now, yet when he heard that people in Africa needed clean
water, he set about making money to buy them a well. When he had made the
money ($80) he tried to get the well but he found out it cost more.
Undeterred, he set about making the extra money, and he did it. The news
report I saw last week showed Ryan helping to open that well. It showed
him being interviewed on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Even though society might
say he was unlikely to make a differnece, Ryan did make a difference. One
'stone' in Kemptville spoke up.
Jesus staged a parade to call attention to his mission. In this month's
Observer (the United Church's current events magazine) I read about the
Raging Grannies. These are groups of women all over Canada who dress in
outrageous costumes and stage demonstrations, or visit at conventions, to
get attention for Jesus. They write songs that tell what we have to do as
Christians to make a difference in this world. They do not say, "I can't
do anything, I'm a granny." They have made up their minds to rage!
We, too, can rage! The writer Rudyard Kipling said, "Gardens are not made
by singing, "Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade." Palm Sunday is
our summons to join the parade that calls attention to Jesus' mission.
Write the letter, sign the petition, send the money. Help at Agape Centre
or Feed My Sheep. Volunteer in an organization that makes a difference.
Make your own home environmentally friendly. Pray. Just do something,
instead of deciding it is not worthwhile because you cannot make a
difference, because you are like stones that cannot speak. Jesus said that
the time was right. The time for the justice and peace of Jesus is still
right, and even the stones will cry out.
