Psalm 118:19-21

Luke 19:28-40    

Here is a cross from El Salvador.  I’ve shown it once before in worship.  The cross is decorated with scenes from a small village.  What I love is seeing all of the people in a village who have been brought together in Jesus Christ, plowing the fields, feeding the chickens, raising babies, harvesting fruit, teaching the children, and praising God.  The artisans who created this cross love being a community where everyone is included in the power of the resurrection.   I’d love to visit that community to feel its welcome and joy.  I’ll pass it around. 

     Not everyone feels included in this world.  While there are many things we can be deprived of - food, water, and shelter - it may be that the worst thing to be without is a feeling of belonging … to a family, to a church, or to a caring community. 

     One day as I was sitting in my office in the church I served in Rochester a woman I didn’t know came into the church.  She asked if she could pray for a few minutes in the sanctuary.  “Sure”, I said.  Soon I heard some of the loudest praying I’d ever heard, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …”.  And then the next prayer, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus ...”.  And when she was done with that she went back and prayed them all over again, now mixing up the words a bit, until she ran out of breath.  And then she came back into my office and asked me for money.  I guess she thought that if she offered those prayers good and loud I would be more willing to give her money.  Well, in that neighborhood, we never gave out money, not to anyone, because it would usually go right to drugs or alcohol.  When I said no, she went to her trump card: she began to weep and wail like you’ve never heard.  And I let her go as long as she wanted.  When she ran out of breath I asked her name – “Norma”, and she was a long way from home.  She was from Kahnawake, a Native American reservation near Montreal.   For various reasons she had ended up in Rochester, with no job, no money, living in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic brother.  Norma received public assistance, but her brother drank it all away every single month. 

      In the months that followed Norma would come over to my office frequently, to pray a lot, cry a lot, and ask me for money. She had nowhere else to go, no friends, no one to turn to for help, she was lost, left-out, and forgotten.  I finally realized that the real problem she had was not lack of money or food, Norma had no community, no friends, and no one to turn to.  She was left out and for her it was like living in hell.

     The Palm Sunday parade on that day long ago in Jerusalem was the culmination of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem.  He had come to confront the principalities and powers of the day, but he looked … underwhelming.  Not on a mighty steed leading a powerful cavalry with sharp spears thundering to the gates of the city demanding its surrender, but he was just riding a colt alone, with his followers shouting “Hosanna” and throwing their cloaks on the road to greet him.  In Sunday School I was led to believe that the crowd of those cheering him on was huge, with thousands lining the road as he passed by.  It is more likely that it was a small crowd, almost unnoticed by the powers and principalities that occupied that city.

     But we mark Palm Sunday as an important day in our journey of faith because while it was underwhelming in conventional ways, we have learned something about its real power: that the lost, forgotten and left-out are welcomed by God and included in the hope and victory of the Cross. 

     I enjoyed reading this morning’s bulletin insert about One Great Hour of Sharing because it tells how refugees who escaped political and ethnic violence in Burma have found new homes in Michigan.  But having a home wasn’t enough, they had lost that feeling of belonging to a caring community.  Through One Great Hour of Sharing a community garden took form that generated a community that had been thought long-lost.     

     One day Norma got confused and actually walked into the church on a Sunday morning.  People smiled and greeted her with friendly words, but she felt more scared than welcomed.  The most courage she could muster was to sit in the chair at the back of the sanctuary, close to the door in case she needed to quickly escape.  She wouldn’t come in any further.   

     It just so happened that the children’s message that day involved a big ball of string, and I was going to use it to demonstrate how Jesus gathers us together into one family of faith.  I asked the children to lead the string around all of the people in the church.  All of a sudden, Norma, who had been clinging to her chair for dear life, saw the children approaching her.  But it was too late!  She couldn’t escape, and shazzam! she was inside the circle!  I thought she would run under the string and out the door in utter terror, but no, instead, Norma just sat there and smiled.  If you can imagine Norma’s smile, then you understand the power of Palm Sunday, God in Jesus Christ doing everything possible to reach the left out!  Those who greeted Jesus that day long ago in Jerusalem all had those smiles, the left-out, the forgotten, the friendless and the marginalized.  And they began to say that word “hosanna” as they smiled, first as a whisper, barely able to believe that they could open their mouths to say anything, but then stronger.  Hosanna!

     So the cross from El Salvador reminds me of many things:  Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, the arrest, the crucifixion, his death on the cross, as all of his friends and followers cried and cried and cried.  But the cross also shows the power of God:  in the empty tomb, in the resurrection, in healing and hope, and the creation of a caring community, where everyone is welcome and no one is left out.  A community brought together in Jesus Christ, plowing the fields, feeding the chickens, raising babies, harvesting fruit, teaching the children, and praising God.  This cross does not represent defeat; it represents life in Jesus Christ!

     A postscript.  That church where I met Norma finally closed its doors in 1990.  I was grateful that the ministry did not die, for instead the presbytery hired a young seminary graduate, Fritz Longabaugh, to lead a street ministry in that low income neighborhood.  Since Fritz had no building in which to conduct his ministry, he was ordained one afternoon outdoors in Jones Park.  The invited guests were all there, and also people from the neighborhood at the edge, curious about what was going on.  As the one invited to preach I decided to use the ball of string one more time for my main message, to emphasize how Fritz’ ministry would be all about making the circle wider and wider to include all of the people who felt left-out by the neighborhood, by the community, and even by God.  So I handed Fritz the ball of string as his first lesson in community ministry and as he began to make that big circle, I spotted Norma on the fringe of the crowd.  But this time she didn’t try to back away.  And she was in the circle again!  You see, Norma had learned that it feels good, real good, to be included!   And, of course, she was smiling.

Psalm 126

Has anyone here cried recently?  This morning?  During the last week?  Last month?  Last year?  And what does the crying look like?  A little wetness around the eyes?  Tears rolling down your cheeks?  Sobs so deep you cannot catch your breath?  Is crying healthy?  Does crying make you feel embarrassed?  Is crying a sign of weakness?  Is crying only about sadness?  It can also be about joy.  It can be about confusion.  It can sometimes seem like the tears come for no reason at all.  Is crying different for boys and girls, men and women?  We spend a lot of time holding our feelings in, because we want to demonstrate control.  But crying, I think, is when our feelings are close to the surface, and they spill out, in times of joy and times of sadness.  Tears?  It’s the way we’re made.

            My granddaughter Ellieana knows nothing about all of these complicated questions I’ve been asking.  She cries when she’s hungry.  She cries when she wakes up alone.  She cries when her diaper needs changing.  She cries when things aren’t just right, and once she starts crying I think she doesn’t even remember why she started.  She just keeps crying until food, or a hug, or a new diaper distracts her from her crying.

            Not just babies, but all people cry.  Psalm 126 acknowledges this.  It even acknowledges that an entire nation could be crying.  A nation, Israel, had been overrun by enemies, and has been crying.  Justice and peace are long gone.  Prosperity and plenty are long gone.  Can you imagine that, an entire nation crying?   Have you ever felt like our entire country has been crying, our entire community, our entire church family?

There are several times in the Bible when we are told that Jesus cried, too.  We read in Luke’s Gospel, in the hours before the beginning of Palm Sunday, that Jesus looked out over the city of Jerusalem and he cried.  You might think he was crying about having to face the cross, but listen to his words:  “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”   Jesus cried because we are too blind, too stubborn, too scared to embrace God’s peace, and again and again we resort to violence, agree to tolerate violence, and even profit from violence.  And Jesus cried.  And we cry with him, with tears in our eyes, not only for the violence of the world, but our need for a next meal, a good hug, maybe even a fresh diaper!

When I was a seminary student serving at Trinity Presbyterian Church on West 57^th Street in New York City, our pastor invited a Presbyterian minister from Nigeria to preach.  I’ve never forgotten the story he told, and how he told it.  It was from the story of the Exodus in the Old Testament, the time when the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt toiling in the hot sun, living in total misery under Pharoah, and suffering under the whip.  This preacher read the turning point in that story, when God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, and Israel was about to be rescued:  “I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt;  I have heard their crying;  I know their suffering.  And now I have come down to deliver them.”  [Exodus 3:7-8]  God sees their misery, God hears their cries, God knows their suffering, and now God has come down  to rescue them.  And this preacher thundered his conclusion:  we worship a God who comes down to rescue us.  Our God does not hide in heaven.  God sees, hears, and knows our circumstances, and God responds.   We worship God who comes down … to where you are right now. 

And so the tears in your eyes are not a sign of weakness, or loss of control, or evidence of instability or unhealthiness.  Every tear that rolls down your cheek is God’s opportunity to respond.  God knows about every tear.  And God is eager to respond!

But Psalm 126 is not just about crying.  Crying is the starting point  that leads to hope.  “Lord, make us prosperous again, just as the rain brings water back to dry riverbeds.  Let those who wept as they planted their crops gather the harvest with joy.  Those who wept as they went out carrying the seed will come back singing for joy as they bring in the harvest.

Though your eyes may be filled with tears, the Psalm still invites you to plant seeds of hope, to invest yourself in hope, to seek and find your hope in God.  This is how Jesus dealt with his tears as he looked out over Jerusalem.  He cried because the people living there had lost, forgotten, or never had the things that make for peace.  But then he went down into that city to plant “the things that make for peace” so that everyone can see them.  He went down into that city to plant “the things that make for peace” so that you can see them.  He cried, thinking about the violence of this world.  He cried, thinking about the violence of the Cross.  He cried, thinking about you.  But he was not stuck in his tears.  Like God came down to rescue the slaves in Egypt, Jesus came down into the city to create the things that make for peace, Jesus came down to face the cross, for you, for me, for Wilma, and even Ellieana.   

Once of the final passages in the Bible is from the Book of Revelation, a final word of hope to a world that is often in tears:  “God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”  [Revelation 21:4]  Including yours.  

 

Psalm 32

When do you feel the most worn-out?  At the end of your last class of the day at school, the class that happens to be the hardest? At the end of a long work day, when the boss asks you to stay late?  At the end of gym class, after a mile around the track?  After a long hike up a steep hill, feeling hot and thirsty? After a huge chore that involves moving cinder blocks from one side of the driveway to the other?    You can feel worn out without even lifting a finger,  Lately, I’ve been feeling worn-out every time I turn on the news.  I haven’t lifted a finger, but it leaves me exhausted, spiritually exhausted.  And you may feel worn out just worrying about things, too.  Staying awake through the night worrying about children, or a job, or friends.  It can be exhausting!

I think that the best example of my being worn-out was back in December when Robin went out to do errands one Saturday morning, and I was left with Ellieana.  It seemed like a simple thing to manage, but after about twenty minutes I began to run out of hands to hold the baby, keep the baby happy, change the diaper, heat the formula, feed the baby, get myself dressed and eat my own breakfast, plus dealing with that metal halo on my head.  By about one o’clock I was calling up Robin, “uh, Robin, when did you say you might be back home?”  I had reached my exhaustion point and there was no one to hand Ellieana to!    After that experience my appreciation for single parents raising a child alone rose considerably!

Feeling worn-out?  You are not alone!  The Bible is full of stories of people feeling worn-out.  One place to look is the Book of Psalms.  The Psalms are the songs of Israel.  We have the words to 150 Psalms, but the music has been long lost.  In some cases, modern musicians have written tunes to go along with the Psalms, but the original music has been lost.  Some of the Psalms are songs of celebration and joy, but I would bet that there are far more of the Psalms that deal with worry and defeat.  This particular Psalm 32 is one that resonates with those who feel worn out.  And like most things in the Bible, it talks about being worn out on several levels.  It’s about feeling physically worn-out.  And it’s also about feeling spiritually worn-out. 

The physical part is easy to grasp, especially when you remember that the Hebrews were slaves under pharaoh, the ones who built the pyramids while under the whip, working day after day moving big blocks of stone.  Then, after they escaped slavery in Egypt they wandered in the desert for forty years, with food hard to find and water scarce.   That would wear out anyone.  And when they found the Promised Land and built up a kingdom under David, they were constantly at war with their neighbors, with the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Hittites, the Assyrians, and much of the time they even fought themselves.  As you know, wars mean high taxes, wars mean sending children off to fight,  and death and destruction, and even more taxes.  That would wear anyone out, too.  And finally, Israel was conquered by the Babylonians, and they were hauled off to slavery in a distant country.  You can read Psalm 137 to see how miserable and worn out they were living in Babylon.  And, as you can guess, slavery would wear anyone out.  Even in the time of Jesus, Israel was still a conquered land, now under the rule of the Romans, who pushed them around, attacked their Jewish faith and customs, and on top of that, you guessed it, more taxes, taxes to cover the cost of their own oppression.     

Against this historical backdrop, there are individuals, too, who are particularly worn-out.  Poor widows with no money and no hope, like the nameless one who turned to Elisha for help when she had nothing to feed her children.  Elisha and other prophets who begged and pleaded with the kings to change their ways, but were ignored, ridiculed and persecuted.  Immigrants like Naomi and Ruth trying to escape even worse conditions back home, but unwelcome in Bethlehem where they settled.  Just to live one more day for so many of these people was a constant experience of being worn-out and exhausted.

And finally we come to Jesus in the garden on the night of his arrest, when in his prayer to God he expresses his own exhaustion.  He has been dealing with countless needs in every town and village he visited, he has been set upon by Pharisees and chief priests at every turn, he has been frustrated by disciples not getting the point, and there he is in the garden praying to God – “God, I’m exhausted.  I’ve done everything you’ve asked and I’m worn out.  And I don’t think I can handle what’s coming up next – the Cross.  I wouldn’t want to face that on my best day, but certainly not today when I am bone tired and worn out.  I can’t do this, take this cup away from me”.  Jesus was worn out!

Physical and spiritual exhaustion are closely intertwined I think.  But each one feeds on the other and can lead us into a downward spiral, into a black hole that drains from us all energy and hope.  Now look at me, talking about the black hole of total despair!  Yikes!  Who came here to end up in a black hole?  How do we get out of such places when we find ourselves in them?  My message is supposed to be about hope, so I better get to that right away.  If you are that worn out or exhausted, grab the hand of the person you came with for help and encouragement. Lean on them if you need to, and we’ll get to a better place!

On the way home from the airport last night I listened to my favorite radio program, “Blues FM” from Toronto on 91.1.  I often listen to it when I’m trying to get my sermon done, and sometimes it even gives me some inspiration.  So there was this great song, “I Wish I Was In Heaven”.  Let me play a little of it ….

It goes like this, “I wish I was in heaven, and sitting down”.  Now there’s a song about feeling worn-out!  So tired and overwhelmed by tough living, that the singer, R.L. Burnside, has a dream of heaven as a place where he can simply sit down!  Not rainbows, and clouds, and angels and harps, but just a place to be able to sit down.  I looked it up when I got home and the album cover is simply a chair.  Wow, a song by a man who might have been on his feet working hard, running from trouble, and just never able to rest, and there is that great line, “I wish I was in heaven sitting down”.

R.L. Burnside has a vision of hope for the worn-out.  In his case, it’s a simple vision, that heaven is a place where the worn out and exhausted can find a place to sit and rest.  That might not have been his whole vision, but this was the first step in reaching it, just imagining a chair to sit in.  If God begins by providing a safe, comfortable chair, think how much more God wants to offer you! 

If you have too little vision, and too much exhaustion, physical, spiritual, or both, maybe start with that chair, imagine that out of the whole of humanity, God is getting your chair ready for you, a chair to give comfort and peace to the worn-out, a nice comfortable chair for healing and hope.  A chair that is your refuge, your sanctuary, a place for renewal and re-energizing!

So there was Jesus praying in the garden, praying, even begging for God to let him skip the Cross, too hard, way too hard.  But that’s not how the story ends.  Somehow in the intensity of that moment Jesus saw something more than just the exhaustion, Jesus reminded himself of the vision.  The text in Luke says that an angel came and comforted him.   Physically and spiritually worn out, found new strength and purpose as he prayed.  

O God, you are my God, and I long for you. My whole being desires you; like a dry, worn-out, and waterless land, my soul is thirsty for you. Let me see you in the sanctuary; let me see how mighty and glorious you are. Your constant love is better than life itself, and so I will praise you. I will give you thanks as long as I live; I will raise my hands to you in prayer. My soul will feat and be satisfied, and I will sing glad songs of praise to you. Amen. [Psalm 63] Children – anyone thirsty? Have you ever been thirsty? When (while playing a vigorous sport, on a hot day, diabetes) Adults: One summer day when I was young my friend Dave Trabucco and I had a great idea. There were construction workers across the street building a new house. We decided to set up a lemonade stand at the end of our driveway. We mixed up the lemonade, put it in a big pitcher with some ice, found a folding card table, set our price of ten cents per glass, and then waited for the heat of the day to lure our thirsty customers over to our side of the street. It didn’t take long. One of the workers came right over. Hopefully, we had filled a little Dixie cup with lemonade ready for our first customer. Instead of putting a dime into our hands, he slapped two dollars down on the card table. “I’ll buy the whole pitcher”, he said, which he did, and then poured the whole thing into his thermos. He was thirsty! We made a lot of money that day, that is until we ran out of lemonade. Those workers were thirsty that day, very thirsty. Let me tell you about a time when I was really thirsty, desperately thirsty in fact. A group of college friends went up to the Adirondacks one weekend. We arrived on Friday evening, parked our cars, then hiked in about a mile in the dark tripping over tree roots, reached the camp area and set up our tents. By the next morning everyone had arrived, George Mead, Jim Bona, Rich and Jane Guralnick and their two dogs, and me, and we headed up the trail to reach our goal, Mt. Marcy, the highest mountain in New York State. It was a long climb but we reached the top in the late morning and had a tremendous view in all directions, on an unusually clear day. From the top of Mt. Marcy we could see a line of other Adirondack peaks like a string of pearls, so close it looked like we could almost touch them. Seeing those other peaks we changed our plan and decided to hike along the ridge line to reach two more peaks before heading back down to the parking lot. The second peak was more of a challenge than we realized. We had to scale some steep rocks, sometimes on all fours, to reach the top. The two dogs were struggling in that area and the guys had to actually carry those big dogs up the steeper sections. It was at the top of the second peak that we realized we had a water problem. The two dogs had been working real hard climbing, and they were much thirstier than we had anticipated. And we realized that the day was not only clear but also hot and dry. So dry that there was not a single puddle of water anywhere for the dogs to drink. We had to give them nearly all of our remaining water so that they would not become seriously dehydrated. We were all getting very thirsty now and we were completely without water now as we made our way down the mountain. It seemed like hours and hours of thirst. Finally, as we neared the bottom of the mountain, a little trickle of water appeared along the trail, an unpleasant mixture of brown mud and orange scum. The dogs drank that water … and we did, too. That’s how thirsty we were. I’m sure each of you could tell us story of a time when you were really thirsty, when you would have paid a thousand dollars for one cool glass of water. As you remember the situation your mouth begins to feel dry, your throat is parched, and maybe you begin to have hallucinations, delirious visions and mirages of a pitcher of cold water just waiting for you just out of reach. Maybe my sermon is already making your thirsty for our coffee hour after the service! I hope they are serving lemonade, and I would steer clear of anything that looks brownish orange. The Psalm I read, Psalm 63, begins with a reminder of what it feels like to be really thirsty. Keep in mind that the people of Israel lived in desert lands, places where water is scarce, it doesn’t rain a lot there, and there are few rivers, lakes or ponds. The biggest body of water, the Dead Sea is nine times saltier than the ocean. Water is scarce. And so the Psalm begins by talking about something that people were very familiar with, the very unpleasant experience of being thirsty in a hot dry desert land. But that’s only the beginning of the Psalm, because as you remember the experience of physical thirst, feeling the dryness in your lips, mouth and throat, it brings you to a different experience: spiritual thirst. Spiritual thirst; what exactly is that? The Psalm says it is when you realize that your spiritual energy has run dry, when you are spiritually worn out. Dealing with grief, or loss, or sorrow, or injustice or evil worse can drain your spiritual reserves to the point that there is little left. It’s when you are bone dry and worn-out, and you feel helpless to do anything about it. Has anyone here ever felt spiritually thirsty? So what can you do? The Bible is a powerful book, because from the printed words on the page it has brought you right to that exact feeling of thirst. But all is not lost! Also right there on the printed page is your hope and rescue. And the challenge is to bring that to life in the same way that we brought your thirst to life just by reading about it. And here’s what we need to bring to live in the dry, desert land of our lives: the abundance of God that can satisfy your spiritual thirst. Psalm 63 is in the Old Testament. There is another place in the Old Testament I’d like to take you to, a short book about a simple man named Amos, a tender of fruit trees, who watched a rich king and his friends take advantage of the poor over and over again so that they could live in power and privilege. What the poor had was so little. One day Amos left his fruit trees and stood at the gate to the king’s palace, and shouted out how wrong they were, how much they hurt the poor. What Amos had that day was a spiritual thirst, a need for justice as real as a parched throat, a spiritual thirst that needed to be relieved. So he stood by the gate and offered God’s word, a prophetic word, a world-changing word, In the middle of a dry, worn out, desert land, Amos got a glimpse of God, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”. Amos saw that God is all about abundance, especially for those who feel dry. Whatever we lack in our thirst, God has an abundance to offer, like a mighty torrents of a flowing stream. No thin stream of muddy, scummy water, instead a torrent of it! Jesus was in on this, too. One day he met a woman by the well. Both of them were thirsty and they enjoyed pulling cool water up from the well to satisfy their thirst, but then Jesus began to speak about living water, water from God, that satisfies our spiritual thirst. Unlike the king who chased Amos away for making too much noise, the woman responded to Jesus, “Give me some of that water, so I will never be thirsty again!” Yes, she got it! One day the kids in the church I served in Rochester looked out the door and saw that it was a hot day, a very hot day. So what better idea could there be … let’s set up a lemonade stand. So we got some lemonade mixed up, some big pitchers, a card table, lined up our volunteers, and set up on the sidewalk. We called out to passersby to stop and have some lemonade. This was a low-income neighborhood, so many people did not have even a quarter to buy a cup, But here’s the brilliant thing we did … the lemonade was free! What a great day that was, as neighbors stopped by to enjoy a glass of cold lemonade on a hot day. We did more outreach in one afternoon than we had ever done before. We lost money that day, giving away all of that lemonade, but we demonstrated something important and true – what God offers is free, and there’s a lot of it to go around. What God offers is free, and there is more than enough for you! Dear God, We are eager to feel your love and care, as eager as we are for a taste of cool water when our mouths are dry and parched on a hot day. The people we meet in Bible stories lived in dry lands, and when they dreamed of your love they often imagined your unleashed love as torrents of water in the desert. We have no lack of water where we live, but we have the same dream of your love flowing in abundance: “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Amen.