FEAST ON FORGIVENESS

A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter (Year B)

by Pastor Laura Gentry

Luke 24:36b-48

On Easter Sunday—two weeks ago—my husband and I headed to Dubuque after we’d finished our Easter worship duties. We were celebrating the resurrection with my parents. Since it was just the four of us this year, we opted not to make our own feast. Instead, we went out for a fancy buffet. I haven’t been to a buffet in a long time. I’d forgotten how difficult it is to make choices about what to eat at an all-you-can eat banquet. After a while, you get too full to walk and you have to sort of roll yourself out to the parking lot. I remember once I ate so much at a buffet that I announced I was unable to even lick my spoon! Though this year’s Easter banquet was delicious, I ended up thinking how ridiculous it was that we’d eaten quite that much.

Yet now as I continue to study the resurrection scripture lessons through the season of Easter, I am beginning to think our massive Easter banquet was actually appropriate. Why? Because as the gospel of Luke describes it, Easter is not just about the empty tomb, it is about eating. Jesus himself, it seems, spent the first Easter eating.

In the portion before today’s Gospel reading, Jesus makes himself known to two disciples in Emmaus through the breaking of the bread. Now in today’s reading, he demonstrates that he is not a ghost by devouring a piece of fish. His disciples gather around the table too. Like us, they celebrated the resurrection of Jesus by sharing a meal—perhaps they didn’t get a fancy “omelet station” like I did at the Easter buffet I attended, but they had a meal nevertheless.

And it wasn’t their first meal together. We remember, of course, the last supper Jesus and his disciples shared in the upper room the night he was betrayed. At that meal, he assured them that he would be with them in the bread and wine even after he was gone from them in body. No wonder the disciples later recognized Jesus in the breaking of bread at Emmaus—it reminded them of this landmark last supper.

But Jesus had already spent his entire ministry with the disciples, he had already shared countless meals with them and he had already given them the amazing experience of the last supper—a gift that would keep on giving. So why would he need to keep showing up after the resurrection to convince them that he had really risen?

We don’t know Jesus’ motivation for sure but we do know what his post-resurrection appearances accomplished in the disciples. It gave them a deep sense of forgiveness. Remember that according to the gospels, the disciples weren’t there for Jesus in his time of need. Fearing for their lives, they all fled when the Romans came to arrest Jesus. Peter denied him three times even though Jesus warned him he would do so.

They had good reason to feel guilty. They had failed their Lord and Savior. Though he’d spent so much time with them, they were failures when the rubber hit the road. Pathetic might be the best word to describe the followers at the time of the crucifixion and resurrection. But then Jesus comes to them in his resurrected body. He offers them forgiveness and embodies this by eating with them. In Biblical times you would never eat with someone against whom you held a grudge. Eating with them demonstrated that all was well between you. These caring appearances and shared meals utterly transformed the disciples. That must be the reason Jesus came to them.

Now Jesus didn’t appear in body in our modern world. We have no photographs of him or TV interviews and so it would be easy to dismiss the story of the resurrection as fiction. There’s no proof Jesus rose. If you made that argument, you would be right. There is no scientific evidence to prove the Easter story.

What we do have, however, is the convincing evidence that something changed the disciples entirely. They went from a ragtag group of run-aways to the greatest evangelists you can imagine—evangelists who were so zealous to spread the good news that many gave their lives for the cause. Something changed them. We believe it was not something, but someone. It was the loving, forgiving Jesus who came to them and ate with them until they were convinced that their sin was wiped away and they were equipped to carry on the ministry Jesus had begun.

Forgiveness of sins—that’s what Jesus brought to them and to us. That is what he has always been about. Even as he was dying, Jesus asked for forgiveness for those who were killing him (Luke 23:34). In Jesus’ appearance to the disciples in the doubting Thomas story from John’s gospel, he told them that they had the power to forgive sin. Just as God had forgiven them, they were called to forgive the sins of others. This echos the important lesson in the Lord’s Prayer he had already given them: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Do WE know forgiveness? Do we know it in our hearts—that Jesus rose from the dead for US? For the forgiveness of OUR offenses? Does this give us the inspiration to turn away from our ways of sin and to forgive others as they wrong us? It certainly should.

The German theologian, Karl Rahner, wrote: “we are always tempted to stay in sin because we do not dare to believe in the magnificent love of God, and because we do not want to believe that God will forgive us our sins” (The Content of Faith, p. 306).

We do not dare to believe in the magnificent love of God. How tragic! I remember once when I was a child, a bird flew into our window and injured itself. The neighbors and I ran after the flopping, hurting bird—attempting to capture it so we could get it treatment. We were trying to help, but the bird didn’t want to let us help. It didn’t understand. It was afraid. We were unable to catch it and later found it’s body in the lawn.

When I think about how desperately God wants to love us and how unwilling we are at times to let God love us, I think of that dying bird. We are only hurting ourselves when we attempt to go it alone—pushing against the God who made us and who given his life to redeem us. But it is hard for us to ask for help and to really allow God to love and forgive us. God’s love is foreign to us. No where else do we experience such unconditional love and forgiveness. It is hard to trust in it when others have promised love and then let us down. Yet by the gift of faith, we CAN trust in this love, we CAN accept this forgiveness and we CAN be changed into loving people who offer forgiveness to others.

Jesus love and undeserved forgiveness offered to the disciples in the concrete experience of shared meals changed the denying Peter, the doubting Thomas and the run-away disciples into the heros of faith God designed them to be. Jesus continue to offer this love and forgiveness to us in the Lord’s Super and in the Word. May we also feast on forgiveness that we may be transformed to change the world with God’s love. Amen.


© 2009 Laura E. Gentry

THE BANANA PEEL OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

A Sermon for Holy Hilarity Sunday
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Ha ha ha! Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Ha ha ha!

Happy Holy Hilarity Sunday—the fun Sunday where we get to wear silly costumes and enjoy some laughs in church. Why? Because the early church found humor an appropriate way to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. It’s God’s great joke on the devil. Oh yes, the devil thought he’d won and Christ was dead but three days later...ha ha ha! He is risen! It’s the unexpected ending that really makes it funny. Some call the resurrection the banana peel of the Christian faith, the cosmic pratfall. Yes, with the resurrection, God has the last laugh.

And we can laugh, too, because the joy of the Lord is our strength. Laughter is a holy thing that really helps us embody the exciting reality that Jesus is risen from the dead now death has no more sting. We can laugh in the face of death, fully confident in the power of God. Ha ha ha!

So here’s this year’s set of thoroughly researched Holy Hilarity jokes. First, we begin with the knock knock jokes. You’ve got to play along.

Knock,knock.
Who’s there?
Ether
Ether who?
Ether bunny.

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Juan
Juan who?
Juan more ether bunny.

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Samoa
Samoa who?
Samoa Ether Bunnies.

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Dewey
Dewey who?
Dewey have to listen to any more ether bunny jokes?


Now, on to the question and answer jokes. I’ll ask the question and you’ll say, “I don’t know!” and then I’ll give you the punch line. Go ahead and groan if you need to.

Q. Where do Easter Bunnies go for new tails?
A. To the retail store.

Q. Do you know how to find the Easter bunny if he was lost?
A. Make a noise like a carrot; he’ll find you.

Q. What’s the best way to catch a unique rabbit?
A. You ‘nique up on him.

Q. How do you catch a tame rabbit?
A. Tame way, unique up on it.

Q. What did the bunny say when he only had thistles to eat?
A. Thistle have to do!

Q: What did the rabbit say to the carrot?
A: It’s been nice gnawing you.

Q. What is a rabbit’s favorite dance?
A. The Bunny Hop, of course.

Q. What does the Easter Rabbit get for making a basket?
A. Two points just like everybody!

Q: What do you call the Easter Bunny the Monday after Easter?
A: Tired.

Now on to some story jokes.

The Ten Commandments
A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds. After explaining the commandment to "honor thy father and thy mother," she asked,"Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?"
Without missing a beat one little boy answered, "Thou shall not kill."

Painting the church
A contractor was hired to paint a church and he began the job strong. But soon he realized he wasn’t going to have enough to finish the job. Not wanting to spend any more money on supplies, he simply added some water to the paint. Thing were going well but then he realized he was going to need to water it down even further. By the time he got to the end, the paint was almost entirely water. Just then, a big rain cloud burst out with rain. The whole church began to run. The paint was dripping, dripping down the side of the church and it looked horrible.

In anguish, the contractor suddenly got religious. He looked up to heaven and said, “Oh Lord, this paint job is all botched. Now what shall I do?”

A voice thundered out from heaven with this advise: "Repaint, repaint, and thin no more!"


The Nursery
Once I was at a church and I noticed that they had a nice plaque on a door in the Sunday School area. It that had 1 Corinthians 15:51 on it, which reads: "Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." I didn’t think anything of it until I opened the door and realized the significance of the verse—it was on the door leading to the church nursery.

Out Of Gas
A nun who works for a local home health care agency was out making her rounds when she ran out of gas. Now there was a station just down the street so she walked to the station to borrow a can with enough gas to start the car and drive to the station for a fill up.

The attendant regretfully told her that the only can he owned had just been loaned out.

Since the nun was desperate to see the patient she went back to her car and looked for something to carry to the station to fill with gas. She spotted the bedpan she was taking to the patient. Always resourceful, she carried it to the station, filled it with gasoline, and carried it back to her car.

As she was pouring the gas into the tank of her car two men walked by. One of them turned to the other and said: "Now that is what I call faith!"

God’s Workmanship
A little girl was sitting on her grandfather’s lap as he read her a bedtime story.
From time to time, she would take her eyes off the book and reach up to touch his wrinkled cheek. She was alternately stroking her own cheek, then his again.
Finally she spoke up, “Grandpa, did God make you?”

“Yes, sweetheart,” he answered, “God made me a long time ago.”

“Oh,” she paused, “Grandpa, did God make me too?”

“Yes, indeed, honey,” he said, “God made you just a little while ago.”

Feeling their respective faces again, she observed, “God’s getting better at it, isn’t he?”

Laughing for the Joy of the Lord

Now we are going to practice laughing with the joy of the Lord. I am going to read you happy Bible verses and you will respond by throwing your hands into the air and doing a full belly laugh. Ready?

Psalm 98:4: Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises.

Psalm 2:4: God, who sits in heaven, laughs!

Psalm 30:11: You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.

Isaiah 55:12: You shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and hills before you shall burst into song, and the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Psalm 126:2: Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them.

Proverbs 17:22: A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones.

John 15:11: “I have said these things to you,” Jesus said to his disciples, “so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”

Luke 6:21: Jesus said, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh!”

1 Peter 1:8: Although you have not seen Jesus, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy.

Ha ha ha! Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Ha ha ha!


Okay, one final joke...

What is Easter?
Three sillies die in a freak banana peel accident and arrive at the pearly gates of heaven. St. Peter tells them that they can enter the gates if they can answer one simple question:"WHAT IS EASTER?"

The first silly is eager to respond. He says: "Oh, that's easy, it's the holiday in November when everybody gets together, eats turkey, and is thankful..."

"No!," replies St. Peter, and proceeds to ask the second silly the same question, "WHAT IS EASTER?"

The second silly replies, "Easter is the holiday in December when we put up a nice fir tree, exchange presents, and celebrate the birth of Jesus."

St. Peter shakes his head in disgust, “Can’t anyone get this simple question?” So he poses it to the third silly: "WHAT IS EASTER?"

Now this silly is very confident. He says: "I know what Easter is. Easter is the Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish celebration of Passover. Jesus and his disciples were eating at the last supper and  but he was betrayed by one of his own disciples so the Romans came and arrested him. They flogged him and made him wear a crown of thorns. They crucified him between two criminals with a sign over his head that read 'the king of the Jews' and when he died, there was a great earthquake and the curtain in the temple was ripped in two. The centurion who saw it said, 'surely this was the son of God.' Then his followers buried his body in a cave tomb and they rolled a huge stone over the entrance to seal it.”

Saint Peter can hardly contain himself, he nods his head and approvingly says, “Yes, yes!”

But then the silly continues: “And every year the stone is rolled aside and Jesus pops out, and if he sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter."

May you live as joyful resurrection people today and every day. Christ is risen, indeed! ha ha ha!


© 2009 Laura Gentry

A WHOLE NEW CRY

The ceramic butterflies were hand-made and given to worshipers on Easter Sunday as a reminder of the resurrected life to which Jesus calls us.

A Sermon for Easter Sunday

by Pastor Laura Gentry

John 20:1-18

This wonderful Easter morning we have come together celebrate the resurrection of Christ. Throughout our service, we continue to affirm that Christ is Risen, Christ is Risen, indeed. Alleluia! We are all aware that this is a joyful day—a day to dress in our finest clothes, a day to plan a wonderful meal, to come to church with the whole family, to sing our favorite Easter hymns.

And yet, the people at the tomb in this morning’s Gospel didn’t find it so joyful. They weren't having Easter egg hunts and munching on Cadbury cream eggs, or wearing pretty springtime fashions thinking pleasant thoughts about bunnies and about all the half-price pastel M&Ms they were going buy at the after-Easter sales tomorrow. No, they were caught up in the harsh reality that their Lord had died—a reality they did not expect, though Jesus had tried many times to tell them that this was God’s plan. It is a reality they cannot understand or accept—for with Jesus, all their hopes had died. They were deep, deep in darkness.

And it is in darkness that Mary Magdalene makes her way to the tomb that first Easter morning. She has no idea he is risen. She comes before dawn, perhaps because her sorrow has kept her awake all night and she cannot sleep anyway. All she can think about is the fact that her Lord has been crucified. With her hopes dashed and her world in shambles, she has come to his grave, perhaps to grieve in the peace of this garden.

But the serenity of the grace is certainly not what she finds. The sealed tomb has been opened! The huge stone is rolled away! Mary turns and dashes off to find Peter and the other disciple. Out of breath, Mary cries to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him!”

Shocked, the disciples run to the tomb to see if what Mary was hysterically crying about was true. Sure enough, they see the out-of-place stone, the empty linens, the body-less tomb. In this Gospel account, John doesn’t tell us what the two men are thinking or feeling—he just simply says that the other disciple “saw and believed.” He doesn’t even tell us for sure that Peter saw and believed, though we assume so because then the two men turn around and go home. Not very big parts for important disciples. They couldn’t even get a “Best Supporting Actor” for these little cameo roles.

But Mary—Mary deserves a “Best Leading Actress” for her dramatics here. After the two disciples run off, Mary stands weeping outside the tomb. When faced with the empty tomb, Mary doesn’t just “see and believe” so easily like the two disciples. She is still convinced that some opponent of Jesus’ has stolen his body to further undermine her Lord—as if getting him crucified was not enough. She is wrought with grief in this moment—her world has come to an end. I picture her in this scene shaking with sobs, unable to get a hold of herself.

Still trying to comprehend this catastrophe, Mary peeks into the tomb again. This time, it is not empty. This time, she sees two angels hanging out where Jesus was supposed to be, and they casually ask, “Woman, why are you weeping?” We can see that Mary is overtaken by her grief because she seems to lack logic here. If you saw two angels sitting in your loved one’s empty tomb, wouldn’t you start to catch on that something strange is afoot? Not Mary—she goes on to answer the angel’s question as if she’s talking to some regular person, crying, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

As if Jesus cannot stand to see Mary grieve another moment longer, he appears. Perhaps she senses him, because she turns right around to face him. Yet, through her tears, she cannot recognize him. He asks her the same question: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

Mary assuming he is the gardener and also the alleged grave robber, addresses him in an accusatory tone: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Then, Jesus calls her by name: “Mary.” That’s all it takes to turn her tears to cries of joy. She hears her name, recognizes her Lord and responds with the affectionate name she had always called him, “Rabbouni,” the more familiar title used to address teachers.


A parishioner from my congregation in California showed me a painting she had commissioned by the artist Richard Serrin (pictured above), which seeks to visually interpret this passage from John’s Gospel. Mary is outside the tomb, kneeling in darkness, yet her face is mysteriously illuminated. Christ is standing in the background because she has not yet turned to face him. Her hands are clutched in tight fists and there is a cry upon her face. It looks like a cry of anguish but if you look at it for a while, you think it might be a cry of joy. It is as if the artist has caught the precise fraction of a second when one cry transitions into the other. And that very moment, I think, expresses the whole purpose of the Easter story.

Today it is Easter Sunday, 2009. Nearly 2,000 years have passed since that first Easter day. We have come to church to celebrate the Resurrection. And, yes, we are dressed up in our Easter finest but deep inside, I think we can all relate to Mary Magdalene. Like Mary, don’t we carry around a burden of grief in our souls? Perhaps it is the loss of loved ones that grieves us. Perhaps it is the disappointments and crushing blows we’ve suffered in our lives. Perhaps it is the terrible weight of our sins, the unwise choices we’ve made. Perhaps we bear the wounds of pain inflicted by others. Or maybe illness and disease weigh us down. Yes, we confess that Christ is risen. We believe it in our hearts and we know that there is cause for great joy this Easter Day but the grief is there, too. Like Mary, there is a cry of anguished sorrow on our lips.

But just as Mary’s cry was changed into joy, so is ours. As he called her by name, as he under stood her deep need and came to her rescue as the Risen One, so he calls us today. So he rescues us from sin and death. He came to change our human cry of grief into a cry of happy victory. He came to give us a whole new cry!

And what does Mary do, once her cry has been changed—once she has been given a new cry—a faithful cry of joy? She immediately does as Jesus commands her. She runs like the wind to tell the disciples, “I have seen the Lord” and to tell her whole story of how Jesus has transformed her cry.

Do we recognize Jesus? We hear him call us by name? Do we see that Easter is more than just a springtime tradition? Do we see that it is the church’s celebration of the fact Jesus has changed our human condition entirely? It is a celebration that Christ continues to reveal himself to us today in Word and Sacrament: in the Holy Scriptures, in the healing waters of Baptism, in the body and blood of the Lord’s Supper, and in the fellowship of our church community. And in these things, Jesus changes our cry of grief into a victorious cry of joy! And, like Mary, we are called to share with others the good news that Christ is Risen! May we do so with Mary’s exuberant, Oscar-award-winning zeal and proclaim in all we do and say that “Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen, Indeed, Alleluia!”

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

THE MORE WE LOVE, THE BIGGER WE ARE

A sermon for Maundy Thursday
by Pastor Laura Gentry

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

We gather this Maundy Thursday as part of our Holy Week journey. It is our symbolic walk with Jesus to the cross. And we pause this night to hear again the story of the last supper Jesus shared with his disciples. It is the Passover meal they are celebrating. They would have retold the great story of how God delivered their ancestors from slavery in Egypt.

It would have been an ordinary Passover, except Jesus does something shocking: he strips off his robe and kneels down to wash each one’s feet. It is probably impossible for us to understand just how outrageous this was for his disciples to witness. Not only were feet literally unclean—what with all the dirt and donkey droppings they’d have to endure in the course of a day—feet were also symbolically unclean according to their religious traditions. Feet in those days definitely needed to be washed, but religious people didn’t wash their own. They had slaves do it for them, and not just any slave, but the lowest slave in the household. It was an embarrassing chore that nobody but nobody would have volunteered to do. So when Jesus decides to take on the task of foot washing, it causes an uproar.

Why would he do such a thing? Why? Because it is an object lesson, an example for them and for us. You see, Jesus is well aware that this is his last night with the disciples and their is one final lesson he aims to teach. He says to them: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Not only is his foot-washing stunt an example of humility and love for us, but it foreshadows his ultimate act of love: his self-sacrificial death on the cross. Jesus is very clear because he knows his time is limited. He commands his disciples to love in the same way that he has loved. That is what it’s all about. Everyone should be able to tell that we are Christians by the way we show love for all people.

Love. In action. That’s the whole lesson Jesus offers us in his final hours. Are we focused enough upon this all-important task?

There is a Family Circus cartoon created by Bill Keane that speaks to this. The children have crept into their parents room to watch them silently sleeping. One of the kids points at the parents and says to his sisters, “They look so sweet and peaceful when they’re asleep. You wonder how they could ever yell at us during the day.”

This is laughable, yes, but does it make us wonder what kids say of us—what those most vulnerable in our society say about the way we treat them. Jonathan Swift, the 17th century satirical writer, said: “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.” The Amerian poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was quoted to have said, “I love humanity, but I hate people.” And the commedianne, Lily Tomlin says, “If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?”

Jesus’ commandment to love is clear. It is we who are not clear in our focus to follow this teaching. This annual service of Maundy Thursday is always an important reminder that love—showing itself in humble service—is our highest calling. So tonight, I bring you quotes of inspiration and stories of love.

In First Corinthians, we hear that:

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
(I Corinthians 13:4-8)

Here are some other quotes to make us think about love:

ELIZABETH BARRET BROWNING:
Whoso loves, believes the impossible.

GEORGE SAND:
There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

SØREN KIERKEGAARD:
Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.:
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH:
The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life.

ELBERT HUBBARD:
The love we give away is the only love we keep.

OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN, II: (from the musical, Cinderella)
Do you love me because I'm beautiful,
or am I am beautiful because you love me?

I once heard a story about a woman who went to a marriage counselor all by herself to complain of her failing marriage. “I can’t do this any longer. My husband has no regard for my feelings. He is the most insensitive, uncaring person in the whole world—he doesn’t do anything for me anymore. What should I do?”

The therapist quickly replied, “Well it seems obvious that you must leave him. You cannot seem to get your needs met at all and he doesn’t seem to care. In fact, I don’t think he’ll even care that you leave him. I have an idea. Why don’t you get him back for all the emotional trouble he’s given you. Make him sad that you’re leaving him. That’s right. For the next month, I want you to be the perfect wife. Love him, praise him, make his favorite dinner, do his favorite activities with him. Whatever you have to do, make him feel that you are totally in love with him. Just pretend. Then, after a month, leave him with no warning and he’ll be devastated.”

“That sounds remarkable! That’s the best solution I’ve ever heard. I’ll make him sorry he never loved me.” And so she went home and did just that. Every possible thing she could think of to demonstrate love for her husband, the wife did.

The weeks wore on and at the end of the month, the woman came to see her therapist again. “So, how are you doing now that you’ve left that horrible husband of yours?” he asked with a smile.

“Leave him??? Leave him? Why would I want to leave him? Ever since I started showing love for him, he’s become the most loving husband in the world. Not only am I not leaving him, but we’re going on a second honeymoon next week to celebrate the new passion in our marriage.”

What this wise therapist was banking on was the fact that when we show love for others—through action—they feel loved and secure, and generally treat us differently in return. All this woman did was pretend that she loved her husband, which made him love her, which made her fall in love with him again. That’s the power of the action. Jesus showed love in action by washing feet and he asks us to do the same kind of action-oriented loving.

And yet following Jesus’ command to love one another in this way is perhaps the most difficult undertaking of our lives. And it is easy for us to get hurt in the process.. It is a dangerous business—we cannot do it without God’s help. In the wonderful children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams, there is a profound conversation between a toy rabbit and a skin horse:

“What is REAL?” asks the Rabbit one day. The horse replies, “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” The Rabbit asks. “Sometimes,” responds the horse with honesty. “It doesn’t happen all at once,” says the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Like the Velveteen Rabbit, we too can get pretty ragged in the business of love, but when we are in God’s will for our lives, it doesn’t matter. It is worth it!

And finally, I share with you a story from A Cup of Chicken Soup for the Soul:

A kindergarten teacher read her class a story called, “Big.” Then she asked her students, “What makes you feel big?”
“Bugs make me feel big,” yelled one young student. “Ants!” hollered another. “Mosquitoes,” called out one more.
The teacher, trying to bring some order back to the class, started calling on children with their hands up. Pointing to one little girl, the teacher said, “Yes, dear, what makes you feel big?” “My mommy,” was her reply.
“How does your mommy make you feel big?” quizzed the teacher. “That’s easy,” said the child. “When she hugs me and says I love you, Jessica.”

The late preacher William Sloane Coffin, Junior adds to this message with his enduring quote: “Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are.”

Jesus is the supreme example of this: by humbling himself he became big. By loving us, he makes us feel big. And the more we love, the bigger we are. May we follow his example by sharing God’s love every day. Amen.

© 2009 Laura Gentry

PALMS & SHOUTS OF "HOSANNA!"

A Sermon for Palm/Passion Sunday, Year B

by Pastor Laura Gentry

John 12:12-16

This is always an exciting day in our church year. We get props. Unlike an ordinary Sunday, we are given palm branches to wave. And this year, we ordered fancier ones with the whole branch—not just the single strand ones we’ve had in the past. We get to sing the triumphant songs, and shout “Hosanna!” and wave our palms about. But what does it all mean? How is this supposed to prepare us for the impending, somber Holy Week experiences of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday?

Let’s take a look at each one of these elements to figure it out. First, is the palm thing. Why palms? Why do we have to spend money every year from our worship budget ordering these things? Why couldn’t we just call it “random shrubbery Sunday” and cut whatever branches we could find and bring them in to wave about? Well, this would be more cost effective but John’s gospel specifically mentions that it was palms the people waved as Jesus entered Jerusalem. John always has deep, symbolic meaning in everything he writes so the palms must mean something important.

And indeed, they do. You see, 200 years before Jesus triumphal entry into the city, there was the triumphal entry of Simon Maccabeus into that same city. He remains a greatly revered hero of the Jewish people. They had been under the horrible leadership of Antiochus Epiphanes who forbid the practice of the Jewish faith. In 167 B.C. Antiochus took over the Jewish temple in Jerusalem—the holiest place on earth—and created an altar to the Greek god Zeus and proceeded to offer swine’s flesh upon it. In the Book of Daniel, this is called the "abomination of desolation" because it was so awful that it would hard to imagine doing anything more offensive to God. In the additional biblical material known as the Apocrypha, it explains that under Antiochus, the government also “put to death the women who had their children circumcised, and their families and those who circumcised them; and they hung the infants from their mothers’ necks.” (1:60-61) The nation was hurting and in desperate need of a hero to save them from this oppression.

Thus, Mattathias, an old man of priestly stock, rounded up his five sons and all the weapons he could find. A guerrilla campaign was launched against Antiochus’ soldiers. Though Mattathias died early on, his son Judas, called Maccabeus, was able within three years to cleanse and to rededicate the temple. But the fighting wasn’t over. A full 20 years later, after Judas and a successor brother, Jonathan, had died in battle, a third brother, Simon, took over, and through his diplomacy achieved Judean independence, establishing what would become a full century of Jewish sovereignty. So there was great celebration. The scripture says that the Jews “entered Jerusalem with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel.” (I Macc. 13:51) Not only that, but this date was celebrated every year as the Jewish Independence day and palms were waved to remember this great military victory. Now, 200 years later, the Jews are under Roman occupation and are desperate for another Maccabean type revolt that can set them free. The palms say that they are expecting Jesus to be a military hero like Simon Maccabeus.

Now what about the cry of “Hosanna”? This is what the people shout at Jesus when he enters. Today, we think of this as a praise word. We sing it in our communion liturgy, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.” Other than that, “Hosanna” is not a word we use regularly in conversation. You don’t call someone up and say, “Hey, how are you doing? Hosanna, man!” It is a foreign word to us but what it means in the native language is “Save, now!” It was a desperate cry for help. It is usually what people would say to their king in an effort to get him to protect them militarily. And this is what the people cheer to Jesus as he comes.

That’s what our Palm Sunday procession is all about. It enables us to enter this drama too, as we wave our palms and shout “Hosanna!” we are begging God to save us, too. But the question is, do we have the humility to do that? Oh yes, we can waggle our palms and sing our hymns of triumph and say “Hosanna!” whenever it is written in the bulletin but do we really want God to save us? Do we dare trust God to save us from the things that oppress us? Can we cry to God with our whole heart: Save me! Save me from financial ruin! Save me from depression! Save me from anger! Save me from loneliness! Save me from failure! Save me from feelings of worthlessness! Save me from fear! Save my falling-apart family! Save me from sickness! Save me from cancer! Save me from aging! Save me from having to go into the nursing home! Save me from death!

You see this liturgy is more than just a pleasant bit of pageantry with fancy greenery. It is really an opportunity to go to that place deep inside, where we are broken and alone and afraid. And from that vulnerable place, cry the cry of faith: Hosanna! Save me now, Lord! Grab me by the collar and pull me up out of the waves, God, because I am drowning. There is nothing in this world I need more than your help!

Jesus didn’t come as a military leader like the original Palm Sunday crowds expected. But he came to answer their cries of Hosanna, nevertheless. He came to give himself over to suffering and death so that he could rise and with it, bring redemption not just for that country at that time, but for all people of all times and places.

That’s the heart of the Jesus story. It tells us that God comes to save us. God was not content to stay apart from this sinful world. No, God would not remain in heaven and simply send a fax or e-mail with a cheerful message of encouragement. God wanted so much to be with us, that he became incarnate. He came to enter into our broken, fragmented, messy world. This compassionate answer to our hosanna cries is so amazing, it is hard to take it in.

And so we can march headlong into the sacred journey of Holy Week. We can walk with Jesus the way of the cross—clasping our palm branches for dear life and wailing “Hosanna” from the depths of our being. We know, by faith, that God is with us and will answer our cry to save us, to save us now.

Let us pray: Oh God of endless grace, we need you to rescue us from the depths.  Please do what you have always done when your people have cried out, "Please save us!"  In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.