A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — September 20, 2009
First Presbyterian Church, Lebanon, Oregon
Texts: Psalm 24;  Mark 10:46 – 11:11

[Jesus] said to them, “…you will find a colt [or donkey]

say this, ‘The Lord needs it…’ ” — Mark 11:2-3

This is the point in reading our way through all of Mark’s telling of the gospel story that things get a little strange for us.  We’ve arrived at the part of the story often labeled “Jesus’ Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem,” and we’re used to hearing this read on Palm Sunday.  In fact I read Mark 11:1-11 this past Palm Sunday and preached a sermon on it titled “Stop! Look! Listen! Learn!” that focused on how hard it can be for us to get beyond our expectations and what we think we already know in order to learn something new.  We call this Jesus’ Triumphant Entry, and apparently the crowds see it so.  They cry out, “Hosanna!” which means “save us,” and then a Psalm verse that celebrates victory in battle.  In essence they proclaim Jesus a new king in the line of David who will lead them to glorious victory in battle against the Roman occupiers of Israel.  But what is actually happening is a bit of subversive street theater.  For Jesus comes riding, not on a warhorse but on a colt or a donkey, a minor agricultural beast.  As I noted on Palm Sunday, it’s as incongruous as if the Grand Martial of a 4th of July military parade refused to ride in an armored vehicle or limousine and chose instead to pedal a unicycle festooned with flowers and balloons or perhaps drive one of those little Shriners’ go-karts.

As we’ve seen so far in ten chapters of Mark, the disciples—those closest to Jesus—are struggling to understand what he is about.  The crowds are no different, and in a real sense neither are we.  We’ve heard the story so often we think we already know what it means.  It’s about winning, isn’t it?  Triumphant entry?  Being right, being number one, having all of the power of God on our side?  God bless America; God blesses us; all’s right with the world.  Yet what about all those hard teachings about “the last shall be first,” welcoming and protecting the most vulnerable among us, loving enemies, selling all you have and giving it to the poor, being servants instead of rulers?  Let me quote a line from the Adult Sunday school materials from last week: “If you haven’t been made uncomfortable by the teachings of Jesus, you probably haven’t understood them.”

We need to keep trying to look at the gospel stories of Mark through new eyes.  It’s no accident, I think, that the healing of “blind Bartimaeus” takes place just before Jesus enters Jerusalem and that this man with new eyes to see is the first recipient of healing who follows Jesus on the way.  All others to this point were told to tell no one and to go home.  So let us put on some “new eyes” and enter into this familiar, old, old story not on Palm Sunday but today on the 25th Sunday of ordinary time—ordinary, just like the ordinary beast Jesus rides into Jerusalem.  I have a poem and a story to share with you.  Both are about the events of that first Palm Sunday, but not looking through the eyes of “the usual suspects”—the crowd of onlookers, the disciples, the authorities, or even Jesus.  The poem, by G. K. Chesterton, is called “The Donkey,” and it offers a very different point-of-view.  The Donkey speaks:

Maybe we don’t need to think about ourselves being like the lowly donkey—starved, scourged, and derided by others—to grasp what Jesus is all about.  But then again… maybe we do.  The last shall be first.  Jesus keeps taking the disciples into alien lands so they might learn what it is like to be aliens in a strange land, to be vulnerable and in need, to be among those at the bottom of society.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there’s is the kingdom of God.”

 

There are yet other characters in the story, other viewpoints besides the donkey—unnamed, ordinary folk we might use to see this story anew in ordinary time.  Max Lucado has written a story he calls, “The Guy with the Donkey.”

When we all get home I know what I want to do. There’s someone I want to get to know. You go ahead and swap stories with Mary or talk doctrine with Paul. I’ll catch up with you soon. But first, I want to meet the guy with the donkey.

I don’t know his name or what he looks like.  I only know one thing: what he gave.  He gave a donkey to Jesus on the Sunday he entered Jerusalem.

[Here Lucado quotes Matthew’s telling of the story.]  “Go to the town you can see there.  When you enter it, you will quickly find a donkey tied there with her colt.  Untie them and bring them to me.  If anyone asks you why you are taking the donkeys, say that the [Lord] needs them, and he will send them at once.”

When we all get to heaven I want to visit this fellow.  I have several questions for him.

How did you know?  How did you know it was Jesus who needed a donkey?  Did you have a vision?  Did you get a telegram?  Did an angel appear in a bowl of lentils?

Was it hard to give?  Was it difficult to give something to Jesus for him to use?  (I want to ask that question because sometimes it’s hard for me.  Sometimes I like to keep my animals to myself.  Sometimes when God wants something I act like I don’t know [God] needs it.)

How did it feel?  How did it feel to look out and see Jesus on the back of the donkey that lived in your barn?  Were you proud?  Were you surprised?  Were you annoyed?

Did you know?  Did you have any idea that your generosity would be used for such a noble purpose?  Did it ever occur to you that God was going to ride your donkey?   Were you aware that all four Gospel writers would tell your story?

[Now Lucado addresses his readers.]  …Maybe you have those questions too.  All of us have a donkey.  You and I each have something in our lives, which, if given back to God, could, like the donkey, move Jesus and his story further down the road.  Maybe you can sing or program a computer or speak Swahili or write a check.

Whichever, that’s your donkey.

Whichever, your donkey belongs to [God].

It really does belong to [God].  Your gifts are [God’s] and the donkey was [God’s]. ¹

It is really true, you know.  All that we have, all that we are, all that we will be, comes from God… and belongs to God.  The Psalmist sings, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it.”  [Psalm 24:1]  So why am I so all-fired concerned about what’s MINE?  And about how I need to get more to be secure.  Why, like those disciples James and John, do we keep on “looking out for number one,” and asking “What’s in it for me?”  No matter how generous we might be, we would no more think of selling all we have and giving the proceeds away to the poor than that good man who asked Jesus how he might inherit eternal life.  Like him, we “have many possessions.”  Also like him, we are loved by Jesus.  “The Lord needs it,” was good enough for the guy with the donkey.  Why isn’t it good enough for us?

I don’t know what the answer to that is exactly.  I do know we all have much to unlearn, much to relearn, and much to learn for the first time about what it means to be beloved children of God.  There’s a lot of wisdom in that quote from Eleanor Powell in our worship bulletin: “What we are is God’s gift to us.  What we become is our gift to God.”  Like the disciples in Mark, we are “becoming.”

I also know we sometimes confuse the church with God.  We, as the church, go around thinking or saying “the church needs this” or “the church needs that.”  Not God, but the church.  The church needs us to give tithes and offerings.  The church needs us to volunteer.  The church needs you to be an elder, needs you to be a deacon, needs your to teach Sunday school, needs you to sing in the choir.  But none of this is exactly true.  The church doesn’t need any of us.  The church is us!  And the truly amazing thing is that God needs us.

 

We all have gifts, talents, blessings, which if given back to God could, as Max Lucado puts it, “serve to move Jesus and his story further down the road,” serve to bring God’s kingdom a little nearer.  The story of Jesus continues from this point in the Gospel According to Mark… and continues here in the world with all of us… indeed with all of God’s children everywhere in the world.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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¹ Max Lucado, “The Guy with the Donkey,” And the Angels Were Silent [Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1992] pp. 51-52.