Palm Sunday

Video of service
Worship Booklet
Sermon

Sermon by Rev. Jerry LiaBraaten

I’d like to begin by asking you to answer two questions. The first is this: When you read or hear the story of Jesus' crucifixion here in Matthew 27, how does it make you feel? What does it make you think? The second is this: Where do you see God in your life?
           
Me? When I read this text in preparation for my sermon today I got depressed. I don’t get depressed easily or often. But that’s exactly what happened. And it happened because what I saw when I read it was humanity at its worst…on both the individual and collective levels. I saw the raw ugliness of humanity’s inhumanity to humanity…the ugliness of Pilate who comes off as a self ambitious coward and his “don’t get us involved” wife who is controlled by her fears…the ugliness of the religious powers that be, the chief priests, scribes, and elders, who use their corrupt leadership to foment a crowd of fickle people into a mob. I saw soldiers who condescendingly mocked and ridiculed Jesus. I saw bystanders who had nothing better to do than watch Jesus die. For entertainment! I saw those passing by who callously laughed at Jesus’ predicament shouting, “If there is a God, let God come and save him.” I saw a whole lot of ugly. And I got depressed.

In the name of the God of all Creation,
The God alive in each of us as God was alive in Jesus,
And the power of God known in the Spirit.  Amen

FULL SERMON

I’d like to begin by asking you to answer two questions. The first is this: When you read or hear the story of Jesus' crucifixion here in Matthew 27, how does it make you feel? What does it make you think? The second is this: Where do you see God in your life?
           
Me? When I read this text in preparation for my sermon today I got depressed. I don’t get depressed easily or often. But that’s exactly what happened. And it happened because what I saw when I read it was humanity at its worst…on both the individual and collective levels. I saw the raw ugliness of humanity’s inhumanity to humanity…the ugliness of Pilate who comes off as a self ambitious coward and his “don’t get us involved” wife who is controlled by her fears…the ugliness of the religious powers that be, the chief priests, scribes, and elders, who use their corrupt leadership to foment a crowd of fickle people into a mob. I saw soldiers who condescendingly mocked and ridiculed Jesus. I saw bystanders who had nothing better to do than watch Jesus die. For entertainment! I saw those passing by who callously laughed at Jesus’ predicament shouting, “If there is a God, let God come and save him.” I saw a whole lot of ugly. And I got depressed.
 
At the same time as I saw this ugliness there was something else, something I expected to see but didn’t: God. And I’m not alone. According to our text even Jesus, who cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me,” didn’t see God either.
 
So where is God in this story?
 
British educator, speaker and author Sir Ken Robinson tells of a conversation he had with his young daughter. She was sitting at her desk drawing something. He asked, “What are you drawing, sweetie?” to which she replied, “God.” A bit surprised, he paused for a moment, considering how to best phrase his next statement. Finally he said, “But we’ve never seen God…so nobody knows what God looks like.”
 
“Well,” she said without a moment’s hesitation, “You will in a minute?”
 
Seeing God in the world around us, seeing God in those with whom we share this life, and seeing God in ourselves can be difficult. Look at just the highlights of this week’s news…tornadoes in the South And Midwest, increasing hostility, war and food insecurity and poverty around the globe, and here at home politics that foster blatant disrespect for others, racism and hate crimes against immigrants, Jews and Asians, school shootings, and on and on.  Can you find God in these?
 
It boils down to this: In order to see God we need to know what we’re looking for.
 
When Rev. Renee and I were in college, working on Bachelor of Music degrees, we took a conducting class from Dr. Paul J. Christiansen. “Paul J”--as we called him--was the son of F. Melius Christiansen who is considered by many to be the father of the a capella choir in America. He was a phenomenal musician--as was his son, Paul J, along with other members of his family.
 
One of the things he taught us was this: When you listen to a choir and think something doesn’t sound quite right, before you can ascertain what the problem is, you have to know what you are looking for. Is the choir off pitch, is the phrasing incorrect, is it poor diction? Paul J. firmly believed that if you know what to listen for then you’ll be able to determine what it is that doesn’t sound right. I’ve found this simple guidance helpful not only musically but in other applications as well.
 
Today’s reading is one of them. In order to see God in our story we need to know something about what God looks like…so we know what to look for. Oddly, Jesus had precious little to say here (even Pilate is surprised at his silence under accusation). But what he does say says a whole lot. When we hear his words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” we tend to focus on the latter half of his statement…the “why have you forsaken me” part. But it is in the first part, the “My God, my God…” we see something that looks a lot like the God we’ve come to know elsewhere in the Bible. In his words, “My God, my God…” we see Jesus claim and cling to a God he can’t even see as he expresses his loyalty, faithfulness, and his willingness to be vulnerable with one he certainly isn’t feeling near to at the moment.
 
And if we step back from our text and look all his words spoken from the cross as well as the bigger picture of his life we see love and forgiveness and compassion, joy, peace, strength. We see a lot of things that look a lot like God.
 
Have you ever heard the story of a lobster by the name of Bob? It’s a short story and, spoiler alert, it doesn’t end well for Bob. There’s a lobster pot on the stove. The burner is slowly heating the water. Bob is leaning back, his claws draped over the rim as if he’s relaxing at the edge of a swimming pool, his head tilted and his eyes closed. Meanwhile, his clueless friend--who is about to get tossed into the pot calls out to him, “Hey Bob, how’s the water?...Bob? Bob! Boooooob!!!”
The point of my story is this. Sometimes we can become so immersed in the very ugliness that we see around us that we miss our own culpability--and demise--in the midst of it. Let me explain what I mean.        Earlier I mentioned some of those involved in our story…self-ambitious Pilate, his fear-ridden wife, the manipulative religious leaders and so on. But did you see what I also did? I judged them. All of them. And in doing so, I washed my hands of their sin--as if to say I would never think, say or do anything like myself.
 
And so I ask you, did you catch that? Or, did you come right along with me?
 
I enjoy drawing so a few years ago I took a drawing class. I learned some amazing things. First and foremost…a deep respect for those of you who are artists, whatever your medium. I also learned about a concept called ‘negative space’. Negative space is all the space that surrounds whatever you are drawing. If, for instance, you wanted to draw my hand, there are two ways to do it. You can specifically draw my thumb, my fingers, my wedding ring, my wrist and my watch. Or, you can draw the negative space, that is,everything around them. Either way you end up with the same picture of my hand.
 
It’s kind of like that when it comes to seeing God. If we can’t see God in the midst of our situations sometimes it's good to step back and look at the bigger picture. When we see the crucifixion of Jesus within the larger context of his life, death and resurrection, we see God all over the place. And when we step back from the situations and circumstances of our own lives far enough to see the ‘negative spaces’ we can see God surprisingly clearly there as well. So, we don’t have to feel depressed or sad or angry, etc. We can actually see God in a world where it sometimes feels like we are surrounded by ugliness, where even our best friends betray us, where we are not even true to ourselves.
 
It’s easy to see ugly. It is not easy to see God. But when we step back far enough to see we know something of what God looks like--so we know what to look for--then, surprisingly, we can see God everywhere. We can see God in the world. We can see God in the most difficult circumstances. We can see God even in ourselves. Amen.