Receiving The King

Biblical Text: Luke 19:28-40
Full Sermon Draft

The image and the reality is all over the new and old testaments. We pray for it constantly in the Lord’s prayer. But moderns have no idea what the world King means. We don’t have a good concept what it means to receive one. And even the examples that we have, like the Queen/King of England, are not what we are talking about. When those places use the world or the thought King they don’t mean a statutory figurehead. They mean a real one. One like a lion, however nice they might be at play, all you can think is “those claws, those claws”. This sermon is an attempt to recover some of that meaning. It is also an attempt to understand how this King is still different that all the others. And finally it is an attempt to understand how we receive a king – here in time and their in eternity as Luther would explain the Lord’s prayer petition.

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Credential Check

Text: Luke 19:28-40
Full Sermon Draft

Our world is awash in various forms of credential checks. What I mean by that is various ways of authorizing or legitimizing certain behavior or positions. The opening comparison is how we as American used to be by looking at Abe Lincoln’s credentials to be a lawyer vs. what we require to be a hairdresser today. (Hint, I think we require more of the cosmetologist than Abe had to provide to practice law.) We then look at what credentials mean to theology and the pastorate.

The reason I do that is hopefully to evoke the uneasy nature of theological credentials. The text has this idea running throughout it with two conflicting groups. There are those who accept Jesus at the word of his disciples. The Lord has need of it at which the colt’s owners let it go. And there are those who reject the word of Jesus. The Pharisees telling the “teacher” to “rebuke your disciples.” Both scenes are a form of credential check. Those with the perfect Jerusalem credentials fail the city. Those without have the freedom and hearts to join the triumphal entry.

The theological truth that the Kingdom of God comes humbly always makes theological credentials tenuous. The best are learned through prayer, study and trial – represented by the margin notes of my grandfather.

It is the humility of those credentials that free us. The false messiahs and false prophets – the laws and priests – that Bethany and Bethphage represent (per o]Origin) always try and keep us bound. It is the humble credentials of Christ and his word that free us, and free us for his need. The Lord has need of us. Do we hear his credentials, or do we demand better ones?

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Passion Absurdities

Text: Luke 19:28-48, Luke 23:1-25
Full Sermon Draft

The sermon is somewhat pointillist. There is one theme, the absurdities in the Palm Sunday and Trial before Pilate sections of the Gospel according to Luke; and how those same absurdities play in our day. That choice of structure seemed fitting. Luke tells a story full of irony and absurd details. The modern world is the one that ceased making sense captured as the arts turned from form and beauty to abstraction and shock.

But of course the over-riding absurdity of the Palms and Passion is why did He do it? For a bunch of inconsequential dust. For creatures that strut about in stubborn defiance and invincible ignorance. Christ took to the cross to redeem all the absurdity. To redeem our absurdity.

And to compound it, he left us as His ambassadors. He gave us a roll to play. The only question is if we know the things that make for peace.

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