"Do Not Forget!"

April 1, 2007

Deuteronomy 8:11-20
Mark 11:1-11

Today is Palm Sunday. Today also is April Fools Day. There was no such thing as April Fools Day at the time of Jesus, but the people who celebrated His triumphant entry into Jerusalem certainly thought they had been fooled. It was just a few days later that these same people were calling for His crucifixion.

That is the paradox on which rests the message of the Kingdom of God – that it is never what we expect it to be nor what we want it to be.

With the coming of Jesus, the long-awaited Kingdom had arrived. All this preparation for His entry that involved borrowing a donkey’s colt was to accomplish two things. One was that this was exactly what had been prophesied by Zechariah – that their king would arrive on a donkey’s colt. The reason for the enthusiasm of the crowd was that they recognized this as a fulfillment of prophecy with which they were very familiar.

The second thing that was to be accomplished was to demonstrate the nature of this Kingdom. A king comes in a chariot, does he not? If not, he rides into the city on a stallion – a trained, spirited horse – and he has on a full set of armor. To ride in on a donkey is to insult the regal nature of a king. To ride in on an unbroken donkey’s colt could only have been accomplished through some divine act of taming the colt.

The crowds, having heard of Jesus’ ministry, were waiting for Him to come to Jerusalem for Passover. When they saw Him arrive in fulfillment of prophecy, they were overjoyed:

Hozanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David!
Hosanna in the highest!

This next Friday evening, we will be sharing together the Seven Last Words of Christ as composed by Franz Joseph Heyden. The first of these phrases is, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus is speaking of these same people who, a few days earlier, had been spreading their cloaks and palm branches and dancing in the streets. They did not know what they were doing at the crucifixion, and it stands to reason that they did not know what they were doing at the Triumphant Entry.

The reason for the cluelessness on both occasions was that they did not understand the nature of Kingdom of God.

Things have not changed much, have they? Two thousand years later and the Christian community still does not understand the Kingdom of God. In fact, the doctrine of the Kingdom of God is one of the most underpreached doctrines of our day because it is not understood. There is something very difficult about a kingdom that comes and then appears to go away.

This creates an enormous problem for modern Christians and for the Church of Jesus Christ. The problem is this: If you don’t understand the Kingdom, you don’t understand Jesus. For the Kingdom and Jesus are so interconnected that they are nearly interchangeable terms. If Jesus is away, as many consider Him to be, then the Kingdom also is away. If the Kingdom is away, we are left to create some kind of Heaven on earth in our own images.

We do that by deciding who is good and who is evil and campaigning to wipe out evil in the world by wiping out evil people. The moment that happens, we lose sight of Jesus, the donkey’s colt and what it means to follow. To live in the Kingdom of God requires that we follow the King to His crucifixion as well as to His grand entrance. Because whether grand entrance or crucifixion, it is Jesus who is king; not us.

I was surfing the radio the other day while driving, and I came upon a Christian radio station that had a woman talk show host. She went to great lengths to explain how the good people have been redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ and how the evil people are those who have rejected Christ. She protracted that to her push for us to invade Iran which, incidentally, seems to be a passion among the Christian Right at this time.

The rationale was that the leadership in Iran was evil, but the people of Iran want liberation. So, we should respond to this by invading Iran and liberating the people. In that way, we can bring Christ to Iran and stamp out evil at the same time.

She added a lot of talk about wimps who want to negotiate and appease rather than nipping the problem in the bud. There was an air of militarism in the attitude of this talk show host, laced with scripture verses and talk of getting “them” before they get “us.” It all sounded reasonable because that is the way we think as individuals and as a nation. But the Savior calls us to a different way of thinking:

You have heard it said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, ‘Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other cheek as well. If someone forces you to go a mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you; love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

That is not something we want to hear, is it? What we want to hear is, “Kill them before they kill us!” But killing them before they kill us is not the voice of courage. It is the voice of fear and cowardice. The voice of courage ought to be the Church on its knees, asking God to give us the faith to believe that in our weakness is His strength. The voice of courage ought to be trusting the power of non-violence even when we are quaking in our boots.

I am talking here about the Church of Jesus Christ – not the government of the United States. The government of the United States has no claim on the Sermon on the Mount and will do what it will do. But the minute the Church of Jesus Christ stands up and condemns others thousands of miles away as evil and needing to be wiped out before they kill us, it has lost its witness to a world gone mad.

The passage from Deuteronomy is written for the benefit of God’s people. God lays down a condition to His blessing. Notice that the blessing of the community of God’s people is always conditional.

Moses begins by insisting that they not forget God: “Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God.” The people of Israel were to observe the laws and decrees, not because their salvation depended on those laws and decrees, but because through them they would always keep the presence of God personally and nationally; real and close. Moses goes on to tell them why this observance is critical to remembering:

‘Otherwise,” he says, “when you eat and are satisfied; when you build fine houses and settle down; when your herds and flocks grow large and your sliver and gold increase and are multiplied, then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the Lord your God…”

This should hit us where we live, shouldn’t it? There seems to be a characteristic of human nature that Moses is sharing here. You will recall that temple worship or synagogue worship failed to keep these folks from forgetting God, just as church attendance is not guaranteed to keep us from forgetting God. It is something deep and personal that is required to turn ritual and the sacraments into remembrance. Going through the motions doesn’t cut it. If we are going to remember the Lord our God, His commands have to cut deep and personal – we have to appropriate them to ourselves personally.

What has happened down through history is that the Church has been to quick to forget the Lord our God. Remembering God is not entertaining. It is convicting, and it requires of us that we take a look at ourselves. Remembering the Lord our God can only be done under the knowledge of our weakness and sin. We remember because we stand in awe of His mercy and grace toward us, an awe that comes from recognition of our need.

When you see the church majoring in the minors, you know that it has forgotten the Lord its God. When you see the church begin to focus on the sin of others, it has forgotten God. When you see the church referring to itself as “good” and to others as “evil,” it has forgotten the Lord. When you see the church begin to build monuments in the public square and carve commandments over the courthouse portico, it has forgotten the Lord its God. When you see the church saying, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” it has tired of waiting for God and has decided to take matters into its own hands.

At that point, the church has lost its power in advancing the Kingdom of God because it has become wedded to the kingdoms of this world.

“You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed.”

That’s a pretty grim reality, is it not? If we apply this principle to ourselves as a church, which is the closest government to that of Israel that we Christians have today, forgetting God and basking in the success of our ministry is presuming on the blessings that God has given to us. For that, our success and our witness will be destroyed. They will be destroyed because they no longer reflect the power and glory of God. They reflect our own power and glory. Like the church at Laodicea, we will be spewed out of God’s mouth because we are lukewarm.

When Jesus stepped onto the stage of human history, He began with these words, “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe.” But nothing dramatic seemed to have been taking place. We read that and decide that this Kingdom business must be something for the future. A single Roman centurion with his sword hanging from his belt struck more fear in the hearts of the average Jewish citizen than did this Jesus. Where is the evidence of its coming, they asked themselves.

At the trial of Jesus, Pontius Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world…For this I was born, and for this I came into the world.” Jesus was born and came into the world to announce God’s kingdom. How is it that the church today speaks little of that Kingdom?

Iy is because we cannot seem to see behind and beyond the troubles of this world. The signs of power are strangely absent from this Kingdom. So we decide that it is somehow out of the realm of present reality. If the Kingdom is outside our reality, then how can we proclaim Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords? A Church that has lost sight of the Kingdom cannot hold forth the King and turn, instead, to the arm of flesh.

The Prophet Isaiah said, “All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way…” Israel forgot God because they decided to live outside His control. So it has become with spiritual Israel – the Church of Jesus Christ. We call Him our “Lord and Savior,” but it is fair to ask, “Who really is in control of my life?”

I read this week an illustration of the Kingdom of God that was quite riveting. The church is called a sanctuary because it is here that the Lord God may be found in the midst of His people. It is a sanctuary from the outside world, if only for a few moments a week.

When we look outside this sanctuary, all we see are challenges to our belief in God’s sovereign power. We see Iraq out of control. We see car bombs and kids blowing themselves us in the market. We see fear of losing control over our kids’ education. We see a secular state stripping, one by one, the reminders of God from the public square. It is scary.

On the other hand, never before have Americans had more freedom. Our lives are so full of options and temptations that it is hard to choose. While there are many poor people, there are also many rich people whose money brings them economic freedom.

As we look back into our lives from the safety of this sanctuary, we have decisions to make, the most critical of which is whether or not we will acknowledge the Kingdom of God as the real country in which we live. The Bible refers to the believer as a sojourner, a wayfarer, a stranger and alien to the world in which we live. Jesus is so radical as to say that if we love our father or mother more than Him, we are not worthy of Him.

And yet, this Kingdom is one that seems to use no force to get its way.

Directly from this triumphant entry into Jerusalem, Jesus goes into the Temple and throws over the tables of the moneychangers. Does that not show a distinct disregard for civil law? “You shall not make my Father’s house a den of thieves.” Jesus is reacting against the perversions of state infecting the church!

Jesus did not use political force to get the job done. He speaks to the will, not to the arm of flesh. He desires that we be empowered to say “No” or “Yes” without coercion. To His disciples He said, “Come, follow me.” No reward was offered; no promise of eternal life was extended to them. “Come, follow me” - an act on the will.

There are those today who profess Jesus as Lord who want to change the laws to force people to obey the moral code. That is not the way of Jesus. So we have to ask ourselves how we can possibly respond to Jesus, our King, when He does not force us to do anything. And yet, it matters how we respond and if we obey: “You are my friends if you do what I command.”

The commands of Jesus are not difficult. In fact, they are very simple commands. If we obeyed them, we would be happy people. He gently pleads with us to trust Him and to live our lives trusting Him, even while we are free to obey or not to obey.

The world seems to go on in a predictable manner. I was thinking last week about how precarious are those things about America that we take for granted. There seems to be a growing spirit of unease – an almost revolutionary spirit. Every once in awhile, we see how fragile even the greatest power on earth can be. We saw it when Stalin’s statue was toppled after a short 70 years of communism. We saw it when Saddam Hussein’s statue was pulled down in Baghdad.

What we forget, in our preoccupation with our own safety and security is that Jesus towers over the wreck of time. His Kingdom is from everlasting to everlasting. This is such a bedrock principle of the Christian faith that even the existence of Osama bin Laden ought not to be very important to our security.

The way that Jesus deals with us is not to boss us around, as some in the church should like to do. He shows us the way and invites us to walk in it. He shows us the truth and says, “Trust me that this is true.” This simple process of becoming kingdom kids begins to show itself in the hearts of all who accept Him, whether they be rich, poor, educated, non-educated, Muslim or Christian, Jew or Greek, male or female.

What matters more than life itself, apparently, are the words, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”