Sermon Illustrations for Palm/Passion Sunday (2016)
Illustration
Object:
Isaiah 50:4-9a
In our culture it is becoming more and more difficult to profess our faith. The Christian Church is seen as homophobic, hypocritical, and irrelevant. People think Jesus is cool, but they are not sure about the church. How can we blame folks for not trusting the institution of the church any more than they trust any other institution? Institutions have been betraying individuals as long as there have been institutions.
But to be a Jesus follower, that speaks to people. To live the Way that Jesus lived, to love our neighbors, to care for the least among us, to proclaim a loving God -- that is a radical way to live. What if every person within the church were to really live this way -- loving our neighbors with our actions as well as our words, following Jesus with our actions and not just our piety? The big questions, the questions of the purpose of life, the desire to love and offer mercy, the reasoning through loss and pain, the overcoming of violence and hate, those big questions are still important. Are we engaging them in our pews and outside our church buildings? Are we even engaging them within our own hearts? The hunger for God remains. Will we, in spite of the ridicule and hostility we might face, follow Jesus in ways that matter? Will we risk our very lives to live out the revolutionary life of mercy, reconciliation, and love to which God calls us? I pray it is so.
Bonnie B.
Isaiah 50:4-9a
I am a fan of the show Happy Days -- it had an amazing cast and delighted fans for a long time. I remember one episode in particular. Richie Cunningham had gotten mixed up in a rumble between two different gangs. He said too much, and he found himself in a one-on-one fight with a gang leader. Realizing that he’s in big trouble, he goes to Fonzie for help. The Fonz tells him he’ll have to face the tough guy. Richie is terrified, but he knows there is no way out. He meets the tough guy and nervously stands up to him, ready to get pummeled. They stand face to face, and then (surprisingly) the gang leader walks away. Richie, who’d had his eyes closed, looks and is shocked and relieved that he’s gone. What he didn’t see was Fonzie standing behind him, letting the tough guy know that if he fought he’d have to fight Fonzie too. The Fonz had Richie’s back.
It is hard to imagine the suffering and pain that the Servant, Jesus, endured. It is difficult to grasp that he willingly chose to do it. The Lord God was his help. The Lord God had his back. There is a striking contrast between Richie Cunningham and the Lord’s Servant, though. Richie did not get pummeled. The Lord’s Servant did. For the Lord God to have his back meant that he would enable him to make the ultimate sacrifice. It is a humbling and challenging passage to consider.
Bill T.
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Most pastors have received a message by some means to help a person in need of comfort. I was visiting a lady in the hospital who was dying, and she was very depressed. She was not depressed about dying, but that the Lord was taking so long. She was not suffering in agony and her family had been there to say “farewell,” but she did not leave as she had planned. The Lord’s timing did not suit her. I told her about the fact that the Lord’s timing is not our timing. The Lord gave me several scriptures that showed her that the Lord’s timing is not always our timing. The coming of our Lord did not fit the timing some had hoped for. They did not agree with the purpose of his coming back in the New Testament and thought he was going to throw out the Romans. Even Judas was disappointed. But when our Lord came, it was just at the right time. He also had just the right time for my dying lady. When I told her that, she had a blank look on her face -- then I could see it was dawning on her. After I left, her son told me that the scripture I read to her had made a big difference in her attitude, and she seemed at peace.
If we open our ears to listen, the Lord will often give you just the words he wants you to have.
It happened to me once again when I visited a dying veteran who felt he was a hopeless case and that the Lord would not want him after all the terrible things he had done. I pointed out the fact that he hoped I had some words of assurance for him, which was a good sign in itself. I quoted a few passages that didn’t seem to reach him, but just as I was leaving the Lord put in my mind the words of the dying thief on the cross. The Lord assured him at his last minute that he would be in heaven with him.
Most of us have not had to endure beatings for our faith, but some have.
When I was a missionary in Nepal, I knew many believers who had suffered beatings for their faith. Two pastors were even killed for it. They set their face like flint! Several of my seminary students had been in jail and been beaten.
One message in this scripture is that we should keep our ears open for God’s message to us -- and even be willing to suffering for it. He is the one who helps me!
Bob O.
Isaiah 50:4-9a
The notion of the humiliated and suffering Messiah was not at all alien within Judaism before Jesus’ advent, and it remained current among Jews well into the future following that -- indeed, well into the early modern period.... they have a very strong textual base for the view that the suffering Messiah is based in deeply rooted Jewish texts early and late. Jews, it seems, had no difficulty whatever with understanding a Messiah who would vicariously suffer to redeem the world....
That the Messiah would suffer and be humiliated was something Jews learned from close reading of the biblical texts, a close reading in precisely the style of classically rabbinic interpretation that has become known as midrash, the concordance of verses and passages from different places in scripture to derive new narratives, images, and theological ideas....
This observation takes nothing away from the dignity or majesty of the Christian story, nor is it meant to.
-- Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ,pp. 132-133
Frank R.
Philippians 2:5-11
Remembering the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem is the focus for this week’s worship. This is the day Jesus was welcomed by a crowd that lined the city streets, spread their cloaks on the dusty road before him, waved palm branches, and sang “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:38a).
The crowd sang. How interesting. Other than “joyful, loud, and triumphant,” scripture reveals nothing about the tune of the crowd’s music. The setting, however, suggests that it might have sounded a little like a college fight song.
The epistle reading gives insight into how the early church was beginning to understand the theology of the nature and person of Christ. In part, the reading does this by quoting the words to a hymn that was probably familiar to the Philippians. Again, nothing is said about the tune. The profound and complex nature of the theology, however, suggests that this was used as something other than a simple praise chorus.
Singing the faith is an ancient spiritual discipline that continues into the present. In fact, a case can be made that what gathered communities of faith sing has always both shaped and expressed their theology.
R. Robert C.
Philippians 2:5-11
Palm Sunday reminds us that God does not always behave like we think he should, for he uses parades to lead to the cross and a death to give life. It is as Martin Luther once put it: “For what is good for us is hidden, and that so deeply that it is under its opposite. Thus our life is hidden under death, love for ourselves under hate for ourselves...” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 25, pp. 382-383).
Luther makes the point that God’s hidden ways include getting ourselves out of the way, not thinking so highly of ourselves so we can think more about God: “A true Christian must have no glory of his own and must to such an extent be stripped of everything he calls his own.... Therefore we must in all things keep ourselves so humble as if we still had nothing of our own. We must wait for the naked mercy of God who will reckon us just and wise” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 25, p. 137).
When we are not so full of ourselves, get empty of ourselves, it makes us a little nicer, more loving. Psychologist M. Scott Peck thinks it takes a self-emptiness to hear or care for another: “We cannot let another person into our hearts and minds unless we empty ourselves. We can truly listen to him or truly hear her only out of emptiness.” Mother Teresa, a believer who knew a good bit of this sort of love, explained it well: “Love, to be real, must cost, it must hurt, it must empty us of self.”
Mark E.
Philippians 2:5-11
Marilyn Chambers first came to the public’s attention when she appeared as an innocent mother with child on the cover of Ivory Snow detergent boxes. Soon after that she was discovered by the adult film industry, and with Behind the Green Door she became “the Queen of Porn.” Success, notoriety, fame, and fortune followed. Yet she died in 2009 at the age of 59 in obscurity. She was living in poverty at trailer park while working as a receptionist for a BMW car dealership.
Application: Jesus in his humility never misused his prominence in society and never lost his stature.
Ron L.
Luke 19:28-40
I love a parade! I truly do! I loved marching in them as a student, Girl Scout, and band member. But marching in a parade, or watching and cheering on a parade, was never a matter of life and death for me. Yet for the people of Jerusalem, that was the risk. To stand on the street and cheer for Jesus, to proclaim faith in him, to bless him as a king, that was revolutionary and risky.
Following Jesus can still be revolutionary and risky. To stand up for justice is revolutionary and risky, especially when it is not a popular stand. To stand for the elimination of torture is risky when national security is professed to be the reason for the torture. To stand up for love when you are facing hate on the streets or in your home is risky. To proclaim that our criminal justice system is racist in its convictions and sentencing and that mandatory sentences are misused is dangerous. Standing with Jesus is risky and revolutionary, but that is the way the love, mercy, and reconciliation of God is proclaimed, the way the realm of God comes close. May it be so.
Bonnie B.
Luke 19:28-40
I am a baseball fan, and being from Kansas City, I (and thousands of others) celebrated the Kansas City Royals’ 2015 World Series championship. A parade was held in Kansas City a few days after the clinching game. Most people were expecting 250,000 to come -- that would be a huge turnout for a city the size of Kansas City. But people were amazed when nearly 800,000 lined the streets of Kansas City. They thronged the streets, hoping for a glimpse at one of their World Series heroes as he passed by. The chants of “Let’s Go Royals” were echoing throughout the downtown area. It was a celebration the likes of which Kansas City had not seen in 30 years.
The crowds that thronged the streets as Jesus entered Jerusalem, I’m sure, were no less exuberant. There was unmitigated joy and praise echoing throughout Jerusalem as Jesus rode in. The Pharisees couldn’t help but notice, and demanded that Jesus stop the people. Jesus, capturing the essence of the moment, told them, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” It was a time of joy, excitement, and praise. It had to be a wonderful moment. It wouldn’t last. Soon the shouts of joy would turn to cries of accusation. While the parade in Kansas City shared some things with this Jerusalem “parade,” there are some stark differences. The end of the parade in Kansas City was a trophy presentation and a rally. At the end of this parade, well, you know... it was a cross.
Bill T.
Luke 19:28-40
One of the things that is surprising in this episode is that Jesus rode a humble ass, instead of an important stallion which would have been ridden by one in high authority.
That did not bother his followers that day, who still shouting their praises. That humble ass did not bother them. Even Jesus’ disciples did not ask why he did not want a royal stallion.
Jesus seemed to know that that donkey would be waiting and that the owner would have no objections to Jesus using it. Some have speculated that Jesus had already talked to the owner and gotten his permission in advance. As soon as he heard it was for Jesus he knew he had to obey.
Why do we always look for a logical explanation even for some of Jesus’ miracles?
Jesus healed my asthma in a prayer meeting when I was 42, but when I tell the story of this healing, most of those I tell it to try to find some “logical” or psychological explanation for it. They just smile at me and nod their heads. In this scientific age we like things to fit in our little brains. Many of these doubters are good and faithful Christians!
The Pharisees were the biggest doubters in Jesus’ day, but it was not so much that they questioned his miracles as that he hurt their exalted station in life. They felt that if God were going to do something, he would come through them first! We are supposed to go through proper channels. That is even true today with our bishops -- and maybe even us pastors who spent three years in seminary and should know all the answers. Right? This passage could be a warning to all the doubters who may wait for some important leader to convince us. Did it come from the head office? Read his word and see what God might be saying to you.
Bob O.
Luke 22:14--23:56
This week’s gospel passage is the whole of Luke’s passion narrative, beginning with the Last Supper and ending with the burial of Jesus. Thus we begin with the Passover meal, a re-enactment, a reliving of the historic, defining event for God’s people, a sacrificial meal, which also inaugurates a new meal based on the old one, which is now re-enacted by us to remember the cross of Christ, the sacrifice for all of us.
What does it mean to live this sacrifice? Back up a few verses. When the disciples ask Jesus for instructions on where to prepare the Passover meal, Jesus sends them into Jerusalem, telling them to look for a man carrying a jar of water. Carrying the day’s water into the home was the job of the woman. It was true in the ancient world. It’s true in many places around the world today. They are to follow him to find the owner of the house, with its upper room, who we know to have been Mary, the mother of Mark! In the world of the new covenant, the old paradigms are thrown out! In the new world we take on each other’s burdens, because in Christ there is no male or female, no Jew or Greek, no rich or poor, no slave or free.
Frank R.
In our culture it is becoming more and more difficult to profess our faith. The Christian Church is seen as homophobic, hypocritical, and irrelevant. People think Jesus is cool, but they are not sure about the church. How can we blame folks for not trusting the institution of the church any more than they trust any other institution? Institutions have been betraying individuals as long as there have been institutions.
But to be a Jesus follower, that speaks to people. To live the Way that Jesus lived, to love our neighbors, to care for the least among us, to proclaim a loving God -- that is a radical way to live. What if every person within the church were to really live this way -- loving our neighbors with our actions as well as our words, following Jesus with our actions and not just our piety? The big questions, the questions of the purpose of life, the desire to love and offer mercy, the reasoning through loss and pain, the overcoming of violence and hate, those big questions are still important. Are we engaging them in our pews and outside our church buildings? Are we even engaging them within our own hearts? The hunger for God remains. Will we, in spite of the ridicule and hostility we might face, follow Jesus in ways that matter? Will we risk our very lives to live out the revolutionary life of mercy, reconciliation, and love to which God calls us? I pray it is so.
Bonnie B.
Isaiah 50:4-9a
I am a fan of the show Happy Days -- it had an amazing cast and delighted fans for a long time. I remember one episode in particular. Richie Cunningham had gotten mixed up in a rumble between two different gangs. He said too much, and he found himself in a one-on-one fight with a gang leader. Realizing that he’s in big trouble, he goes to Fonzie for help. The Fonz tells him he’ll have to face the tough guy. Richie is terrified, but he knows there is no way out. He meets the tough guy and nervously stands up to him, ready to get pummeled. They stand face to face, and then (surprisingly) the gang leader walks away. Richie, who’d had his eyes closed, looks and is shocked and relieved that he’s gone. What he didn’t see was Fonzie standing behind him, letting the tough guy know that if he fought he’d have to fight Fonzie too. The Fonz had Richie’s back.
It is hard to imagine the suffering and pain that the Servant, Jesus, endured. It is difficult to grasp that he willingly chose to do it. The Lord God was his help. The Lord God had his back. There is a striking contrast between Richie Cunningham and the Lord’s Servant, though. Richie did not get pummeled. The Lord’s Servant did. For the Lord God to have his back meant that he would enable him to make the ultimate sacrifice. It is a humbling and challenging passage to consider.
Bill T.
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Most pastors have received a message by some means to help a person in need of comfort. I was visiting a lady in the hospital who was dying, and she was very depressed. She was not depressed about dying, but that the Lord was taking so long. She was not suffering in agony and her family had been there to say “farewell,” but she did not leave as she had planned. The Lord’s timing did not suit her. I told her about the fact that the Lord’s timing is not our timing. The Lord gave me several scriptures that showed her that the Lord’s timing is not always our timing. The coming of our Lord did not fit the timing some had hoped for. They did not agree with the purpose of his coming back in the New Testament and thought he was going to throw out the Romans. Even Judas was disappointed. But when our Lord came, it was just at the right time. He also had just the right time for my dying lady. When I told her that, she had a blank look on her face -- then I could see it was dawning on her. After I left, her son told me that the scripture I read to her had made a big difference in her attitude, and she seemed at peace.
If we open our ears to listen, the Lord will often give you just the words he wants you to have.
It happened to me once again when I visited a dying veteran who felt he was a hopeless case and that the Lord would not want him after all the terrible things he had done. I pointed out the fact that he hoped I had some words of assurance for him, which was a good sign in itself. I quoted a few passages that didn’t seem to reach him, but just as I was leaving the Lord put in my mind the words of the dying thief on the cross. The Lord assured him at his last minute that he would be in heaven with him.
Most of us have not had to endure beatings for our faith, but some have.
When I was a missionary in Nepal, I knew many believers who had suffered beatings for their faith. Two pastors were even killed for it. They set their face like flint! Several of my seminary students had been in jail and been beaten.
One message in this scripture is that we should keep our ears open for God’s message to us -- and even be willing to suffering for it. He is the one who helps me!
Bob O.
Isaiah 50:4-9a
The notion of the humiliated and suffering Messiah was not at all alien within Judaism before Jesus’ advent, and it remained current among Jews well into the future following that -- indeed, well into the early modern period.... they have a very strong textual base for the view that the suffering Messiah is based in deeply rooted Jewish texts early and late. Jews, it seems, had no difficulty whatever with understanding a Messiah who would vicariously suffer to redeem the world....
That the Messiah would suffer and be humiliated was something Jews learned from close reading of the biblical texts, a close reading in precisely the style of classically rabbinic interpretation that has become known as midrash, the concordance of verses and passages from different places in scripture to derive new narratives, images, and theological ideas....
This observation takes nothing away from the dignity or majesty of the Christian story, nor is it meant to.
-- Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ,pp. 132-133
Frank R.
Philippians 2:5-11
Remembering the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem is the focus for this week’s worship. This is the day Jesus was welcomed by a crowd that lined the city streets, spread their cloaks on the dusty road before him, waved palm branches, and sang “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:38a).
The crowd sang. How interesting. Other than “joyful, loud, and triumphant,” scripture reveals nothing about the tune of the crowd’s music. The setting, however, suggests that it might have sounded a little like a college fight song.
The epistle reading gives insight into how the early church was beginning to understand the theology of the nature and person of Christ. In part, the reading does this by quoting the words to a hymn that was probably familiar to the Philippians. Again, nothing is said about the tune. The profound and complex nature of the theology, however, suggests that this was used as something other than a simple praise chorus.
Singing the faith is an ancient spiritual discipline that continues into the present. In fact, a case can be made that what gathered communities of faith sing has always both shaped and expressed their theology.
R. Robert C.
Philippians 2:5-11
Palm Sunday reminds us that God does not always behave like we think he should, for he uses parades to lead to the cross and a death to give life. It is as Martin Luther once put it: “For what is good for us is hidden, and that so deeply that it is under its opposite. Thus our life is hidden under death, love for ourselves under hate for ourselves...” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 25, pp. 382-383).
Luther makes the point that God’s hidden ways include getting ourselves out of the way, not thinking so highly of ourselves so we can think more about God: “A true Christian must have no glory of his own and must to such an extent be stripped of everything he calls his own.... Therefore we must in all things keep ourselves so humble as if we still had nothing of our own. We must wait for the naked mercy of God who will reckon us just and wise” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 25, p. 137).
When we are not so full of ourselves, get empty of ourselves, it makes us a little nicer, more loving. Psychologist M. Scott Peck thinks it takes a self-emptiness to hear or care for another: “We cannot let another person into our hearts and minds unless we empty ourselves. We can truly listen to him or truly hear her only out of emptiness.” Mother Teresa, a believer who knew a good bit of this sort of love, explained it well: “Love, to be real, must cost, it must hurt, it must empty us of self.”
Mark E.
Philippians 2:5-11
Marilyn Chambers first came to the public’s attention when she appeared as an innocent mother with child on the cover of Ivory Snow detergent boxes. Soon after that she was discovered by the adult film industry, and with Behind the Green Door she became “the Queen of Porn.” Success, notoriety, fame, and fortune followed. Yet she died in 2009 at the age of 59 in obscurity. She was living in poverty at trailer park while working as a receptionist for a BMW car dealership.
Application: Jesus in his humility never misused his prominence in society and never lost his stature.
Ron L.
Luke 19:28-40
I love a parade! I truly do! I loved marching in them as a student, Girl Scout, and band member. But marching in a parade, or watching and cheering on a parade, was never a matter of life and death for me. Yet for the people of Jerusalem, that was the risk. To stand on the street and cheer for Jesus, to proclaim faith in him, to bless him as a king, that was revolutionary and risky.
Following Jesus can still be revolutionary and risky. To stand up for justice is revolutionary and risky, especially when it is not a popular stand. To stand for the elimination of torture is risky when national security is professed to be the reason for the torture. To stand up for love when you are facing hate on the streets or in your home is risky. To proclaim that our criminal justice system is racist in its convictions and sentencing and that mandatory sentences are misused is dangerous. Standing with Jesus is risky and revolutionary, but that is the way the love, mercy, and reconciliation of God is proclaimed, the way the realm of God comes close. May it be so.
Bonnie B.
Luke 19:28-40
I am a baseball fan, and being from Kansas City, I (and thousands of others) celebrated the Kansas City Royals’ 2015 World Series championship. A parade was held in Kansas City a few days after the clinching game. Most people were expecting 250,000 to come -- that would be a huge turnout for a city the size of Kansas City. But people were amazed when nearly 800,000 lined the streets of Kansas City. They thronged the streets, hoping for a glimpse at one of their World Series heroes as he passed by. The chants of “Let’s Go Royals” were echoing throughout the downtown area. It was a celebration the likes of which Kansas City had not seen in 30 years.
The crowds that thronged the streets as Jesus entered Jerusalem, I’m sure, were no less exuberant. There was unmitigated joy and praise echoing throughout Jerusalem as Jesus rode in. The Pharisees couldn’t help but notice, and demanded that Jesus stop the people. Jesus, capturing the essence of the moment, told them, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” It was a time of joy, excitement, and praise. It had to be a wonderful moment. It wouldn’t last. Soon the shouts of joy would turn to cries of accusation. While the parade in Kansas City shared some things with this Jerusalem “parade,” there are some stark differences. The end of the parade in Kansas City was a trophy presentation and a rally. At the end of this parade, well, you know... it was a cross.
Bill T.
Luke 19:28-40
One of the things that is surprising in this episode is that Jesus rode a humble ass, instead of an important stallion which would have been ridden by one in high authority.
That did not bother his followers that day, who still shouting their praises. That humble ass did not bother them. Even Jesus’ disciples did not ask why he did not want a royal stallion.
Jesus seemed to know that that donkey would be waiting and that the owner would have no objections to Jesus using it. Some have speculated that Jesus had already talked to the owner and gotten his permission in advance. As soon as he heard it was for Jesus he knew he had to obey.
Why do we always look for a logical explanation even for some of Jesus’ miracles?
Jesus healed my asthma in a prayer meeting when I was 42, but when I tell the story of this healing, most of those I tell it to try to find some “logical” or psychological explanation for it. They just smile at me and nod their heads. In this scientific age we like things to fit in our little brains. Many of these doubters are good and faithful Christians!
The Pharisees were the biggest doubters in Jesus’ day, but it was not so much that they questioned his miracles as that he hurt their exalted station in life. They felt that if God were going to do something, he would come through them first! We are supposed to go through proper channels. That is even true today with our bishops -- and maybe even us pastors who spent three years in seminary and should know all the answers. Right? This passage could be a warning to all the doubters who may wait for some important leader to convince us. Did it come from the head office? Read his word and see what God might be saying to you.
Bob O.
Luke 22:14--23:56
This week’s gospel passage is the whole of Luke’s passion narrative, beginning with the Last Supper and ending with the burial of Jesus. Thus we begin with the Passover meal, a re-enactment, a reliving of the historic, defining event for God’s people, a sacrificial meal, which also inaugurates a new meal based on the old one, which is now re-enacted by us to remember the cross of Christ, the sacrifice for all of us.
What does it mean to live this sacrifice? Back up a few verses. When the disciples ask Jesus for instructions on where to prepare the Passover meal, Jesus sends them into Jerusalem, telling them to look for a man carrying a jar of water. Carrying the day’s water into the home was the job of the woman. It was true in the ancient world. It’s true in many places around the world today. They are to follow him to find the owner of the house, with its upper room, who we know to have been Mary, the mother of Mark! In the world of the new covenant, the old paradigms are thrown out! In the new world we take on each other’s burdens, because in Christ there is no male or female, no Jew or Greek, no rich or poor, no slave or free.
Frank R.
