Sermon Tone Analysis

Psalm 118:

In your journal time this week, with words or images, record your thanksgiving to God.

Who has helped you remember that God’s love endures forever?

Follow Jesus’ path to Jerusalem this week.

Try to look, using his eyes.

Whom do you see, whom do you meet?

The Height of Honor

is in the lectionary every single year for Palm Sunday.

The gospel reading that goes along with it changes, but every year you can count on being there because as Jesus rides into Jerusalem, we hear the people quoting this Psalm.

Different Psalms were used in different situations and this one in particular would have been used to usher in someone who was preparing to enter the presence of God.

So it is fitting that this is the Psalm used to usher Jesus into Jerusalem - the place where God was said to dwell: the place where ultimately he would give up his life, rise again from the dead, and ultimately return to rule the universe beside God the Father.

There is a great deal of debate over what exactly the people meant when they quoted this Psalm and shouted “Hosanna!” as Jesus rode into town.

There is no question that today when we say or sing “Hosanna!”

we are using it as a shout of praise or celebration.

But, in Hebrew culture, it generally meant something more like “save us!”

There are good arguments on both sides of this debate about the intentions of the people shouting, but when it comes down to it, they were missing the point either way.

They wanted to be saved from Roman rule and oppression : from the persecution that was brought on them by the empire.

They praised Jesus for bucking the authorities and for bringing physical healing.

Either way, they were looking for someone who would miraculously make their lives easier, not harder.

Either way, they were shouting something that would have been shouted to God’s anointed one - the ruler who came to bring God’s Kingdom.

This is a King’s welcome.

It makes me think of Star Wars: A New Hope.

You know the scene: Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Chewbacca are recognized for their bravery and are given medals in a ceremony full of pomp and prestige.

It is the height of honor for them because they recognize hope for the people.

These people were shouting out “Hosanna“ to offer Jesus a hero’s welcome, but they had no idea what they were asking for in welcoming him.

They had no idea how ugly things would turn just a few days later.

It can be very hard to make sense of what God is doing in the world.

Today isn’t just about Jesus’ hero’s welcome into Jerusalem.

We have a Sunday that is just about Jesus’ Kingship - Christ the King Sunday, which happens just before Advent.

Palm Sunday is set aside to recognize something else.

It’s here to recognize the contrast between Jesus’ Kingship and what we want Jesus’ rule to look like.

Jesus wasn’t brutally murdered because the people didn’t want a Messiah.

Jesus was brutally murdered because the Messiah came and told them things they didn’t want to hear.

He came and asked them to give up their rights for the well being of others.

He came and told them that the rich and powerful are going to have a terrible surprise one day when they realize they can’t take it with them.

He came and told them to pick up their cross- embrace their worldly shame - and follow him - even until death.

He came and told them he hadn’t come to rescue them from Earthley persecution.

The Depths of Shame

This same Jesus who came into Jerusalem with a heroic and royal welcome, who was granted the highest honor, was just days later demoted to the deepest depths of shame.

Just as parading in to shouting, happy crowds was the height of Roman honor, being forced to parade through town carrying your own cross was the deepest place of shame a person could be made to endure.

This same Jesus who came into Jerusalem with a heroic and royal welcome, who was granted the highest honor, was just days later demoted to the deepest depths of shame.

Just as parading in to shouting, happy crowds was the height of Roman honor, being forced to parade through town carrying your own cross was the deepest place of shame a person could be made to endure.

He wasn’t just killed, he was shamed.

He wasn’t just stripped of his physical life, he was stripped of all honor.

When Jesus talks about persecution, it’s not something to be taken lightly.

Jesus knew what was to happen to him and to those who followed him when he said “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.”

We like to feel persecuted for righteousness’ sake, as if that’s a good thing.

And we tend to think that if we’re not riding in with a King’s entry of honor, we must be persecuted, but that’s not at all the case.

There is a great deal of middle ground.

It is in this middle ground that we get complacent.

Is it better than being given all the glory and power?

Probably.

Things tend to go south when any religious group has all the power and glory or even feels like they should have all the power and glory.

That’s how we get the crusades and the inquisition and Al Quiada and Westboro Baptist Church.

Be careful, though, my dear ones.

We tend to think that if we’re not riding in with a King’s entry of honor, we must be persecuted, but that’s not at all the case.

It’s not always one or the other.

There is a great deal of middle ground.

A prime example of this is the bruhaha a few years back when Starbucks used plain red cups around Christmas instead of ones with any sort of symbolism or wording on them.

People were REALLY offended by these plain, red cups.

“SEE!”

I heard many otherwise reasonable people say, “We Christians are being persecuted!

They won’t even put Christmas stuff on the Starbucks cups anymore!

They are taking the ‘Christ’ out of Christmas!

We are persecuted!”

Even though most of the Christmas symbols that go on things like that any more are reindeer and trees and other things that have nothing to do with the religious aspects of the celebration.

Your own religious holiday not getting solo or even top billing is not persecution, dear ones.

Sure, Jesus isn’t being led into town on a donkey over branches and cloaks, but this is a far cry from the brutality that he and even our forefathers and mothers in the faith saw.

Our church has not been bombed on Palm Sunday, as was the church of our brothers and sisters in Egypt last year

We have to be careful because we’re caught in a weird gray area.

We’re not persecuted as Christians in this country, but we don’t have the same sort of cultural capital we used to have.

It is in this middle ground that we get complacent or grumpy (or both): in this place where we aren’t exactly the heroes anymore, but we don’t have it all that bad, either.

It is in this middle ground that we get complacent: in this place where we aren’t exactly the heroes anymore, but we don’t have it all that bad, either.

Is it better than being given all the glory and power?

Almost certainly.

Things tend to go south when any religious group has all the power and glory or even feels like they should have all the power and glory and rights.

That’s how we get the crusades and the inquisition and Al Quiada and Westboro Baptist Church.

Is it better than being given all the glory and power?

Almost certainly.

Things tend to go south when any religious group has all the power and glory or even feels like they should have all the power and glory and rights.

That’s how we get the crusades and the inquisition and Al Quiada and Westboro Baptist Church.

But we are in this strange place in which it’s easy to look at what we used to have - full pews, packed Sunday school classes, overtly Christian prayer in public schools, Good Friday as a day off from work - and think that because we’ve lost those we are now very bad off.

And it’s easy to build resentment about that.

It’s hard to lose that sort of privilege gracefully.

It can be very hard to make sense of what God is doing in the world.

Persecution Breeds Spiritual Depth and Renewal

Persecution is not being told a public business has to bake a cake for either everyone who asks or noone at all.

It’s not being told “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

Persecution is not just losing our status as the religious majority.

I regularly walk around carrying my Bible in public while wearing my clerical collar and driving around with a sticker on the back of my car that says “clergy” and nobody has ever so much as even teased me about it.

The worst thing people ever do is think I’m a little weird (which they will probably think even without all that) or they ask me questions about faith.

Sometimes they are hard or skeptical questions, but I have yet to have my life threatened for being a Christian.

I’ve never been beaten or spit on or made to endure even a fraction of the shame that Jesus endured for me.

Both scripture and history point to an interesting pattern: Where there is persecution, God’s people flourish spiritually.

In the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, we see the people of Israel grow closer to God when they are persecuted.

When they are well off or more free, they wander off and start to let the idols of the world creep into their practice.

It’s only when they are forced through the wringer that they manage to reconnect to God and God alone.

We see the prophets, who are the ones closest to God’s Word and God’s work, persecuted for the sake of the message they deliver.

The harder and more important the message, the worse they are treated.

We see Jesus’ example of accepting persecution for the sake of God’s work in the narrative of the passion, holy week, whatever you want to call it.