Slaving After Freedom
Sermon
RESTORING THE FUTURE
First Lesson Sermons For Lent/Easter
Preachers often wonder what to do with Palm Sunday. Frequently the day is given to a celebration of Jesus' triumphal procession into Jerusalem.
Sometimes, though, worship provides a different offering, given the alternate title of Passion Sunday, leaving behind the pomp and celebration of Palm Sunday for a hard look at the events of the coming week, the last supper, the betrayal, the crucifixion, the burial in the tomb. It is because we know about the passion that is coming that preachers always wonder what to do with the happy celebration of Palm Sunday.
A friend in Pennsylvania,1 responding to the question, "What are you doing for your Palm Sunday sermon?" wrote:
I'm thinking of beginning the sermon this way:
It looked like a parade. There was a center stretch for somebody important to walk. The enthusiastic crowds gathered on both sides, craning their necks to see ... Abuzz with excitement, people thronged to see someone who could redeem them from [their] ordinary humdrum lives. The air was charged with politics, as some wondered, "Is this the moment when our hero will speak out on some important issue?" Suddenly, an anxious voice rang out - "Look! Some--body's coming!" Every single head in that crowd turned with anticipation ... and a limousine pulled up, and actress Sharon Stone got out.
She was the Hero(--ine) everybody wanted, six days before Palm Sunday, a vision in blond, a glamorous star ... her torso adorned the cover of People magazine ... She was interviewed by Barbara Walters. And with one billion people watching one Monday night, with adoring fans waving microphones like palm branches, Sharon Stone made her grand entrance into the Academy Awards.
In some ways, that parade was the embodiment of the American dream. And she did it the old fashioned way, leaving the small city of Meadville, Pennsylvania, and going to someplace better. "I couldn't wait to get out of that dreary little town," she told Barbara Walters. And now, she has made it ...
... [Once there was] another scene that looked like a parade. The crowd was smaller, say the scholars, but every bit as enthusiastic. Instead of a limousine, Jesus arrived on a flea--bitten donkey. Instead of going to receive an award, Jesus rode on "in lowly pomp ... to die." Instead of leaving his small town roots, an early hymn of the church (Philippians 2) tells us that he spent his time in small, lowly places ... He set his face like flint ... to give his life away.
Palm Sunday and Easter are so very different, separated by a wide week of suffering and death. The difference between Palm Sunday and Easter is something like the little boy who had a ticket to the circus, who went into town and saw the great parade of wagons, clowns, and exotic animals, and then went home because he thought that having seen the parade, he had seen the circus. We know this isn't so. And if we think about it at all, we know Palm Sunday is not a little Easter. In churches where children receive palms to wave, they soon weave them into crosses. This is where Palm Sunday is headed, toward the cross.
Why is this so? Paul had an answer to that question. He said that though Jesus was in the form of God, he set that aside in order to empty himself, take the form of a slave, and be born as a human person. He said Jesus became the sort of servant for whom a call to face death was not regarded as too great a task for one seeking to be faithful.
What does it mean to be a slave or a servant - it's the same word in the original language - who is willing to be obedient even to death? Few of us would have any idea. The "Suffering Servant"2 of Isaiah is the prime Old Testament witness to the calling to pursue freedom through servanthood.
Hearing The Word Of God
Isaiah said, "Morning by morning he wakens - wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious ..." Have you ever thought about the need for our ears to be "wakened"? Some married folks often wonder how their spouses can sleep through their own snoring. It's easy, their ears are asleep along with the rest of them! What an image for preparing to hear the Word God has to say to us: that God wakens our ears to hear. Before telling, God makes us ready to hear. We may think our ears work fine already, but think how often our preset opinions block out a new thing God would have us hear. We are so accustomed to listening for what we already think that a new word might well pass us by, it's just not familiar enough.
Fred Craddock, professor of preaching, once wrote about one of his students who entered seminary after working with people who were hearing impaired. The student described an incident from his work that took place on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Seven--year--old Heather had ears that worked just fine, but for some reason the words she heard never made it to her brain. He took her by the shoulders and asked, "Heather ... what did you eat for Thanksgiving? What did you have for Thanksgiving dinner, Heather?" Heather broke into a beautiful smile and said, "My shoes are red." She simply could not hear. Dr. Craddock went on:
Heather's problem was pathological, but what often happens in church is just as tragic. I was in Dallas, Texas, on a Sunday morning and worshiped at the church nearest my hotel. It turned out to be one of those rare, glorious experiences when the hymns, the anthem, the scripture readings, the sermon, the prayers, and the fellowship combined to bless me richly. The chemistry was right, or perhaps I was just right in my need. After the benediction I stood where I was, almost immobilized. A man in the pew in front of me turned around and said, "Do you think Tom Landry is going to coach any more?" In other words, this man was saying to me, "My shoes are red."3
Remember the old story about the man with beans in his ears? His friend tells him, "You've got beans in your ears," but he responds, "What?" So his friend repeats his words a little more loudly, "I said, you've got beans in your ears." But the man responds again, "What?" So the friend shouts now, "You've got beans in your ears!" and the man responds, "Sorry, I can't hear you, I've got beans in my ears." It's a silly story that points out two things: our need to hear, but also that often the very thing we need to hear is something we already know. Like the commercial for corn flakes that urges us to taste them again for the first time, many times the words of our faith are something we need to hear again for the first time.
I have a friend who once received a letter from another friend who is a pastor. He was preaching his way through the three--year cycle of scripture that many of us use to organize our preaching. By the time he reached his seventh year of ministry, he had been through the readings twice before. He wrote to ask what my friend thought he should do. This was going to be his third time through the same readings. His question makes us think, "How many times have I heard the parable of the prodigal son? How often have I been instructed by the incomparable words of the Sermon on the Mount? How important is it to remind ourselves of the truth of John 3:16, that God loved the world enough to send a savior to us?" My friend remembered writing to him something like, "The difference between hearing and hearing again is not as great as we might think. Those very same worshipers have heard many of those Bible passages long before you began reading them with them." When God opens our ears, as Isaiah said, it may not be something entirely new that we are to hear, but something familiar that strikes us in a new way this time around.
One of the significant aspects of discipleship involves hearing the Word of God, even if, as in the traumatic events of Holy Week, that Word seems destined to shake us up.
Doing The Word Of God
The letter of James is the one that declares that faith without works is just about as good as no faith at all. One of the jokes making the rounds of churches these days has a person dying and finding himself in hell. He looks around and sees Martin Luther and John Calvin standing nearby. He is deeply troubled. His own life was not that exemplary, but how can these two great figures of the Reformation have found themselves on the wrong side of the Pearly Gates? So he asks them. Calvin responds, "I'm afraid it's some bad news, really. Apparently works do matter."
Coming to church, hearing about the content of our faith, is part of the disciple's task. It is good to know the content of the truth about salvation. But opening our minds to that truth is only half the disciple's task. Knowing the work of salvation rightly leads to doing the work of salvation. Isaiah wrote words concerning the work of discipleship which line up so readily with our anticipation of the events of Holy Week: "I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame." "Jesus set his face like flint - to give his life away." Jesus has been described in many ways, but one appealing way is as "a man for others." How does that square up with a descriptive phrase like, "I have set my face like flint"? It means that his course to the cross, though made in humility, was undeterred. A self--emptying servant who taught and lived the truth that greatness comes only in service, true greatness resides in those who give of themselves without thought of return.
In his excellent recent biography of Harry Truman, David McCullough tells the story of the President from Missouri. After being elected to the office of Vice President, which he did not seek, and two months later being thrust into the office of the Presidency where he was faced with some of the most gripping decisions to face any leader in our century - the atomic bomb, the post--war Potsdam Conference, the war in Korea, the surprise reelection to office against all odds - even after all the trappings of office which had held him bound like a prisoner in a gilded cage, when he handed over the keys to Eisenhower, he wanted nothing much more than to return to Independence, Missouri, and take up the life of a private citizen again. Of course, it wasn't so simple to do that. Things never are that simple. But he did return to the home in which he and his wife had lived before he was anybody. Even his detractors would say that Truman was a man who gave of himself selflessly.
One illustration of that stands out. Alden Whitman of The New York Times had been assigned the task of writing Truman's obituary when the time came. Anyone with such an assignment for such a publication makes sure to have most of what he wants to say prepared long before it is needed. When Whitman went to Independence to interview Truman, "feeling extremely uneasy about the whole assignment, Truman greeted him with a smile, saying, 'I know why you're here and I want to help you all I can.' "4 Doing the Word of God involves an attitude of self--giving service which itself is an unequaled gift of God to those who would follow Christ.
This coming week represents the church's annual celebration of the greatness of the gift of Christ to the world. The tragedy of it is that many will not hear. On Good Friday, when Christians worship together and recall the cost of the servanthood of Jesus, in many churches there will be but a handful present compared to those on the bandwagon on Easter morning. It is so often this way. Yet it is so hard to live the life of resurrection unless we have first heard the truth about the cost of salvation.
Anyone planning to go to only one service during Holy Week should give serious thought to attending a service on Good Friday. It can be a time that leads us through death into a fuller appreciation of the resurrected life in Christ on Easter morning.
____________
1. Bill Carter, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania.
2. The four "Suffering Servant Songs" in Isaiah are 1) 42:1--9; 2) 49:1--6; 3) 50:4--9a; 4) 52:13-53:12.
3. "The Preacher And The Preaching," Reformed Review, Autumn, 1990.
4. David McCullough, Truman (Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 990.
Sometimes, though, worship provides a different offering, given the alternate title of Passion Sunday, leaving behind the pomp and celebration of Palm Sunday for a hard look at the events of the coming week, the last supper, the betrayal, the crucifixion, the burial in the tomb. It is because we know about the passion that is coming that preachers always wonder what to do with the happy celebration of Palm Sunday.
A friend in Pennsylvania,1 responding to the question, "What are you doing for your Palm Sunday sermon?" wrote:
I'm thinking of beginning the sermon this way:
It looked like a parade. There was a center stretch for somebody important to walk. The enthusiastic crowds gathered on both sides, craning their necks to see ... Abuzz with excitement, people thronged to see someone who could redeem them from [their] ordinary humdrum lives. The air was charged with politics, as some wondered, "Is this the moment when our hero will speak out on some important issue?" Suddenly, an anxious voice rang out - "Look! Some--body's coming!" Every single head in that crowd turned with anticipation ... and a limousine pulled up, and actress Sharon Stone got out.
She was the Hero(--ine) everybody wanted, six days before Palm Sunday, a vision in blond, a glamorous star ... her torso adorned the cover of People magazine ... She was interviewed by Barbara Walters. And with one billion people watching one Monday night, with adoring fans waving microphones like palm branches, Sharon Stone made her grand entrance into the Academy Awards.
In some ways, that parade was the embodiment of the American dream. And she did it the old fashioned way, leaving the small city of Meadville, Pennsylvania, and going to someplace better. "I couldn't wait to get out of that dreary little town," she told Barbara Walters. And now, she has made it ...
... [Once there was] another scene that looked like a parade. The crowd was smaller, say the scholars, but every bit as enthusiastic. Instead of a limousine, Jesus arrived on a flea--bitten donkey. Instead of going to receive an award, Jesus rode on "in lowly pomp ... to die." Instead of leaving his small town roots, an early hymn of the church (Philippians 2) tells us that he spent his time in small, lowly places ... He set his face like flint ... to give his life away.
Palm Sunday and Easter are so very different, separated by a wide week of suffering and death. The difference between Palm Sunday and Easter is something like the little boy who had a ticket to the circus, who went into town and saw the great parade of wagons, clowns, and exotic animals, and then went home because he thought that having seen the parade, he had seen the circus. We know this isn't so. And if we think about it at all, we know Palm Sunday is not a little Easter. In churches where children receive palms to wave, they soon weave them into crosses. This is where Palm Sunday is headed, toward the cross.
Why is this so? Paul had an answer to that question. He said that though Jesus was in the form of God, he set that aside in order to empty himself, take the form of a slave, and be born as a human person. He said Jesus became the sort of servant for whom a call to face death was not regarded as too great a task for one seeking to be faithful.
What does it mean to be a slave or a servant - it's the same word in the original language - who is willing to be obedient even to death? Few of us would have any idea. The "Suffering Servant"2 of Isaiah is the prime Old Testament witness to the calling to pursue freedom through servanthood.
Hearing The Word Of God
Isaiah said, "Morning by morning he wakens - wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious ..." Have you ever thought about the need for our ears to be "wakened"? Some married folks often wonder how their spouses can sleep through their own snoring. It's easy, their ears are asleep along with the rest of them! What an image for preparing to hear the Word God has to say to us: that God wakens our ears to hear. Before telling, God makes us ready to hear. We may think our ears work fine already, but think how often our preset opinions block out a new thing God would have us hear. We are so accustomed to listening for what we already think that a new word might well pass us by, it's just not familiar enough.
Fred Craddock, professor of preaching, once wrote about one of his students who entered seminary after working with people who were hearing impaired. The student described an incident from his work that took place on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Seven--year--old Heather had ears that worked just fine, but for some reason the words she heard never made it to her brain. He took her by the shoulders and asked, "Heather ... what did you eat for Thanksgiving? What did you have for Thanksgiving dinner, Heather?" Heather broke into a beautiful smile and said, "My shoes are red." She simply could not hear. Dr. Craddock went on:
Heather's problem was pathological, but what often happens in church is just as tragic. I was in Dallas, Texas, on a Sunday morning and worshiped at the church nearest my hotel. It turned out to be one of those rare, glorious experiences when the hymns, the anthem, the scripture readings, the sermon, the prayers, and the fellowship combined to bless me richly. The chemistry was right, or perhaps I was just right in my need. After the benediction I stood where I was, almost immobilized. A man in the pew in front of me turned around and said, "Do you think Tom Landry is going to coach any more?" In other words, this man was saying to me, "My shoes are red."3
Remember the old story about the man with beans in his ears? His friend tells him, "You've got beans in your ears," but he responds, "What?" So his friend repeats his words a little more loudly, "I said, you've got beans in your ears." But the man responds again, "What?" So the friend shouts now, "You've got beans in your ears!" and the man responds, "Sorry, I can't hear you, I've got beans in my ears." It's a silly story that points out two things: our need to hear, but also that often the very thing we need to hear is something we already know. Like the commercial for corn flakes that urges us to taste them again for the first time, many times the words of our faith are something we need to hear again for the first time.
I have a friend who once received a letter from another friend who is a pastor. He was preaching his way through the three--year cycle of scripture that many of us use to organize our preaching. By the time he reached his seventh year of ministry, he had been through the readings twice before. He wrote to ask what my friend thought he should do. This was going to be his third time through the same readings. His question makes us think, "How many times have I heard the parable of the prodigal son? How often have I been instructed by the incomparable words of the Sermon on the Mount? How important is it to remind ourselves of the truth of John 3:16, that God loved the world enough to send a savior to us?" My friend remembered writing to him something like, "The difference between hearing and hearing again is not as great as we might think. Those very same worshipers have heard many of those Bible passages long before you began reading them with them." When God opens our ears, as Isaiah said, it may not be something entirely new that we are to hear, but something familiar that strikes us in a new way this time around.
One of the significant aspects of discipleship involves hearing the Word of God, even if, as in the traumatic events of Holy Week, that Word seems destined to shake us up.
Doing The Word Of God
The letter of James is the one that declares that faith without works is just about as good as no faith at all. One of the jokes making the rounds of churches these days has a person dying and finding himself in hell. He looks around and sees Martin Luther and John Calvin standing nearby. He is deeply troubled. His own life was not that exemplary, but how can these two great figures of the Reformation have found themselves on the wrong side of the Pearly Gates? So he asks them. Calvin responds, "I'm afraid it's some bad news, really. Apparently works do matter."
Coming to church, hearing about the content of our faith, is part of the disciple's task. It is good to know the content of the truth about salvation. But opening our minds to that truth is only half the disciple's task. Knowing the work of salvation rightly leads to doing the work of salvation. Isaiah wrote words concerning the work of discipleship which line up so readily with our anticipation of the events of Holy Week: "I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame." "Jesus set his face like flint - to give his life away." Jesus has been described in many ways, but one appealing way is as "a man for others." How does that square up with a descriptive phrase like, "I have set my face like flint"? It means that his course to the cross, though made in humility, was undeterred. A self--emptying servant who taught and lived the truth that greatness comes only in service, true greatness resides in those who give of themselves without thought of return.
In his excellent recent biography of Harry Truman, David McCullough tells the story of the President from Missouri. After being elected to the office of Vice President, which he did not seek, and two months later being thrust into the office of the Presidency where he was faced with some of the most gripping decisions to face any leader in our century - the atomic bomb, the post--war Potsdam Conference, the war in Korea, the surprise reelection to office against all odds - even after all the trappings of office which had held him bound like a prisoner in a gilded cage, when he handed over the keys to Eisenhower, he wanted nothing much more than to return to Independence, Missouri, and take up the life of a private citizen again. Of course, it wasn't so simple to do that. Things never are that simple. But he did return to the home in which he and his wife had lived before he was anybody. Even his detractors would say that Truman was a man who gave of himself selflessly.
One illustration of that stands out. Alden Whitman of The New York Times had been assigned the task of writing Truman's obituary when the time came. Anyone with such an assignment for such a publication makes sure to have most of what he wants to say prepared long before it is needed. When Whitman went to Independence to interview Truman, "feeling extremely uneasy about the whole assignment, Truman greeted him with a smile, saying, 'I know why you're here and I want to help you all I can.' "4 Doing the Word of God involves an attitude of self--giving service which itself is an unequaled gift of God to those who would follow Christ.
This coming week represents the church's annual celebration of the greatness of the gift of Christ to the world. The tragedy of it is that many will not hear. On Good Friday, when Christians worship together and recall the cost of the servanthood of Jesus, in many churches there will be but a handful present compared to those on the bandwagon on Easter morning. It is so often this way. Yet it is so hard to live the life of resurrection unless we have first heard the truth about the cost of salvation.
Anyone planning to go to only one service during Holy Week should give serious thought to attending a service on Good Friday. It can be a time that leads us through death into a fuller appreciation of the resurrected life in Christ on Easter morning.
____________
1. Bill Carter, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania.
2. The four "Suffering Servant Songs" in Isaiah are 1) 42:1--9; 2) 49:1--6; 3) 50:4--9a; 4) 52:13-53:12.
3. "The Preacher And The Preaching," Reformed Review, Autumn, 1990.
4. David McCullough, Truman (Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 990.
