WALK WITH ME: INTO THE FRONTLINES

A Sermon by Bill McDonald from Luke 19:28-44

April 1, 2007

Luke 19

²⁸After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

²⁹When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, ³⁰saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³¹If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” ³²So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. ³³As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” ³⁴They said, “The Lord needs it.” ³⁵Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. ³⁶As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. ³⁷As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, ³⁸saying,

“Blessed is the king

who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven,

and glory in the highest heaven!”

³⁹Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” ⁴⁰He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

⁴¹As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, ⁴²saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. ⁴³Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. ⁴⁴They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

The crickets chirped and the frogs gal-lumped and night hung its humid darkness over our shoulders creating shadows under the trees. It was an appropriate atmosphere for a mysterious message promised to us by our cabin counselor. It had to be important; why else would he have dragged eight sleepy boys out of their bunks and onto this worn wooden bridge over a creek. Why was his brow furrowed, why the tired sadness in his eyes? He took a deep breath, let out a sigh and began to empty his heart to his young charges: “It’s a war out there.” It was 1961. There were indeed growing sounds of gunfire in some Southeast Asian country, but here in the U.S. we were just enjoying the end of a span of peace after World War II and Korea. What was he talking about? He saw the confusion in our eyes and forged on: “There is a war out there between good and evil, between God and Satan. And you have to decide whether you will join in the battle--and which side you are on.” I resonated to that counselor’s rallying cry and it helped me make my decision to go into ministry. Though I recall vividly Adam’s tortured description of human existence, I never found out what specific demons were waging battle in his soul. Just as well. We all have demons enough of our own without borrowing any from others, I think. But here years later, meditating on a Lukan Palm Sunday passage, I think Adam left out some important information. It is a war, but we are called to fight it with unconventional weapons and the battlefield is in the hearts and minds of humankind.

Jesus sends two of the disciples, Luke doesn’t say which two, into either Bethany or Bethphage. Both are neighboring towns and are on the road that crosses the Mount of Olives and pours down into the holy city of Jerusalem. He wants a colt, probably the foal of a donkey, which has never been ridden. Animals used for sacred purposes were supposed to be fresh, unused in any other way. Jesus sees this as a sacred march, likely a funeral march for himself, a march that declares war on the way things are. A war not just on the cruel Roman overseers but also on the corrupt temple authorities who became rich and powerful by collaborating with the Romans against the common people. The disciples threw their cloaks over the colt, but if they had known what was coming they might have insisted on an experienced warhorse with armor instead of a skittish colt with a fabric saddle. But this was to be a war unlike anything the world had ever experienced.

Our first clue to that fact is that in Luke there are no hosannas or palms or branches of trees strewn in the roadway. These were all symbols of nationalistic power, acts of homage to mighty rulers and Luke wants to tell us that this is a different kind of king. There is no recitation of David’s name, no recalling of the mightiest king in the history of the nation. The peasant army accompanying Jesus has grown since he began this journey back in Galilee. They picked up supporters in every village and town and along the road. Spellbound by his teaching, enervated by the miracles they had seen him perform, the deeds of power as Luke calls them, they walked behind him as he rode down to Jerusalem and they did indeed call in prophetic style: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” But their accompanying cheer seems to come straight from that starry birth night in Bethlehem: “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” A king, yes, but one bringing peace, not a sword. This king comes not only in the name of the Lord, but also in the manner of the Lord. Not just claiming the Lord’s might, but following the Lord’s way. For it does not matter how many victories we win for God; if we don’t use God’s methods, they are hollow victories. It was to be war, a resistance to the world order, an overthrow of society’s system. But it was to be fought with souls, not blood.

The strict, by-the-book Pharisees in the crowd told Jesus to tell his disciples to stop their singing. It was dangerous business to come into the capital city, with Roman troops everywhere, and proclaim someone else king besides Caesar—dangerous for Jesus, dangerous for the resident Jews, dangerous for the Passover pilgrims, dangerous for the elite Jewish power-sharers, dangerous to the holy city itself. But Jesus said that if the disciples were silent, the stones themselves would start to shout. In other words, it’s already too late. The cat is out of the bag. The wheel of fate has already begun to turn. It is God’s time. There is a war out there. And the implication is that they will have to choose a side. So will we.

What is the biggest problem you confront in your life today? What is the greatest issue our church must address? Once I interviewed with the Search Committee Chair of a church in northern Kentucky. As he drove me around the city with its manicured subdivisions alternating with pockets of severe poverty, I wondered how his church went about God’s work in that city. So I asked, “What are the biggest issues facing your church in this town?” He screwed his face into a knot, his mind searching for possible answers like a scanner reading a document. Then, hitting one, he brightened and replied, “We have a new volleyball league--and our church team is doing real well in it!” Now, I love volleyball. The way that I play the game you might think that it is the ultimate aim of my life. I don’t care if my whole body hurts or if my lungs burst into flame or if my leg falls off, I am going to throw myself into every play. But on the list of challenges for Christ’s church in the community, even I would list volleyball way down near the bottom. His answer told me that the chair of their search committee did not know about the war going on out there. Or how to go about fighting it. Do we?

To many of the citizens of Jerusalem in Jesus’ day the biggest issue was self-rule. How do we get rid of the Romans and govern our own nation. But Luke’s whole gospel is about repentance and the forgiveness of sins, themes he repeats constantly. He was trying to tell them--and us--that the biggest issue facing us is to realize that we are trying to be God instead of trying to be like God. “In-sight” to us means looking inward to our own selfish needs instead of those of the people around us. We tend to think that God is the one made from clay, so that we can manipulate God and mold God into whatever we need him to be. Isn’t it interesting how God looks so much like what we see in the mirror? Isn’t it interesting how people’s image of God fits the image of their own nations? Or how God is something we can call on to defend whatever policy we have created, policies that usually are aimed at benefiting ourselves? Jerusalem’s problem wasn’t Rome; it was Jerusalem. Our problem isn’t that enemy or this social issue or those needs or these difficulties. Our problem is us. We have supplanted God as the center of life. We need to switch sides in this war. If we choose Jesus’ side, our weapons will be repentance and humility

When Jesus topped the Mount of Olives, the whole panorama of Jerusalem swept across the valley in front of him. And he wept. Luke says that Jesus wept for the city, because he knew even then that it was too late. “If you had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!” Luke puts these words in Jesus’ mouth because he knew the end of the story. Writing about 85 A.D., Luke knew that instead of accepting Jesus’ offer of peace, Israel chose to take up arms against Rome. The Romans fought a scorched earth battle for four years against Israel, finally re-capturing the holy city in 70 A.D. after a long siege and leaving not one stone of the city on top of another when they finished.

I wonder sometimes if Jesus is weeping over us. Are we so misguided that we don’t even know what is important any more? Is life really all about elections or money or terrorists or homosexuality or contemporary worship or war or health or the stock market or basketball coaches or numbers or technology or politics or…you name a headline? Or are we missing something vital? Do we recognize the things that make for peace? Do we know that what needs to change is us?

The peasant army, chanting and singing, had no idea what they were doing as they walked with Jesus into the frontlines. The Twelve had no idea what they were doing that week in the Holy City. Maybe that is the place we need to start and just confess, “God, I don’t really know what I’m doing here in this Holy Week 2007. But I know that I want to be on your side and I want to follow your lead.” If we did only that and nothing more, Luke would smile on us and tell us that we are finally starting to get it. Jesus mounts that eternal colt yet again today--for the war still rages. Will we walk beside him on his way?