1 DATE: APRIL 17, 2011 SERMON TEXT: MATTHEW 21:1--11 SERMON TITLE: Fair Weather Christians? Before my family moved to the Philadelphia suburbs, I had always heard that Philadelphia had the worst sports fans of any city in the United States. Regardless of what sport it was, sports announcers were always lambasting Philadelphia fans for their inability to live up to the name of "the city of brotherly love." Of all the cities in America, Philadelphia is seen by some as having the greatest number of fair weather fans (I remind you that the source of my information is the Washington D.C. media). What is a fair weather fan? you may be asking yourself. A fair weather fan, from an athlete s perspective, is a fan who loves you when you are doing well, but who is quick to turn on you when you are not. There is not much loyalty to the team for fair weather fans. It doesn't take much for them to turn on you. A major criticism about the fans in Philadelphia is that as a player you can go from hero to goat in one play. As long as you are playing well, everybody loves you, but mess up one time, and the boos are quick to come from the stands. I do not know whether this criticism is fair or not. Having lived here for 20 years, I do not perceive the fans in Philadelphia to be any less supportive or any more critical than the fans in Washington. Besides, it is not the purpose of my
2 sermon this morning to critique the attitude of sports fans in our major cities. The point of my sermon is to lift up to you a constant in human behavior. Have you ever wondered how the followers in Jerusalem could go from Palm Sunday to Good Friday in just six days? What I mean is that there they were, as we are here today, singing Hosanna, hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" And in just five days the same people were shouting just as enthusiastically, Crucify him! Crucify him! How in the world can that happen? I think sports fans give us a pretty good clue as to how it happens. It is human nature. Everybody loves a winner. We like to align ourselves with those people who are successful, who have charisma, who can get the job done out on the playing field. We love Labron James; we love Michael Vick. But you let them mess up, you let them appear to us as any less than superhuman, and we drop them like a hot potato and seek out another superstar. It is very difficult to be a famous person in our society today. If you are, you are under so much media scrutiny that it is almost unbelievable. How many of us would want to trade places with Barack Obama? Who would want to be in Donald Trump s shoes if he announces that he is going to run for president, even with all of his money? As a country, we like to take the powerful and the rich and cut them down to size.
3 But this ugly side of human nature is really nothing new. It is the very reason why we can go from Palm Sunday to Good Friday in six days. I don't want to sound for a minute like I am comparing the life of Jesus Christ with that of a sports star or a politician, because I am not. The two are nothing alike; they have nothing in common, and they are entirely different. But what is the same is the people who surround both. We are just as fickle today as the forerunners of our faith were 2000 years ago. Those who gathered in Jerusalem that day got caught up in the big parade. Here he was, Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter s son, riding down the main street of Jerusalem as if he were a king. Yet there he was sitting on the back of a donkey. It was exciting because for the past three years and even more so in the recent weeks this man Jesus had really gotten the attention of the people in the community. He had healed the sick and caused the blind to see; he had even confronted the hierarchies of the temple and stood toe to toe with them in debate. He had shown the kind of charismatic leadership that the people in Jerusalem were looking for. Finally someone had come that they could base their hope on because that was his message, a message of hope. He was saying to the people exactly what they had been yearning to hear. Remember our text from Ezekiel last Sunday? Remember what Ezekiel had promised Judah? This was the guy. This is the one the prophet was telling Judah
4 about: Jesus! This is the one who would restore Zion to all her former glory. And the people were excited. And they got caught up in the fever of the moment, and the hosannas just seemed to roll off their lips with little effort at all. And then it happened. Jesus was arrested. He was charged; he was convicted; he was sentenced; and he was executed. And the crowds dispersed, and no one even knew him not even the ones who knew him best, the same ones who had left their jobs, their families. Everybody loves a winner. The hopes and the dreams and the wishes of Israel were laid to rest with Jesus in the tomb. You see, most of the people gathered in Jerusalem the day Jesus processed in all his humble splendor and glory were fair weather followers. They were nothing more than people who had been caught up in the excitement of the day. But when it came time to stand up for Jesus, they were nowhere to be found; even the ones who loved him the most retreated to the confines and the seclusion of a solitary place. Jesus knew what was going to happen. He tried to tell his disciples, but they just could not understand. He knew that he had surrounded himself with fair weather disciples. He knew what was going to happen when things got rough. That is why he was constantly questioning the depth of their commitment. He asked them, "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?" He said to them, Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever
5 wants to be first must be your slave." Jesus knew that it was easy to be a follower when things were going well. The weight of one s cross is easy to bear when all things are good and life is full of joy and peace and happiness. It is easy to shout Hosanna! and wave palm branches and parade around in the afterglow of everyone's love and acceptance. But it is a different story on the other side of the cross. I guess there would be those who would criticize me this morning for the tone of my message. You see, it is not liturgically correct to mention the cross or the tomb on Palm Sunday; you save those words for Good Friday. Well, I'm not preaching on Good Friday, so you're going to have to hear these words today. My concern this morning is for the church and her people. Is our church filled with fair weather Christians? Are we as faithful on the other side of the cross as we are on Palm Sunday? How does our faith hold up under the trial of pain and persecution? I read of a preacher who could preach like the wind, and as a result the church he served was on fire and growing. Then one day his teenage daughter was killed in an automobile accident, and he never set foot in the pulpit again. His only response was, "There is no God, for a loving God would never let something like this happen to me." It is easy to be a follower of Jesus Christ when all things are well. It takes
6 little effort to pick up our palm branches and wave them enthusiastically in the air and shout our hosannas. It is quite a different story when we find ourselves in the shadows of the Good Friday cross. Are you a fair weather Christian, a Palm Sunday palm waver, or is your faith strong enough to bear the cross of Good Friday? I share with you another story, this one a bit closer to home. I have a cousin Sarah who is married to a musician who lives in Nashville. He is a writer and a performer. Tony and Sarah are in their early 40 s. Tony has been fighting cancer for several years now. On Wednesday, our family received word from Sarah that the battle is over. Tony s abdomen is full of cancer. There is nothing more the doctors can do. This is part of what Sarah wrote to our family: This wasn't in the plan for our life, but I had a remarkable moment with Tony last night when he said, "I have no regrets about anything in my life. I have been surrounded by a family who has supported my choice in careers. I have been blessed with love, friendship and happiness." Amazing! What strength of character does it show for a person who has just been told that he is going to die and not see his children grow up that he could call his life a blessing? Don't get me wrong. He would rather live than die, but as he said, It is what it is."
7 So I say to you tonight: wake up all of you people who live a life devoid of happiness! Find your blessings while you still have time. Don't sweat the small stuff in life, because it is all small stuff.hopefully, Tony will come home tomorrow. He hopes to still play his show next week at the Bluebird Cafe. I will go back tomorrow to be around some awesome kids that I love so much. I pray mostly that Aaron and Lauren will have more laughter in their lives than tears. Throughout our lifetime, we will have our Palm Sundays, those days when it will be easy to practice our faith. But we will also be confronted with the Good Fridays. It will be the depth of our faith that will determine how well we endure.