"Disturbing the Peace" 4-1-07

First of all, I want to thank you for your wonderful presentation this morning. You all really worked hard to learn all those lines and to learn all those songs. I want to thank your directors Miss Joanne, and Miss Kathy, and their helpers, Miss Marcia and Miss Cheryl. Thank you Thank You Thank you.

Now I want you to put on your memory caps. …not your thinking caps, but your memory caps. I want you to think back four months…Can you do that? What were you doing about this time four months ago? It would be the first Saturday in December. Was it hot or cold? It was cold. Let me give you a hint. You were sitting on bales of hay. Yes you were in the back of a trailer on bales of hay waiting to ride in the Christmas parade in Pearland. We had lights on the trailer and we had flags (get flags out) and we had signs that said, “Pray For Peace Around The World.” It was a parade. It was a parade of people in Pearland celebrating Jesus’ coming into the world.

This morning you shared with us about another parade. It was a parade of Jesus leaving the world. They didn’t have flags but they had Palm branches. He didn’t ride on a trailer, but he rode on a donkey. It was a parade that had people cheering. It was a parade that led to his being arrested, beaten and killed on a cross.

It was a parade that began a week we have come to call Holy Week. This week we will be thinking about what Jesus let happen to him. Thursday night we will meet here and remember the Last Supper he shared with his disciples. On Friday we will think about how sad it was that Jesus died on the cross for us. On Saturday we will think about his body being laid in a tomb. But on SUNDAY!!!
ON SUNDAY we will come to church to celebrate that ..what? That the stone was rolled away and that Jesus was raised from the dead…that he is alive.

I hope that this week will mean a lot to you. I hope that as you have worked so hard to memorize lines about how Holy Week began that you will not forget how it ended. I hope that you will be with us next Sunday to celebrate that he is risen! Amen? Amen.

Let’s pray. Thank you God that you sent Jesus to show us how much you love us. Thank you Jesus that you welcomed little children and that you love each one of these little children. O Holy Spirit, fill them with love for God and for each other. Fill them with joy and hope and your peace. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I hesitate to read this morning’s gospel lesson after the wonderful presentation that our PeaceKids have given. But I trust that their presentation will have awakened your senses to the actions of that day and that as I read them for you again, you will not only hear, but envision the events of that day unfold in your mind’s eye. Hear the word of the Lord, the gospel of our Lord from Luke 19:28-40.

Palm Sunday is the day that began the period of seven days that the Christian church has come to call, “Holy Week. It was seven days that changed the world. Holy week has been the topic of millions of publications and countless debates. I’m sure the grocery check out lines will feature the obligatory cover featuring Christ in some shape or fashion. Holy week has inspired the world’s greatest painters, skilled architects, and gifted musicians. Until now however, no one had attempted to portray the passion of Christ …in chocolate.

This Easter season the expected chocolate bunnies are scheduled to be joined by the anticipated unveiling of a 6 foot, 200 pound chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ, dubbed "My Sweet Lord" by its creator. No, this is not an April Fool’s joke. Someone really made a chocolate Jesus.

The sculpture by Cosimo Cavallaro was scheduled to debut tomorrow evening, four days before Christians mark the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday. The final day of the exhibit at the Lab Gallery inside Manhattan's Roger Smith Hotel was planned for Easter Sunday.

Cavallaro, who was raised in Canada and Italy, is best known for his quirky work with food as art. His past efforts include repainting a Manhattan hotel room in melted mozzarella, spraying 5 tons of pepper jack cheese on a Wyoming home and festooning a four-poster bed with 312 pounds of processed ham.

The gallery's creative director, Matt Semler, said the Lab and the hotel were overrun with angry telephone calls and e-mails. The gallery was considering its options, he said. "We're obviously surprised by the overwhelming response and offense people have taken," said Semler, adding that the Holy Week timing was a coincidence.”

Some coincidence…. I may not know art, but I know what I like and what I don’t like. I think he should be arrested for disturbing the peace…or something more appropriate should be done with his “piece that’s disturbing,” like maybe melting it down and making something more appropriate ….like a million hollow bunnies.

The people of Jerusalem had their peace disturbed. It was supposed to be a perfectly normal workday. Sunday was their Monday. Sure this was the week that the city observed the holiday of Passover and there were a lot of visitors to the town, but suddenly the word began to spread that there was a disturbing gathering outside the city. They could hear the shouts of people in the distance drawing nearer. “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest...”

The word “Hosanna” literally means, “Save Us Now!” Many in the crowd were not so much as yelling "Up with Jesus." As they were using his parade as a way of saying, "Down with Rome."

In verses 28 through 36 we are told about the transportation arrangements made for Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The town of Bethphage was about a mile and a half east of Jerusalem. There, Jesus obviously had arranged to borrow a young donkey that had never been used as a beast of burden. Old Testament instructions required such an animal for sacred purposes. (Numbers 19:2, I Samuel 6:7) Why did Jesus decide to ride a donkey into the city? Those of us who’ve been reading through the Bible in 90 days remember what happened the last time a prophet rode a donkey. (Remember Balaam?)

To the Hebrews, the horse was the mount of a conquering general, but the donkey was the symbol of peace. Today, if Jesus chose a limo it would be a stretch Yugo. Jesus was fulfilling this prophecy of the prophet Zechariah offered hundreds of years earlier: "See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on the donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." (Zechariah 9:9)

This triumphal entry was Jesus’ "coming out" party. Earlier he had hushed up talk about his being the Messiah, but now, by his choice of steed Jesus enters Jerusalem, (which literally means, “Jeru-the city and Salem-of peace) not on a horse symbolizing he is coming in to conquer it. He comes on a donkey to symbolize he has already conquered it. Jesus rode into Jerusalem in a way that was an unmistakable claim to be the Messiah, God’s anointed King. This was an act of glorious defiance and superlative courage. Here was a man with a price on his head riding into the city in broad daylight, claiming to be the real King of the Jews. He was the Prince of Peace, riding into the City of Peace, disturbing the Peace.

The Pharisees’ peace was disturbed. Verses 37 through 40 tell us about the cheering disciples and the disturbed Pharisees. Luke is the only gospel writer to record the objections of the Pharisees. They said to Jesus, "Make your disciples stop all their cheering."

Jesus replied, in effect, "Somebody is going to shout today. If they don’t, the very stones along the path will. God’s creation must shout today because I am revealed for who I am."

We don’t know how many disciples lined the roadways. Perhaps hundreds. Thousands more stood and watched with varying degrees of curiosity and anxiety, wondering if Roman troops would break up this demonstration. Jesus got the red carpet treatment; his disciples carpeted the roadway with their garments. That was a nice touch usually reserved for kings and victorious generals.

Hear what happened next. (Read verses 41 through 44) These verses tell us about Jesus’ surprising tears and his disturbing prediction. This seems to be a day for big smiles, victorious waves, and high-fives, certainly no day for weeping. But that’s what Jesus did. And the Greek word in verse 41 for weeping does not imply some quiet, restrained emotion like a silent tear trickling down one cheek. . No, this is the word used to describe heart-breaking sobbing.The word implies wailing.

Why does Jesus’ cry his heart out? Because he knows what is going to happen. Jesus knows that the people will reject his prescription for spiritual renewal. He knows that they will turn to military confrontation with Rome, a battle He knows they will lose. Jesus’ dire forecasts were fulfilled forty years later when Rome devastated Jerusalem. So complete was the destruction that not one stone of the rebuilt temple was left in place. Only one small section of the city wall was left standing. Today it is called "the Wailing Wall."

Jesus’ haunting statement in verse 42 demands our attention. He said, "If you only knew the things that make for peace." In Hebrew, the word "peace" is "shalom." It means more than just the absence of conflict. Shalom begins with an interior peace with God and spills over into peace among people and nations.

Peace is an inside job. It begins with a relationship between a person and God; then it spills over into all human relationships. Jesus lamented that his culture didn’t know the first thing about what made for peace, and He is still declaring to our modern culture, "If you only knew the things that make for peace."

Just imagine that Jesus’ Palm Sunday parade is passing down Broadway like we paraded in the back of the trailer in the Christmas parade. Imagine yourself not in the parade, but standing on the road watching. Imagine Jesus stopping and weeping over Pearland. Imagine hearing him say, “I still wish they knew the things that make for peace."

You will never understand the things that make for peace as long as you remain just a sidewalk spectator. You must step out into the street and join the procession… even if it leads to a cross…especially because it leads to a cross.

The last time Jesus rode was when he rode a donkey into Jerusalem on the first day of Holy Week. The next time Jesus rides, it will be on a white horse as he returns to finish what he started. Until then, my prayer is that we, that you and I, will be about the task of learning the things that make for peace and be more about promoting peace and maybe even doing so by disturbing it.

By the way, I just read this morning that Cosimo Cavallaro’s exhibit of the six foot chocolate Jesus was canceled. And Matt Selmer, the gallery’s creative director who said the exhibit was a coincidence, coincidentally has resigned.

That’s what you get for disturbing the peace. Sometimes you lose your job. Sometimes you lose your life.

Let’s pray, Dear Lord, Your peace passes understanding. It is far more than the absence of conflict. Sometimes it calls for confrontation. Sometimes it calls for action. Sometimes it calls for sacrifice. Teach us the things that make for peace.

We thank you that the cries of Hosanna happened. That you did save then and you continue to save now. You save us from weak resignation to the evils we deplore. Move us from weak resignation to strong resolve to work for the things that make for peace…peace in the hearts of people that spill out into peace among nations.

We pray for the places where peace needs to break out. We pray for soldiers in harm’s way and politicians on every side of every conflict who make decisions that put them there.

We pray for those who have lost loved ones in the struggle for peace, and for those who are plotting to take away even more lives in the hope of finding peace.

Bring us to our senses. Break us out of our ruts. Move us to sacrifice in the name of peace.