Phil Kniss: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Lent 7: We cry out

Matthew 21:1-11; Philippians 2:5-11

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You probably saw my sermon title.
Just out of pure curiosity.
How many of you know where I stole it from?
“Princess Bride” has been providing movie quotes for 30 years now.
30 years! Hard to believe! . . . or should I say, “Inconceivable!”

It’s not often I draw from Hollywood for sermon titles,
but this one could not have been more fitting.
“You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Any guesses what word I’m referring to? . . . Hosanna!

We keep using that word!
This morning alone, we’ve used the word 41 times. So far.
So I can say to you, quite literally.
“You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.”

The reason we get confused about the meaning of that word,
is that we get confused about the meaning of this event
that we call “the triumphal entry.”

Over the years, over the centuries, indeed over the millennia,
we have thoroughly tamed this story,
made it something much safer and more manageable for us.
And how could we not?
We are so far removed from Jesus’ context,
it’s just hard to grasp what really is going on here.

So we have
Spiritualized it.
Internalized it.
Individualized it.
And it becomes a simple, moralistic story about praising God.

We see this crowd of people praising God, and praising Jesus,
in a boisterous parade of praise all the way into the city.
And then we see later in the week the crowd turns against him,
and their shouts of praise, “Hosanna!”
turn into shouts of condemnation, “Crucify him!”

And we preachers, and Sunday School teachers,
and children’s Bible story book writers,
have many times made this into a lesson
about our commitment to praise God, in good times and bad.

The crowds are fickle and wishy-washy.
When everything looks positive, they praise God.
When things go off the rails, they start cursing God.
So the moral of the story, is to praise God always!

If that’s the meaning of this story for you,
then . . . I’m sorry to say . . .
I do not think it means what you think it means.
_____________________

If you’ve heard me preach on Palm Sunday before,
and heard me lay out the larger context,
you probably know just about what I’m going to say next.
So let me say it.

This was no mere praise-fest and worship service.
This was a political march.
There is no doubt about that.

Yes, it had religious overtones—
well . . . more than overtones, it had a religious foundation.

But from the perspective of the participants in this parade,
this walk into Jerusalem was a fulfillment
of the political vision of the Hebrew scriptures.
It was the words of their prophets coming to pass,
in their nation, in their time, politically.

If you substitute the first-century Jews
with other oppressed people nowadays—
the average citizen of Syria, or South Sudan,
or Palestinians in Israel,
or people in North Korea, or you name it . . .
then you have a picture of what it was like
to live under King Herod.

Add to that a long-held religious belief
that they were destined by God
to be saved from their oppression by a Messiah.
They would get back their own Jewish king,
regain their political independence and religious freedom.
At some God-ordained moment
a direct descendant of King David, from their glory days,
would enter the scene and overthrow their oppressors,
and save them all from destruction.

Once you understand that context;
once you understand that the Hebrew word “Hosanna”
does not mean “praise the Lord,” but means “Save us!”
then you begin to understand what this means.

Yes, it’s a scene of jubilation and praise,
as Jesus rides in on a donkey!
The crowd is beside themselves with joy.
But it is not generic praise of God, or Jesus.
It is gratitude that Jesus is about to rescue them from Herod.

They shout “Hosanna . . . save us,”
not in tearful desperation, but in unbounded joy.
“Savior! You are here! Now save us!
Save us from King Herod!”

Now we are looking at this story truthfully.
This is the procession of a conquering King,
about to storm the city he was conquering,
and unseat the evil tyrant Herod,
who had a palace just inside the city walls.

The cries of “hosanna” and “save us” came from a deep place—
a place of utter need, that until now seemed hopeless.
But on this day, hope was restored,
because they saw in Jesus the one who would,
against all odds,
fulfill their longing for deliverance.

They truly believed this.
Never mind the fact he was riding a donkey and had no army.
This was the one who turned water to wine,
and a bag lunch into a banquet.
This was the one who cured people born blind,
made the lame walk,
raised the dead.

It wasn’t too great a leap to go from believing those miracles,
to believing Jesus could also walk right into Herod’s palace
and make the Roman army fall to their knees,
without a blood bath,
if that’s what he wanted to do.
And he obviously wanted to do that . . . right?
_____________________

Of course, Christians today virtually all agree,
the crowds did have a political savior in mind.
But we still don’t quite get the impact of this scene,
because of our privileged political context.

Many Christians will admit that yes, the crowds misunderstood Jesus.
They were misguided into thinking Jesus was a political Messiah.
But we know now—
Jesus came to deliver us spiritually, not politically,
praise the Lord!

Oh, but that’s not what I’m saying.
This was a political march.
And Jesus embraced the political nature of the march.

He just wasn’t embracing the political methods
of the powers in charge,
or the political methods
that many of his own oppressed people had in mind.

In essence, he was saying this:
“I am here to fulfill the political vision of the Torah,
but it is not going to happen in a violent showdown.
The kingdom of God will be established as a kingdom of peace,
a kingdom ruled by a God who extends Godself toward us,
in love, in self-emptying, even in suffering.
God will unseat the Emperor of Rome,
but not in the way you’ve always pictured it.

God is creating a new covenant people,
a new community bound by a new and higher law,
the law of self-giving love.

And the power of this new law
will shame the false powers of this world,
and, in due time, will overcome those powers.
So yes, I accept the role God has called me to fulfill,
to rule over this new kingdom of peace.

I will be your king.
I will come into your city, not to kill,
but to offer up my life.
So here I am, servant of God,
riding on a humble young donkey.
Follow me, as I show you the way to the new kingdom.”

Of course, he did not say that in so many words.
He said it with powerful, symbolic action.
Followed later by words of explanation,
which even his disciples did not understand, yet.
_____________________

Nevertheless, why did the people turn against Jesus so quickly?
If they really believed Jesus was their deliverer,
couldn’t they cut him some slack?
give him a little time to do the deed?

But no, within a day or two, the same persons
who shouted “Hosanna, hosanna” at the beginning of the week,
were shouting “Crucify, crucify” at the end of the week.

Why?
Because Jesus disappointed them . . . completely, and bitterly.
Upon entering the city, he did not storm Herod’s throne,
the seat of everything evil.
He did not even seem interested in the place.

He went directly to the temple, their temple,
and started unleashing his righteous anger not against Herod,
but against his own people,
for setting up a market in the courtyard.
Our Gospel reading today stopped at verse 11.

Here, let me add verses 12 and 13.
“Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”

Now, did Jesus care about the brutality of Herod and Caesar?
Of course he did.
But if he was all about creating a new kind of kingdom,
about forming a people with a higher sort of politics,
he had to start where the real trouble was.

His own people had lost the moral and political vision of Torah,
they were losing their grip on the core of God’s law.

They couldn’t just blame Rome
for preventing them from living full and free.
They were doing it to themselves.
They didn’t know what it meant to love and serve God
with their whole heart, soul, mind, and strength,
and to love their neighbor as themselves.

The Roman Empire wouldn’t destroy their faith.
But they were at risk of destroying it themselves.

Their politics—their ways of living together as a people of God—
were all out of whack.
They did not treat each other with justice and compassion.
Their wealthy took advantage of their poor.
Their widows and orphans were not cared for.
Those who had position and power abused it.
Even in the temple, under God’s watchful eye,
money-changers made a profit off the less fortunate.

They were, in fact, lost without a shepherd,
to use Jesus’ own words, a couple chapters later.

So here, at the moment Jesus had almost everyone on his side,
he confronted them with a truth they didn’t want to hear.

I think he knew full well
what this confrontation of his own people could cost him.
It could cost him his overwhelming popularity.
It could cost him the loyalty of even his closest disciples.
It could cost him his life.
And in fact, it did cost him, every one of those things.

Jesus paid dearly,
when he made a move against his own people
and their distorted politics.
But he made that move with strength and purpose.
He was clear about his calling.
_____________________

It makes me wonder whether we are as clear today,
about our calling and identity.
How much do we reflect the political vision of Jesus,
in times that are also fraught with great risk,
and great opportunity?

Jesus did not put hope in the politics of the Empire,
and its addiction to power and violence.
He put his hope in God’s reign.

It was a political reign,
in the sense that it had to be socially embodied by a people
committed to reflecting the will and way of God
in their life together and their life in the world.
Kingdoms don’t exist in the abstract,
only in the particular,
embodied in a people.

Jesus did not ignore Rome.
But neither did he prioritize it.
If his own people failed to live into their high calling,
then the reign of God had no place,
no social location in which to take root.

Today, we are rightly concerned about many of the things
unfolding in our country and around the world.
The question is whether we are committed
to confront the powers of evil
in a manner consistent with the way
Jesus confronted the powers of evil in his time.

As much as the occupied and oppressed people of Jesus’ world
needed to be saved, and cried out, “Hosanna!”—“Save us!”
so we need salvation today,
individually, and collectively.

It is counter-cultural for us to say “Hosanna!” and mean it.
To say “hosanna” is to admit that we need saving.
It’s pretty un-American to admit our vulnerability,
our need,
our dependence on another to save.

It is one of the banes of the Christian life
to think that, once we’ve made it into God’s good graces,
we no longer need saving.
And it’s one of the banes of the church
to think that, as God’s special, and holy, people,
we don’t need continual salvation and reformation as a church.

We need a Savior!
I need a Savior!
You need a Savior!
Together, we all need a Savior!

We, personally, need to be saved from
the consequence of our own sin,
our missing the mark of God’s intentions for our lives,
our having settled for a diminished life.
And the church needs to be saved from
the consequences of our collective sins of pride and power.

We need to be saved from, and saved for.

We, personally, need to be saved for
the full life of shalom God intended for us from the beginning.
And the church needs to be saved for
God’s good purposes in this world,
saved, collectively, for becoming faithful partners
in God’s mission of reconciliation and redemption.

Hosanna, Lord Jesus Christ, Hosanna!
Save us!

—Phil Kniss, April 9, 2017

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Phil Kniss: Toward death, toward life

Lent 5: We breathe

John 11:1-45; Romans 8:6-11

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It’s just an embarrassment of riches, for me as a preacher
to get all three of these wonderful long Gospel stories from John
to preach on three weeks in a row.

This set of three stories—
first the story of the Samaritan woman at the well,
and then Jesus’ Sabbath Day healing of the man born blind,
and today, the raising of Lazarus from the dead—
they come around in the lectionary just once every three years.

All three are wonderfully told narratives
full of pathos and political intrigue and religious conflict,
and they’re all three fun and interesting and easy to preach from.

The fact that I got all three of them this year
has nothing to do with the fact that I plan the preaching schedule.
It’s just the way it worked out.
Sorry about that, Moriah and Barbara.

Now, I don’t want to imply the finished sermons just drop into my lap.
Some work is involved.
Especially with today’s text,
the work involves trying to see what relevance for our lives today,
can possibly be found in this one-of-a-kind story
of Jesus raising his friend from the dead,
after four days in the tomb.

This is not the stuff of everyday discipleship, is it?
I mean, I don’t generally waken in the morning
wondering what earth-shaking miracle
I am going to be called on to perform
as someone who is trying to follow Jesus in life.

I would not say any-thing is impossible,
if God is truly in it.
But resurrection of someone four days dead
is not something we are likely to encounter as a disciple of Jesus.
So I don’t think learning how to do that
is the take-away lesson for this Gospel story.
No, but there is an important, and relevant lesson for us, nonetheless.

Before we get to that,
let’s dig a little deeper into the context
behind the words and actions of this story.

Lazarus, along with his sisters Mary and Martha,
lived in Bethany—right outside Jerusalem—a suburb, almost.
They were closer to Jerusalem,
than we are right now to downtown Harrisonburg.

Jerusalem, and its immediate environs,
were the center of the organized resistance to Jesus.
Jesus was mostly adored out in the rural areas.
In Jerusalem, not so much.

We learn, if we read the previous chapter, John 10,
that just a few days earlier Jesus was in Jerusalem,
where the crowds accused him of being demon-possessed,
then accused him of blasphemy,
then tried to stone him to death.

Jesus immediately made a very sensible decision.
He and his disciples escaped to the other side of the Jordan River.
They crossed over to the far east side, and stayed put.
I think the disciples appreciated that decision.
They were safe there.
They let people come to them,
instead of going out to the people
and running into more trouble.

When the message was sent to Jesus, in ch. 11, that Lazarus was ill,
Jesus decided to stay put anyway.
I can imagine all his disciples saying, “Whew! Thank you, Jesus.”
At least, that’s what I would have said.

But two days later, v. 7, Jesus changed his mind.
“Time to go to Jerusalem.”
Back to the war zone. We’re done with R&R.
The disciples tried their best to stop him.
“Rabbi, they were just trying to stone you.”

Jesus said, “Oh, but our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.
And I’m going to wake him up.”
O...kay!

One of the disciples, apparently a little slow on the uptake,
said, “Well, then, if he’s asleep, he’ll be fine.
He can wake up by himself.”
So Jesus spelled it out.
Or, as John put it, he “told them plainly.”
“I was using a figure of speech.
Lazarus is dead. Let’s go.”

Then Thomas—you know the one, “Doubting Thomas,”
make a statement full of faith and courage,
and one that I want us hear clearly today.
He said to the other disciples, v. 16,
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
Thomas knew, they all knew.
Walking to Bethany meant walking toward death.
Not just Lazarus’ death, but their own death.

We usually read that line almost in passing.
I want us to grasp its significance.

They were in a place of safety,
having narrowing escaped being stoned to death by a mob.
But they were now, while the tensions were still high,
walking right back into the center of the resistance.
_____________________

What does it take for you? What does it take for me?
What does it take to choose, consciously, to walk toward death?
If Michael J. Sharp were still alive, we could ask him.
We could ask any number of other persons who were killed
because of conscious choices they made
to walk in a direction that they knew could lead toward death,
but might also result in resurrection.

We could ask Martin Luther King, Jr.
We could ask Archbishop Oscar Romero.
We could ask my 11th-great-grandfather, Hans Landis,
A 70-year-old Swiss Anabaptist farmer-pastor
beheaded because he chose not to leave town,
even when given plenty of chances to do so.
We could ask courageous men and women of faith—
all kinds of faith, in every age.
What does it take to walk toward death?

Why did Jesus go to Bethany, and expect his disciples to follow?
And why were they willing to follow?

I have a hunch they had some insight into a deeper truth
than the fact they were walking toward death.
They knew they were also walking toward the Spirit of Life.
They had been with Jesus and witnessed
healing, restoration, reconciliation, in the face of resistance.
They had seen lepers restored to health, and to their communities.
They had seen women and children,
prostitutes and tax cheaters,
Samaritans and Roman soldiers,
and all other manner of people typically ignored or despised,
given back their dignity,
shown compassion,
forgiven,
and restored to right relationship.

They knew, somehow, despite their misgivings,
that if Jesus was called in that direction,
they were willing to go along,
because usually, something good came of it.
And even if it didn’t this time, they were still with Jesus.

Obviously, they had no idea at this stage
that this was a journey leading to the cross,
to crucifixion for Jesus,
and what sort of meaning might be found in that.
But I think there must have been some indefinable sense,
even inarticulate sense—nothing they could put words to—
that even if Jesus was walking toward suffering, toward death,
if he was walking this purposefully,
and with this much resolve and determination,
they were willing to walk this way with him.

The disciple Thomas, who legend has it,
was lacking in the faith department,
issues one of the most profound statements of faith
uttered by a disciple, ever.
He said, in so many words,
“Even if following you leads to my death,
I will go with you.”

Even though he did not understand everything Jesus stood for,
he knew that what Jesus stood for was more true,
more just,
more God-breathed,
than anything the opposition stood for.
And even if the opposition was stronger,
even if the resistance had on their side
all the powers that be in Jerusalem,
with the full support of Rome behind them,
even then,
Thomas would stay with what was true, and right,
and consistent with God’s purposes.
Thomas would stay with Jesus.

And Thomas appealed to his fellow disciples to do the same.
And they all did.
At least for now.
They walked toward death,
expecting to find some sign of life there as well.

Yes, we know this determination faltered, a few weeks later.
When all hell broke loose, literally.
When the powers were at their most threatening,
the disciples ran away.
But later they came back, and stayed.
And for now, they are staying.
So we can give them that.

And we can draw inspiration from that for our lives today.
_____________________

Briefly, let’s review what happened in Bethany.
When they arrived, the crowd of mourners were there,
staying close by Mary and Martha, wailing, as was the custom.
The sisters both met Jesus and in emotional torment said,
“If you had been here, our brother would not have died.”
And then Jesus, as the story points out specifically,
joined in the wailing.
“Jesus wept.”

I grew up knowing this piece of King James Bible trivia—
that John 11:35 was the shortest verse in the Bible.
It is short, but not insignificant.
It doesn’t say Jesus had some moisture build up
at the corners of his eye sockets,
and a little bit of that rolled down his cheek,
as he swallowed hard,
and very manfully kept his composure.
No, it says he wept.
And in the context of a first-century Jewish village in Palestine,
during a public community mourning,
I think it’s clear that weeping means weeping—
loudly and openly and with bitter anguish.
So much so, that the other mourners remarked,
“Wow, see how much he loved him.”
Further, v. 33 says,
“he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.”
Jesus crumpled in grief.
I expect he sincerely regretted waiting two days.

But then, as if he suddenly remembered his identity and purpose,
that God was all about giving life to what was dead,
and that he was there as a representative of God’s agenda,
Jesus took control of the situation.
Started issuing orders.
Take me to the tomb.
Take away the stone.
Lazarus, come out!
Unbind him, and let him go.
And there was a resurrection of someone four days dead.

Now, I’m not making a point about historic or scientific accuracy
of this and other accounts of human bodily resurrection.
Believe what you will about the science and biology of it.
But also believe the Gospel—
the good news narrative contained here,
and throughout the Gospels.
The dead man lived.
Death is transformed to life.

This one victory over death and its power,
was just a preview of the death-defying drama 
about to unfold.
This act of Jesus—
prompted by his willingness, and that of his disciples
to walk boldly toward death,
increased his popular support,
and the resistance by the death-dealing powers
dug in even more.
_____________________

Today, we need not expound on where we know Jesus is heading,
and the meaning of his walk to the cross,
his suffering, death, and resurrection.
We have a whole week coming up—soon—
to hear that story again,
to reflect on those themes,
and to worship together as we do so.

For now, I invite us to reflect on who we are
living in a world of death,
but having identified with the Spirit of life.

Jesus and his disciples were given a choice in this story.
They, the living, could try to escape from death,
stay in hiding, as far away as possible,
or they could approach it,
purposefully walk toward it,
led by the one who represented life wherever he went.

Isn’t that the same choice we have today,
in a world that tries its best to knock the breath out of us?
We can run and hide from the darkness and death that threatens,
or we can claim our identity as people of the Spirit,
people of the breath of God,
people who have the life-wind of God
blowing among us and through us.
As Paul said in Romans 8:11,
in one of today’s lectionary texts we didn’t read,
If the breath of him who raised Jesus from the dead
is in you, he who raised Christ from the dead
will give life to your mortal bodies also
through his Spirit-breath that dwells in you.

As disciples of Jesus,
we are not strangers to the breath of God.
It is now blowing into and through us,
filling our lungs, and our whole being with life.
And it’s the  same Spirit-breath, the same life force
that won the battle over death in Bethany,
won it later in Jerusalem,
won it later in many other places where death-dealing powers
thought they had things under control.
From the heart of the Roman Empire for early Christians,
to the town council of Zurich Switzerland
for Felix Manz and early Anabaptists,
to the halls of Congress and the White House,
for us today . . . even today.

It’s a predictable result.
In a death and life struggle
when God is involved in it (as God always is),
the victory goes to life.
The Spirit-breath of life, which is God’s Spirit-breath,
which is blowing in us,
cannot be snuffed out.

Life belongs to God.
Now . . . the victory of life over death
does not unfold in ways we can manage and predict.
It may not even look like victory, in real time.
But the breath of God, the wind of God, will lead us to life,
if we keep leaning into that wind,
and not into false promises offered by false powers.

As long as the wind is blowing,
as long as there is God’s Spirit-breath in us,
death is not going to have the last word.

As death threatens in our world,
let us not stay in safety, hiding on the far side of the Jordan,
let us, with Jesus,
welcome the wind and breathe deeply,
and walk toward that which threatens us,
believing that God’s purposes are trustworthy,
and will lead us toward life.
Let us lean into the wind of the Spirit of life.


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