Friday, April 10, 2009

Palm Sunday Year B 2009

Palm Sunday
April 5, 2009

Mark 11:1-11
1 When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.'" 4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, 5 some of the bystanders said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?" 6 They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. 7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. 9 Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
"Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!"
11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his steadfast love endures forever!
2 Let Israel say,
"His steadfast love endures forever."
19 Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the LORD.
20 This is the gate of the LORD;
the righteous shall enter through it.
21 I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.
22 The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
23 This is the LORD's doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
25 Save us, we beseech you, O LORD!
O LORD, we beseech you, give us success!
26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.
We bless you from the house of the LORD.
27 The LORD is God,
and he has given us light.
Bind the festal procession with branches,
up to the horns of the altar.
28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
you are my God, I will extol you.
29 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.


The Rider

My mother started me riding I think when I was about four years old. I can’t remember much about it, just little snatches of being high in the air looking down at the pony’s neck, standing in a review line with my pony April to receive a ribbon. I remember the ribbons hanging in my room for years afterwards, though I don’t know whatever happened to them. I remember getting thrown one time and crying and refusing to get back on the pony, my mother trying to explain to me that getting back on was very important, that if you didn’t get back on you’d never get back on again.

After the divorce, we couldn’t afford to have ponies or horses so I didn’t ride again until much later. When I was a teenager we moved on to a pretty big property and we boarded horses there and I sometimes got to ride them. It was a wonderful experience. The horses were so beautiful and strong and most of them were very well-behaved.

There’s quite a lot to riding a horse. You have to learn how to sit and how to use the reins and how to relate to the horse, how to hold on with your thighs. But if you learn how to do those things and you treat your horse nicely, boy, you can go anywhere and you can go fast.

I’ve never ridden a donkey. Philippi member and chief of our fire department Jimmy Walden has some experience with riding donkeys. Some of you might remember the fire department’s donkey-ball game a few years ago. It was a fundraiser. It was basically baseball played on donkeys. And the donkeys were, well, not exactly cooperative. At the time Chief Walden was a little plumper than he is now and that was probably a good thing as he spent a lot of time flying through the air and landing hard in the dirt. The chief has suggested quietly that other types of fundraisers be done in the future.

Maya Deren was a very eccentric dancer in the early part of the last century who also happened to be a brilliant anthropologist. She wrote a very famous book about the practice of voodoo. It’s still I think a standard in the field. It was called “Divine Horsemen.” I recommend it. It’s not only a brilliant study, it’s beautifully written and it teaches many things useful to spiritual practice.
Some may not know that the main object of the practice of voodoo is possession by one of many African gods. The image of divine horsemen came from voodoo priests themselves, who described possession as “riding the god.”*

Clearly a horse is far more powerful than a human being. Of course, human beings are smarter in some ways, but a horse is pretty smart. If you love it and care for it, get to know its nature, what it wants and what it likes, well, you can put a bit in its mouth and a saddle on its back and it will cooperate. It will help you. It will take you where you want to go.

It also makes you more powerful than others. Horses were used in warfare for centuries. The cavalry was the real killing machine in any army. You’d send in the foot soldiers to chop down the ranks, then when your enemy was all bunched together fending off your foot soldiers, in would ride the cavalry, circle the enemy’s foot soldiers and chop them to pieces. It’s really hard to stop a trained rider on a horse.

Gods for most people are powerful spiritual beings that help those who worship them. Many who believe in the God of the bible even think of him this way. People who talk about “having God” in their lives or in their hearts seem to me sometimes to be talking about God as if he were a horse we could ride. And it seems some churches put forth this idea of God and encourage it.

In some churches I’ve seen it’s the often the healthy and wealthy and smart and polished that are respected and looked up to, the ones who have it all together, who dress well, have happy families, who never seem to make very big mistakes. They seem to pray for the things they want and get them. The understand how to ride God. They tell us that if we believe the right things and do the right things, then God can be our horse too. If we’re not getting what we want out of life, it’s only because we just don’t know how to wrangle God. Here, read this book, believe these things, obey these simple laws, and you’ll have a happy life. Put your foot in the stirrup here, get up on the saddle there, move the reins this way, and make sure to thank him when he does well for you.

This is not a surprise. If you read the bible itself, you see this very idea. Many of the stories are stories about people trying to ride God like a horse. But if anyone is riding such a horse, there’s a problem. The horse isn’t God. It may act like God, it might even be beautiful and powerful like God, but it can’t be God.
Because God doesn’t want to be ridden. God wants to ride.

We weren’t made to be riders of God. We were made to be ridden by him. The religious leaders of Israel didn’t understand this. Not because they were Jews but because they were just as blind as the rest of humanity, just as blind as the Romans and everyone else in the world. God had spent centuries teaching them to be his horse, and they spent centuries trying to make him theirs. They didn’t want to be ridden. They wanted to ride.

Jesus was the first to figure it out. Jesus was the first to stop trying to get on the horse the world called God. He was the first to take the bit in his mouth and the yoke on his back, the first one to get down on his hands and knees and consent to be ridden.

And a marvelous thing happened. God came riding into the world, plain as day and big as life, healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the hungry, restoring hope, revealing the truth, showering his bottomless love and grace on everyone.

And you know what? It turned out that God’s yoke was easy and he didn’t weigh much at all. Jesus revealed to us what it really means to be free, what it really means to be what you were made to be.

A lot of what people come to me about has to do with power over other people. We all have someone in our family or circle of friends that we know has just got to change. When some of us get frustrated, we go to the pastor. I wonder sometimes if people think I’ve got some influence over God’s power and can just wave it over the person in question and get them to do what they should do. Maybe they see the pastor riding God like a horse, I don’t know. Or maybe they’d like me to tell them how to ride, so they can swoop into someone else’s life and force them to do what they want them to do.

But God doesn’t want to be ridden. He wants to ride.

I think the deepest meaning of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is to be found in that young donkey he rode. The passage from Zechariah reads:

Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war-horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.

I think it’s telling us about God and God’s people. Stubborn, foolish, ridiculous and way too small, God will nevertheless ride the thing, no matter how much it bucks and snorts and tries to go its own way. And because God is God, victory will be his, no matter how big the horses of the world may be and no matter how well-trained the world's cavalry might be.

The power of God can be yours. You can be a miracle worker. The power of God can flow through you into the world. All you have to do is stop trying to get on the horse, get down on all fours, and take the bit and the saddle. Let God get on, let him take the reins, and watch all the powers of the world fall like flies before him.

It’s not easy is it? But it’s what we are all about. I can tell you I’m a lot like that young donkey that has never been ridden. I want God to ride me, I want him to lead me where he wants to go, but I find I nevertheless resist and fight him.
What’s amazing to me is how easy it all gets when I stop fighting. It amazes me to be along for the ride, as it were, to watch as God does the things he wants to do.

I’d like to close this morning with a poem by G. K. Chesterton. It’s about the donkey Jesus rode that day.

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

Amen.

*Member Annie Fitt pointed out that the title "Divine Horsemen" actually referred to the gods themselves, not to the possessed. Pastor Mike should have checked his facts! Even then, the book is a good illustration of the ridden/rider relationship between human being and God.

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