A Most Dangerous Day

A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Paul Debenport

Palm Sunday / March 28, 2010

+     +     +

Today’s sermon is the fourth in our Lenten series on Temptation grounded on the temptations of Jesus in Matthew.  These three temptations are temptations we, too, must face and better face down over and over again: to grow spiritually; to more and more renounce evil in our lives; and more and more to be full of charity and love for

others as Christ calls us to.  Hear the Word of God from Matthew 4: 8—10:

Again the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all

 the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him,

“All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 

Jesus said to him, “Away with you Satan! for it is written,

`Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him.’”

The Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

+     +     +

          What a most glorious day the first Palm Sunday was!  It was a day the disciples had been long anticipating—the day that Jesus’ kingship was recognized had finally come.  It was a coronation, an ordination, an inauguration, when the disciples could swell with both nationalistic and religious pride and chant “We’re number one!”

          And the crowd that exciting day in Jerusalem was also filled with patriotic and religious pride—wildly waving palm branches—the symbol of Jewish pride and nationalism, and cheering “Hosanna,” “Save us now,”—not meaning “save us from our sins” or “save us from evil,” but meaning “save us from the evil Roman!”  Save us King Jesus!  Save us now!, for now `we’re number one!  Crush the Roman overlords, proving once and for all:  God is great!  We are great!  Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!”

          Indeed, what a most glorious day, a day of glory for Jesus.  But it was also a most dangerous day, for on this day, again, the Son of God was tempted in every way as we are.  The fully human as well as fully divine Jesus felt the same things you and I feel when, for whatever reason, people start cheering us, praising us, putting us on a pedestal.  On this dangerous day, Jesus felt again the deceptive and powerful presence of The Tempter, The Evil One, Satan, who always sneaks in when “we’re number one!”

          Three years earlier, when The Tempter showed Jesus the “Kingdoms of the world and their splendor” he was tempting Jesus to use force and power like the kingdoms and kings of the world do.  He was tempting Jesus to be a military, political, as well as a religious Messiah above the fawning masses of mere mortals, gaining their devotion, if not love, from sheer power.

          And “Why not?” the Tempter must have planted in Jesus mind.  “Why not just meet power with power, force with force?  It’s what humans understand and even honor.  And, furthermore, it’s for their own good, isn’t it?”

          Or is it?  If God is love and if God is passionately seeking to be in a loving relationship with us, can power and coercion be its firm foundation?  No.  For real love cannot be gained through force or power.  Real love has to be freely given and freely received.  And true devotion cannot be coerced or courted by the glitz of the trappings of a kingly, lofty status. 

+     +     +

          Henry Kissenger once bluntly stated that: “There’s no aphrodisiac like power.”  And it’s too true.  Power attracts people.  We feel more powerful and more important when we’re around commanding, powerful people.  And, of course, Jesus knew this truth about human nature.  Jesus also wanted to attract people to his way, to God’s way, so it must have been difficult for him to renounce and reject The Tempter’s way.  For Jesus also knew that God’s way was not to coerce, not to impose or impress God’s will upon people, but that God’s way—the way of love—was to allow humans to choose and choose freely, without manipulation, fear, intimidation, or seduction  On this glorious but dangerous day, Jesus renounced the world’s way, the Tempter’s way, of power-play politics.  This was much to his admirers’ dismay that glorious day of the parade, which may be why he ended his entry into Jerusalem, weeping that God’s people still “do not know the ways that make for peace.”

          Jesus clearly renounced kingly, political power that dangerous day, but too often his church has not.  Beginning in the year 327 when the Emperor Constantine mandated Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire, whenever the Christian Church has been most powerful politically—wielding coercive power over all areas of peoples’ lives—is when the church has been most corrupted and most prone to yielding to temptation to evil while convinced they were doing good.  The Inquisitions, Crusades, witch hunts of Salem, slavery, and legalized persecutions are the most obvious examples.  Conversely, when the church as had the least formal power is when we have been the most faithful to Christ’s way of sacrificial love.  The church’s first three centuries and in the times and places where Christianity are the minority provide the best examples of this.

          One other less obvious dimension of this third temptation is the temptation to social prestige and high status that always comes with kingly, political power.  The opportunity for high status was powerfully tempting to Jesus because he knew it would work toward good ends.  People would be drawn to him and want to follow him.  But Jesus knew this was the wrong means for the right ends.  Jesus knew that his and our true status, a high, even highest status, came and comes from God and from God alone.  He also knew that his and our true status came and comes from different values than worldly status, much less seductive values than power and prestige—God’s values of Justice and Mercy and Humility and self-giving Love.  God’s values of where the last are first and the “puffed up” are last.

          The temptations to evil from earthly prestige comes to us in at least two ways.  When our status is rather high, most often we start to deceive ourselves into thinking that our social position and worldly success are all of our own doing, that we are “self-made-people.”  We’re tempted to discount and forget just how much of our social position and success depends of political, economic, and historical circumstances over which we personally had no control.  The most common temptation here is to inflate our own merit and to deflate the merit of those who are less successful.[1] 

Secondly, when our social status is relatively low, the most common temptations are to see ourselves as less significant than others with little to no value, to become bitter, and even to look down on others who have less even than we.  In both cases, human social status is a powerful temptation into evil because it tends to make us think earthly status is an accurate measure of our worth.  Yielding to any of these temptations separates us from each other and separates us from God who loves us for who we really are:  God’s beloved creatures.

          Jesus, who was and is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the beloved Son of God rejected both the power and the prestige of high earthly status, rejected the golden crowns of Rome and even of the Judaic priesthood, receiving instead the Crown of Thorns and a torn, purple robe stained with his own blood, because, he knew his true value, his status, his calling and purpose came not from man but from God.

          Our core identities, our value, our status, our calling and purpose are not grounded in the externals of this world, but in the very heart of God.  And Christ has demonstrated this for us.  Thus, your identity, your value, your status, your calling and purpose are in God and God alone.  In this truth and in this truth alone, we and the world are saved!  In this and in this alone, we, too, can sing this glorious day and every day:  “Hosanna!  Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Thanks be to God.

Amen.