Isaiah
50:4-9(a)
Palm
Sunday
March
29, 2015
William G. Carter
The
Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher,
that I
may know how to sustain the weary with a word.
Morning
by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.
The
Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not
rebellious, I did not turn backward.
I gave
my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the
beard;
I did
not hide my face from insult and spitting.
The
Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been
disgraced;
therefore
I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
he who
vindicates me is near.
Who
will contend with me? Let us stand up together.
Who are
my adversaries? Let them confront me.
It is
the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me
guilty?
Have
you ever had to do something that you knew was going to be difficult?
The
mother looks at her son. He is getting ready for high school. Woke up late,
like usual. Skipping breakfast, like always. He pulls shut the bedroom door,
and she is certain his bed is unmade, but she’s not going to take a look. He’s
old enough to know better. As he trots down the staircase and goes out the
door, she yells goodbye, and then realizes she didn’t ask if he would be home
for supper. Mother sighs, and says out loud what she doesn’t want to believe:
in five months, he will be gone. It’s time for him to go, time for her to let
him go. And she doesn’t look forward to dropping him off at college and driving
back to an empty house.
The
man sits in his car for a minute before he goes into his office. On his lap is
a folder of carefully notated information. The worst fears have confirmed. He can
trace why his company is in trouble. A good deal of money has gone where it shouldn’t
have. He will need to confront those responsible. He doesn’t want to do. He
regrets it has come to this. But the evidence is inescapable and nobody is
going to do it for him. So he exhales sadly and reaches to for the door handle.
Have
you had to do something that you knew was going to be difficult?
The
boy with pimples says, “Should I tell my teacher what my friend has stashed in his
locker?” The
pregnant woman says, “Honey, my water just broke.” The
cancer survivor take a big breath to declare, “I must tell the oncologist that
I found another lump.” The
neighbor says, “I have to tell the authorities what I really did see.”
Everyday life bring one moment after another that requires a great deal of courage. Maybe you didn’t
want to do something, but you had to do it. Maybe you postponed it for a while, but it
was still waiting for you. Maybe you considered a detour, but the destination
was inevitable. And courage will reveal who we are and what we are made of.
Can
you see one more example? A young man on a donkey, heading downhill. He pauses for
a moment to survey the city spread out before him. Does he know what lies ahead?
It depends which version of the story you read.
Mark doesn’t say very much. The people are singing Psalm 118, a Passover
psalm, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Matthew
says he will confuse everybody’s expectations. Everybody asks, “Who is this?”
(21:10), and the response is partly right: “Jesus is a prophet.”
John
says the crowds expect a military hero when Jesus comes to town. They wave palm
branches, a nearly two-hundred year old symbol of guerrilla warfare and
liberation (1 Maccabees 13:51).
The
Gospel of Luke is most poignant and most revealing. Halfway down the hill, Jesus
begins to weep. He knows how God’s people treat their own prophets. The very
people who ought to know better do not, themselves, know the things that make
for peace.
And
Jesus rides downhill, right into the middle of it all. Today it would be enough
for us to honor him for his courage. For his courage.
The
Bible doesn’t speak directly of his courage. It does speak of his commitment.
In the Gospel of Matthew, for instance, Jesus announced to his disciples, “I
must go to Jerusalem, and undergo great suffering, and be killed.” He must
go. This was not optional for him. He
didn’t get his mother to write him an excuse.
It was his calling, it was his destiny. He had to do it, so his
commitment drove him to Jerusalem.
Not
only was it his commitment, the Bible speaks also of his joy. In the early
sermon that is now called the Letter to the Hebrews, the preacher says, “Let’s
look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the
joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame” (Hebrews
12:2). That’s what it says – his joy. Not his happiness; there’s no happiness
in a crucifixion. But his joy – that is, his deep freedom of knowing that he
was doing exactly what God wanted him to do. If you have that sense of purpose,
that spiritual knowledge that you are in the right place, doing the right
thing, it frees you to get it done.
But
what I find so striking today is not merely commitment, not only his abiding
sense of God’s will, but his courage. His bravery. That is a rare trait of
character. We don’t see enough courage.
I
recall the epic tale from my generation, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” In
a deeply skewed version of the King Arthur legend, the knights of the round
table out in search of fame and fortune. One of the knights is Brave Sir Robin,
who wasn’t so brave at all. Everywhere he rides, accompanied by the sound of
galloping coconuts, a balladeer sings of this dashing knight. The song begins:
Bravely bold Sir
Robin rode forth from Camelot.
He was not
afraid to die, Oh brave Sir Robin.
He was not at all
afraid to be killed in nasty ways.
Brave, brave,
brave, brave Sir Robin.
We
laughed out loud in the darkened theater, because he wasn’t brave at all. As
the balladeer sang on of terrible dangers in front of the knight, brave Sir
Robin ran away. He protested at how terrible it made him look, to flee danger,
but the troubadour sang:
When danger reared its ugly head,
he bravely turned his tail and fled.
he bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin tuned about
and gallantly he chickened out.
and gallantly he chickened out.
We laughed, because everybody knows what it is like to chicken out. Everybody knows
– don’t you know? Even the twelve disciples knew. When danger drew near with a
kiss in Gethsemane, “all of them deserted him and fled” (Mark 14:50). All of them chickened out, all of them . . .
except Jesus.
Courage
is a trait of character. We don’t talk it about it enough. We don’t hold it up
as a trait to be admired. And God knows, we fall short of living brave and courageous
lives. A lot of us can talk a good game, just as long as we don’t have to back
it up with our actions. It is easy to be an armchair activist, without ever
putting any of our own skin in the game.
But
then the moment comes - the decisive moment - and we have to decide if we are
the people that God calls us to be.
In
August 2013, Kayla Jean Mueller was kidnapped after leaving a hospital in
Aleppo, Syria. She was a humanitarian worker, a 26-year old aid worker from Prescott,
Arizona. Kayla had traveled the world, working with refugees, teaching English,
and feeding the hungry. She had worked in women’s shelters, accompanied
Palestinian kids who wanted to go to school, and wrote letters to advocate for
the environment. We would have been proud to have her as one of our own – and her
compassion sounds like she could have been one of our own. Time Magazine said
it simply: her life was dedicated to eradicating human suffering.[1]
Kayla
was held captive for eighteen months by ISIS. A U.S. mission to rescue her
failed. A possible prisoner swap did not work out. Last month, the rumor came she had been killed
in a Jordanian airstrike. For a while, her fate was not known, and then, sadly
her death was confirmed.
Kayla’s
final gift was a letter she wrote to her parents. Here is some of what she has
to say to us all:
I remember mom always
telling me that all in all in the end the only one you really have is God. I have come to a place in experience where,
in every sense of the word, I have surrendered myself to our Creator because literally
there was no else…. By God (and) by your prayers I have felt tenderly cradled
in freefall. I have been shown in
darkness, light, (and ) have learned that even in prison, one can be free. I am
grateful. I have come to see that there
is good in every situation, sometimes we just have to look for it.
Then
she concluded:
Please be patient, give
your pain to God. I know you would want
me to remain strong. That is exactly what I am doing. Do not fear for me, continue to pray as will I,
and by God’s will we will be together soon.
All my everything, Kayla[2]
She
said, “I know you would want me to remain strong. That is exactly what I am
doing.” Can you see why we have to talk about courage?
As
we go through Holy Week this year, I invite you to read the conclusion of any
of the four Gospels. Read the last few chapters, and pay attention to Jesus. He
never swerves from the path God sets before him. He rides into the city, trusting God the Father is strong enough to see him through. The story of his
courage suddenly brings to life the spunky poem that we heard from the prophet
Isaiah. Do you remember how some of it goes?
The Lord God has
opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.
I gave my back to those who
struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face from
insult and spitting.
The Lord God helps
me; therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face
like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
he who vindicates me is
near.
Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me.
It is the Lord God who
helps me; who will declare me guilty?
I
don’t know what burdens you carry today. But whatever you face, have courage.
Jesus has faced it before you. Because he has “set his face like flint,” he
shall not be put to shame. Trusting in God, neither shall we.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment