Immediate Word

On Palm Sunday we recall Jesus' triumphant entrance into Jerusalem astride a donkey, hailed by the gathered throngs who think they are witnessing the arrival of the long-awaited messiah who will deliver them from the oppression of Roman rule. Because we know how this story will turn out, the crowd's reaction seems rather curious; in very short order, the same crowd that is praising Jesus will be screaming for his execution. Not only is that a sobering glimpse into the mob mentality at work, but it's also a sign of just how little the people know about Jesus and the true symbolism of this "ticker-tape parade." In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Mary Austin suggests that the same dynamic is at work for us today in regard to our public figures, whether they're religious leaders like the newly installed pope or disgraced politicians like ex-Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Mary tells us that it takes time to discover what these people really are about -- especially since our view of them often displays the same flimsy judgment and fickleness that characterized the crowds in Jerusalem. There is much we are beginning to discover about Pope Francis, both good and not so good -- he is being lauded for his humble lifestyle and affection for the poor, but he is also being criticized for his conservative opinions on women's rights and homosexuality as well as lingering questions about whether he looked the other way regarding human rights abuses by the Argentine military junta. Mary notes that our excitement about our leaders, and our emotional investment in them, reveals a great deal about our own hopes and aspirations -- even though we often are setting ourselves up for disappointment. In contrast, Jesus fulfills everything that the crowds in Jerusalem hoped for -- though not at all in the way they anticipated.

We also have plenty of Holy Week material in this installment -- team member Leah Lonsbury offers reflections keyed to the gospel texts for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as well as worship resources for those days. In addition, we have a range of illustrations as well as the usual worship material and children's message for Palm/Passion Sunday.


It All Seemed So Promising...
by Mary Austin
Luke 19:28-40

Jubilant crowds, thrilled about a new leader. Excitement and shouts of joy. Prayers for what will happen next. High hopes for change.

The excitement in the Roman Catholic world about the selection of Pope Francis echoes the long-ago shouts that greeted Jesus as he entered the city of Jerusalem. Things looked great as Jesus entered the city. Now people worldwide are excited about Pope Francis and hopeful for the Roman Catholic church under his leadership. At the opposite end of the spectrum, former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, the youngest big-city mayor in America at the time of his election and once a much-discussed political star, was convicted this past week of extortion and racketeering, and now awaits a jail sentence expected to be between 10 and 20 years. Things looked great when he took office too, and changed rapidly.

From Holy Week to Rome to politics, public figures come into our lives with excitement about who they are and what they'll do. Sometimes the promise is fulfilled. Other times it ends in disappointment and fury.


THE WORLD

As the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square in Rome, and near TV and smartphone screens around the world, the Roman Catholic college of cardinals met to select a new pope. Remarkably quickly, the new choice emerged -- Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina. He will be the 266th pope, the first Jesuit to serve in that role, and the first non-European in more than 1,200 years. He was quickly acclaimed for his choice of the name Francis, evoking the well-loved St. Francis of Assisi, and for his choice to live simply in his previous role as the archbishop of Buenos Aires.

As the New York Times reported, one man in Rome said, "It was like waiting for the birth of a baby, only better." Great excitement surrounds the new pope as an individual known for humility and simplicity, and for his potential to restore respect to the Roman Catholic church and order to the troubled Vatican. Nick Squires of the Christian Science Monitor writes: "The changes he is expected to bring to the Catholic church are not likely to affect doctrine. Francis is a doctrinal conservative like his predecessors.... Where he may make his mark is in his personal commitment to issues of inequality, including poverty and globalization, as well as in tapping his outsider status at the Vatican to promote reform."

Just as quickly as the acclaim came the complaints. The treatment of women and gay lesbian people will likely be the same under this pope as under the previous one. Reports also emerged that Bergoglio played a role in the imprisonment of two Jesuit priests, or at least failed to protect them from the Argentine dictatorship, which ultimately arrested and tortured them. Brian Murphy and Michael Warren write for the Associated Press: "At least two [court] cases directly involved Bergoglio. One examined the torture of two of his Jesuit priests -- Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics -- who were kidnapped in 1976 from the slums where they advocated liberation theology. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery." However, the article also notes that "both men were freed after Bergoglio took extraordinary, behind-the-scenes action to save them -- including persuading dictator Jorge Videla's family priest to call in sick so that he could say Mass in the junta leader's home, where he privately appealed for mercy. His intervention likely saved their lives..." Others contend that Bergoglio ignored reports of babies stolen and given to important families and failed to use the power of the church to challenge the abuses of the dictatorship.

In the political arena, Kwame Kilpatrick was famously known as Detroit's "hip-hop mayor," elected at the age of 31, and was emblematic of a new generation of young, gifted politicians. His fall from grace has been long and painful, and ended with his recent conviction on 24 charges, including racketeering and extortion. As The New York Times reports: "The verdicts brought to a close a trial in which prosecutors laid out a complex case against Mr. Kilpatrick and [others]... arguing that they had used the mayor's office to enrich themselves for years through shakedowns, kickbacks, and bid-rigging schemes." The convictions are a sad end to a once-promising political career. As the same article in the Times notes: "He had been viewed by many as a future star in the Democratic Party. But his tenure, from 2002 to 2008, was marked by scandal and queries into possible misuse of city finances. In 2008, text messages were discovered by the Detroit Free Press that revealed an affair with his chief of staff. Mr. Kilpatrick resigned after being charged with perjury and obstruction of justice."

A letter to the Detroit Free Press summed up the feelings of many Detroit residents: "As a former citizen of Detroit and a Cass Tech graduate, I was hopeful that Mayor Kilpatrick was going to do great things for the city he seemed to love. He had the potential to be an effective leader and role model for Detroit's young citizens."

Things that begin with excitement and joy sometimes end with pain, disappointment, and hopelessness.


THE WORD

Jesus, too, begins his week in Jerusalem surrounded by the excitement of the crowd. Is this the one who will save the people? Is this, finally, the messiah? We know the story well, and so in the shouts of "Hosanna!" we also hear the coming yells of "crucify him." The excitement of the crowd is no match for the reality of Jesus, who is no war leader, politician, or powerful priest. Jesus descends into the city from the Mount of Olives, evoking the prophet Zechariah who expected the Lord to come into Jerusalem from there on the Day of the Lord. "All the multitudes" praise Jesus with words from Psalm 118, one of the post-Passover psalms.

On his blog "I Am Listening..." Peter Woods asks why Jesus allowed himself to be cast as a king now, when he had avoided it for so long. "Jesus could not accept the association with kingship and rule until he had opportunity to correct the popular experience and understanding of what that meant. Lord knows, the current exemplars of kingship and rule were far from Jesus' concept. The two Herods in his lifetime, Quirinius, Procurator Pilate, and of course the Caesars of Rome" were the kings people knew. Woods continues, "This was not what Jesus wanted to be associated with, and so he avoids being proclaimed king until he had had a time to reorient his disciples' understanding of kingship." In becoming this unusual kind of king, Jesus is redefining power and leadership for all of us. Even in this poignant moment, Jesus is still teaching us what leadership means.


CRAFTING THE SERMON

The ascent of the new pope, and the contrasting fall of Kwame Kilpatrick and numerous other politicians, remind us how little we know about the people who lead us. It takes time for them to fully grow into the office, and in that time character is both shaped and revealed. In time, we come to know them for who they are. In the same way, truly knowing the character of the Jesus we follow requires time and spending time in his presence as an act of faith.

The dividing line between success and failure also relates to the way people understand the job before them. Some see it as a place of service, and others vehicle for personal gain. As Tom Long writes: "When Jesus entered Jerusalem, he did so as a king, but his royalty was not pomp and power but humble obedience. In obedience he set his face to Jerusalem, knowing that violence awaited him at journey's end. In obedience he traveled along the way, eating and drinking with sinners, and remaining faithful to God's desire to gather the rejected and the lost. Then he entered the city to make peace with the offering of his own life. To live the Christian life is to assume the pattern of Jesus' obedience.... For Jesus, obedience meant carrying the cross; for most of us, it means lifting a thousand little and daily crosses in the complexities and demands of our many relationships." Jesus' movement into Jerusalem calls us again to service rather than gain.

Our reactions to public figures say as much about us as they do about them. Our disillusionment has a lot to do with what we expect from them, and hope they'll do for us. Our deep disappointments are related to our investment in what (we think) we know about a religious, cultural, or political figure. Our disappointments are deeply connected to our own diminished hopes. Perhaps the people themselves never really were what we thought they were.

The one figure who can stand up to all of that scrutiny, and who can bear the weight of all of our hopes, is the one riding the donkey into Jerusalem -- although it may take us a while to see it.


SECOND THOUGHTS
Holy Week Reflections
by Leah Lonsbury

Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

In John 13, we hear Jesus describe himself as the "Lord and Teacher" whose commandments and teachings all boil down to love. With the time he has left, he continues on in the way he has been making and lives out the kind of love that washes feet and risks up-close encounters with the other that heal, feed, reconcile, invite, and give life to both the one who is washed and the one who does the washing. This kind of love is to be the marker of one who learns from and follows this Lord and Teacher. This is how we will bless and be blessed.

Jesus knows that "his hour [has] come" and he whittles his message down to love. Our hour has come as well. What will we do with it? How will we trade our heady, removed, and convenient (for us) concepts of love for the kind that causes us to kneel down and get dirty? How will we level the playing field, encounter the real and hard stuff of our common humanity, and live as a witness to the one who "loved [us] until the end"? How will we love Jesus' own as he did, both now and to the end?

In The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey, Henri Nouwen tells the story of his visit to Nomaste, a L'Arche community located in Paris. Forty people had gathered in the community room at Nomaste, and the director of the community, Toni Paoli, rose to share his vision that the community wouldn't simply be a comfortable place for individuals with disabilities but would also be a Christian community in which people could serve and love one another in the way of Jesus. After Paoli had finished speaking the gospel was read, and Paoli washed the feet of the members of his community. Eucharist was shared and followed by a simple common meal.

Nouwen writes of the clarity this experience provided for him about how we know and share the love Jesus intends at the crossroads of foot washing and communion -- two acts we often undertake on this Holy Thursday:

Sitting in the basement room in Paris surrounded by forty poor people, I was struck again by how Jesus ended his active life. Just before entering on the road of his passion, he washed the feet of his disciples and offered them his body and blood as food and drink. These two acts belong together. They are both an expression of God's determination to show us the fullness of [God's] love....

What is even more astonishing is that on both occasions Jesus commands us to do the same.... Jesus calls us to continue his mission of revealing the perfect love of God in this world. He calls us to total self-giving. He does not want us to keep anything for ourselves. Rather, he wants our love to be as full, as radical, and as complete as his own. He wants us to bend ourselves to the ground and touch the places in each other that most need washing. He also wants us to say to each other, "Eat of me and drink of me." By this complete mutual nurturing, he wants us to become one body and one spirit, united by the love of God.
(The Road to Daybreak, pp. 158-9)

How will we love like Jesus?

This seems to be the question behind the work of Pat Farrell, a Catholic nun who is challenging the Church to remember that Jesus' disciples will be known by the love they have for one another (John 3:35), not the rules that they keep. In her interview for 60 Minutes with CBS's Bob Simon, Farrell is asked about her tenuous relationship with the Catholic church:

Bob Simon: You have devoted your life to helping the poor and the underprivileged, devoted your life to prayer, to faith, and to following the gospels. Why can't you do this without the Church?

Pat Farrell: I think it's because I am Church that I have been doing those things. I have no interest in being separate from the Church. It's who I am.

How well are we keeping Jesus' commandment? How closely are we as the church holding to Jesus' call to love in ways that uncover our common and messy humanity, take us to uncomfortable places, and require us to wash dirty feet and eat at a table that is open to all of God's beloved people regardless of the circumstances of their lives?

**********

Good Friday

John 18:1--19:42

In the gospel reading for Good Friday, Pilate seems to be on to something. Seeing no guilt in Jesus, Pilate tries again and again to release him. "I find no case against him," Pilate tells the crowd repeatedly. He sounds desperate when he returns to Jesus, hoping for some way out of what the crowd is asking him to do. "Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have the power to release you, and the power to crucify you?" (John 19:10).

"Say something... anything!" Pilate appears to be saying. "Save yourself!"

Could it be that Pilate -- an outsider -- sees Jesus for who he really is better than the crowd that cheered him into the city, only to turn on him in a surge of mob mentality?

It's possible that Pilate is being flip when he responds to Jesus' statement that his reason for being is to testify to the truth. "What is truth?" Pilate counters (18:38). But what if he's seeing something in Jesus and is asking the question in earnest? What then?

What if this outsider has glimpsed the real essence and meaning of Jesus? What does that mean for us?

As I was flying home from a whirlwind weekend trip the day before I write this, I couldn't help but notice the magazine the woman next to me was reading. It was one of those "ladies" magazines (tabloids, really) that line the checkout aisle at the grocery store, and it was full of headlines like...

* "The Oil That Melts Belly Fat" and
* "Anti-Aging Pills -- Results Guaranteed!" and
* "The Easy Way to Stronger Willpower."

But since when has oil ever been a weight-loss remedy, and who can guarantee anything when up against the march of time and aging? Who thinks "easy way" and "willpower" belong in the same sentence -- ever? Get real.

I was struck by how each page seemed to take the reader further from the truth. But with so many quick and easy ways to the life you've always wanted, who could resist? After being inundated by an alternative version of reality page after page after page, who could determine what was really real after all?

That's how I imagine Pilate must have been feeling after the religious leaders and crowd's demands wore him down and overwhelmed him with their bloodthirsty shouting. Yet, Pilate drags his feet and keeps trying to hang onto the glimpse of truth he sees in Jesus. Maybe that's what he's up to with the sign he has made to hang on Jesus' cross -- "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." Maybe he knows something of Jesus' truth, and he posts it for all the people to see.

So how do we hang onto the truth of Jesus in the shouting of the crowds, the chaos of our lives, and the shadows of Good Friday?

Before he asks for his last drink and declares "It is finished," Jesus takes care of one last piece of business that is consistent with what he's been up to all along. Even in his suffering, Jesus attends to the needs of his mother and his disciple by connecting them in care and love to one another. Even as he prepares to breathe his last, he makes the way for life -- the life that only happens together, the truth that is revealed when we depend upon and sustain each other.

Perhaps this is the truth that Pilate is looking for, and maybe it's what keeps him seeking a different end to the events of that day. Maybe it's what he catches a glimpse of in Jesus. Maybe it's what keeps him wanting more.

Do we share this outsider's sight and intuition? How are we seeking Jesus' truth in connection with and care of others? How close are we to the really real?

*****

Possible connections to current news...

How truthful is our perception of our economic situation as a nation?
What is the connection between how hard we work and our success, monetary or otherwise?
What does poverty really look like, and who is it affecting?
Does our minimum wage really meet the minimum needs of the average worker?

Check out these links (Huffington Post article and "In Plain Sight" article) to read more...


ILLUSTRATIONS

From team member Dean Feldmeyer:

Things, and people, are often not what they seem. We raise them to lofty heights of public approval, only to throw them down when they disappoint us. These illustrations deal with the surprises that come when people turn out to be less or more than the public, or even their families and closest friends, first assumed.

South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius earned a gold medal in the 400 meters and the 4x400 relay in the 2012 Paralympic Games. He also gained worldwide attention and admiration when he ran in the 2012 Olympic Games in London. But his fame turned to infamy when in 2013 he was charged in the shooting death of his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp.

American bicycler Lance Armstrong was known and admired as a warrior who overcame long odds after beating hundreds of bicyclers from around the world in the Tour de France seven times while fighting a personal battle against testicular cancer. Now, however, he is known mostly for being a serial drug-using cheater who bullied and intimidated his own teammates into protecting his image and his reputation.

For years, the name Pete Rose was the very definition of the American Dream come true. A man of modest baseball talent but with an admirable dedication to hard work and a devotion to endless practice, laser-like concentration, and study of the game, Pete made it just one rung short of the top, the Baseball Hall of Fame. But the chances of Pete Rose making it into that august company are just about nil because he chose to bet on baseball while he was playing the game and managing a professional baseball team. He defends his betting by claiming that he never bet against his own team, but actuaries and bookies agree that every time famous Pete Rose made a bet on his team, the size and nature of the bet was factored into the betting-line odds that were used around the country.

Pete Rose, Lance Armstrong, and Oscar Pistorius used to be names that inspired young athletes to work hard and follow their dreams. Now that we know them better, they are remembered for lesser reasons. (There are many other "falling from grace" stories in the athletic arena that you could reference: Tiger Woods, Sammy Sosa, Michael Vick, Floyd Landis, Jim Tressel, and Joe Paterno are just a few names that come to mind.)

* * *

Stella Walsh was born Stanislawa Walasiewicz in Poland in 1911. She came to the U.S. with her parents when she was only three months old and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio.

As a teenager she was an outstanding athlete, and in 1927 was offered a place on the American Olympic team. As it turned out, however, she was not an American citizen and couldn't become one until she was 21 years old. So she returned to her native Poland and ran for the Polish national team. Stella Walsh, as she was known in America, went on to win more athletic medals and trophies than any other female athlete in history. She was so fast and so dominant that some people claimed she must be a man. She submitted to a medical examination and was declared to be female. She went on to win more medals for Poland until she retired from sports, returned to the U.S., married, and became a champion of programs for young athletes.

In 1980, at the age of 69, Stella was shot and killed when she was a bystander in an armed robbery. In the autopsy that followed her death, it was discovered that she was a rare person who had both male and female chromosomes. She was, in scientific terms, one of the .1% of human beings who are born intersex (hermaphrodite), both male and female.

The Stella Walsh case continues to baffle athletic officials who attempt to divide athletes into male and female.

* * *

On May 14, 1936, Nina Cassotto, a single, pregnant teenager from the Bronx, New York, gave birth to a son. It was not an easy time or place for a single, teen mother and Nina, who had been abandoned by the father of the child before he knew she was pregnant, didn't want him to know. So Nina conspired with her mother, Polly, to hide the birth of the child and claim that he was Polly's son. The ruse worked so well that they kept it up for 31 years as little Robert Cassotto grew up and became famous and successful under his stage name, Bobby Darin.

In 1968 Bobby, now a Grammy-winning singer and composer as well as a movie star and Oscar-nominated actor, threw his support behind Robert Kennedy's campaign for the presidency. So excited was he about politics that he announced to his family that he was considering a political life for himself. Upon hearing this news, Polly and Nina admitted that the woman Bobby Darin had always believed was his sister was actually his mother, and the woman he thought was his mother was actually his grandmother.

He never forgave them for lying to him all those years. In 1973, Bobby Darin died at the age of 37 following unsuccessful heart surgery to repair damage done by childhood rheumatic fever. He had not spoken to his mother or grandmother in five years.

* * *

Here are six people who if you took a poll would probably not have been listed as "most likely to succeed" in their chosen fields:

* Marlee Matlin wanted to be an actress and didn't let the fact that she is deaf stop her. She went on to win an Academy Award in 1986 for Children of a Lesser God.

* Stevie Wonder has won 33 Grammy awards despite being blind.

* Christopher Reeve was paralyzed from the neck down in a horseback riding accident, but went on to star in a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic Rear Window.

* Buzz Aldrin, the second astronaut to walk on the moon, suffered from alcoholism and depression, but after seeking help went on to become the inspiration for the character Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story movies.

* Ludwig van Beethoven began to lose his hearing at the age of 26, but spent the next 20 years composing music, including his massive Ninth Symphony -- which many believe (along with his late string quartets) to be some of the greatest music ever written -- after he was profoundly deaf.

* Richard Branson suffered from dyslexia and did so poorly in school that his parents were told that he should probably not think of attending college. Today he is the fourth richest man in the United Kingdom and the owner of the Virgin Group, which includes an airline, a record label, and a cell phone company.

* * *

From team member Ron Love:

We are biblically illiterate. In the culture at large, things that once were as commonplace as the "Golden Rule" and the "Great Commission" are void of origin and meaning. A speaker cannot reference Paul or Peter, much less Elijah or Elisha, without a footnote of explanation. The message of Isaiah and Jeremiah is as much a loss to us as it was to the Babylonians. If one dares to speak of "turning the other cheek" or "going the second mile," be prepared for blank stares of incomprehension -- though I am sure that "go ahead, make my day" and "walking the green mile" would command fluid recognition among all.

We now reside in a land where "In God We Trust" is assaulted for its prominence on currency, absent of the understating that it was placed there to bolster the spirit of a nation in a time of civil war. The words "under God" now kneel in judgment before the Supreme Court, and we forget that they were uttered in a pledge intended to indoctrinate into our national consciousness that we are a nation of moral values (as distinguished from one with no values) during a period of international political and ideological crisis, a cold war indeed. We are a land where the Constitution is based upon 18th-century European philosophers, Renaissance authors, and British common law, all under the canopy of a Judeo-Christian heritage -- only to find the Ten Commandments scourged from courthouse walls.

Application: At the Last Supper, Jesus, in offering his instruction on the meaning of the Eucharist, was attempting to educate the disciples on the meaning of this basic theological concept.

* * *

We have so distanced ourselves from the Bible that its symbolism in classical literature has become meaningless to us. Many of us can no longer read Hawthorne and Melville, for the biblical allusions elude us. So what is the meaning of Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale preaching aloft as Hester Prynne stands in shame below, or the implication of a white whale circling a three-masted schooner? Bereft of comprehending these biblical inferences, we opt to skip mindlessly through Tom Clancy and Mary Higgins Clark. We no longer read with awe the thundering oratory of Abraham Lincoln as he stood in his hometown of Springfield launching his political career, for the biblical reference in his declaration that we cannot be a "house divided" escapes us. So in lieu of this, we accept as inspiring the decade-long post-9/11 repetitive rhetoric bombasting forth from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Application: At the Last Supper, Jesus understood the symbolic meaning of the bread and wine. Jesus, through his gestures and his words, wanted all generations, for the millenniums to come, to always remember their symbolic meaning.

* * *

It would not be an oversimplification to say that the children of the 1990s and 2000s, the millennial generation as some refer to them, are now a century removed from a society that was once noted for its biblical literacy. To substantiate this, one only need to ask an adolescent whose cellphone is his/her umbilical cord to society what the message of John 3:16 is. If Madonna has not sung it and Drew Barrymore has found no need to display it as body art, then for many young people it is certainly absent of significance. Those to whom you speak are but a microcosm of a world community in which we can witness the tragic effects of a people who no longer know and understand the Bible. A generation whose knowledge base is threaded to an iPod presents a sobering mosaic. We are now compelled to seek creative ways to awash a fresh canvas with the vibrancy of the colors of antiquity.

The answer to this quagmire of our own creation is to once again become engaged in orthodox Christian education, providing the opportunity to acquire biblical literacy. This means to understand scripture so it can be employed as a guidepost for daily living, to use scripture for the interpretation of world events, and through scripture once again to capture our nation's religious heritage. It is paramount that parents lead their children to Christian education classes each Sabbath morning where all engage -- parent and child alike -- in the process of once again learning the stories of the Bible.

Application: It is for this reason that the events of Holy Week hold very little interest or importance among the millennial generation. It is our calling, especially during Holy Week, to introduce the millennial generation to the symbolic message parading before them.

* * *

As the gods give to human beings all things, gods can only be nourished by human beings. Human sacrifice appeases the self-sacrificing nature of the god in question. This is a documented cultural practice.

The Aztec community was overseen by numerous gods. Guided by a solar calendar of 18 seasons, each god had his own liturgical period of celebration. But as each god was individualistic, each expected a unique and special offering. Xilonen preferred young women. Sick children satisfied the appetite of Tlaco. Huitzilopochtli requested prisoners, while Tezcatlipoca desired only volunteers.

The need to secure living sacrifices became so acute that the Aztecs embarked upon "flower wars," engaging neighboring foreign tribes in battle for the single purpose of securing human beings for ritualistic sacrifice. This, of course, provided for another necessity, as brave prisoners were preferable to those set aside in the community at birth for the purpose of participating in a religious rite.

The ritual was always the same as it occurred atop the Great Temple, which is now the center of Mexico City. The victim would be placed on a stone slab, limbs held secure by the hands of four priests. Using a ceremonial knife, an incision was made just below the rib cage and the beating heart was removed, placed in a bowl held by the god to be honored, and the organ of life burned. The deceased's body would be thrown down the steep temple steps to be desecrated and discarded by temple worshipers. A god could demand as little as one or as many as 20,000 human hearts.

Application: Human sacrifices to appease the gods are often the misinterpretation we place upon Good Friday. Jesus was not forced, but voluntarily sacrificed his life. This was not to appease the false gods of creation or to fulfill a satanic ritual, but it was the Son of God who in essence was God himself that sought reconciliation with His people.

* * *

Why did the Incas sacrifice to the sun? A solar eclipse summoned fear as nothing else could -- not only did day became night, but three generations of the entire community also suffered blindness (except for limited peripheral vision) due to looking upon the corona, the ring of fire on the edge of the sun. It was believed that only the blood of virgins could appease the god of the sun, who would then direct his anger elsewhere. Thus began an extensive, intricate, and ritualistic practice of sacrificing virgins to placate the god of the sun.

Application: Jesus was not sacrificed on the cross to appease God, but Jesus died on the cross as an act of forgiveness. Jesus did not go to the cross as an act of fear, but it was rather a journey of love.


WORSHIP RESOURCES FOR PALM / PASSION SUNDAY
by George Reed

Call to Worship
Leader: O give thanks to God, for God is good;
People: God's steadfast love endures forever!
Leader: Open the gates of righteousness,
People: that we may enter through them and give thanks to God.
Leader: The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
People: This is God's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

OR

Leader: Be gracious to us, O God, for we are in distress;
People: our eyes waste away from grief, our soul and body also.
Leader: But we trust in you, O God;
People: we say, "You are our God."
Leader: Let your face shine upon your servants;
People: save us in your steadfast love.

OR

Leader: God calls us to come in the honesty of who we are.
People: We come as honest about ourselves as we know how to be.
Leader: God calls us to come together, acknowledging each other as brothers and sisters.
People: In all our diversity, we know we are all God's children.
Leader: God calls us to find the Christ in each person we encounter.
People: Here we worship the Christ so that out in the world we may discover the Christ in all people.

Hymns and Sacred Songs
"All Glory, Laud, and Honor"
found in:
UMH: 280
H82: 154/155
PH: 88
AAHH: 226
NNBH: 102
NCH: 216/217
CH: 192
LBW: 108
ELA: 344
W&P: 265
AMEC: 129

"Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence"
found in:
UMH: 626
H82: 324
PH: 5
NCH: 345
CH: 124
LBW: 198
ELA: 490
W&P: 232
Renew: 229

"What Wondrous Love Is This"
found in:
UMH: 292
H82: 439
PH: 85
NCH: 223
CH: 200
LBW: 385
ELA: 666
W&P: 257
STLT: 18
Renew: 277

"In the Cross of Christ I Glory"
found in:
UMH: 295
H82: 441/442
PH: 84
NNBH: 104
NCH: 193/194
LBW: 104
ELA: 324
W&P: 264
AMEC: 153

"Beneath the Cross of Jesus"
found in:
UMH: 297
H82: 498
PH: 92
AAHH: 247
NNBH: 106
NCH: 190
CH: 197
LBW: 107
ELA: 338
W&P: 255
AMEC: 146

"Were You There"
found in:
UMH: 288
H82: 172
PH: 102
AAHH: 254
NNBH: 109
NCH: 229
CH: 198
LBW: 92
ELA: 353
W&P: 283
AMEC: 136

"Ah, Holy Jesus"
found in:
UMH: 289
H82: 158
PH: 93
NCH: 218
CH: 210
LBW: 123
ELA: 349
W&P: 521
Renew: 183

"Go to Dark Gethsemane"
found in:
UMH: 290
H82: 171
PH: 97
NCH: 219
CH: 196
LBW: 109
ELA: 347
W&P: 272

"O How He Loves You and Me!"
found in:
CCB: 38
Renew: 27

"Behold, What Manner of Love"
found in:
CCB: 44

Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship

Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is ever surprising us in the guises in which you appear: Give us the faith to trust in who you are and not in the disguises; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

OR

We have come to worship you, O God, and to celebrate the entrance into Jerusalem of your Son Jesus. We are aware that the crowd and the disciples did not perceive who he was or what his message was. We are very aware that we often act in as clueless a fashion as they. Open our eyes and our hearts, so that we may truly celebrate the humble Messiah who comes to offer himself for the freedom of us all. Amen.

Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to look beyond the surface and to see within the hearts and souls of others.

People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are quick to judge other people based on what we see and hear in a first encounter. We do not take the time to learn about others or to explore how they came to this point in their lives. Sometimes we judge by clothing, language, or skin color. We fail to look for the likeness of God within others, assuming that if they were of God they would be like us. Forgive us and help us to look more deeply into the eyes and souls of others that we may find the Christ who dwells within. Amen.

Leader: The God and Creator of us all welcomes our confession and offers us another opportunity to live as children of light. Look deeply into the life of the other and find the life of God there.

Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
We worship you, O God, for you are the Creator of us all. Beneath all the differences we see in one another, your Spirit dwells in all your children.

(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)

We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are quick to judge other people based on what we see and hear in a first encounter. We do not take the time to learn about others or to explore how they came to this point in their lives. Sometimes we judge by clothing, language, or skin color. We fail to look for the likeness of God within others, assuming that if they were of God they would be like us. Forgive us and help us to look more deeply into the eyes and souls of others that we may find the Christ who dwells within.

We give you thanks for the nearness with which you dwell with us as you live both within us and among us. We give you thanks for the honesty with which you present yourself. You offer yourself to us in love and compassion that is pure. We thank you for all those who have tried to relate to us with the same honesty and, in doing so, have shared your life with us.

(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)

We pray for one another in our needs. We pray for those we know and acknowledge as your children, and for those we do not know and have not yet learned of our family connection through you.

(Other intercessions may be offered.)

All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.

(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)

All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.

Children's Sermon Starter
Share with the children a time when you thought you knew who or what something was, only to be wrong. I remember church camp, where I mistook cottage cheese for tapioca pudding. (What a shock!) The rule was you could take as much as you wanted of anything, as long as you ate it. At first glance I thought it was pudding, probably because we never ate cottage cheese at home -- but I was terribly wrong. I sat in that dining hall for a long time before they finally gave up and let me go without eating the cottage cheese. It is important to get to know something/someone before we make decisions.


WORSHIP RESOURCES FOR HOLY WEEK
by Leah Lonsbury

Maundy Thursday

Call to Worship (based on Psalm 116)
One: I love the Lord, because God has heard my voice and my pleading.
All: God inclined an ear to me, and I will call on God as long as I live.
One: What can I share to show my gratitude for all the ways God has blessed me?
All: I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.
One: O Lord, I am your servant; you have set me free for love.
All: Thanks be to God!

Invitation to the Table
One: Jesus shared this meal and so shared his life with his disciples.
All: With those who have gone before us, with those who are with us now, with those who follow us, we share this meal.
One: On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread...
All: We confess our betrayals, but come at your invitation to take bread.
One: And when he had given thanks...
All: We thank you, Lord, for your bread.
One: He broke it and said, "This is my body which is for you."
All: It is for us.
One: "Do this in remembrance of me."
All: We remember.
One: In the same way he took the cup and gave thanks...
All: Thank you, Lord, for the cup.
One: Saying, "The cup is the new covenant in my blood."
All: It is for us.
One: "Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me."
All: We remember.
One: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."
All: In the eating and drinking we remember your death, but also your promise. We take your life into ours.
One: The table of the Lord is spread. Come, for all things are now ready.

Reflection Starter
Consider telling stories around the themes of bread (communion). These might include...

* Luke 4:3-4
* Matthew 6:9-13
* Matthew 15:32-37
* John 6:32-35
* Sara Miles' Take This Bread
* Barbara Brown Taylor's sermon "Bread of Angels" (in her book of the same name)
* Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games (Peeta establishes relationship through sneaking bread to Katniss)
* Tell your own stories or invite others to do the same

Foot washing
Invite the congregation to come have their feet or hands washed and then wash the feet or hands of another. Have pitchers of warm water ready as well as plenty of hand towels or washcloths for drying hands and feet. Give simple and clear directions -- this is an intimate act and one that is unfamiliar to many people. Teach the congregation the refrain of "Jesu, Jesu, Fill Us with Your Love" in advance, and have a soloist sing the verses until everyone (who is comfortable) has been washed and washed another.

Hymn Suggestions
"Great God, Your Love Has Called Us Here" (Brian Wren)
"Eat This Bread" (Taizé)

*****

Good Friday

Hymns
"What Wondrous Love Is This?"
"Create in Me a Clean Heart"
"Here Hangs a Man Discarded"

Readings for a Service of Shadows
Consider having a different reader for each piece of the Good Friday story. Readers may extinguish a candle after they read and invite the congregation's response, deepening the darkness in the room.

Scripture Reading: Matthew 26:31-35
Response:
One: Like the sheep of your flock we have scattered.
All: Gather us in forgiveness and love.

Scripture Reading: Matthew 26:36-46
Response:
One: We too have been sleeping.
All: Awaken us to faithfulness and love.

Scripture Reading: Matthew 26:47-56
Response:
One: Desertion and betrayal are also a part of our story.
All: Call us back to each other and to you.

Scripture Reading: Matthew 26:57-68
Response:
One: We have followed at a distance and watched as lies take precious life.
All: Give us voice to speak your truth.

Scripture Reading: Matthew 26:69-75
Response:
One: When our words and actions deny that we are your children,
All: lead us to live and speak the power of your grace.

Scripture Reading: Matthew 27:3-5
Response:
One: Our guilt can extinguish life.
All: Free us for life made new in you.

Scripture Reading: Matthew 27:1-2, 11-26
Response:
One: We have lost your truth in the shouting that surrounds us.
All: Bring us back to who you are and who we are in you.

Scripture Reading: Matthew 27:27-44
Response:
One: There is violence in us -- of word, of action, of inaction -- that destroys.
All: Heal us that we too may bring life.

Scripture Reading: Matthew 27:45-51, 54
Silence

Prayer of Confession
Merciful one, we don't set out to abandon friends or those in need. We don't intend to harm others by our decisions. But sometimes, like Peter, we hear the sound of a rooster, or hear a news report, or listen to someone weeping, and we realize what our decisions mean. In those times, give us the faith not to give up but to trust that our cries of remorse are heard and that you create among us a living body that heals.

Assurance
Even as he hung on the cross, Jesus spoke words of love. To the thief, to his tormentors, to a world of sinners, our Savior says, "I will remember your sins no more." For you Jesus carried the cross. For you Jesus suffered and died. For you Jesus spoke words of love.

Closing
Scripture Reading: Matthew 27:57-60
Silence
Invite a soloist to sing "What Wondrous Love Is This" a capella from the back of the sanctuary.

Benediction
Christ has died.
The tomb is sealed.
It is finished.

(The congregation leaves in silence.)


CHILDREN'S SERMON FOR PASSION SUNDAY
At a Distance
Luke 22:14--23:56

Object: binoculars

Good morning, boys and girls! I brought a special kind of glasses today. Have you seen these before? (let the children answer) They're called binoculars. They are not for seeing things up close. They're for seeing things from far away. When you look at something far away, it makes it seem like it's really up close. Let's try it. (demonstrate, and let a few children see through the binoculars) What kind of things could you look at through the binoculars? (let them answer) Some people like to watch birds. Some people take them to a large auditorium for a concert or program when they're going to be sitting way in the back. Some people take them to football or basketball games so they can see better.

When we go to watch some event, we say that we are witnesses. It means we see everything that's going on and we can tell someone else what we saw. Some of the events might be weddings, baptisms, funerals, concerts, plays, movies, or games. When we watch, sometimes we are up really close and sometimes we might use binoculars to see what is going on.

Our lesson today is a really long one. That's because it is about the week before Jesus died. It was a very busy week. Some of the things that happened were: Jesus' disciples went to the temple police to tell them where they could find Jesus, the first communion, Jesus praying on the mountain, Jesus being arrested and put on trial, and Jesus on the cross. Many of his disciples were with him much of the time. They were witnesses to what happened. They saw and they could tell others what happened. For some of the week they were up close. But for some of the time our lesson says they stood at a distance. They probably would have needed these binoculars. Did they have binoculars then? (let the children answer) No, they didn't. There was a lot to see. It was a very busy week. And Jesus' friends watched it all at a distance.


* * * * * * * * * * * * *


The Immediate Word, March 24, 2013, issue.

Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.

All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.