Palm/Passion Sunday married two gospel texts. The first, read at the beginning of the service, told the story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem as recounted in Mark 11: 1-11. The second told the story of Jesus before Pontius Pilate. Pilate offered to free Jesus because he knew the charges against him were false but the crowd screamed "Give us Barabbas" instead and, "Crucify him!" So Pilate bowed to public pressure and did exactly that. This story can be found in Mark 15: 1-15.
What do the two stories have in common, besides Jesus himself? Both contain crowds. The Palm Sunday crowd is perfectly happy to shout, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" while things are going well. But when things get tough that same crowd turns into the Passion bunch, screaming, "Give us something else and crucify that guy!" It seems impossible that a group of people celebrating and acclaiming Jesus as king one day can turn on him so quickly soon after but it happened. And not only did it happen, it happens to all of us.
Our church is wonderful, especially right now. Any of the faithful reading this blog right now know that this is so, as you're probably the deepest inside it. It takes at least two hands' worth of fingers, maybe some toes besides, to count off all of the ministries that have been given life in the last couple of years. People are more excited, bonded, and involved than ever before no matter which level of the church you're operating at. It's truly "Hosanna!" time around here.
But that phenomenon is also contained in some ways to the church itself. Outside our walls the perception of Jesus and God's Spirit remains what it always was. Outside our walls I'm not sure anybody knows that we're doing church any differently in here. Outside our walls there are still plenty of churches doing things backwards, as we once did in many ways. We have something special here, unique and vibrant. I believe you've felt it. In many ways we've spent the last two years showing that not only is this possible, it's real and true. But now that you know it, now that we have it, what are we going to do with it?
If nothings else these two gospel stories make clear that whatever you believe in your heart doesn't make a difference unless and until you share it with the world. People share in different ways, true, but until it's shared and shown it doesn't have the effect it's supposed to. For all we know that crowd shouting "Crucify him!" was full of otherwise good people! The text says that the Pharisees and priests incited them to yell. Many of them had seen the Palm Sunday parade. Maybe they had misgivings about what they were yelling. But that didn't matter. Whatever went on internally had no effect when they were shouting "Crucify!" and "We don't want him!" externally.
In the same way whatever Spirit we have alive in our church won't matter unless it's shared. You can know it's wonderful and godly. I can know it too. If we're out there in the world embracing and espousing something else all of that knowledge and experience we get here won't matter. It won't be any more lasting than the Palm Sunday parade.
And make no mistake, we're set up to fail here. Most of the world thinks there's "real life" and then there's "church". Church is somewhere you go for an hour a week, not a constant way of living out your faith. No matter what we do inside our walls the gravity of the world pulls us elsewhere as soon as we exit the building. Even when we talk about evangelism most people get the picture of getting more people INTO the church instead of getting God's Spirit OUT into the world. People get images of manipulation, recruitment, changing the behavior of other people instead of changing one's own life to show God's grace more. Every stab at fixing this problem embroils us worse. Meaning to grab at Christ we find ourselves with two handfuls of Barabbas. Meaning to shout praise we drive away our neighbors and the Lord. And no matter what we do in church this never gets solved, because all of that falls into the "particular time, particular place, not real life" trap that snares us in the first place.
We can't find our full expression of faith by changing what we do in here. We have to find it by changing how the world works out there. That includes changing how we talk about and show God to the world and how the world understands God and faith. If we do not do this, if we do not put ourselves to this task, then nothing we've done here will have any lasting importance beyond the few people who have experienced it...and even with them the effect will only last for a while.
The only way to change the world's vision of God, faith, and church is to first clarify our own and then to learn how to share it...how to shout real Hosannas and make them last. That is our mission in the coming year: to take what we've learned here, what we've come to believe and trust in, and share it with the world. This is not something I can do. This is not something only a few of us can do. This is something our whole church needs to do TOGETHER. If it doesn't happen that way, it won't work. Our Hosannas will be drown out by the world's "crucify him" and the (mostly unintentional) cries of our fellow Christians for Barabbas when they thought they were calling for Christ. Every day the wrong messages are being preached and heard about God, about faith, and about our church. We need to set this right...or at least as right as we can get.
The first step in this process, as we detailed on Sunday, is asking yourself if you believe. Do you believe in God really...not just as a nice part of your life or a good thing to think about on Sunday morning but do you believe in God and the grace, gifts, talents, relationships, and salvation he's shown you? Have you seen his Spirit at work here in music or preaching or meetings or council or fellowship or any of the dozens of ways in which he works among us? Do...you...believe? If not, I'm not sure what we're doing here. I'm sure we can go no farther unless most of us answer in the affirmative. Otherwise we're spinning our wheels. That's the first question to ask yourself: do you see God here, do you believe it?
Assuming you have even the smallest sliver of a "Yes" to that, we can help transform that faith into something that, in turn, transforms the world in a good way. If you believe, we want you to help us do that. It starts with the Evangelism Workshops that we're going to hold soon. A couple will be held in April and May, at different times so they'll be convenient. We'll do it again in the fall. We're talking maybe three sessions, once a week for three weeks. That's it. It's not a huge time commitment but this is something we desperately need from every person in this community to get us on the same page with a common goal. This small step will open up a huge world of potential for each of us. It's important...the most important thing we'll do this year by far. Without it, our belief will remain internal while our shouts communicate something else. With it, we start making our world into a place where faith, talk, and walk are one...where they can be seen and accepted by our neighbors.
Lest anybody is nervous at this point, these workshops are NOT about recruiting people to come to church, making people into cookie-cutter evangelists, forcing them to do things that are uncomfortable, making you into a nuisance to the world. Instead we want to help open all of our gifts to the world! It's the opposite of everything we fear when we hear "evangelism". We want to help YOU become an intentional evangelist in YOUR OWN way. We're not going to tell you how to do it, we're going to help you explore how to figure that out for yourself, your life, your family and environment. It's not a hard thing. It's an important thing though.
Some are shouting Hosannas. The world is still shouting for crucifixions and criminals. We follow along with the world sometimes without even knowing it. It's time to figure out all of this, what we're going to do with our faith and church in this environment. That conversation starts later this month. We need every man, woman, and child of confirmation age and above in this church to be a part of this process. You will all tackle this issue in different ways. Every way we miss is a way the Spirit of God is missed in this community. We don't want to miss any.
Do you believe? Are you ready to help this ministry, this faith, and the work of God? Are you sure what your life is shouting to the world? Would you know how to find out and how to change it if you chose? Come explore the answers to these questions with us. It will make a difference to all of us and our church. We'll see you there.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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