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Come Sunday: Lectionary Reflections (April 1, 2012)

“Save Me, Save Me, Save Me”
Palm Sunday
Mark 11:1-11
April 1, 2012

 

 

 It was about 15 years ago, that I came down with the flu.  I had moved to Minneapolis a few months earlier and was trying to make a new start.  I was 27 and still not sure about what I wanted to do.  (Not that anyone who 27 knows what they want to do in life.  At 42, I don’t know if I know any better now than I did back then, but that’s another story.)

 

Anyway, I came down with the flu.  I was sick for a few days, but like most people, I got better from my little illness.  I went back to work and things looked like they were getting back to normal.

 

Except they didn’t.

 

I got sick again, and this time things were worse than before.  What had started as the normal flu, became pneumonia.  I don’t think I’ve ever been that sick before.  I remember my parents calling me to see how I was.  Mom asked me if she and dad should make the 12 hour journey from Michigan to see me.  At first I said no.  I mean, I was a grown man and could take care of myself.

 

But I couldn’t.

 

About 12 hours later, I had gotten worse.  The medicine I was given at emergency wasn’t working.  I dialed the phone and called Mom late at night.  All I had to say was to come and within hours, they were on their way to take care of their son, who couldn’t take care of himself.

 

As I read the gospel text for Palm Sunday, I am fixated on one word, the word “hosanna.”  We only hear this word one time during the year, Palm Sunday.  It’s the word we hear the crowd as Jesus made his entry into Jerusalem.  We can imagine little kids marching up and down the isles of a sanctuary shouting Hosanna over and over again.  I used to think this was just a word of praise and in some ways, it is.  But I did some checking and found out that the word means in Greek “save or pray.”  So, the word the people were shouting was not as much shouts of joy as much as it was a distress call.

 

I wonder about the people shouting those words.  They were looking for help from God.  The Jews were living under the rather cruel boot of Rome and wanted freedom.  So here comes this guy on a pretty humble animal (a donkey) and the people shout for help.  But the help that arrives is not that appealing.  I mean, it looked rather silly to see this grown man on a short animal that is used more for hauling things than it was for carrying people.

 

Help was on way, but not in the form they expected.

 

Palm Sunday is normally seen as the last gasp of happy times before Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  But maybe it’s not such a high point as it is reminding us that we are all looking for salvation and wholeness.  Maybe it’s about hitting bottom, as those in recovery say.  Maybe we realize that we can’t do it on our own and look for someone to come and save us- even if it is a fool on a donkey.

 

Hosanna, Hosanna. Save me, save me.  Truer words never spoken.

 

 

Go and be church.

Dennis Sanders

Come Sunday: Lectionary Reflections (March 25, 2012)

“Being Human”

Fifth Sunday of Lent
Psalm 51
March 25, 2012

 

 

One of my favorite television shows is the science fiction/horror series “Being Human.” The series is based on a British TV show of the same name and features a vampire, werewolf and a ghost living together in an apartment in Boston. The whole premise of the show sounds like the start of a joke and at times, there is a lot of humor as the three try to live life as humans even though they are no longer human. But the main thrust of the show is how hard it is for them to be normal. Time and time again, they get thrown into situations where they are confronted with what they have become and how hard it is to live life as it was before they left the human race. This little campy television show tells a story of the supernatural, but at its core the message is very human: we are not always who we seem to be or even who we want to be. Sooner or later, we will face the reality of how far we have fallen and how hard it is to get back up.

 

Cast of "Being Human"

Psalm 51 is the passage we hear every Ash Wednesday. If there ever was a downer passage, this it is. “Have mercy on me, God,according to your faithful love! Wipe away my wrongdoings according to your great compassion!” writes the psalmist. This is a guy who realizes that he’s been caught. He’s not offering a simple or formal apology, he’s being incredibly honest. He messed up. He got himself into a mess that he can’t get himself out of. He asks God for help because only God can get this writer out of the pickle that he constructed.

 

Our culture doesn’t really like to talk about sin. I’m not talking about sin in the I-ate-too-much-chocolate kind of way. I’m talking about how we are able to get ourselves into messes even when we don’t mean to. We want to think that we can solve any problem that comes our way and if we can’t, well, then weren’t smart enough. But the psalmist knew better. All of the pretense had gone away and the writer is left with the fact that no matter what, she will make mistakes that will hurt others and hurt God. She realize that it is only God that can make her clean and can right the relationship which has been broken.

 

As we journey towards the cross, we are reminded that salvation comes only not through us trying to make things right, though we will try. Salvation comes in the one that washes us daily, that makes us able to praise God with a right and renewed spirit. It is in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that we can become healed and human.

 

Go and be church.

Dennis Sanders

Come Sunday: Lectionary Reflections (March 18, 2012)

Text: John 3:14-21

14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so must the Human One i be lifted up 15 so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life. 16 God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. 17 God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him isn’t judged; whoever doesn’t believe in him is already judged, because they don’t believe in the name of God’s only Son.

-Common English Bible

  • The gospel for this Sunday contains one of the most well known passages in the Bible, John 3:16.  But that passage is part of a larger passage that recounts an earlier experience in the life of the people of Israel.  Numbers 21:4-9 talks about the time the Israelites were afflicted with snakes.  Moses sets up a bronze snake that could save people from the poinsonous venom if they looked at the bronzed creature.    The following is from Lutheran theologian Sarah Henrich:

The purpose of God’s having sent the Son was to save the world, just as the purpose of commanding Moses to erect a serpent on a pole was to save the people from death. The son came to save, to grant eternal life because God loved the world. That was Jesus’ announcement. I’m here because the God who loved you of old, still does. He sent me to tell you, to show you, to gather you up into life with him forever.

Why do you think God sent Jesus into the world?  What does eternal life mean?

God has healed us, all of us. The cross remind us that not only that something is not right in the world, but that God is doing something about this. As a community of faith, we are called to go and tell people that they are loved by God. There is nothing that they have to do to earn God’s love, because it is by God’s grace that they are loved. We have a story to tell.

What do you think the cross means?  What does it say about God?  What does it say about you?

We want to ask, “What was Jesus’ intent here?” But maybe that’s the wrong question. Maybe this enigmatic passage acts as a mirror to show us our own faults, biases, and prejudices.

Come Sunday: Lectionary Reflections (March 11, 2012)

Text: John 2:13-25

13 It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 He found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency sitting there. 15 He made a whip from ropes and chased them all out of the temple, including the cattle and the sheep. He scattered the coins and overturned the tables of those who exchanged currency. 16 He said to the dove sellers, “ Get these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a place of business. ”

-Common English Bible

…But I think the unintended consequence of this salutary emphasis on Sunday worship and church in general is that we’ve unintentionally given the impression that church is this great big God-box where people should come to experience God. I mean, think about: almost all of our evangelism efforts in recent memory have been geared toward getting people to come to church. (And the gauge of just how strong the impulse has been is your immediate and unconscious reaction — come on, be honest 🙂 — of initially wondering what else evangelism efforts could possibly be about.)

Is he right?  How does this relate to the the Gospel text?

  • Why is Jesus angry?  Before you answer, consider this quote from Anne LaMont:

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

Now that you’ve taken that in, why is Jesus angry?  Does it matter? Consider this quote:

We want to ask, “What was Jesus’ intent here?” But maybe that’s the wrong question. Maybe this enigmatic passage acts as a mirror to show us our own faults, biases, and prejudices.