Tag Archives: Zechariah

Palm Sunday B – The Lord Has Need of It

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The Lord Has Need of It

A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor © 2018

Palm Sunday • March 25, 2018

Mark 11:1-11

Today is Palm Sunday, an annual celebration with so many memories for me. In other places, other times, I’ve often spent hours planning dramatic worship services. I’ve imagined and then helped churches gather groups to parade down the aisle, bought and handed out hundreds of bits of palm leaves. I’ve encouraged people to wave them, throw them, brought clothes in to simulate the things thrown on the donkey Jesus rode. I’ve never actually bought a donkey in a sanctuary but I’ve discussed it and once I even got close to having one ready to go. So today, in this place, on this Sunday, it seems a little quiet. But in this place, on this morning, what I hope is that we can look at the real Jesus, the real events, the real meaning. What does Palm Sunday have to do with Jesus? What does it have to do with us?

The first thing to understand is the setting. Jerusalem sits on top of a small mountain with winding paths up the slopes. Its tall walls were crowned with the glittering gold of the temple pinnacle and many of the temple walls were clad with white marble that glittered in the hot, bright Near Eastern sun. It’s almost Passover and pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean world are gathering in this sacred place, returning to the City of David to remember their heritage. 
The city is packed to capacity and religious fervor rises. Several years before Jesus and in coming years, that fervor led to riots, spurts of rebellion and the inevitable Roman reaction with red blood running in the streets.

On this day, the stream of pilgrims walking up the paths is pushed aside by a parade. Representing the Son of God, a contingent of Roman soldiers are marching to Jerusalem to enforce the Roman law. “Son of God” is one of the names Romans applied to Emperor Tiberius. For about fifty years, the Romans had seen their leaders as having a kind of divinity, affirmed by their power. Power, in this case, really meant the ability to kill people. Get in the way of Rome, violate Roman law, fail to pay your taxes, and the ultimate Roman answer was violence. From Persia to Spain, Roman law was built on the threat of Roman swords, Roman crucifixion, Roman slavery.

Now, up the western slopes of Mt. Zion, the Roman soldiers wind their way, Roman officers mounted on horses, Roman standards held high. It was a show meant to show off the threat of Rome. How the Jewish king, hated by his own people, must have loved seeing those banners. Worried rulers always love military parades.

Knowing this is going on, knowing the main event, we can turn to the other side of the city where there is also a procession. This one is small, this one is unruly, it has no standards and its leader is ridiculous. The Son of Man, a translation of a phrase that means the representative person, the humble person, is coming to Jerusalem on a donkey. It’s not even a sleek, cool donkey, this one is nursing a colt. Can you imagine it? Can you see it?

I’ve never ridden a donkey, have you? So I went online and it turns out there are directions there for riding a donkey. It says adults are too big for donkeys; so I imagine Jesus with his feet hanging down, dragging along the path. Donkeys have a slow, plodding walk; this procession isn’t going anywhere fast.

Behind Jesus, perhaps around Jesus, are the people who have followed him from Galilee. One writer says,

Jesus came into Jerusalem dragging the world in behind him. He’d spent most of his ministry with what the Pharisees regarded as all the wrong people in all the wrong places. He’d befriended women of dubious reputations, touched lepers, dined with tax collectors, done favors for despised Roman soldiers, held up Samaritans as heroes even as he turned Pharisees into villains. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, he had all of these folks in tow.
[http://yardley.cs.calvin.edu/hoezee/2000/mark11PalmSun.html]

It’s a strange group and here they are, slowly walking behind Jesus, walking behind the Son of Man on a donkey. I can’t imagine anyone is paying attention. After all, on the other side of town, the Roman general is riding a horse, sitting comfortably and grandly up there, with ranks of perfectly disciplined soldiers.

Now that we have the picture in mind, we come back to the story Mark tells and immediately once again to this donkey. What is it about the donkey that’s so important? Jesus makes a huge point of giving instructions about it. There’s endless argument: does he know what will happen or has he planned it? Does he know the donkey owner? Has it been previously rented by some advance disciple? What is the deal with the donkey?
The donkey is a reminder of the hope of God’s covenant. The prophet Zechariah had said,

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
   Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
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.
[Zechariah 9:9]

There is Jesus, just as the prophet had said: this teacher comes as the Son of Man, so powerful he can look powerless. The Roman general needs his horse to look important; Jesus IS important. The hope he embodies is also in the testimony of Zechariah,

He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
   and the warhorse from Jerusalem;
and the battle-bow shall be cut off,
   and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea,
   and from the River to the ends of the earth. 
As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
   I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. 
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
   today I declare that I will restore to you double. 
[Zechariah 9:10-12]

The symbols of worldly power, the arrogance of calling a man Son of God, is marching on the other side of Jerusalem. But here comes the Son of Man, riding on a silly donkey; he can afford to be silly—for God is riding with him. The armies of Rome are marching on the other side of Jerusalem, ordered ranks, swords showing. Nervous rulers always need military parades.
But here comes the Son of Man and his followers are all kinds of people: men, women, gentiles, Jews, sinners and they are together shouting, “Hosanna!” “Hosannah!” They are what Zechariah described as the prisoners of hope and they have been released; their cry of joy echoes from the hills. The Son of Man comes on a donkey: the Spirit of the Lord renews the covenant, the new covenant that invites us all.

This is where we come to the second meaning of the donkey: the donkey is a decision. Remember what Jesus says,

Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. 3If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’  [Mark 11:2-3]

Someone owns that donkey. Someone pays for that donkey, pays to keep it, pays to stable it, someone uses that donkey for work and getting places. Think of it as your car; think of it as yours.

Now some guys you don’t really know who have a strange accent come and start up your donkey. They sound like they’re from Texas; definitely not from here. Perhaps you saw them when you heard that young prophet from Galilee and you vaguely remember them. When you ask what they’re doing, they say, “The Lord has need of it.” What would you do?

That’s the heart of this story: it all flows from this moment, this decision. “The Lord has need of it.” The challenge of Palm Sunday is just this: whatever you have, the Lord has need of it. Like quilter assembling bits and pieces into a beautiful tapestry, Jesus takes the hurts and hopes of these people he has dragged with him to Jerusalem and makes them a covenant community, a caring community in the new covenant in his blood.

So now we come to our Palm Sunday and like the donkey’s owner, we also are told the Lord has need of what we have: what will we do?

Are you grieving? the Lord has need of it; those who grieve shall be comforted, he says. So bring our grief—his hope is for you, shown to the world in you.
bring him your grief

Are you joyful? Can you see the Lord in your life, blessing you, showing you the beauty of creation, helping you to feel God close and present? The Lord has need of it: 
bring your joy.

Are you hungry? the Lord has need of your hunger, because hungry people are ready to be fed. He’s already fed thousands and he means to nourish us as well, with the bread of life. 
bring him your hunger

Are you doubtful? The Lord has need of your doubts: bring them to him. He never asked anyone to go beyond where their faith would take them.
bring your doubts.

Are you guilty? the Lord has need of it: he’s bringing a new covenant, where forgiveness is the gate to go into glory. 
bring him your guilt.

This one man, whose donkey the Lord needed, became the doorway to a procession we remember down the ages, that we remember when no one but historians remembers the Roman soldiers. This donkey the Lord needed is remembered when the general and his horse are just a footnote.

The Lord has need of it: someone heard, someone said yes, and the donkey became a platform from which the Son of Man proclaimed the fulfillment of God’s covenant had come to Jerusalem. Now every day, every time, we hear the Lord saying about us, about our lives, our whole selves, the good parts and the bad, the hurts and the hopes, that the Lord has need of it. When we give him the reins, the same thing happens. The cries of Hosanna are heard; the procession goes forward. And the words of the psalmist come true: the king of glory comes in.

Amen.

Thine Is the Glory – Learning the Lord’s Prayer 6

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Montserrat

A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor

Palm Sunday • March 20, 2016

Copyright 2016 • All Rights Reserved

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever, amen.

We are drawing near the end of the Lord’s Prayer and the beginning of Holy Week, a time we remember the story of the final days of Jesus’ earthly presence, the days when he was first acclaimed, then reviled, then arrested, tortured, and crucified, executed as a criminal. Sometimes church tradition divides, like the Hudson flowing around an island. One stream of worship tradition celebrates today as Passion Sunday, reading and reflecting on this whole store of Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem. Another, and the one we follow today, focuses on his entry to Jerusalem, riding on a donkey.

Going Up to Jerusalem

So let us imagine that scene for a moment. The dusty trails have converged into a winding road, the road is filled with pilgrims going up to Jerusalem. The city shines before them quite literally: Herod Antipas rebuilt the temple with a golden dome that so brightly reflected the sun, it was said to be hard to look directly at it. The city is surrounded by imposing walls with towers at the gates and streams of people crowd together on their way to the city. Among them, Jesus’ followers are simply one group among many.

While the gospel accounts united in telling us Jesus comes in a kind of procession, there are various accounts. Matthew and Mark speak of branches being cut and laid down along with garments, which is the the reason we decorate with palms; Luke doesn’t mention these at all. I was brought up with a picture of Jesus parading, like the soldiers and bands on Memorial Day, with crowds standing aside and perhaps that’s how you imagine this scene. More likely, his followers are simply part of a larger crowd, noisy, happy, like spring breakers on the way to a holiday.

Jesus is not the only leader on his way to Jerusalem. Potius Pilate is also making a processional at the same time. Perhaps he comes in a sedan chair, carried by slaves; perhaps he rides a war horse, we’re not sure. Certainly he is followed by ranks and ranks of Roman legionnaires, their swords sheathed for now but a visible reminder that Rome’s rule, like all empires, is founded on violence.

Surely in the crowd there are other rabbis, like Jesus, and their followers as well and of course, more than leaders, military or religious there are simple people, people like you and I, going to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, going to a festival, going to a party. Have you been to Lark Street festival, have you been to Fourth of July in a busy place, perhaps the streets of Lake George on a prime summer afternoon? Then you know what this crowd is like, it’s like all crowds. Yet within the crowd, something unique is about to happen. The glory of the Lord is about to shine and no one has any idea.

The Story of the Donkey

Did you listen to the part about the donkey? It’s an odd little parenthesis in the story. We’re marching to the Jerusalem, you know, I know, we’re on the way and it’s frustrating to stop for this little detail. “Go get me a donkey,” Jesus tells his disciples, explaining where to go, and just to say this one simple phrase if asked: “The Lord has need of it.” So they go, they get asked, they say what they were told and they come back with the donkey.

That must have been quite a little trip: have you ever tried to lead an unbroken donkey? I wonder how many times they got kicked, cursed, had to stop and quiet the animal. Yet they do as they’re told: the Lord has need of it. Now Luke is anxious to connect this story to a prophecy from Zechariah that says,

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
   Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
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.
[Zechariah 9:9]

Yet in the story is an amazing challenge for us as well. Imagine being asked for something with this simple explanation: “The Lord has need of it”. Suppose it is something you value, something you planned to use, hoped to have for some time. Now the request comes: now you have to decide. The Lord has need of it. What would you give?
 
We don’t think much of donkeys but the donkey is a symbol: throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, riding a donkey is a symbol of royal entrance. One writer, in fact, suggests that if Jesus had indeed come as Luke portrays, he would immediately have been arrested. Surely the people present understand the symbolism: it is the reason he is acclaimed, it is the reason he is cheered, it is the reason for the acclamation. For Jesus comes as a king to announce his kingdom, as he has from his beginning. Just like his beginning, according to Luke, it starts in the stable, with the owner of the donkey, giving it up, handing it over because, “The Lord has need of it.”

Now they bring the donkey to Jesus; someone no doubt is worried. What will happen when he mounts it? Will he get thrown? Somehow the one who stilled the seas quiets the donkey and suddenly, like a king, he’s riding at their head. Suddenly for a moment they can see: the kingdom is literally coming in the person of the king. The glory of the Lord is in that moment, when someone simply gives what they have because the Lord has need of it.

Thine Is the Glory

We’ve been following the Lord’s prayer line by line for weeks now, all through Lent. Today we reach the last line: “Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever and ever.” The first question we might ask about this line of the prayer is why we say it at all. If you look, you’ll quickly find that neither Matthew nor Luke who give us versions of the Lord’s Prayer have this line. Our Bibles are translations of translations, documents handed down over generations, and the gospels come in two different flavors. One flavor had the line but the one from which the King James Bible and all subsequent English Bibles did not. Yet, we know from other documents that the early church added this line to the prayer early in its life. “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.”

What does it mean to speak of the glory of the Lord? What does it mean to take seriously God’s power and acknowledge God’s reign? It begins from the first thing God told us to do in the garden, at our creation: to appreciate. The poet Mary Oliver says somewhere”Attention is the beginning of devotion.” Palm 29 says,

The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; The LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. 9The voice of the LORD makes the deer to calve And strips the forests bare; And in His temple everything says, “Glory!” 10The LORD sat as King at the flood; Yes, the LORD sits as King forever.…[Psalm 29:8-10]

It is a poor life that has no moment which is not touched by some appreciation for larger forces, something bigger, something we know is spiritual even if we don’t have the words to say what we have felt. The truth is, there are no words: there is only the experience, the act itself, the moment in which the glory of the Lord shines in your life. Theologians write whole books and preachers craft sermons but the true glory of God is glimpsed in the moment when God chooses, God acts, God comes to play.

God’s Glory Shines

This was such a moment and it’s the reason the story is told and retold and acted out and remembered all these years later. And the donkey? He’s not a parenthesis, he’s not an incidental detail. For the glory of the Lord comes enabled by some nameless person who owned a donkey and when told, “The Lord has need of it”, gladly gave.

We are together here the Body of Christ: we are the concrete expression of his life in this community, this place, this world. Our challenge isn’t to fill up these pews, it isn’t to make our budget balance, it isn’t to make the wheels go round in our organization. Our challenge is to help people see the glory of the Lord, feel the power of God’s love, see what it looks like when God reigns.

So when we pray, surely it’s right for us to ask this, say this, hope this: “Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.” How will we open the door to this prayer? Just like this story. For each of has talents, each of us has gifts. When we hear, as we each shall, “The Lord has need of it,” and we share those talents and gifts, then indeed, the prayer is fulfilled. Then indeed the reign of God is acclaimed. The need the power of God is obvious. Then indeed, the glory of the Lord shines forth. Then indeed, as the hymn says, “Thine is the glory, risen, conquering Lord.”

Amen.