Scripture: Mark 11:1-11; Luke 15:3-7; Luke 15:8-10; Luke 15:11-32 Series: 2021
A Palm Sunday sermon on Mark 11:1-11 that uses the oddness of Jesus commanding the disciples to take a colt (‘the Lord has need of it’) to press the direct, individual question: what do you personally believe? Framed by the preacher’s first date with his wife Alina, who won him over with direct questions, the sermon contrasts a demanding, world-altering faith with Moralistic Therapeutic Deism’s distant, undemanding God. It shows the crowd’s Hosanna turning to Crucify because Jesus was not the political Messiah they wanted but one who commanded concrete love of enemies. Drawing on the three Luke 15 parables (lost sheep, lost coin, prodigal son), it insists God seeks each person out, meets us where we are but will not leave us there, and has a purpose for us, sometimes as strange as fetching a colt. The Lord had need of that colt; the Lord has need of you. It closes refusing to rush to Easter, with Andrew of Crete’s call to spread not olive branches but ourselves, clothed in Christ.
Illustrations: alina-first-date-direct-questions, moralistic-therapeutic-deism-study, hashem-adonai-ho-kurios, hosanna-to-crucify, lake-travis-drowning-rescue, godfather-michael-fredo, andrew-of-crete-quote
Palm Sunday
Mark 11:1-11
I work really well with direct questions. It is something that has helped me in ministry. It is also something that helped me on my first date with Alina, my now wife. I had asked her to go grab a drink on a Friday. She was a teacher at Eastside Memorial High School in Austin at the time. I was not familiar with active teachers. I did not know that Friday is not really the best first-date day for a teacher after a long week. I was really nervous and excited and didn’t know if she would even show up. I think I tried on a few different outfits. I only had like four shirts at the time, but I tried them all on. And then, she came in wearing sweats from soccer practice. She was coaching the soccer team. I had ordered her a drink but she never picked it up. Instead, right away she started asking questions. “Who are you? What do you care about? What matters to you? What do you believe in?” She asked me these deep direct questions. And it was honestly the best possible thing for me. She asked questions about life, the universe, and everything and I was able to answer them to the best of my abilities. I could answer them because I like direct questions. I became comfortable because I did not have to figure out what to talk about or what to do. Direct questions about ultimate things don’t happen often in life.
We don’t often have moments to ask ourselves those direct questions. Why do you do the things you do? What do you really believe? Sometimes we may feel some judgment with the questions and be put off, but they matter. Why do you believe it? We can study reasons for belief. We can read stories of the beliefs of others, but faith must be something we each individually claim. It can’t be our parents’ faith. It can’t be our friends’, because faith makes us do strange things. If it does not, it may be more like what some call Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. This term comes from a study of teenagers in the early 2000s. A collation of the result of a study of 3000 found a consistent belief that There is a God but God is distant from our lives and we just need to be generally good and everything will turn out alright. This God would never ask anyone to do anything odd, really. This God would never ask anyone to steal a pony.
Jesus asks some strange things of his disciples but this is one of the strangest. We read about Jesus entering Jerusalem and sending the disciples to find a colt tied outside a doorway. This is odd. It was odd then and it is odd now. We shouldn’t take it as normal. It is odd that two strangers would come and take an animal. Their response is important. Jesus coaches them on this response. He says to say that they are taking the colt because our Lord needs it. Because our Lord needs it. In Hebrew, the name of God is never spoken. If you’re talking among friends about God and you’re a faithful Jew, you wouldn’t say God. You’d say Hashem, the name. If you’re reading and in a prayer service or at synagogue or the temple you would say, Adonai, the Hebrew word for Lord. So when Mark writes this down, ho kurios, which in Greek means the Lord, he refers both to Jesus, but also to the full Jewish understanding of who God is. The Lord has need of it. Not a random master. The Lord has need of it. The people expected something to happen. They were waiting for something to happen. They shouted Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, but they weren’t waiting for someone who looked like Jesus. They weren’t waiting for someone who acted like Jesus. They expected a royal Caravan to bring them the anointed one of God. And yet they still shouted Hosanna. And these same people, in a few days time, will be shouting again. This time, “crucify him. Crucify him.” Jesus was not the Messiah they were looking for. They had faith in the coming of the Messiah, but they did not know exactly how it was going to turn out. And when it looked different than what they expected. When Jesus drove out money-changers instead of Romans, they turned on him. They wanted a religion that made them feel good but didn’t ask them to do anything. They wanted a new David who would not get into their business, whereas Jesus kept telling them to love people. And not a Hallmark card kind of anodyne love that doesn’t mean anything. The concrete love of forgiving people even when they don’t deserve it. Loving your enemies. Loving the Romans. Loving the Samaritans. What do you believe? Not what do y’all believe as a group, what do you as an individual believe? The good news of Jesus Christ is good news for the world, but it’s also good news precisely for you. It isn’t about other people. Right now, it is about you. Holy Week, this week, is a chance to ask ourselves these direct questions. What do you believe? Holy Week is a chance to put ourselves in a place that may be uncomfortable. How does it feel to be in the crowd, to wave the palms, knowing what is going to happen soon? We can have faith and believe in what will happen next Sunday, what will happen at Easter with the empty tomb. Death will be defeated. But death is not erased by a snap of God’s proverbial fingers. God could have taken away suffering like that, but it would have eliminated our human freedom. It would be gone. Instead, what God does through Jesus Christ is enter into our humanity, draw close to us so that we can draw close to God. But it still comes down to this direct question. Jesus tells the disciples to go this town over and grab this Colt. It is odd, but I think we can see in this question of Jesus a call to each of us.
My wife, Alina, on that first date, when she asked me all those questions, she did so because those answers matter. Who are you? What do you believe? What do you care about? For most people, we get to those answers tangentially over time. We slowly discover them over time or maybe in long night conversations in high school or college. But it was in that directness that the spark of our love was able to build. By asking those direct questions we discovered that we actually care a lot about similar things in this world. And through that similar care and belief, we were able to build a relationship and a family. God cares about you. Yes, you individually. God cares about you and loves you. God wants to know what you think and what you believe. God meets us where we are, but God does not want to let us stay there. If you are in the middle of Lake Travis, without a life jacket or a boat, and you are struggling to swim and someone comes out to meet you but leaves you there, what help are they? Even if we may feel like we are not struggling as much as others, we each have needs that are not fulfilled by our jobs or our families or our hobbies, yet many days we may feel like we are drowning.
Three parables
God doesn’t find us and leave us where we were. But like a Shepherd who has a hundred sheep and 99 are home, yet one is stuck in the brambles. God will leave the 99 to rescue that one. Or like a woman who has 10 coins, but one is missing. So she will sir. God will spend all night looking for that one and rejoicing when it is discovered. Or a father who has two sons. The younger says he would like his inheritance. He tells the father, basically, you are dead to me. The father, amazingly, obliges and offers the inheritance, but then the younger son goes off and squanders it and eventually realizes, while he is sleeping with pigs and stealing their food, that his own father’s servants are fed better than he. And so he comes home, broken, truly broken and humble and yet the father does not say I Told You So, like I would, nor does he say what Michael in Godfather Part 2 says to his brother Fredo: “You’re nothing to me now, freddo, you’re not a brother, your not a friend? I don’t want to know you or what you do. He runs out to embrace the son and brings him home and then the older brother who never left is, you know, upset about it. And the father says to the older son, “I will always have you, but this son of mine was dead and now is alive, he was lost and now is found.”
Conclusion
Wherever you are in your life, whatever moment you find yourself in, whether you think about faith and life and death or you avoid it, if you feel like you lack a need for God, if you feel like you’ve moved beyond that need or if it’s just not relevant to where you are, you are loved. You matter. You don’t need to stay in the same place. God has a purpose for you. God is not just far away, indifferent to you. God seeks you out to show you that purpose. Sometimes that purpose may look like walking to a nearby village and taking a colt. It may look strange. It may be confusing, but God has a purpose for you. The Lord had need of that colt. The Lord has need of you. May we all remember Christ’s love this day. May we not rush too fast to Easter this day. ‘May we spread before his feet, not garments or soulless olive branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but may we spread ourselves, clothed in his grace, or rather, clothed completely in him.’ (Andrew of Crete) In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.