Guide
Our Feet: What Kind of Savior are We Following?
Luke
19.28-48
A Sermon Preached by Dave Shull
The sixth in a Lenten sermon series, ‘Guide
Our Feet: Faces of the Jesus Who Calls Us to Follow’
University
Congregational United
What a difference 20 minutes can make.
Children parade down the center aisle . . . Organ and voice
rejoice in praise of God.
The crowd shouts, ‘Hosanna!’ ‘Save us!’ ‘Deliver us!’
They know something is wrong with their lives and their world.
They are slaves to
So they cry out to this odd king riding on a donkey.
An odd sort of Savior, this healer and teacher,
this teller of strange tales about impossible forgiveness,
this host of meals that all the wrong people are invited to.
But the crowd knows they need a Savior.
So, when this conquering king without an army rides by,
they plead to him: ‘Save us!’
What do they have to lose?
Now, twenty minutes after the parade, the mood shifts.
As they watch Jesus enter the
the crowd’s hope turns to anxiety and fear.
Certainly the Savior won’t do anything
foolish in the
It would be suicide to do anything foolish here.
And yet in the three years he has been announcing
the creation of God’s new world in their midst,
this Jesus has never been afraid to act foolishly.
The ‘hosanna’-shouters watch and listen.
What they see – what they hear – is beyond belief.
Who is this man? they wonder.
What kind of Savior is he, this one who calls us to follow?
Jesus clears out
the
All those merchants who are just trying to pad their commissions a bit
Jesus sends packing.
He reminds
everyone in the
whose
This is the
My house is to
be a house of prayer.
Then Jesus quotes from the prophet Jeremiah,
and pronounces
judgment on the
You have made
[God’s house] a den of robbers.
Most of us
have been taught Jesus’ actions in the
are all about criticizing the behavior of the moneychangers,
and about the
central role of money in the
But Bible scholar Tom Wright thinks something else is going on.
He focuses on
the phrase Jesus quotes from Jeremiah:
you have made [my house] a den of robbers (Jeremiah 7.11).
In the original Hebrew and Greek,
the word translated ‘robber’
has nothing to do with petty thieves like the moneychangers.
That word refers specifically to people who rob with violence.
In first-century
When Jesus accuses
the
of
making God’s house a den of robbers,
everyone who hears him knows
what he’s talking about.
Because in Jesus’ day, this word for ‘robbers’ was used
for people who supported violent
revolution against
If Tom Wright is correct, Jesus’ actions in the
have nothing to do with inflated sales commissions.
Instead, Jesus is accusing the
with supporting and encouraging
violent revolution
against
You have forgotten the Most High God, Jesus charges.
And the name of God will not be used in vain.
The name of God will not be used to sponsor violence.
Jesus spent his three-year public ministry
inviting everyone to join the new world of God
he was creating.
Through his actions and stories,
he showed them what citizenship in this world means:
love your enemies;
pray for those who wish you harm;
be light for a world lost in darkness and violence and fear.
Through his provocative and dangerous action in the
Jesus proclaims that in God’s new world,
there is no justification for violence.
Those who worship the Most High God
must know and practice the things that make for peace.
Those who worship the Most High God
must show the rest of the world how to live free from violence.
Between the
parade and the
Jesus looks down
from the
and upon this city God loves with a fierce love.
And he cries.
The Savior cries.
‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!’
But the
And neither do the Romans.
But they don’t need to recognize what makes for peace.
They rule their worlds.
They are in charge.
And like all who believe whatever they do is right and blessed,
the Roman leaders
and the
kill this odd Savior who preaches the gospel of peace.
Another would-be Savior silenced.
Or so they think.
But they don’t recognize what this Savior is doing.
They don’t recognize that in his life, and death, and rising,
Jesus Christ is creating God’s new world.
In their midst, God’s new world is being born.
And in that world, the gospel of peace will not be intimidated.
Though stripped and beaten, the gospel of peace will not be silenced.
‘ In God’s new world, the gospel of peace cannot and will not be killed.
Our Savior calls out to all of us who want
him to guide our feet as his disciples.
And he says to us:
You are already my disciples.
You already
live in God’s new world.
So recognize this day the things that make
for peace!
And what our gospel tells us this day is
that citizens of God’s new world
never respond to violence with violence.
All of us here are disciples of Jesus Christ.
All of us are citizens of God’s new world.
And though the violence between nations and peoples
can overwhelm us,
at least we can commit ourselves individually never to be violent.
When someone hurts us or tries to hurt us,
we do not have to do what citizens of the old world do,
and strike out with fist or tongue.
When someone hurts us,
instead we follow in the steps of the Messenger of Peace,
whose creative acts of nonviolent resistance
inspire us still today.
When someone hurts us
we draw strength and wisdom
from people like David Hartsough,
another citizen of God’s new world.
David was a civil-rights activist,
He was into his second day of a lunch counter
sit-in trying to integrate a
restaurant in
While peacefully reciting to himself the 23rd Psalm
as he sat at the counter,
David was yanked from his seat
and threatened with a knife.
‘You got one minute to get out of here,’ said his persecutor,
‘or I’m running this through your heart.’
After a brief pause, David slowly shifted his gaze
from the bowie knife at his chest
to the face of the man who brandished it.
In those eyes, he said, I met ‘the worst look of hate
I have ever seen in my life.’
David thought to himself,
Well, at least
I’ve got a minute.
Then he said to the man,
‘Well, brother, you do what you feel you have to do,
and I’m going to try to love you all the same.’
David said later for a few seconds there seemed to be
no reaction.
Then the hand on the knife started shaking.
After a few more long seconds it dropped.
The man turned and walked out of the lunchroom,
surreptitiously wiping a tear
from his cheek (Bennett: 23).
The false god of the old world would have had David
strike out, and be a man.
In the old world, there’d be somebody dead,
somebody in jail,
families torn apart because on that day,
no one recognized what makes for peace.
But David Hartsough is a citizen of God’s new world.
He recognizes that what makes for peace is
loving the world like God loves it.
And that means no violence.
So David lived peace that day.
And the world was changed.
David follows a different Savior.
And so do we.
Guide our feet, Savior Christ. Amen.
REFERNECES CITED
Gordon Bennett. “The Jujitsu of Jesus,” The Other Side. (March & April 2004),
pp. 20-23.
Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright. The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions.
HarperSan Francisco. 1999.
N.T. Wright. Jesus and the Victory of God. Fortress Press. 1996.