Being a Disciple

March 16, 2008 Palm Sunday/Confirmation Sunday Sermon: Being a Disciple Texts: Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29, Matthew 21: 1-11 Today is Palm Sunday and we begin with the parade! There's a parade of welcome to Jesus as a pilgrim coming into the city of Jerusalem to worship. By Jesus' day, Psalm 118 was used as a standard greeting to pilgrims coming to Jerusalem for the festivals. "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord." It's like our greeters on Sunday morning welcoming people to church. Every Sunday we have a parade of sorts right here in our church. But, our parade on Palm Sunday is a little different. It's a special day that helps us to begin our journey toward recalling the events of Jesus' life and what we call Holy Week. Special parades still abound today that mark a time of the year or a time in your life that has led you to a deeper truth. Can you remember a parade that marked a time in your life? When I was very young, my parents took me to a parade in our small Southern Arizona town of Wilcox. It was big event when Rex Allen rode into town with his trusted side kick on their beautiful horses and wearing shiny leather saddles. My mother tells me that Rex Allen was born and raised in Wilcox desert and, although he became a star in his time, he never forgot where he came from. She said that Rex Allen never forgot that as a child he was helped by the local residents to go to Tucson to receive desperately needed eye surgery. When he returned to Wilcox there was a parade, a great barn dance, square dance, and a friendly Rex Allen who got off his horse to greet the home town people. That's about all I remember but the story is kept alive because of a parade. In the early 80's I had another day to remember, it was a parade of sorts. The setting was a local Roman Catholic Church near downtown Miami, Florida. In that time, I knew the city well. I was on staff of Central Baptist Church in Miami as the youth minister and I taught English to Speakers of Other Languages at the Miami Dade Community College across the street from the church. Like I said, I knew the downtown area and had seen a few parades there but nothing like this one. The sun was going down, the day becoming cooler and more tolerable, and the people were beginning to come out for life in the city. Many people on this day were flooding into the church. The pews were packed, there were people standing in the aisles and as the processional began, we all leaned toward the center aisle to get a glimpse of her. She was small, wrapped loosely in her white habit, and showed a serious but sincere demeanor. The people assisting her up the stairs moved around to find the wooden box for her stand on at the pulpit so we could see her. She seemed small and frail yet giant like in her ability to draw a crowd to her words and her person. Pilgrims had come from many corners downtown Miami to see and hear Mother Teresa of Calcutta talk to us about our commitment to Jesus. She was there to open a shelter for battered women and there were many people who supported her efforts. But, she was also there to ask people to look deeper into their reasons for welcoming her. She had some deeper truth to address in addition to the need to build and counsel and support battered women. She was intent on asking Christians to take seriously their commitment to Jesus. For me, Mother Teresa, even as a Catholic sister, was my role model. I followed her life and her teachings and in my home today are her words that guide my prayers. She said, "Never let anything so fill you with sorrow that you forget the joy of Christ Risen." There is much in life that fills us with sorrow. It was Mother Teresa who inspired me to be the best I could be in my role as a local minister in a Baptist Church, as a teacher at the Miami Dade Community College, as an activist in the in the National Organization for Women advocating for the passage of the equal rights amendment. Commitment to Jesus meant equal rights, fair treatment, and care for those oppressed. I don't think that has changed today. So, I advocate strongly for those who feel they must lobby for fair treatment and civil rights, whatever they are. My commitment to follow Jesus means I must speak out even when I'm told that I should be silent. What about you, has someone helped you to take your commitment to follow Jesus seriously? Has your commitment to follow Jesus helped you advocate for someone who needs you? When I have opportunity, I like to speak clearly about what commitment to Jesus means to me because, I believe, it must start with our personal words from a personal faith. We hope our youth who are confirmed today will understand the invitation to live a life committed to our Christian values and stand firm for what their faith teaches them. We hope they will feel that their faith call them to speak clearly about what commitment to Jesus means for their lives. For all of us who call ourselves "Christian," it is a time to commit ourselves to be voices for truth, justice, compassion and love for all people. We are not to be silent in our Christian churches. If we fall silent, we will miss the opportunity to speak as the Christ would insist we speak. The disciples on some occasions were guilty in the days of Jesus' suffering for not speaking out. How dismal was Peter when he denied commitment to Jesus not once but three times. Luke's gospel tells us that if the disciples were to fall silent, "the stones would shout out." God's truth needs our voices and our hearts to be committed to take action where we know we can take action. In 1932, a very tense year, Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught a group of fifty boys in the confirmation class of Zion Church in a slum section of Berlin, "Behind all the slogans and catchwords of ecclesiastical controversy, necessary though they are, there arises a more determined quest for him who is the sole object of it all, for Jesus Christ himself. What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? How can he help us to be good Christians in the modern world? In the last resort, what we want to know is not, what would this or that man, or this or that church, have of us, but what Jesus Christ himself wants of us." (The Steps of Bonhoeffer, Bailey and Gilbert, p. 47) Commitment to Jesus is sharing a vision of what we want the world to be. In Bonhoeffer's day it was a world of terror and destruction. The question of commitment to Jesus became a threatening question. How grateful we are to live in a country where we have the freedom of worship, of dissent, of expression. We value our church as a place to raise issues and struggle together with what we read in the newspaper and hear on nightly news. Coming together in the church is the place where we find others of like mind who know that primarily, wherever we stand on issues, that our hearts are given to Jesus. That's the whole point of Palm Sunday, my friends. Jesus came to challenge people about what they believed about God and how they followed through on making this truth part of their own. Jesus did not come to the world as a conquering hero, as a politician or a general. He did not come waving political flags, he did not come as a local revolutionary, a national freedom fighter, flashing a sword, swaggering in might and power. No, he came lowly and riding a donkey; he came as a suffering servant. He came to be God's Word made flesh, speaking peace, non-violence and a continual call to commitment be God's blessing to the world. At his last supper, Jesus wanted those around him who would carry on his name and accept his ministry as their own and take responsibility for it, risks and all. Did they take him seriously? No. Was he dismissed? Yes. Jesus will say to Pilate according to the Gospel of John (18:36), "My kingdom is not from this world." The people of Jesus' day misunderstood the true nature of Jesus' kingship. Friends, I hope we don't miss the nature of Jesus' kingship. Jesus is king but a king of peace, not war. Jesus is king when we take every ounce of who we are and let deeper truth permeate our being because we have been in God's presence. We will be better parents, spouses, community organizers, church members, and citizens when we let peace reign in our lives. I'm not talking about only about peace that relates to our national security. I'm talking about peace in our relationships and peace in our dealings with others. I'm talking about peace in the life of the church. Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of truth, compassion and mercy. Peace is working out our conflict with holy creativity and believing that God's Spirit guides, not toward separation, but toward unity of people in their worship and genuine positive regard for human, plant and animal life. Henri Nouwen, who taught us much about the spiritual life, wrote, "As I walk the long, painful journey toward the cross, I must pause on the way to wash my neighbors' feet. As I kneel before my brothers and sisters, wash their feet, and look into their eyes, I discover that it is because of my brothers and sisters who walk with me that I can make the journey at all." (Walk with Jesus , Henri J. M. Nouwen) Last week we heard our five youth who desire to be confirmed today give their statements of faith. Today, they promise before us to be a disciples of Christ. We pray that we will be their sisters and brothers on this journey, being disciples together in faithful love and service of the God in Christ we love and worship. May God journey with us this Palm Sunday toward the cross and may we be committed to being disciples with others who call upon the Christ to be with us in life and death. Truly, may we be Christ's forever and, daily, experience a deeper faith. Amen.