The Many Voices in the Crowd

Introduction:

Today’s scripture is difficult to fully understand without knowing the scriptures of the First Testament. Let me first read from Luke, verses 28-36.

Read Luke 19:28-36

Now compare these words with the writings in Zechariah 9:9-10. In these verses we hear almost the same words as we did in Luke. Zechariah presents a description of a future anointed king or messiah for Israel, a description that Luke now attributes to Jesus. As we read these verses, hear how this king is one that is passive and peaceful.

Read Zechariah 9:9-10

“He is humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” What does it mean to be humble? The first thing it means is being able to get yourself and your needs or wants or desires out of the way so you can fully serve God. It if first and foremost about living a life that glorifies God. Micah 6:8, “What does the Lord require of you but to seek kindness, love justice and to walk humbly with God.”

Another very important understanding about humility is it is not about diminishing oneself. In fact I believe being humble is the very opposite of diminishing oneself. Humility is about having a quiet confidence about who you are and what you are talented at. It is being honest with yourself, so you can identify what your talents and abilities are, while accepting those places where your gifts may be limited. Scripture tells us that God has gifted us all with the hope and understanding that we will use our gifts to glorify God.

The other aspect we see in Zechariah that is important as we make this connection to Jesus is that this king or messiah shall command peace to all the nations. It is this thought we see echoed in the rest of the passage from Luke.

Read Luke 19:37-42

We hear the many voices in the crowd as Jesus passes by. Some call him king and others cry out to silence the crowd and their praise. Notice how this passage now brings Jesus’ life into a full circle of meaning. At his birth, the angels appear to the shepherds announcing to them that the Messiah has been born. Where will they find him and how will they know him? He is wrapped in rags lying in a feeding trough. From the very beginning of his life, humility is lived. And the angels sing, “Glory to God . . . and on earth peace among those whom he favors.”

Jesus’ whole life has been about shalom, about bringing healing, wholeness and well-being to all of life. But as he entered Jerusalem, a name that literally means, “The City of Peace,” we see Jesus weeps. I suspect he knows what the next few days hold in store for him and what the likely outcome will be, his death and crucifixion. But I believe he weeps as one whose heart is beginning to break. Maybe he wonders whether he has glorified God and if his life has been successful in living its calling and vocation. A call for peace on earth, yet the city of peace remains in chaos and disarray. The very crowd around him finds themselves at odds with each other, arguing and screaming at each other. His own life is just a few short days away from experiencing humanity’s most inhumane treatment. “O Jerusalem, if you would only recognize this day those things that make for peace. But even now they are hidden from your eyes.”

Sermon:

When you look around at our world, does your heart often-times break? How can it not break when you see the picture of a 19 year old soldier who just graduated last year from our high school on the front page of our paper telling the story of how his beautifully knitted body is now broken because of war? How can it not break when we see the very fabric of community and civility tossed away and replaced by violence toward those who we disagree with?

I believe it is why Jesus weeps. I believe that his whole life and ministry, his whole presence with us upon earth, sharing life together with us was all about answering this question. “How will we share life together as children of God?” I have come to show you how to live in peace, in wholeness, harmony and well-being,” Jesus tells us, but you have missed those things that bring this peace. So the question still remains, “How will you choose to live together?” The choice is ours is it not? In Deuteronomy, in the very beginning of God’s relationship with Israel, God says, “I set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life.” What are those things we choose that bring peace? How do we choose to act that brings harmony and wellbeing to all of our lives? What does it mean to live in the peaceable kingdom of heaven on earth? What does it mean to be community?

When I was pastor of the church in Cottonwood, we worked with the Center Adult Day Care program here in Prescott to open a center in Cottonwood. The church provided the initial space for the program in our fellowship area and most of its first volunteers. When it opened, we invited the director to come to worship so she could introduce herself, the program and share how the church could help. During our service we had a time where people would stand and ask for prayers for themselves or for others. Some would stand and give us an update about what was happening in another’s life. The new director was a nurse, and as she was hearing all of this sharing, I observed a spirit of discomfort about her. Well first thing the next week she came to my office and I found out why. She said, “Do you realize how many times you broke confidentiality during your worship service?” As a nurse, as one who was required to live strictly by the HIPPA Law, she could not believe that we would tell personal information about each other.

I must admit I chuckled a little and then responded, “When we join the church, many of us willingly relinquish our privacy so we may receive each other’s care and support. How can we love each other, how can we be compassionate toward each other, if we do not know what life is like for each other? I know I did not convince her, and I also know that this is not true for everyone who is a part of our congregation. It is what our prayer time tries to achieve. Those who need the support and care of the community have the ability to express this to a small degree in our prayers.

When we were in Kenya several years ago on a mission trip, we had time to share with the people about ourselves and our church. One of the hardest things for them to understand was how we, as the church, could only gather for one hour a week. For them, it was foreign to what it means to be the church. How do you get to know each other and what is happening in each other’s lives? How can you help each other if you do not even know each other’s names, let alone what is going on in each other’s life? It was the question of, “How can you be a community and not just a gathering of souls?”

So what does it mean then to be community and to live those things that make for peace? What is it Jesus is referring to in his lament over Jerusalem? The first thing is Jesus’ commandment “to love one another.” There are three different words for love in Greek. Eros, obviously a cognate for erotic is a deeply passionate love. Philia means friendship. The love Jesus refers to here is agape. Agape is not a love of deep emotion and intimacy, but describes how we generally relate to each other. It is a call to have a genuine respect and honoring of each other, even in the midst of all our differences.

Scott Peck, author and psychiatrist, was instrumental in helping me catch a glimpse of why Jesus is weeping. Peck wrote a number of books, one of them is, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace. The book goes into a deep and truly enlightening understanding and process which is stated on the cover as, “A spiritual journey toward self-acceptance (our earlier definition for humility) true belonging, and new hope for the world.” Peck reflects Jesus’ teachings that real community means falling in love en masse. And, he reminds us that this love does not mean that we will not experience any discord or discpmfort together, but in fact just the opposite. He says our relationships may become more lively and more intense. Why? Because we feel safe enough and respect each other enough to speak to each other from our hearts. Real community is an expression of trusting each other and loving each other enough that we want to know one another as the distinct individuals we are. We want to understand each other’s lives, each other’s hopes and dreams, and yes even fears in agape, in genuine respect and honoring of each other.

I saw this love en masse most fully lived in the church I served prior to Prescott. I started a Bible Study that served as almost a second worship service on Sunday mornings. We called it The Café because we served three or four different gourmet coffees and a continental type breakfast. Almost one-third of the people who came to worship first attended the Café. We would truly get into some lively conversations. So lively in fact, that sometimes I was even a little concerned about the longer impact on the relationships. But inevitably, every week after the Café those who had been in lively disagreement would give each other a hug and walk off to worship where they sat together in the pew and worshipped the God they all loved.

I believe there were several contributing factors to this life of community I was privileged to be a part of. One is the people truly cared about each other. In part it was because they had been through so much together. Just before I was appointed to be their pastor, they had experienced an incredibly emotional and even volatile split in the church, where they lost almost half their congregation. They knew the real pain of not being able to live with that which brings peace. In fact this was about the third major split that some had lived through. They were the remnant who loved the church and who were dedicated to its life and wellbeing.

This group had truly suffered together in ways that had actually brought them closer together. They obviously did not always agree, but they truly were committed to God, the church and each other.

What I also saw was a group of people who were able to trust each other so completely that they could talk about anything knowing it would not destroy the love they had for each other. And that was the real essence of living in true community. The sharing most of the time, was not about trying to change each other to be like them, but was an extension of trust that allowed them to know the real person they shared community with. It was not about trying to change each other, but to try to understand each other which only made the relationship deeper and more loving.

If we do not live the things that make for peace, we see communities become factions, churches become fractured. If we do not live the things that make for peace, we see friends become enemies. If we do not live the things that make for peace, we see some who live exceedingly well while others barely survive. If we do not live the things that make for peace, we see the ultimate tragedy of young men and women sent to war. If we do not live what makes for peace, we have missed the gospel of Jesus Christ and the reason he was sent to earth.

For unto you is born a savior the Messiah. Glory to God and on earth and peace among those he favors.

Ii is the definition of living compassionately toward each other. I believe genuine community is not achieved, or to use Jesus’ words, the things that make for peace are not achieved because first, we are afraid to trust each other with our deepest most heartfelt beliefs. Why? Because too often when we share people take the gift we offer of ourselves and use it to tell us why we are wrong or what we must do to change. When, I believe in real community we take the gift of another’s sharing to understand them and life in general more fully. Where real repentance, where real change and real new direction come to our lives, is when we learn about each other and our understanding of life grows.

I truly believe that one of the greatest expressions of love, en masse, and the greatest expressions of a peace-seeking community, is the ability to be able to discuss anything, to be so committed to each other that we know that even in the midst of a lively and maybe even heated discussion, we are so committed to each other, that it will never, in fact it cannot ever destroy our love for each other. In fact it does just the opposite. It shows how deep our sense of community and love really is.

Every loving relationship is based upon a genuine sense of commitment to another. Today, we have recognized that we still do not know or fully practice those things which make for peace. As we continue through this next week, this time of Jesus’ passion and death, as we head toward Easter, we will recognize God’s commitment of love. Do not miss Good Friday. Jesus, as he hangs upon the cross, as he experiences the absolute rejection of those whom he loves, he prays, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” It is only in that moment can we truly understand the words of Paul, “Nothing, absolutely nothing can ever separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This commitment to love one another no matter what, is what makes for peace.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on March 28, 2010.