Pastor Darren: Well, we've got uh Jesus arranging for this uh processional uh that um they're going into Jerusalem.
Pastor Darren: And for many, yeah, it was probably a really hope-filled time, especially those who are dissatisfied with the way things were.
Pastor Darren: They weren't feeling that they were treated well, that they were affirmed appropriately, that life was correct, how God would want it.
Pastor Darren: And so they wanted this overthrow.
Pastor Darren: So the the to have a parade was just what they would have in mind, and it was uh this subversive stuff was pretty um probably exciting for them as well, right?
Pastor Darren: He comes in on this donkey uh and actually it says donkey and a cult.
Pastor Darren: Hopefully you didn't ride both because it looked a little circus-y, I think.
Pastor Darren: Right.
Pastor Darren: But it comes in the donkey and a cult, as we're mentioned.
Pastor Darren: Uh, some scholars think differently, but generally it's either surrender or we just don't want to fight, is what you would do when you were in battle if you showed up on a cult or a donkey were saying, Hey, I'm coming here to chat, or basically not get beat up is uh what you were looking for.
Pastor Darren: But for Jesus, it's this message of the kind of king he was looking to be.
Pastor Darren: He wasn't looking to conquer in the ways that many people would think he was looking to conquer, right?
Pastor Darren: I would imagine the people who are there and they're laying down palm branches, even the palm branches are a little bit subversive.
Pastor Darren: A king would come in on this stallion and a horse, and people would come and they would lay, they would lay like really fine fabric to show how much they respected this king.
Pastor Darren: Right.
Pastor Darren: And here we're laying palm branches, palm branches that can be picked most anywhere back then.
Pastor Darren: Some were laying their clothing.
Pastor Darren: You know, that you can see some of the subversive message here.
Pastor Darren: This isn't going to be about top-down.
Pastor Darren: This is going to be kind of a bottom-up thing because they got God working on their side.
Pastor Darren: So you can see that they're excited.
Pastor Darren: But if we were to dip into their thinking right about now, I wonder if they are seeing a different kind of king than Jesus is intending to be.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: They're into it for right now.
Pastor Darren: You know, they don't uh uh um like how the world is going at the time, but they are ready to accept that he's not uh, but are they ready to accept what that he is not quite what they had envisioned?
Pastor Darren: Can they give up the idea that might Jesus might not be going to do it in their way?
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: You can do it your way, JC.
Pastor Darren: Just fix the really bad stuff first, then I'm right with you.
Pastor Darren: All right, then you can do it your way.
Pastor Darren: It's a question of aren't are they fully on board or even fully understanding?
Pastor Darren: Anybody find it interesting?
Pastor Darren: Does it catch your attention that this parade just seems to kind of end?
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: It just sort of piffles out.
Pastor Darren: You know, there's not this grand celebration.
Pastor Darren: One might have even thought there'd either be some sort of big conflict that came from it, or or the coronation of Jesus, and yet it just sort of piffles out.
Pastor Darren: And those of us here, we have the advantage of knowing how it actually plays out, right?
Pastor Darren: We know what really happens is kind of the opposite of what a lot of people were hoping.
Pastor Darren: So, our theme for Lent, the journey to faith.
Pastor Darren: How in the world does it land here?
Pastor Darren: How does this even connect?
Pastor Darren: You'll remember we're we're kind of like this baby in a basket.
Pastor Darren: Remember, Moses, he's this baby, he's going to be given up to be saved.
Pastor Darren: He's a baby in a basket rolling down the river of different influences and tides, and God comes to us, maybe in a burning bush, if you're lucky, usually in some other way, but offers some better way of doing things, at which point it's open to us to make that commitment of faith, to open ourselves to what God wants for us.
Pastor Darren: And then we learn that the journey, moving from some of those lower gods to the God we understand, capital G, isn't as easy as we'd hope, or kind of pulled to some of that old stuff.
Pastor Darren: But God along that journey provides for us.
Pastor Darren: We get manna, we get quail, we get water, and finally we get some structure.
Pastor Darren: These ten commandments, along with the other law, their structure now.
Pastor Darren: Do we need any more than that?
Pastor Darren: Have we stabilized in our faith now that we have all of those things?
Pastor Darren: Thanks, God, for those ten commandments.
Pastor Darren: Now we're good to go.
Pastor Darren: Do you feel like that solidifies your faith and gives you everything you need to go?
Pastor Darren: My guess is not quite yet.
Pastor Darren: I need a little bit more.
Pastor Darren: Part of what we learn on Palm Sunday is that this is not a journey with a beginning and an end.
Pastor Darren: You know, many scholars believe that many of the people who are there praising Jesus as he comes into Jerusalem, laying out palms and celebrating, singing Hosanna, praising Christ, that they will be, at least some of them, the same people who will be there on Friday night, yelling, crucify him, crucify him.
Pastor Darren: Doesn't that seem odd?
Pastor Darren: That wild, wild swing, how could anybody switch so fast?
Pastor Darren: Well, the thinking is that these people of great, great faith, or at least a a lot of hope in Christ, but they begin to look for something a little bit more substantial from him.
Pastor Darren: You know, if he's really God, then why isn't he just taking over?
Pastor Darren: Why isn't he fixing things?
Pastor Darren: If he's really God, then maybe we should see a little evidence.
Pastor Darren: You know, put it before we put it all forward, before we make a total commitment.
Pastor Darren: I mean, if he's really God, he shouldn't die anyway.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: Boy, if Jesus put something forward here, if we try to crucify him and he lives, this will be great.
Pastor Darren: I will have a stronger reason to have faith.
Pastor Darren: And all the people who don't have faith will have some evidence.
Pastor Darren: They'll have a reason to follow.
Pastor Darren: Can you see a little bit of how that pathway gets carved between praising Jesus to yelling, let's see what you got.
Pastor Darren: Let's see what you got, Jesus.
Pastor Darren: It turns out that this journey of faith that we have been learning about through Exodus, this journey of faith really is fairly cyclical.
Pastor Darren: There will be times in which we feel like uh we have everything we need to follow in faith.
Pastor Darren: I'm helping the poor.
Pastor Darren: This is great.
Pastor Darren: Everything in Bible study makes perfect sense.
Pastor Darren: Have you been there?
Pastor Darren: Ah, this is it.
Pastor Darren: When I walk through the garden, all of the words of God are so clear.
Pastor Darren: I'm in there taking notes like I'm getting groceries or something, right?
Pastor Darren: Have you been?
Pastor Darren: Where it just feels like you are just in step.
Pastor Darren: Everything is great, my faith is so deep.
Pastor Darren: There's even, there's even just that littlest, littlest space in our heart for the people that we hate.
Pastor Darren: Just a little one, though.
Pastor Darren: Haven't you been there?
Pastor Darren: And then Jesus shows up on a donkey and we think, yeah, we're gonna do this grace and peace style.
Pastor Darren: This is how we're doing it.
Pastor Darren: Me and Jesus, right?
Pastor Darren: We're gonna lay down palms, we're thinking, you, me, Jesus, right?
Pastor Darren: Let's do this.
Pastor Darren: My faith is strong.
Pastor Darren: And then there are times, and we've known these times, when it's not so deep, when the doubt is much more strong.
Pastor Darren: When the social justice need, the human need that is around us, that's engaging us, just feels so strong.
Pastor Darren: I remember talking with Nancy just this week about that.
Pastor Darren: We're like overwhelmed by this need.
Pastor Darren: And we read through our Bible and it it's just it's just not clicking.
Pastor Darren: In the Bible study this week, in Exodus, in our scriptures, we learn that if the master beats the slave so much that the slave dies right away, then he will be punished.
Pastor Darren: But if the slave lasts a few days before he dies, then he'll be forgiven.
Pastor Darren: That's in your scriptures.
Pastor Darren: That's Levitical law.
Pastor Darren: What do we do with that, God?
Pastor Darren: We walk through the garden where God used to speak with such clarity, and now it just feels quiet, but not a good quiet.
Pastor Darren: And we think, okay.
Pastor Darren: Maybe it's time, Jesus.
Pastor Darren: Maybe it's time, Jesus, for you to give us a little bit more to follow.
Pastor Darren: I got all these eggs in this basket of you being the way and the truth and the life.
Pastor Darren: Maybe it's time you give us some proof.
Pastor Darren: Show us your way works.
Pastor Darren: Show us you don't die.
Pastor Darren: Show us that you and that all you represent are eternal.
Pastor Darren: Show me that my work for the poor matters, God.
Pastor Darren: Tell me how scripture makes sense, God.
Pastor Darren: When will the world be fair?
Pastor Darren: God calm this anxiety in my heart.
Pastor Darren: God.
Pastor Darren: Enough of this, enough in this place.
Pastor Darren: And aren't we right there with those others on Friday night?
Pastor Darren: Yelling, prove yourself, Jesus.
Pastor Darren: We think of a journey as going from here to there.
Pastor Darren: But the journey of faith really moves more in cycles.
Pastor Darren: Cycles of deep, deep faith and trust all the way to instability life in that wilderness.
Pastor Darren: I called this message today last stop being human.
Pastor Darren: Only there really isn't a last stop for us.
Pastor Darren: At least as far as we're aware of in this life.
Pastor Darren: It's simply this continual cycle of life in which we try to maintain and strengthen our faith and our confidence in Jesus and the way of love and the way of peace and the way of faith.
Pastor Darren: It's a process in which we move from being at one with Christ.
Pastor Darren: I like to put it up here, where we're at one with Christ.
Pastor Darren: And then as we move forward, a separation begins to happen, usually out of our own hubris, thinking, I don't necessarily need God or God's way.
Pastor Darren: I can do this on my own.
Pastor Darren: And we start moving into more of a separation, right?
Pastor Darren: And then ultimately we get to a point of helplessness, of vulnerability.
Pastor Darren: We've tried it so long in our own way, without the ways of Christ.
Pastor Darren: And finally we reach that bottom where we're we're willing to listen again.
Pastor Darren: We're willing to trust again.
Pastor Darren: We're willing to live out that love again.
Pastor Darren: And through that process, God is able to work with us towards some restoration.
Pastor Darren: So again, we get back up with God.
Pastor Darren: We are at one again with God.
Pastor Darren: The beauty of this process is in the way that God is able to bring us back to that restoration.
Pastor Darren: With God, we are able to move from the separation, the brokenness, to growth and restoration.
Pastor Darren: In fact, I would say our growth relies on that separation because it's in that vulnerability, it's in that openness that we are able to allow God in, that God's able to work with us.
Pastor Darren: In fact, sometimes even when we are at one with Christ, if we are going to move any further, it's because we're willing to let that go a little bit, to really wrestle with something that we've been wrestling with.
Pastor Darren: Richard Rohr is uh somebody I've been uh working with.
Pastor Darren: And I've got a couple of quotes here.
Pastor Darren: I think we're uh ready for them, but uh, I've also invited you, if you uh are reading the emails Fridays and Sundays, to join me in uh working through the devotion that comes from his center for action and contemplation.
Pastor Darren: He really says it in a great, great way here.
Pastor Darren: I'm gonna quote him Our brokenness is the raw material of God's restoration.
Pastor Darren: Let that sit for a little bit.
Pastor Darren: Our brokenness is the raw material of God's restoration.
Pastor Darren: That brokenness that we let God into is what allows God to help restore us.
Pastor Darren: It is the occasion and opportunity for God to love.
Pastor Darren: Our brokenness, weakness, limitation, and hurts are taken into God's hands and there begin to reflect the glory of God.
Pastor Darren: To paraphrase the words of the Apostle Paul, where our brokenness increased, the grace of God increased all the more.
Pastor Darren: In many ways, our task is to live in this place of praise and trust without falling into some abyss of frustration, pain, and bitterness, sometimes enough pain and doubt, that we're taken all the way in front of Pilate, yelling, crucify him, prove yourself Jesus.
Pastor Darren: We're trying to work those cycles in a way that we don't go so far down that it's hard to get back up.
Pastor Darren: So far down that pain and bitterness are what are making all our decisions for us.
Pastor Darren: Listen, as he fleshes this out further, when religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, human beings far too often become cynical, bitter, negative, and blaming.
Pastor Darren: Healthy religion, almost without realizing it, shows us what to do with our pain.
Pastor Darren: With the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust.
Pastor Darren: If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.
Pastor Darren: If we cannot find a way, make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably give up on life and humanity.
Pastor Darren: I am afraid there are bitter and blaming people everywhere, both inside and outside of the church.
Pastor Darren: This is the cautionary tale of this journey of faith that is so cyclical.
Pastor Darren: This movement of grace, this movement of growing in our faith, the cautionary tale is that we allow ourselves to go to that lowest point where we are living in the pain and bitterness and cynicism that often the world around us is pushing us toward.
Pastor Darren: In this journey of faith, which hopefully we're realizing is this series of cycles, we're hoping to move through those times of trial and doubt into growth.
Pastor Darren: We're trying to make the wounds that we are feeling, both the wounds that have been done to us, but also the wounds we have self-inflicted, they become sacred wounds.
Pastor Darren: Points of being able to understand God and God's grace and God's love.
Pastor Darren: A grace that we can share.
Pastor Darren: There's an invitation that comes with Holy Week.
Pastor Darren: Obviously, the light at the end of the tunnel is Easter and new life, but the pathway to that new life, it goes through Holy Thursday and Good Friday.
Pastor Darren: This is when we focus on that brokenness and that pain, and we look to see where God may be working us through it, giving us a context for it, it that doesn't tear us apart, but actually helps us build ourselves back together.
Pastor Darren: The invitation is for you to bring that separation, that brokenness or that bitterness, and to give it to God in vulnerability and trust.
Pastor Darren: To allow yourself to become the raw material of God's restoration that Richard Rohr celebrates.
Pastor Darren: In this way, new life might not just be something that Jesus experienced two thousand years ago, but it's something you might experience today.
Pastor Darren: And through this week, and then beyond.