PALM SUNDAY - YEAR B (RCL) 29 March The FOOL KING + + +

Transcription

1 GRACE CHURCH Honesdale, PA PALM SUNDAY - YEAR B (RCL) 29 March 2015 Ezekiel 37: Psalm 24 Philippians 2: 5-11 Mark 11: 1-11 The FOOL KING A church up the street has on their billboard, Put your faith in the man on the donkey. How ridiculous! I love it! Who would be so crazy as to believe in a guy riding someone else s donkey. But then, Jesus was a fool. A fool for God, and a fool for us. What king - or savior - would ride into the capital city, through the main gate, riding on a donkey? Jesus has a wicked sense of humor. If you really dig deep into the Gospels, you can see when he s pulling our leg, or acting a fool, or joking with the Disciples. He s born in a feeding troth; he calls four fishermen, two thieves, not to mention a Roman tax-collector, as his Disciples; he renames Simon, Peter, the Greek word for Rocky or in just plain English Knucklehead, he tells shrouded stories about his lazy brother James; he tests the Syrophoenecian woman; and she quips right back at him; he teases Nathanael; he tells riddles, and says crazy things, like, Love your neighbor, and then he rides into Jerusalem in a plain bathrobe on a donkey, with a palm branch as his kingly scepter! But then, what would you expect from a God who jumps down from heaven to take on human life to die Such foolishness! St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, reminds all of us, that the Wisdom of God is foolishness to us; and the supposed wisdom of humans is folly to God. Maybe we, like the Pharisees and Temple authorities take life way too seriously. Put your faith in the man on the donkey, the sign says.

2 + 2 + I might translate it as Live like the guy on the donkey. There is a story of St. Francis acting a fool, standing naked before the Archbishop of Assissi to protest abuses to the poor; and in the midst of the Crusades, he walks across the Egyptian desert unarmed and right into Sultan s camp to speak God s peace between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Then there is Mohandas Gandhi who sat cross-legged in a hunger strike against the political oppression of his time - was he Hindu? Christian? or a little of both. Then there was the foolish walk across the bridge in Selma, by one just like Jesus, or Francis or Gandhi. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky each relate tales of Holy Fools in their novels for the tradition of Holy Fools is strong within the Russian Church. The great liberation theologian and Harvard professor Harvey Cox, wrote Feast of Fools, describing how we of Western society have been gaining the whole world while losing our souls. Cox defines festivity and fantasy: festivity is the capacity for genuine revelry and joyous celebration; while fantasy to him is the envisioning of a radically alternative life. skip when using the Children s Sermon: [He begins relating the medieval tradition of the Feast of Fools: In Medieval England, on the feast of St. Nicholas, December 6 th one of the Cathedral s choir boys would be elected Bishop, and the real Bishop would vest the boy for official duties to conclude on the feast of the Holy Innocents, December 28 th. The Bishop would decline to a lower position, and allow a child to take his place. It provided the opportunity for serious townsfolk to mock the stately rituals and pretenses of both Church and Court.] To quote, In a success and money-oriented society we need a rebirth of unapologetically unproductive festivity and expressive celebration. Perhaps you ve heard me tell of Nadia Bolz-Weber, the heavily tattooed spiked-hair Lutheran pastor in Denver.

3 + 3 + Her Church for all Saints and Sinners has the Great Vigil of Easter like we will celebrate on Saturday, complete with the ritual bon-fire and lighting of the Paschal candle, the procession into the darkened Church led by a single candle with incense, and chanting, then they, like we, will read the history of Redemption, and celebrate - truly celebrate - Holy Baptism - and for us, here, it will be with six children from 3-9 years old! Following Baptism and Communion, Bolz-Weber s gathering will have a celebration. A reception to end the Lenten fast - a feast complete with a chocolate fountain in the Baptismal font! Now that s Holy Fools!! I ve joked that at the Great Easter Vigil, if not Easter Day itself the Communion wine should be champagne! Maybe we will - Let s be Holy Fools! St. Paul, that staunch Evangelical, writes further to the Church at Corinth that we should all be fools for Christ. For what makes sense to God, makes no sense to the world. Like Jesus, whose name translates from the Aramaic as Salvation, God comes to die - comes to die because of what I have done in my life. Comes to die because of what you have done in your life. Comes to die because of what everyone - everyone - has done in her or his life, for thousands of years in the past and millions of years in the future. Why would God do that? Because of love. Because of holiness. Because God is God: As, like Jesus, I approach the ending of my own earthly life, I want to approach the world and the end of my days, with laughter, and joy, and doing crazy things. I won t walk across the Middle East deserts un-armed and un-protected; I won t stand naked before anyone, especially the Bishop; I may not walk across a Selma bridge, even.

4 + 4 + Or maybe I will, who knows? But I can live and play as a child, and invite others to the dance. I want to rejoice in this day - today - this day that God has given me. I want to believe in Palm Sunday, and save death and destruction for another time. I want to wave my branches, shout Praise God, and put my faith in the guy on the donkey. No, I want to ride the donkey!

5 CHILDREN S SERMON Feast of Fools Choir-Boy elevated Bishop declined Jesus, humble and riding on a donkey