Without Words

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday March 28, 2010, Palm Sunday, the 6th Sunday in Lent.

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 19:28-40

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

There are choices we are called to make everyday as it comes to how we walk with our Lord. For me, one example is our reading for today. Usually, the lectionary gives us four readings for the day, one from the Old Testament and another from the epistles; also there is a reading from the psalms and another from the gospels. Today, it’s not that simple.

The lectionary provides several choices of scriptures used in today’s worship. This week there is only one reading from the Old Testament and another from the epistles so those choices are made, but this is where the system goes haywire. There are two different psalm readings and three different gospel readings. Decisions, decisions…

It didn’t take long to see the differences between the readings. One psalm and one gospel reading deal specifically with the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, what we traditionally think of on Palm Sunday. The other readings, well, one is the final time Christ dines with his disciples, his last meal. The other is the Passion narrative, the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. These are often chosen for worship on this day in the liturgical calendar, but in my opinion they are more appropriate for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. So today, I have made a choice based on that opinion; I selected the Palm centered scripture over the others.

It is my call, my vocation as Minister of the Word and Sacrament to serve the Word of God. I begin serving this vocation in just this way, selecting the reading and interpreting the Word for this part of the Body of Christ. I don’t do this because it makes me feel important, or to flex my theological and ecclesial muscle. Rather, I do it because this is how I first and foremost serve this part of the Body of Christ.

I mention this because our readings this morning show us what vocation means within scripture. To start, Paul’s letter to the Philippians teaches us about Christ’s vocation to the church. It teaches about humility and its most Godly reward.

Paul reminds us first that Jesus the Christ is equal to God, and that Jesus did not regard his equality as something to be exploited. Without discarding them, Jesus emptied himself of his rightful fully divine trappings to be the fully human Jesus of Nazareth for the world.

This humility did not remove Jesus from his relationship with his Father, nor did it prevent him from exercising his Lordly authority, when cleansing the temple for example. Rather, what Jesus emptied himself of was any wanting to exploit his godliness for his own glory. People often ask why Jesus doesn’t just come down now and make right all that is wrong with the world. Why doesn’t he just come with his power and take care of business? Perhaps it is so that he may exalt the entire Godhead, the whole Trinity, not just himself.

To show how far he is willing to go to empty himself, he was obedient to his father, even to the point of his own death on the cross.

Paul continues; because Jesus emptied himself, because Jesus became a slave to God and to all God created, because Jesus humbled himself to the point that he poured out his life like a drink offering emptied from its vessel; because of this, God also highly exalts him and gave him the name that is above every name. For this, every knee will bend, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Because we know this is true, because we enjoy the benefits of life in Christ, we are called to respond to the grace of God by sharing this good news with the world. This week I have been reminded of the quote from St. Francis who said that we are to share the gospel, using words when necessary. Our gospel reading gives glorious examples of how to share the good news of Christ without words.

We begin with Jesus and the disciples arriving near Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives. Here he sends two disciples saying, “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. If anyone asks you ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

This is our first and most deceptively difficult lesson: Pay attention. When the Lord speaks, pay attention. Obedience to the commands of the Lord is vital to discipleship.

Christian author Oswald Chambers wrote: “When God gives a vision by his Spirit through his Word of what he wants, and your mind and soul thrill to it, if you do not walk in the light of that vision, you will sink into servitude to a point of view which our Lord never had.”[1]

Often the Lord gives us the most simple of tasks that opens the door of faith into a world that thirsts for it. Jesus says, “Untie the colt and bring it here.” He even tells them what to do when someone finds objection to what they’re doing. Obedience to the vision of the Holy Spirit thrills our soul, but as Chambers points out, when we do not follow that vision, the consequences are dire. Did not obeying cross their minds because they worried about how the owner of the colt would take their intrusion? Maybe, maybe not, scripture is silent, but Chambers continues on this matter:

“Disobedience in mind to the heavenly vision will make you a slave to points of view that are alien to Jesus Christ. Do not look at someone else and say: Well, if he can have these views and prosper, why can't I? You have to walk in the light of the vision that has been given you and not compare yourself with others or judge them; that is between them and God.” [2]

This is the first element of our vocation as Christians, being obedient to Christ. The second element, again being made clear in our gospel reading, is that we are to worship Christ for who he is and what he has done. Our reading continues at verse 37:

“As 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, saying,

‘Blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
and glory in the highest heaven!’”

This sort of praise and worship may be more robust than we are familiar. Still, whenever we celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, as we do today, we say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” Without words we do this whenever we celebrate the Lord’s Supper by taking from the loaf, dipping into the cup, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.

In this too, we show our obedience in praise and worship. By this mystery, we are nourished. This sacrament is one of the visible signs of God’s invisible grace, the grace of God which through faith, we are saved.

Yet there is another issue with obedience is not so much a matter of disobedience than a matter of loss of control. There is fervor which the people demonstrate upon Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem that is not present in much of our worship. The Trappist Monk Thomas Merton speaks eloquently on this loss of control:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.”

Often we do not understand what the call to a specific obedience means, and we don’t understand the shape of our worship. This loss of control is frightening. Because of this loss of control, we are called to obedience and worship with the hope that our obedience and worship pleases the Lord God.

Christ has forsaken all control, emptying himself of all Godly trappings while walking the earth. He humbled himself and accepted the humiliation of death, even death upon the cross. In Palm Sunday and Luke’s version of the triumphant entry, we learn how we are called to obedience to the Lord through praise and worship, even when we don’t use words, even when we don’t quite understand what the shape of our worship means.

There is a way to sum up what our worship means in a way that will seem very unfamiliar to us. These words from the eighth century give us an eye to worship and our vocation as Christians that is far bolder than anything I have ever thought to write. In the words of Andrew of Crete: “It is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not our coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours. But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, with the whole Christ—‘for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ’—so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet.”[3]

We are called to make choices, choices as easy as picking scripture or as hard as standing up for those who cannot stand for themselves. We are called in our vocation to be the road on which Christ travels to do his work, whether we use words or not. We are called to do this for one simple reason, the same reason given to the disciples who were sent after the colt, “The Lord needs it.”

[1] Chambers, Oswald, HomileticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=869, retrieved March 27, 2010.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Andrew of Crete, “From the Fathers to the Churches” Brother Kenneth, Editor. London: William Collins Sons and Company, 1983