Going to Jerusalem

Scriptures:    Isaiah 62:1-5, 10-12, Matthew 21:1-11; 23:37-39

 

Now the final decision has been made: Jesus is going to Jerusalem. The plan for his life and ministry has come full circle, and this is the moment toward which it has been pointing. His entry into the world in a stable was inauspicious, except for those few shepherds and eventually the wise ones – the Magi whom we talked about during Epiphany. Now he was preparing to enter a whole other world: the city, Jerusalem, and this entry was greeted by crowds of cheering fans. It must have been a heady experience. Wouldn’t you get a rush if hundreds of people were shouting your name and reveling in your presence – just like those young basketball players from those marvelous upstart teams: UConn’s men’s team and the women Aggies from Texas A&M? (OK, tell me honestly now – how many of you had either of them on your ESPN sheets, hmmmm?) Here Jesus was heading into Jerusalem. Jerusalem, where decisions were made affecting the lives of many even outside its walls. Jerusalem, the heart of commerce, the hub of Roman control over the Palestinian provinces, the center of Jewish religious activity and knowledge. Jerusalem, a world unto itself – and yet it was only a small part of the whole world that this Son of Man, this Son of God, had entered

Jerusalem was a proud city, and Jesus wept for its pride. Jerusalem was a fearful city, and Jesus felt compassion for its fear (remember, we talked a couple of weeks ago about how “Jesus wept”). Isaiah’s prophecy was close to the hearts of the Jewish residents there: “…and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication…..” Jerusalem, according to Isaiah, would offer vindication for Zion – it was a coming-together, a messianic dream that was about to be fulfilled. But the Roman pro-consuls and the Jewish Sanhedrin were well satisfied with the status quo. As in most great places of power, the ones in power did not want anything to upset their image of the present city. Yes, pride and fear dominated Jerusalem, as they do in the Jerusalems of today: New York and Washington, Moscow and Beijing, Baghdad and Tehran, Carson City, Las Vegas, Henderson…..

So, Jesus wept – and is still weeping – because he knew that he was there to prick their pride and make them face their fear – and he knew how they would react to these challenges. Jesus was not fooled by the cheering fans. He knew that many of these same people now shouting “Hosanna!” would shortly be crying “Crucify him!” He was now entering his world – a world where people praised him as teacher and healer, but who turned to denounce him when he held a mirror up to their pride and fear. And so Jesus wept. Besides being famous as the shortest verse in the Bible, this phrase from John 11 once again captures for us how human Jesus was – how much he felt for the people who mis-understood him. (By the way, I was intrigued to discover that this phrase, “Jesus wept”, is in some places of the Western world a common expletive or curse spoken when something goes wrong or to express mild incredulity. We have incorporated into our language ways of expressing what Jesus felt.)

Despite Jesus’ tears right now the people were shouting, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” But they would not continue this shout when Jesus began to hold up that mirror to show their pride and fear. They had not yet gotten to the rest of Isaiah’s prophecy: “Go through, go through the gates. prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway, clear it of stones….. Say to daughter Zion, ‘See, your salvation comes; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.’” Through Isaiah the people had heard that Jerusalem would be great and the focal point of salvation, but now through its gates came the very means of that salvation, and to this they were blind. Very shortly they would no longer be shouting, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” And so Jesus, echoing the words of Isaiah, could but lament: “See, your house is left to you, desolate.”

There were some who did not even know who it was that deserved this palm-strewn entry, and they asked, “Who is this?” They were not given a complete answer. Oh, the response, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee,” in true enough, but it is only a half-truth. Jesus’ own words about a prophet not being without honor except in his own country were now coming true. His prophetic vision was not acceptable to this world he was now entering, as it has not really been acceptable to the whole world ever since. As long as he was content to remain a teacher and a healer he was a great man in the eyes of the world, but when he began to uncover the window-shade that let in the light of God’s truth the light was too strong even for those shouting Hosannas. Would it have been any different if the disciples had answered the question, “Who is this?”, by proclaiming, “This is the Christ, the Son of the Living God”? Probably not – except the crucifixion might have come even sooner, and those disciples making this affirmation might have suffered along with him. But maybe, just maybe, if some of the disciples had answered with this affirmation, Jesus’ tears for the world might not have been as great.

The world that Christ is now entering is much like our own world in at least this important respect – the motives that drive us. There was power for the few and lack of direction for the many. There were extremes of wealth and poverty. A recent book that I’ve just finished reading, American Grace by Robert Putnam and David Campbell, about how religion divides and unites us, notes that in the latter half of the 20^th century the gap between the richest and the poorest grew much larger in America, even though in the first half it had been growing smaller.

In this world there was some honesty and some corruption (we’ve certainly seen our share of both, but perhaps especially the corruption, in Las Vegas), along with avoiding responsibility (Caiaphas passed the buck to Pilate and he passed it in turn to the crowd). Into this world (and ours) comes this prophet saying, in effect, “I want to gather you into my arms as children like a mother hen gathers her brood under her wings, but I cannot until you have learned to accept the truth that I bring.” In the name of that truth we have gathered ourselves together as a church here on the northern end of Las Vegas, having been called out of the world so that we can more prophetically enter into the world. Yet, as a church, we, too, have to face the shame of pride and fear that comes along with living in our modern Jerusalems.

Last Wednesday the Clark County Ministerial Association, which I serve as president this year, had as its guest speaker Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith. A few years ago he wrote a book, called Sharks in the Desert, about the characters who built the modern Jerusalem we know as Las Vegas. Besides the obvious – the Howard Hughes, Benny Siegels, Meyer Lanskys – there are lesser-known men (and they are almost all men) who present a mixed bag of motives and styles of operation. Sure, there are plenty of mob connections and examples of violence as a means of getting rid of competitors. But there is also a Ralph Engelstad whose work ethic drove him to build and maintain the Imperial Palace and who in 2002 was 39^th on a list of greatest charitable contributors with giving that equaled 22% of his family’s total wealth which ranked him well ahead of Kirk Kerkorian, the only other major casino owner in the Top 50. Engelstad is best known for throwing a birthday party honoring Adolph Hitler and the notoriety of being censured by the Gaming Commission as a result. Yet, he employed many Jews, and his charities included Jewish groups. A complicated character. Or, there was Jackie Gaughan, known as the “King of Downtown”, who could often be seen chatting with employees and guests and even cleaning ashtrays in the casinos he owned. As John Smith says of him, “Steve Wynn generated more headlines and Kirk Kerkorian had bigger hotels, but Jackie Gaughan figured he had both men beat when it came to low overhead and profit percentages.” A casino owner with a soft touch for the little guy.

Now, the point of referring to these off-beat Las Vegas characters is to lift up the many complexities in our modern Jerusalems. The church, just like Jesus on that donkey, is called to go into the world – to be part and parcel of all this complexity. To decide to stay here in this corner of Las Vegas, fixing up our church and making it more attractive for others, is a testimony to our understanding of the importance of being a living, breathing part of all that is around us – the poverty, the loneliness, the lostness, even in the midst of towering casinos and Stratospheres. The church needs to be involved with the urban scene and not get caught longing for the pastoral, relatively non-complex rural world that dominated our lives in the 18^th and 19^th and indeed much of the 20^th centuries. We are a 21^st century people. We must, as Jesus did, leave the fields of Galilee for the urbanity of Jerusalem.

What gives us our authority to act this way in the modern Jerusalem? In a word: our baptism. Palm Sunday is an especially good day for thinking about the meaning of our own baptism. It is our baptism that is the sign and seal of our membership in the Christian church. To be baptized means to accept the way of the cross; it means that we assume responsibility for bringing truth to our modern Jerusalems. Bill Stringfellow, an Episcopal lay theologian whom you’ve heard me quote before, speaking about ministers who marched in Alabama in the 1960s hits the nail on the head in relation to this responsibility when he says, “Yet the authority by which these clergymen became directly active in the movement is another matter. As far as I can discern, no authority for such involvement stems from ordination or from their office as clergy. Theologically, the authority for direct action in secular affairs rests in baptism. The pertinent authority is that of the lay(person) witnessing in the world to reconciliation in Christ. When the clergy march they march as lay(people) who happen to have been ordained. Since, apart from students, very few (laity) have joined the march, one is all the more grateful that these lay(people) have done so.”

We are a church of very active laypeople – as the bread run and food pantry and thrift shop all attest. This is the first key to our entry into the world. Ordained ministers cannot be, and should not be expected to be, experts on urban renewal, or disarmament, or geo-political trends, or environmental issues, or the particular forces that are at work in our urban centers destroying individual identity. Rather, if the minister is to aid in leading the entry into the world he or she must listen to the laypeople who are in the world, and they in turn must be listening to what their world around them is saying.

Secondly, we as this church community must be ready to be a force for reconciliation. Too often denominations, especially at the national level, are caught up in divisive debates about, say, homosexuality, which render us impotent and indeed laughable to a world that wants the church to take the lead in offering forgiveness and the hope for reconciliation. The modern Jerusalem has been crying out for reconciliation between white and black and Hispanic, between middle-class and poor, between those in authority and the disenfranchised, between male and female, son and father, daughter and mother. All these lines of alienation are drawn across the gates of Jerusalem, but they can be broken by our entry into the world of reconciliation, as we spoke about last week.

Thirdly, we must speak the truth in love. The baptized Christian must stand ready to point to half-truths, political expediency, the desire to maintain the status quo so that self-interests will not be disturbed. Here is where crucifixion most often comes, and so this is the point at which we most usually shy away. But when we do, we become identified not with him who goes into Jerusalem but with those who watched and wondered, “Who is this?”, who let pride and fear overcome commitment and courage, and we feel his tears for us along with the rest of Jerusalem.

Now Jesus enters upon his passion. As he goes to Jerusalem, passing through its gates, entering into his world, we are reminded of the prophet Micah, and to paraphrase his familiar words: “He has showed you, O human, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to listen openly, and to seek reconciliation, and to speak truth as you walk beside your God.”

Amen

Dave Pomeroy

First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
April 17, 2011