I wonder how you feel about looking silly, about being embarrassed, about feeling foolish. I\u2019m a bit of a mixed bag on this kind of stuff. I don\u2019t mind playing the fool in a drama or story if it\u2019ll get a laugh and help make a point, in fact I quite enjoy it. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m not very good at watching things on the television that make me feel embarrassed for the people in the scene \u2013 in fact I quite often hide behind a cushion at cringe making scenes. I can\u2019t cope. I also really hate feeling like I\u2019ve been made a fool of or that I\u2019ve done something truly foolish that I\u2019m embarrassed about or ashamed of. I wonder where you are with all this. How thick or thin skinned are you? <\/p>\n
As I was thinking about the events of that first Palm Sunday, it struck me that there\u2019s quite a lot of foolishness on show here, and I thought it might be interesting to read through the story and explore the foolishness of it, and think about the questions that foolishness might prompt for us. <\/p>\n
The first foolishness. <\/p>\n
Jesus is heading down the road, towards Jerusalem with his friends and followers, his disciples. He calls two of them over and tells them.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there \u2026 Untie it and bring it here.\u201d<\/p>\n
I invite you to imagine yourself in their place. You\u2019ve seen Jesus do some pretty amazing things, you\u2019ve heard him teach in a way that makes sense of life in a way that no-one else in your life ever has. He\u2019s earned your trust. But now he\u2019s telling you to go and just take a donkey. Donkeys normally belong to someone. OK, Jesus has given you an answer in case you\u2019re challenged, but really, is it going to be that simple? You could end up looking pretty silly. What are you going to do?<\/p>\n
The second foolishness.<\/p>\n
Imagine the scene. You\u2019re working in the store room of your shop, packing up a delivery of supplies for a local farm. As you\u2019re concentrating on that you slowly become aware of a whispered discussion going on outside the door, and you realise that someone is taking your donkey. The donkey that you were about to load up with these supplies. You burst out of the shop and challenge them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you think you\u2019re doing, why are you untying the colt?\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer comes back.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause the Lord needs it.\u201d<\/p>\n
You\u2019re confused. What Lord? There\u2019s all kinds of people around here who call themselves Lord. The chief men in the village, the Roman Centurion responsible for order locally, the Rabbi at the Synagogue. What would any of them want with your donkey?<\/p>\n
Hold on a moment. That was a northern accent, Galilee. Are these men with that Nazarene rabbi who\u2019s been causing all the fuss locally, what was his name? You\u2019d heard that he\u2019d raised a bloke called Lazarus, from the village down the road, from the dead. Was he the Lord that needed your donkey? What about the shop? What about the deliveries? What about your livelihood? You could end up looking pretty silly. What are you going to do?<\/p>\n
The third foolishness.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along people spread their cloaks on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the schools were in for Experience Easter a couple of weeks ago I did a couple of sessions with them, and I shared the Palm Sunday story with them. I asked them what the adults who looked after them would say if they came home from school one day and said that at playtime they\u2019d put their coats on the floor so that their friends could walk on them. They pulled some interesting faces and without exception suggested that they would be in trouble. <\/p>\n
If I were to imagine myself in that crowd, I can imagine myself putting a cloak on the donkey\u2019s back to make it more comfortable for Jesus. I can imagine myself getting caught up and chopping a palm branch down to wave, and shouting along with the verses from the Psalms. Where my imagination fails is in the idea of taking my cloak off and throwing it in the road for the donkey to walk on.<\/p>\n
There is an account in the Old Testament of a man called Jehu, who the prophet Elisha anointed to lead a coup to take the throne of Israel. It\u2019s told in 2 Kings chapter 9. When his fellow army officers hear what\u2019s happened it says in 9: v13<\/p>\n
\u201cThey quickly took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, \u201cJehu is King!\u201d<\/p>\n
This suggests that laying cloaks on the ground is an appropriate welcome for a new King, but it still seems to me that there is quite a difference between laying our cloaks on some stone steps, and laying them on a dusty road for a donkey to walk on. That could end up looking pretty silly. What would you do?<\/p>\n
The fourth foolishness.<\/p>\n
As the procession wends its way down the hill, the sense of joy and expectation builds and builds. Someone starts the chant and then other voices join in until the whole crowd is singing.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.\u201d
\nThis is the Psalm that was used to welcome the kings of God\u2019s people into Jerusalem, returning from battle, or from diplomatic trips to foreign courts, this was the chant.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
But this isn\u2019t the king. The King is Herod. It isn\u2019t the ruler of the city, that is Pontius Pilate, with delegated authority from the Roman Emperor. This man on this donkey has no earthly status or royal title. <\/p>\n
This is a risky political demonstration. Hailing a Jewish leader as King with no permission from the Romans. No wonder the Pharisees try and shut it down. This could cause riots. It could cause the Romans to come down even harder on the Jewish people. They could lose their hard won right to carry on the practices of the temple worship. They could lose the Temple. Again. This is foolishness of the highest order. It\u2019s beyond the risk of looking silly. It could get people killed. Challenging the tyrant, the political order of things, the way things are, that\u2019s just folly. Much better to keep your head down, keep quiet, not cause a stir. What would you do?<\/p>\n
The fifth foolishness.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the foolishness of a particular part of the event, it\u2019s more like the foolishness of the whole endeavour. What did Jesus think he was doing? He knew what was going to happen to him at the end of this week. He knew what the consequences of this entry to Jerusalem, of this noise, of this praise, would be. On the way to Jerusalem the disciples had tried to dissuade him from going. In the end Thomas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet us also go, that we might die with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though it\u2019s clear from other places in the gospels that the disciples didn\u2019t have a full understanding of what was coming, even they knew that it would be trouble. Jesus did have this full understanding, and he choose to go anyway. Why would he do that?<\/p>\n
He did that because he loves us. He knew that the road to Jerusalem led on to Golgotha and the cross. He knew that what he was doing was foolish, but he also knew that it would save the whole of creation, as he defeated death and rose again.<\/p>\n
As Paul puts it in his first letter to the Christians living in Corinth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.\u201d<\/p>\n
As we go into this Easter week, may we ask God for the strength to be foolish for the sake of others, as Jesus was foolish for our sakes, not worrying about embarrassment or looking silly, but being completely focussed on being obedient to God, our King and Saviour. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I wonder how you feel about looking silly, about being embarrassed, about feeling foolish. I\u2019m a bit of a mixed bag on this kind of stuff. I don\u2019t mind playing the fool in a drama or story if it\u2019ll get a laugh and help make a point, in fact I quite enjoy it. I\u2019m not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[431],"tags":[1379,1378],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wellington","tag-luke-1928-40","tag-psalm-1181-29"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1105,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions\/1105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}