"It is a story about one man's journey in life and is filled with intrigue, mystery and suspense, treachery and heroism, life and death."
It's nice to be back with you after an enjoyable week visiting with my parents in Venice, Florida. While there I went with my family to the Methodist Church in Venice, which was very near the tornado area, and heard the Pastor share this story. During the week previous he had gone out to visit those parish families whose homes had been destroyed or damaged by the tornado. All were home cleaning up except the last family he called on. He knocked on the door several times and heard noises inside, but no one responded. So he left his calling card on which he wrote this biblical reference: Rev. 3:20:
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with you and you with me."
The next Sunday a woman came through the greeting line and left her card in the hand of the Pastor with this biblical citation written on it: Genesis 3:10. The Pastor rushed back to his study, opened his Bible and read:
"I heard the sound of thee in the Garden and I was afraid because I was naked and hid myself."
In the midst of tragedy--humor can make a difference. Let us pray (prayer from Tom Warmer):
Come Holy Spirit
Come with your fire and burn us
Come with your rain and cleanse us
Come with your light and reveal to us
Convict us, convert us, consecrate us
Until we choose to do something with our lives.
This Palm/Passion Sunday we read only a short portion of the long Gospel appointed to be read. And I want to suggest to you that you read the whole of Mark's Passion story sometime this week, Mark chapters 11-16. Why? Well, three reasons come to mind.
(1) I have found that it is hard to really understand all the workings of Holy Week without knowing the story it tells. This wonderful liturgical cycle of services which we enter this morning: Palm/Passion Sunday, along with Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Day, will make a lot more sense to you if you know the story first and then let the liturgy help shape it for you.
(2) When you sit down and read the whole Passion narrative through, you will find that it really is a story. It meets the literary criteria of a good story--it has a beginning and an end. It has well-developed characters--who can forget people like Mary Magdalene, Pilate and Peter? And it has something to say, a plot. It is a story about one man's journey in life and is filled with intrigue, mystery and suspense, treachery and heroism, life and death.
One theologian says that Mark's Gospel is really a Passion story with an introduction attached to it. And I think that's true because most of the incidents that precede the Passion are just that, they are incidents; important, indeed crucial to the plot, but they are there to lead us to the real story--the week of the Passion of Jesus Christ in the city of Jerusalem, Mark 11-16. The heart of what the Gospel has to say is in these chapters.
(3) The third reason for reading the Passion narrative is that this Bible story will speak to your life in a way that will help you through everyday living. When you read, digest and pray scriptural stories, the promise is that they will make a difference in your life! Let me share with you what this story said to me as I reread and reflected on it for this Holy Week.
Mark's Palm/Passion story helped me understand and accept how hard making choices in life can be, whether they be simple everyday choices to do this or that, or the occasional big one which might change us forever and take us on a new road through life.
The Jewish Talmud says that we humans tend to judge one another by our external actions, but God judges us by the choices we make. I think this is true because life seems to be made up of continual choosing--most of the time simple choices, but now and then we have an opportunity to choose to do something which will make a difference, for us and the world around us.
Surely this was the case when Jesus chose to enter Jerusalem one bright Palm Sunday morning. I don't think there was any question in his mind that what looked to be a triumphal entry would turn into a dreadful Passion. What began with symbolic palms would end with iron nails and yet Jesus chose to enter Jerusalem that day to take a stand in life, to take a chance on death because that was the right thing to do.
This Palm Sunday story is important for us because I think there are times in all of our lives when we, too, must take a stand, make a choice to do something which will make a difference. And whether in simple circumstances or big ones, the choices we make eventually add up over a lifetime to define who we are.
An example from a simple but real-life situation:
Leo Buscaglia, the popular Professor of Love, tells of an incident which happened to him in Chicago last year. He, along with many other travelers, was snowed in at O'Hare Airport for two days. Leo says he sat back in his seat for a few hours and watched two women react to their plight. One spent the whole time raging up and down the ticket counters screaming, "Get me out of here! I have to be in Denver right away!" She railed at everyone in sight, airport officials and fellow travelers, and generally made life miserable for herself and for all around her.
The other woman, accepting her plight, sat quietly for an hour and watched what was going on. Then she walked over to a weary mother with two children and said, "Why don't I mind your children while you take a break?" Well, before long, this lady had a dozen or so kids all grouped around her playing games, singing songs and learning their ABC's. Throughout most of that hard time at O'Hare, children were dropped off and picked up by relieved mothers, and this lively scene was a wonderful stimulus for all in that beleaguered airport.
Afterwards, Leo asked that second woman why she had done this. "Well, you see, I've always wanted to be a kindergarten teacher and this was my big chance, my golden opportunity, so I just chose to try it."
We must all choose in life, between cynicism and commitment, between blaming the world for the circumstances we are in, or doing something about it. The easiest way for most of us is to do nothing. The Passion story of Jesus has to do with saying "yes" somewhere in your life. It has to do with overcoming the superficiality or irrelevance which binds you and holds you back. It has to do with choosing to do something with our lives even if we are embarrassed or rejected or even, God forbid, face death--in order to live a life of quality.
One of the Hasidic tales says that Jerusalem sits high upon a hill. High upon a hill with towering walls--simply because we have worn the ground away by circling it for years, rather than entering its gates. The gates of Jerusalem are, of course, the gates of choice. It is often madness to enter Jerusalem--yet sometimes the only way is to enter this madness and trust that God lives there.
The choice by Jesus to enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday helps me accept the fact that all the small but important choices that I make through life add up to one big choice to live my life in a way which will make a difference...that what I choose to do at home or with my friends or in airport waiting rooms in the long run really makes a difference.
So let us begin this week together with a commitment to read and know about the Passion story, to participate in the Holy Week liturgies and hopefully to draw from this story words and inspiration which will help us choose to live as Christian men and women.
Amen.
* * * *
[Brad and Carol Hall were living in Coronado, California, when they decided one Sunday to go to a nearby Methodist Church. Brad didn't like what he heard in the sermon that day, so he wrote the minister a blistering letter. The minister, whose name was Tom Warmer, invited this stranger to his office to talk about his anger. "Once over my initial feelings toward him, I found in Tom a warm, sensitive, accepting person," Brad later wrote. "We talked more, I shared more...and before long I had poured out a tearful confession of guilt, anger, fright, hope, anxiety. I was totally embarrassed and planned to flee, but Tom accepted who I was and where I was. It was a turning point for me and, as I reflect on it now, a real conversion experience. I joined his church the next Sunday. In this church I experienced my Protestant reformation. I heard Bible stories, attended Sunday school and listened to great preaching. With the talent of a great Wesleyan preacher, Tom brought these stories alive not only to me but to the whole town. His church was packed every Sunday." It was from Tom Warmer that Brad first heard the prayer which he was to use so often during his ministry. He changed the wording occasionally, but never the heart of the beautiful words: "Come Holy Spirit, Come with your fire and burn us...Convict us, convert us, consecrate us...Until we do something with our lives."]
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