Worship for Sunday April 1, 2012

April 1, 2012
Call to Worship
L: We come to prepare for the holiest of weeks.
P: We will journey through praise, with joy on our lips;
we will travel through betrayal and death,
cradling hope deep in our hearts


L: Jesus leads us through this week, and we will follow,
for he is the life we long for,
he is the Word who sustains us.
P: We wave palm branches in anticipation,
we lay our love before him, to cushion his walk

L: Setting aside all power, glory, and might, he comes:
modeling humility and obedience for all of us.
P: Hosanna! Hosanna!
Blessed is the One who brings us
the kingdom of God.

Morning Prayers
Call to Reconciliation
When the parade is over, do we pick up our lives,
brush them off, and live in the old way? Do we toss
our palm branches aside, so we can grasp the seductions
of the world? As we begin the journey through the
holiest of weeks, let us speak the truth, as we confess
to our God, praying together,

Unison Prayer of Confession
Ever constant Love, mixing love and hope together,
you pave the way to the kingdom, but we prefer to stub
our toes on the potholed roads of temptation. You will
touch the cup of grace to our parched lips, but we seem
to hunger for the ashy taste of bitterness. You beg us to
learn the songs of salvation, but we hum along with the
chorus death plays in the background of our lives.
Have mercy upon us, God of Holiness. As you come
to us, you bring healing for our brokenness, peace for
our troubled lives, hope for our doubting minds. May
we empty ourselves of everything which keeps us from
following you, so we may receive these gifts, and more,
from Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
Silent prayers may be offered.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Laying aside judgment, God offers us redemption;
setting aside anger, God embraces us with love;
letting go of grief, God pours living water upon us.
This is the good news, my friends:
God's steadfast love endures forever.
Hosanna! Hosanna!
Blessed is the One who brings us
the kingdom of God! Amen.

The Pastoral Prayer
Ever present God, we come to you today in praise and thanksgiving for the joy of being together. To sing our Hosannas along with the crowd in Jerusalem so long ago. To give you thanks for healing we have experienced either for ourselves or for others.
But we come with a dark side, as well. We wonder if we would have joined those same crowds as they called for Jesus’ crucifixion. We think not, but we wonder, none the less.
We stand before in the midst of a world at war. There are the wars our nation is in, but we turn a blind eye to other wars, uprisings, and other conflicts; conflicts over freedoms, land, oil, diamonds, and drugs. We know that you do not want your children to fight. Help us to be peacemakers, even as we pray for those who serve our country. We pray for our Commander in Chief, Barack, our Vice-President Joe, our senators Rob and Sherrod, and out Representative Jim. Form them into makers of peace and justice.
We stand before you in the midst of a struggling city and townships. We see foreclosures in our neighborhoods and worry over our own finances. Help us to know that whatever state we are in, you are with us.
Your church, O Lord, is hurting. We come before you today seeking your wisdom and guidance as we work to live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ with scarce resources. Help us to see the abundance around us and live in you abundant blessings.
We have brought the names of those who are suffering this day. We lay the concerns of the sick before and you and ask for your healing touch.
We have come with concerns on our hearts which we dare not speak with our lips. Hear us, O God, even in our silence.
We pray these things in the name of Jesus, and by his grace. Amen.

Mark 15:1-15
As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate.
Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’
He answered him, ‘You say so.’
Then the chief priests accused him of many things.
Pilate asked him again, ‘Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you.’ But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed.
Now at the festival Pilate used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked.
Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom.
Then he answered them, ‘Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?’ For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over.
But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead.
Pilate spoke to them again, ‘Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?’
They shouted back, ‘Crucify him!’
Pilate asked them, ‘Why, what evil has he done?’ But they shouted all the more, ‘Crucify him!’ So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.

“Cheers to Jeers”
I have a question which is itself more than one question.
The first is which Jesus will we see today? Will it be the one who rides in to the cheers of the crowd—acknowledging the hosannas as they are shouted to him? I often wonder, why not this Jesus? After all, at the moment of his triumphant entry into the capital city, he had the hearts and minds of the people with him. Why not declare the kingdom of God on earth and let the people run the Romans right out of Judea and Galilee? Why not? Surely in that moment, he could have done anything he wished to do. Why not be Jesus the triumphant conquering king?
But, that's not the Jesus we'll ultimately get. The Jesus we'll ultimately get is the one who gets down from the animal and finds himself in the custody of the government. The Jesus we'll get will find himself tried, convicted, beaten, and humiliated in a torturous, painful death on a symbol of shame. Why is it that this is the Jesus we get—the Jesus who won't take the easy way, the shortcut?
Before we get to that, I have another “which Jesus? question. It involves the question of Yeshua BarJoseph and Yeshua BarAbbas. Yeshua is Aramaic for Jesus, and yes, the character in the Gospels known as Barabbas had the first name of Jesus.
We know from other sources that he was from Nazareth, and about the same age as Jesus of Nazareth. Tony Campolo imagines that they grew up together—in a village of only a few hundred, surely they knew each other. The teacher would call on Jesus in class and they would both rise. Their friend would yell, “Jesus, your mama's calling you,” and they would both scurry home.
But, it wasn't that they grew up together, but that they grew very much apart in the course of their lives. Barabbas was a called a thief in the other gospels, but Mark gets it closer. He was a murderer, a terrorist, if you will. He was a part of a movement to push the Romans out of the land by any means necessary. His version of salvation for the people of Israel involved murder, violence, and terror. If Barabbas had had the weaponry of today, he'd be lobbing the improvised explosive devices into the barracks every day.
Contrast that with the Jesus we got, a man who was content to let the authorities humiliate and execute him without protest. A man who was willing to live out what he had taught. If someone hits you on one cheek, let them hit the other. Do not resist an evildoer. Meaning, don't hit back. A man, who, while enduring immense suffering, prayed that God would forgive his killers.
Which Jesus? The one who would murder the entire lot of public officials, and then go have lunch, or the Jesus who would forgive them for doing the unspeakable things they did to him?
Which Jesus, indeed? The one who would lead an armed revolt against oppression, or the one who changed hearts by love?
Pilate offered this very choice to the people of Judea some two-thousand year ago. “which Jesus shall I release for you?”
And the people--the same people who cheered our Jesus on Palm Sunday back then--chose the Jesus of violence, hate, and murder instead of the Jesus of compassion and love.
We know that the valiant efforts to take back the land from the Romans went on for another forty years, or so. Valiant as these efforts may have been, they were an absolute failure, leading to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in the year 70.
And the other Jesus went to cross. We use the cross as a symbol of our faith, but its origins are far more sinister.
Crucifixion was one of the tools used by Rome to keep its conquered lands under control. It was used against non-citizens, and slaves to bring shame on those who were crucified and their families. Disciples theologian Rita Nakashima Brock notes that this execution was so shameful that families of the crucified would not even speak of it. It was carried out outdoors to spread the shame and make a spectacle of the long and agonizing process. Their naked bodies would be left to rot and be eaten by scavenging animals. In the end, there would be nothing left to acknowledge or bury or memorialize—it was as if the person never existed.
The writers of the gospels broke that silence. They told of how their messiah faced the agony of the cross and defeated it. His death was swift—with no broken bones and with dignity, depriving the Empire of its power to humiliate. The Empire even allowed his body to be taken down, unlike the others who had met their death in this way.
The early use of the empty cross in the church was always as a symbol of life—that Jesus, in his death and resurrection had defeated the cross of its shame and pain. It was only in the tenth century that the image we know as the crucifix comes into use, and the cross takes on a more somber and violent imagery in the church.
I like the early version better. The cross is a symbol of light and life, because Jesus went to it with love on his heart. The crowd may have chosen the Jesus of violence, but the Jesus of love faced the worst violence the world could throw at him and defeated it.
The violence of Jesus BarAbbas could not conquer Rome, but the love of Jesus BarJoseph converted the entire Empire little by little over the next three centuries. The people may have chosen violence over love, but it was love that conquered violence in the end.
Sometimes, it looks to us like violence wins. Sometimes we even embrace it—we choose Jesus BarAbbas. But if love could conquer an empire then, might not it conquer violence now? Now, you might think that sometimes we have to choose the Jesus of violence. The world is indeed a scary place. I get that. But, love will win out.
Kyril was the Orthodox Bishop of Sofia, Bulgaria during the Second World War. One night, the Nazis came and rounded up every Jew in the city of Sofia, herded them into a fenced pen, and prepared to deport them by train. Kyril, who was very tall, came striding down to the rail yard with 300 church members behind him. In addition to being about 6' 6” tall, he wore the bishop's miter, he must have looked like a giant to the Nazis. He pushed his way passed the sentries and went into the pen with the entire Jewish population of Sofia. At the top of his lungs, he shouted out the words from the Book of Ruth, “Whither thou goest, I will go, and whither thou lodgest, I will lodge, and your people will be my people and your God will be my God.”
The entire Jewish population of Sofia cheered. The Christians cheered. And the Nazis backed down.
Not one Bulgarian Jew was deported or killed during what we call the Holocaust. Not one.
The church is called to speak words of love. To speak up for those who are oppressed. To comfort the afflicted. To, in the words of the Apostle Paul, overcome evil, not with evil, but with good. To remember that even in times like these that just plain stink, we worship a God who, in Jesus Christ, has conquered the worst violence that the world can muster. And that is the Jesus whom we are called to choose. Remember, even through this dark time we call Holy Week, the promise of the resurrection looms. And God will bring us through the dark days into the light by the power of Jesus' love.
And that is Good News for us, Good News for Mansfield, and Good News for the world. Amen.
Offering
Invitation
Blessed are we who come in the name of the Lord. Blessed are we when we have the opportunities to be witnesses to our faith. The gifts we offer to ministries of our congregation and the wider church are ways in which we can joyfully proclaim our belief in a better world.
Prayer
Gracious God, we pray that all the gifts we offer may be used to joyfully proclaim your vision and hope for our world. Amen.

Benediction
Go in Peace - and may God be gracious unto you -
may his love flow forth abundantly upon you -
and may his eternal faithfulness
give you strength for each and every day - Amen