Sermon 040598,

I don't know about you, but I can hardly believe that we are already gathering on Palm Sunday to begin our observance of Holy Week Our Ash Wednesday services that began our Lenten journey seem like only yesterday. But here we are -- the cherry blossoms have already peaked, and it is Palm Sunday. The question that Deacon Bob Brown focused on for our adult education this morning was "Does God Use Us?" Bob and I both believe that the answer to that question is a strong "Of course!" God uses us. God invites us to be co-creators. We are instruments of God's love, telling the Good News of God's love for each one of us.

I would like to further develop this theme, "Does God Use Us?" by tying it with our study last fall of Marcus Borg's book, The God We Never Knew... In this book, Borg looks at beliefs in God that many of us grew up with, but which now make us uncomfortable He then gives us a new way to think about God, and thus a new way to understand how God uses us.

Borg grew up in a small mid-western town where everyone pretty much looked and thought alike His image of God was shaped by his Lutheran pastor who was a grim man that shook his finger when he preached he conveyed a sober God who also shook his finger as He gave us rules to live by, and then judged us to see how well we followed all the.se rules. Christianity provided answers to these rules, and if we followed them, we would be blessed with eternal life. If we did not follow them, we were damned to hell. The God "out there" was watching us closely, keeping an account of our good and bad deeds.

This kind of understanding was very strong for me as a child. I imagined God taping all that I said and did, and then some day, after my death, I would have to account for it all, It was often very frightening to think of, God's punishing me. I couldn't quite imagine myself roasting in hell, but I did worry that I was in big trouble. This God out there who created the world a long time ago was an exclusive God who demanded things done in a particular way.

But as Borg traveled and came in contact with Muslims and Buddhists, and Jews, his God seemed too small. Rather than picturing a supernatural Being separate from the universe, God "out there", he began to visualize God as the sacred Spirit that is within us and all around us.. He believed that we meet God in each other. We develop images of God as other people -- parents, good friends, even a stranger -- care for us, include us, love us. If we were fortunate enough to be cradled in our mother's arms, we could imagine a God cradling us, loving us, rather than demanding we do things in a very particular way, and then punishing us when we didn't follow the prescribed order.

As I grew up, I, too, began to find the God of my childhood too small. In college I made friends from other religions, from other races. It didn't make sense that my Christianity that proclaimed Jesus "the way, the truth, the light" as an access to God was any better than those who believed that Buddha or Mohammed provided access for them. Still, for me, based on my experiences, Jesus continued to provide a decisive way to understand God, but I recognized that other people might have other experiences that would draw them to the Holy One.

I was helped to this new approach of a loving inclusive God by a sermon I read my freshman year in college by Paul Tillich. This sermon is entitled "You Are Accepted. " In it, Tillich postulates that each of us is accepted by God, accepted by God as we are. This acceptance is not something we earn. not something we achieve. It is given as a gift. Tillich's notion of "acceptance" is very much like Paul's notion of grace. It is not earned or achieved. It is not based on our accomplishments, It is freely given because God loves each one of us.

Several years ago we invited Robin Scroggs, a scholar on the works of Paul from Union Theological Seminary, to come for a weekend to help us in our understanding of Paul. He talked about arriving at St. Peter's Gate with a bag full of the books he had written, the honorary awards he had received. As he started to tell St. Peter about his accomplishments, Peter shook his head. He asked him instead to empty the bag, one book, one honorary degree at a time, and throw them on the huge bonfire St Peter said God wanted him to get rid of his baggage before inviting him in, accepting him as he was.

Such a notion of God's acceptance, of God's grace, is liberating... Each of us is loved as we are, accepted as we are, saved by grace! Others surely have other roads to salvation, but for us and our Christian community, Jesus provides access to God. Jesus refers to God as his Father, suggesting a loving and caring parent So as we approach this most Holy Week in our Christian year, we pay special attention to how Jesus interacts with others, because it is a clue to what God is like, and it is a model for our own behavior.

We begin with Palm Sunday, when the people gather around Jesus with hope and expectation. They shout "hosanna" with joy and enthusiasm! Clearly there is a sense of excitement and expectation in the air. We felt something of that this morning as we listened to our children sing, as we basked in the warmth and beauty of spring. Jesus journeyed to Jerusalem for the holy festival of Passover, Crowds came from all over Palastine to be together to celebrate their history. They remembered when God had rescued them from the bonds Of Egyptian slavery, and led them through the wilderness to the Promised land, God had "passed over" their houses, and spared their sons' lives as a step in their journey to freedom. Each year they gathered in Jerusalem to remember their history and to, praise God

But promised lands do not always meet expectations, and this Promised Land proved to be full of numerous disappointments. The excitement of first living in Palestine grew pale over the decades. Now life was dominated by the hated Romans. When the crowd gathered at the gate into Jerusalem on this first Palm Sunday, and watched Jesus wind his way down the road from Bethany, they talked among themselves.

"Can this Carpenter's son be the long-awaited Messiah? Can he rescue us from those who oppress us? Will he lead the revolution to overthrow our enemies? You have heard, haven't you, of his power and how he heals the sick? They say he once fed a. crowd of over 5,000 who came to hear him preach. And most amazingly of all, this man from Nazareth, even raised his friend, Lazarus? from the dead.. From the dead! Now some are saying that he is the son of David that we have yearned for for generations, that he is the one to restore our land to the days of glory when King David reigned."

Such expectations! As those in the crowd talked together, their enthusiasm grew. People spread their garments on the road in special tribute. They waved palm branches. They shouted, "Hosanna".! One of the elderly among them undoubtedly remembered the words from Psalm 118, a psalm that had been recited for generations, foreshadowing this Palm Sunday. procession. Hear these words again:

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
We bless you from the house of the Lord
The Lord is God,

and he has given us light:.
Bind the festal procession with branches

up to the horns of the altar.
You are my God

and I will give thanks to you:
you are my God, I will extol you.
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever (118: 26 - 28)

But as Jesus rode the donkey in this Palm Sunday procession, it was not as a king, but as a humble servant. He went on to say that his kingship is not of this world (John 17::14) He road as a king of peace, not of war. His meeting with the authorities was not an attempt to outwit them and escape with his life. Rather' he faced his own death as a means of losing the bonds of death.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting? (I Cor. 15: 54-55)

As we read of Jesus' interaction with the thief on the cross, his inclusion of him in the Eternal Realm, we get another insight into the nature of God. God, too, is inclusive; God, too, is compassionate

We are to model that compassion, but It is hard for us not to get caught up in the crowd's frenzie It is hard for us to stay alert and awake when we are waiting on Jesus as he communicates with his "Father" in prayer.. It is hard for us not to join in yelling, "Crucify him" when we are so disappointed and confused by Jesus' behavior.

Yet, Jesus' behavior gives us insights into the nature of God. And Borg says that how we image God shapes not only what we think God is like; it also, shapes what we think the Christian life is about. Those who think of God as a warrior may become warriors themselves -- whether in a Christian crusade, a Muslim jihad, or an apocalyptically oriented militia. Those who think of God as compassionate are likely to emphasize compassion in their own living Our images of God matter. Our understanding of Jesus matters. It matters because God uses us. God uses us to be instruments of God's love. If we experience love from other people, we experience something of the Holy. It energizes us It frees us. It empowers us to be loving to others.

We can love others, even those we do not like, because God gives us compassionate hearts God uses us, invites us, to have a soft, receptive? open heart. The heart is nourished by the sacrament of bread and wine, reminding us of the Passover meal that Jesus shared with his disciples on the night he was betrayed. Prayer is the means of attending to our relationship with God., just as Jesus attended to his relationship with God in the Garden of Gethsemane. When we understand God to be right here and all around us, as one with whom we are already in relationship whether we know it or not' prayer (verbal and nonverbal) becomes the primary means of consciously entering into a nurturing relationship with God. Years ago Betty Stith gave me a card attributed to Carl Jung that I immediately attached to my office door: Summoned or not summoned, God is present.

But when we are aware of God being present? we are more open to being used by God, being used by God to tell the Good News of God's love for all people' being used to remind others that God is always open to, them and will accompany them on their life's journey Further, God is there to welcome them at life's end. And we know from Jesus' life that the Crucifixion is followed by the Resurrection. This does not take away the suffering of the Crucifixion. But it does proclaim that the Crucifixion is not the last word.

We see signs of this all the time if we have eyes that see, ears that hear, I think of the teacher in Arkansas who was killed last week by the gunfire of two young boys. All of her life she had wanted to be a teacher. By all accounts, she was a good one. But in the chaos in the courtyard, she used her body to protect one of the students. The student lived; she died. She was crucified.

But the story does not end there. As her story is told again and again, she lives on; she is resurrected, She inspires us to do what we can to keep guns out of the hands of children She has modeled compassion and care for all of us -- just as Jesus' modeled this same kind of compassion. Jesus' care for the sick and the poor led religious and political leaders to fear him and to demand his death, Jesus was crucified. But we gather again next Sunday with joy in our hearts, because death is not the final word. Jesus lives on, in our hearts, in our lives. Jesus, and countless others like the teacher from Arkansas, show us how to live. They model compassionate hearts that help us to be open to being used by God.

Hosanna! Crucify him! Hallelujah! The Lord is risen! What a journey! We are used by God, but God stands with us in the journey, the journey through Holy Week that takes us through Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday, and then back to Easter morn', and the journies of our own lives. We can ride on in majesty, because God is with us! Amen.