As a child I remember entering the city of Dallas, usually this meant the long 5 hour drive from San Antonio. Remember back in those days…no video, no videos to watch in the back seat and no air conditioning. So you would go pass the Wonder Cave signs in San Marcos and the State Capitol in Austin and Leslies Chicken Shack in the Waco traffic circle. And then you would see the signs for Waxahachie and you knew the end was near and you would come over the hill and then there you would see one of the majestic bridges over the Trinity that were built by the WPA during the Great Depression. And on the other side the sky line of Dallas, and there was the neon Pegasus and it was just a majestic sight to come in and it was a great completion of glorious entry into the city. Much in the same way this morning we are reading the text out of Luke in which Jesus and his disciples are entering the great city of Jerusalem. And they are doing so as all the disciples are leading the way as Gretchen said in her children’s sermon…they are covering the streets with cloaks and coats in order to honor him as he is making his way there to the Golden Gate in the city. Listen carefully to Luke’s narrative of this marvelous glorious entry into the city of Jerusalem.

Luke 19:28-40

After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’

This is the Word of God for the People of God.

Thanks be to God.

Well, you know the context of this marvelous entry. You know that in fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy Jesus is riding the colt. Zachariah of chapter 9 verse 9 says, the King will come on a colt or a donkey not on a stallion, not on a steed, and there’s important symbolism going on in this. The King on the horse or the stallion is ready for battle. This is a different type of King. And even though it’s in fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy, I think the people recognize the King; I am not sure they recognize his Kingship. I’m not sure they recognize the type of King that Jesus embodied. With the benefit of hindsight we know that there was probably another procession going on at the same time as Jesus was entering the golden gate of the city.

The Roman soldiers were coming in reinforcements for the Antonio fortress, why, because all of the pilgrims were coming for their Passover Feast and it meant more Jews there in Jerusalem, it meant the possibility that Zealots might get a hold of them and they might decide to overthrow the Romans and the Roman occupation. So it just made good since from an empire stand point don’t you see, to send more soldiers, to have more military presence to give them a strong disincentive to try to do that.

Also we know that in advance of the Passover Feast the sacrificial lambs were selected and singled out for that purpose and that gives a heighten poignancy to Jesus moving down on the colt, moving into the city. Having been selected as the sacrifice to be made in the scheme of things. The Gospel of Luke pays particular attention and attaches particular importance to the city of Jerusalem and so it is ten chapters previous to this text chapter 9 verse 51. Jesus announces that he is setting his face to go to Jerusalem. Ten chapters are devoted to this journey to the city of Jerusalem, 40 % of the Gospel narrative devoted to this journey, making His way with the disciples to Jerusalem. And as he gets there it says that the people were celebrating his great deeds of power.

I thought that this morning it would be important to review to and ask ourselves; what is the unique identity of this Jesus what were these deeds to power. I find it comforting that in chapter 9 verse 51 that when Jesus is in Symeria and He announces He is going to Jerusalem and He was immediately rejected by the people there because Jerusalem was not the center of worship and the disciples said to Jesus; well, do you want us to call on God to bless them with fire storms coming down from Heaven? Should we obliterate them and Jesus said, no we don’t do that. They can reject Me; they’ve got the freedom to do that. We’ll just move on. And Jesus began to send disciples. He sent 70 disciples that were given His authority, the authority to heal and cast out demons in His name. And he laid down the conditions of discipleship and this movement began, making its way to Jerusalem. And as I studied these passages from chapter 9 to chapter 19, these ten chapters I want to summarize for you, it seems to me that it begins when the local attorney, the lawyer, steps up and says to Jesus; what do I have to do to achieve eternal life? And Jesus makes it very simple for him, He says well, you gotta love God and you gotta love your neighbor, we call that the great commandment, don’t we? Focus on that don’t, lose sight of that love of God and love of neighbor.

And it begins, and I think Jesus embodies extreme love, not extreme in the since of being a terrorist or he would have obliterated the Samaritans, but extreme radical love. It begins with Jesus teaching us about God’s love for us and how extreme it is, how unconditional it is, how much how very much God loves us. And do you remember how he did that? He did that through parables.

First of all, He told us about the parable of the Prodigal Son which is another was to describe that story as the parable of the loving father. In spite of the alienation of the separation on the part of the younger son, when he returns the father comes running down the road to greet him and embrace him and to celebrate. My son was lost and now he’s found, this is the nature of God’s love for us. God always loves us God is always on the lookout for our return. God cares for us so much so that when Jesus taught the disciples to pray he said go ahead and address God in a familiar way say Abba, Daddy, Papa, that was radical stuff. This is a new way to talk to God. It made a lot of people nervous, you’re not allowed to invoke God’s name you’re not allowed to speak to God in that fashion. We don’t have that type of relationship with God, but Jesus said yes we do, we actually do. God wants to be addressed in a familiar way, God cares. You know what it’s kind of like that saying? You know you’ve seen the bumper sticker; I wasn’t born in Texas but I got here just as soon as I could. God accepts us whenever we make it, whenever we get there. God is waiting to run down the road and embrace us.

So Jesus told the parable, and I wouldn’t suggest you run your business in this way about the laborers. Some got there early in the morning at the crack of dawn and worked all day long, others came in at noon and put in half a day others came about 30 minutes before the end of the day. They all lined up for the payday and they were all paid the same. And we can understand when the people who worked a full work day were confounded. Wait a minute, how does this work?! It was the way of Jesus to illustrate this was the nature of God’s love. Get here however and whenever you can, and when you do, you will have all the benefits of having been loved by God.

In addition to God’s extreme love for us, Jesus wanted to teach us want it means to have extreme love for God in return. To reciprocate, because you see there is a lynch pin there, the two are related. God loves us and so we are called to pass it on. He told that troubling story of the steward who owed the King so much that when you do the math it’s like a gazillion dollars. I mean there are not enough zeros for how much the steward owed the King. He looks at him and says; you are forgiven the debt. The King takes the initiative. The King expiates this debt, the one who owes the debt does not appreciate it but it is expiated, the one who is owed takes the initiative and says I am going to wipe it clean. You are forgiven, what a marvelous gift this was. Then he turns around, walks out of the castle, and sees someone that owes him a nickel. He grabs him by the neck and says; you pay up and then throws him in debtor’s prison. And the point of the parable is, is that Jesus is saying, that’s not right. You cannot bask in God’s forgiveness and love and then turn around and not pass it on. That’s not right. Those to whom much is given, much is expected and so we are called to be extreme in our love for neighbors as well. And to illustrate that He told the story of the Good Samaritan who was walking along and saw the man who had been beaten by the robbers and he needed help. I don’t know that he articulated it, I don’t know that he had a sign that said, need help. It would have been easy as the others had done to pass by but it was obvious, the guy needed help and the Samaritan gave him the help. And not just gave him some spare change, but he got him up and walked him to the end where he would receive comprehensive care and gave money to the innkeeper to make sure that that care continued. Which of these proved to be neighbor to that man, the one who helped him. This is the nature, Jesus is saying; look it’s not right, it’s not alright to amass so much wealth then have a Lazarus, a poor man in front of your gate and do nothing in response to his plight. It’s not ok, it is not right and there will be ramifications and there will be consequences when we do not respond.

We are called to embody extreme love for our neighbors as well. So Jesus has made these teachings and these are the types of deeds of power that He has been sharing. And now He is moving to the gates of Jerusalem and it’s setting up a confrontation because He is an agent of change and He is representing the Kingdom of God and that reality and it has not been run in that fashion and Jesus will be confrontational. Why do the people need the message of Jesus, well because when people get together, we tend to behave in a sinful fashion, the way that we behave collectively. And we need help, we need direction, we have mob rule and we do stupid things when we’re together. And I wish that I could say that you know that’s the way the ancients behaved, we’re so post modern and we are so with it in the twenty-first century that doesn’t apply to us. But did you read about this experiment they had in France, this TV pilot called the game of death? It really reenacted the 1961 Yale University experiment in which some people were recruited and they thought that they were in a game show, and they had an actor that they thought every time he gave a wrong answer was being electrocuted with some voltage that increased with every wrong answer. The rules simply dictated that whenever this guy gave a wrong answer you would have to zap him again and the crowd was calling out punishment, punishment, punishment for all they knew he was dying right before their eyes and only 16 percent of the contestants walked away and said, I’m not doing this, the others were happy to zap him until he died. After all we’re just following the rules here right? We’re all going along with this.

Such as the frailty and the stupidity collectively of human nature, so we need the message that Jesus embodies. He’s headed to Jerusalem and there’s going to be a confrontation there. There is going to be a showdown at the OK Corral. That was needed; that was mandated. Part of me wants to be like Peter and say; Lord don’t let it be so, avoid the conflict Lord. You don’t need that, you don’t need it, and conflicts not a good thing, its gut wrenching, Lord avoid that. But it was not to be. His mission dictated that He go and confront the powers that were in place; the status quo and present the new model of the Kingdom of God. You know Jesus said blessed are the peace makers and part of me would like to avoid conflict at any cost, but I remember the story told to me by Dr. Willy Champion.

Willy was in my doctor of ministry program at Perkins, he was a district superintendant in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and he’s telling me about an annual conference they had where all these good Methodists gathered together and they are fighting like cats and dogs over a controversial decision. Finally the Bishop calmed everybody and said my brothers and sisters, I believe we need to pray about it. And Willy said one elderly lady got up and she said, no Bishop we need to fight about it and they went ahead and they continued to fight. Sometimes as the system analyst says; what happens is what needs to happen and this is the case here. Jesus is headed for confrontation as he makes His way through the golden gate of the city of Jerusalem but the people for the moment, for the moment, in recognizing the King if not His Kingship they do embrace and celebrate His great deeds of power. Amen.