April 17, 2011 John 12:12-19 & John 13:1-7; 31b-35 Encountering Jesus sermon series Creekside COB Pastor Rosanna McFadden.

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1 April 17, 2011 John 12:12-19 & John 13:1-7; 31b-35 Encountering Jesus sermon series Creekside COB Pastor Rosanna McFadden Mistaken Identity John 12:12-19 When I was a little girl, Palm Sunday was one of my favorite days of the year. There were probably a couple of reasons for this: first was the pageantry of walking into church waving palms. The Church of the Brethren congregation where I grew up didn t pay much attention to the seasons of the Christian year. We knew when Christmas and Easter were, but I never heard of the season of Lent; even as a college student I would have thought that Lent was something you cleaned out of your dryer screen. But we could count on a processional for Palm Sunday, and since I grew up in S. CA, these weren t palms you bought from a florist. No, we got them the old-fashioned way, the way people in the Bible did: the adults tore them out of trees -- presumably they asked first -- and the kids got to walk in with some seriously big palms. I remember carrying palms taller than I was; palms long enough to hit my brother from two rows back. But even better than the palms was the singing: everyone singing my name, Rosanna, Rosanna in the highest. I loved that. The adults didn t sing the names of any of the other kids, just mine. When I was old enough to read, I noticed they had misspelled my name and used an H instead of an R, a mistake which I felt could be easily corrected. I was probably 7 years old by the time I realized that Palm Sunday was

2 not what I had always thought: it wasn t about me at all. Hosanna was something about Jesus. I was crushed. I tell this not only to alert you to my tendency to make everything about me, but because I suspect I m not the only one who suffered from a case of mistaken identity in regard to Palm Sunday; I think the disciples did, the crowd certainly did, and to some extent the church has, too. If you remember, the gospel of John tells a series of stories which unwrap the identity of Jesus. John does this by portraying an encounter between Jesus and someone who is trying to figure out who Jesus is. As the stories progress, Jesus reveals more and more of who he is and what his purpose is. Nicodemus comes to Jesus during the night and questions him, but doesn t come out as a believer until after Jesus death; the woman at the well asks Jesus if he is the Messiah, and Jesus affirms that he is; the man born blind holds out against the Pharisees in order to proclaim Jesus as the one who gives sight to the blind. In the chapter before this account of the triumphal entry, Jesus has been at Bethany with his friends Mary and Martha, and he proclaims to them that he is the resurrection and the life, and then he raises their brother, Lazarus, from the dead. As you might imagine, this brought Lazarus instant celebrity, and generated quite a bit of interest among the Jews who are in Jerusalem to observe Passover. So when word gets out that Jesus is coming into town, a crowd gathers. Parades in Jerusalem are pretty common, but they re not usually very happy events, at least for the Jews. Military parades are a time-honored way for an occupying force to intimidate the local population: they re a reminder of who has superior force and who is in charge. Roman parades often included soldiers herding prisoners of war: they were a reminder of what happened to enemies the Roman Empire. The Jesus Parade was different. This guy was one of them, a Jew. Of course he wasn t riding in on a war horse let alone driving a tank or a Humvee--the Romans couldn t have tolerated that affront to their power-- but maybe this guy in the Ford Focus was the real deal, the one who

3 would save us from the Roman Empire. Or possibly not. Either way, there wasn t anything to lose by supporting him; we could all use something to cheer about. I don t see any Roman soldiers around, let s tear down some palm branches and make this a parade. And so the people shout Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord -- the King of Israel! For some reason, I grew up thinking -- after the age of 8 or so--that Hosanna meant something like Hurrah! Or Halleluia! Something sweet for children to call while the parade is going by. But Hosanna is something darker than that. Hosanna means Save us! And I m betting that most of the crowd wasn t thinking Save us [from our sins]! they were thinking Save us [from the Romans]! Jesus wasn t riding into a revival meeting, he was riding into a political rally. It would be like the leader of the Libyan resistance movement riding into Tripoli and the people proclaiming him as the president of Libya. That prospect of political freedom is intoxicating. Some of Jesus own disciples, especially Simon and Judas, the Zealots, have been hoping that Jesus would finally use his connection with God and his celebrity with the crowd to overthrow the Romans, seize political power, and liberate the Jewish people. Like other people whom Jesus encounters in the gospel of John, the disciples and the crowd only understand a part of who Jesus is. Yes, he is the one who can save them, but the crowd and ultimately the disciples will desert Jesus when they realize that salvation will come through humility, sacrifice and love, rather than through military or political power. Palm Sunday turns out to be about something other than personal glory. The crowds have mistaken Jesus for the King of Israel, when he is much, much more. He will offer to save them in a way they cannot imagine, through his love. Stumbling over Jesus John 13:1-7 31b-35

4 If you grew up in the Church of the Brethren these passages from John 13 are probably ones you ve heard many times. Even if you ve come to the Brethren later in your life, you re probably familiar with the practice of feetwashing. It s a distinctive practice of Brethren tradition, and an integral part of the Love Feast, which includes feetwashing, an agape meal and bread and cup communion. Whatever faith tradition has formed you, there seems to be broad agreement about at least one thing: washing each other s feet is a wacky thing to do. Even in the context of Jesus culture, when servants washed the feet of their masters, it was at best a menial task, and at worst a humiliating one. To even consider doing this in our culture seems ridiculous -- a prime example of holding on to a tradition that doesn t make sense anymore. I want to talk about feetwashing because I think it is another piece in John s puzzle of the identity of Jesus. The fact that feetwashing is uncomfortable and embarrassing is the very reason that we should consider what it says to us about encountering Jesus. Like the disciples, just when we think we have things figured out and are ready to go striding off to glory, we stumble over Jesus who is kneeling at our feet. This encounter forces us to re-examine who we are and who Jesus is. Why do we wash each others feet? The simple answer is because Jesus told us to. In John 13 verses 14 and 15 Jesus says, So if I, your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another s feet... you also should do as I have done to you. This is a pretty straight forward command, in fact, it s this sentence which gives us the name Maundy Thursday : it s from the Latin word mandatum which means command -- and survives in English as the word mandate. The feetwashing account is recorded only in John s gospel where it takes the place of bread and cup communion that is reported in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Like the words of institution, which identify the bread and cup as Jesus body and blood, washing the disciples feet during his last meal with them one also reveals Jesus identity. We have heard how Jesus crossed boundaries of religion, ethnicity, and gender to reach a leader of the

5 Pharisees, a Samaritan woman, and a man born blind. By washing his disciples feet, Jesus crosses boundaries of personal position and pride, as well. He demonstrates that he is willing to reach out in love to those who don t know him, but he is just as willing to cross boundaries with those who think they know him: and he commands us to do the same. Brothers and sisters, it is a sobering reality that the people who can be hardest to put up with are those who are nearest to us. We may not want to risk the humility of kneeling at their feet, and we certainly don t want to be vulnerable enough to let them touch our feet. Feetwashing is an act of intimacy -- not sexual intimacy--but an act of vulnerability and trust. Crossing those boundaries, especially with the people we see at church all the time, is risky; no wonder it makes us so uncomfortable. Ironically it is my Mennonite colleagues which have given me insight into this discomfort. Most Mennonite congregations don t practice feetwashing, or do so only rarely. Some pastors who have tried to introduce it have met with a lot of resistance. One pastor told me, There are people in my congregation who wouldn t think twice about getting a pedicure, but they won t consider letting someone in the congregation wash their feet. I suspect that some of us would be more comfortable paying a professional than accepting service from a brother or sister in Christ. This is precisely where we stumble over Jesus. An encounter with Jesus means leaving behind our notions of what is conventional and comfortable. It means being vulnerable, with Jesus and with each other. It means be willing to love one another as much as Jesus loves us. Feetwashing is significant, but it is just the prelude to the final act of Jesus earthly life. It is one more chapter in the story of a life that was confusing to those who were struggling with Jesus identity, but is completely consistent when we look backward from the crucifixion. At the Ash Wednesday service, we began the season of Lent by asking how low could Jesus go? Jesus began this week hailed by the

6 people as the King of Israel: a case of mistaken identity. By this Thursday he will be kneeling at our feet, and Friday will take us to the lowest day of the Christian year: the day when Jesus descended to hell for our sake. But friends, that is not the end of the story. After our hymn, we will end this service with the same sending words we said on Ash Wednesday: with the promise that Jesus can cross even the boundaries of darkness and death.