Luke 19: 28-40 (links validated 3/22/22)
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Illustrated New Resources
Even the Stones Cry Out
The Russian Orthodox Church officially supports the invasion of Ukraine. But one Russian priest cannot do that. The Rev. John Burdin spoke out last month. He criticized the war in an open letter he published on-line. He named the invasion an invasion and a war. It was an act of truth-telling that contrasts with Putin’s insistence that it is a “special military operation.” He wrote that the blood spilled is a curse on the killers but also on those who keep silent or don’t protest. He preached about this on a Sunday morning and within three hours, the police were investigating him. He has been fined. If he is charged with spreading false information, he could face up to 15 years in prison. In an interview that was relayed internationally, he said, “I don’t consider it possible to remain silent on this situation. It wasn’t about politics. It was about the Bible. … If I remain silent, I’m not a priest.”...Sermon Starters (Palm Sunday)(C)(2022)
It turns out that the “rocks” are singing all the time—we just can’t hear them, which is a little like González’s point about not being able to see what God is up to, isn’t it? According to NASA, the planets, stars, etc. in our solar system literally produce sound. We might describe it as a reverberation and a constant crying out the praise of its Creator. You can hear the recordings from the Voyager mission, or visit this website, which has a number of data sonification files from images captured by Hubble Telescope.The Messiah-King's Peace
During a run over Kassel, Germany, in World War II, Elmer Bendiner’s B-17 bomber took a barrage of flack from Nazi anti-aircraft. He could feel the plane being hit, yet he and his crew returned to base after a successful mission. Bendiner was even more amazed when he was told that a 20-millimeter shell pierced the fuel tank but did not cause an explosion. He started to ask the crew chief for the shell as a souvenir of their unbelievable luck. But the crew chief told him that not just one shell had been found in the gas tanks, but eleven. Eleven unexploded shells? It truly seemed to be a miracle. The shells were sent to the armorers to be defused, after which intelligence officers came by to retrieve them. The armorers reported something even more mystifying. When they opened the shells, they found no explosive charge in any of them. They appeared to be empty and harmless. One of the shells, however, was not completely empty. It contained a carefully rolled piece of paper. On it was scrawled a message in Czech language of a prison camp worker. The message read, “This is all we can do for you now.” It was a miracle all right, not of misfired shells, but of peace-loving hearts...
Other New Resources
Dominus Flevit
I live in Atlanta, where in the summer of 2020 race riots broke out in response to police violence. Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by an Atlanta police officer after being stopped for a DUI. After a struggle, Brooks was shot from behind after taking an officer’s Taser during the fight and pointing it at him as he ran away. Later, protesters in response to the violent death of Mr. Brooks burned down the Wendy’s restaurant where Rayshard Brooks was killed. Critics accused city leaders of letting the situation get out of hand. “New power in government will change everything. We will have peace at last - or something like that.” One of the protesters, Nuke Stevenson (I’m not making this up… his name is Nuke), 25 years old, brought an AR-15 just in case of a confrontation between marchers and the police. The newspaper quoted him as saying, “Force is often used unjustly against our side. This isn’t meant as a show of aggression. My goal is to help keep the peace.”...
Recommended Resources
Palm Sunday (C)(2001)
("Tommy Dorsey, the jazzman and father of Gospel Music, was singing at a religious gathering in St. Louis when he got awful news. A telegram was handed to him that read: 'Your wife is dead'. The place was packed. People were having a good time, asking Dorsey for another song. But he had just been handed the shock of his young adult life. She was gone. He had left her back home in her last month of pregnancy. All seemed well..." and several other illustrations)King for a Day
("My mother liked Queen for a Day. My stepfather and I would begrudgingly give up some of our favorites to indulge her. The plot of her program always centered around finding a woman living in difficult conditions and making her Queen for a Day. After she was selected for this honor, she would be picked up by a chauffer-driven limousine and taken to a Beverly Hills salon and given a complete makeover...")Illustrations, Quotes and Lectionary Reflections (Palm Sunday)(ABC)
("Some years ago a book was written by Gene Smith, a noted American historian. The title was When The Cheering Stopped. It was the story of President Woodrow Wilson and the events leading up to and following WWI. When that war was over Wilson was an international hero. There was a great spirit of optimism abroad, and people actually believed that the last war had been fought..." and many more)
Illustrated Resources (and Other Resources of Merit) from 2019 to 2021
Choose a Donkey Over a Horse
When John F. Kennedy started the Peace Corps, they ran one of the greatest ads in history. The T.V. commercial opened in an undeveloped country. The camera zoomed in on an American behind a plow pulled by a beast of burden. The voiceover went something like this: “If you’ve just graduated college, and you’re looking for a job half-way around the world where you can work in 110 degrees, sleep on a dirt floor, risk malaria, get paid $1.25 an hour and feel better about yourself than you ever thought possible, have we got a job for you!” ……. “And feel better about yourself than you ever thought possible.” That commercial understood the Gospel message. Risk it! Lay it all down for someone besides yourself. Take up the cross, let it hurt, feel it, choose it. Carry it in the hope of love...Sermon Starters (Palm Sunday)(C)(2019)
In one of the earlier episodes of the TV series M*A*S*H the doctor known as “Trapper” gets diagnosed with a stomach ulcer. Although initially upset about having to deal with a hole in his gut, Trapper soon beams with joy when his bunkmate Hawkeye reminds him that according to Army regulations, Trapper was going home! His ulcer was his ticket out of the misery of the Korean War. As the episode progresses, they arrange a farewell party for Trapper. But minutes before Trapper shows up for his party, he is informed by the Company Clerk, Radar, that the Army had recently changed its regulations and his ulcer would have to be treated right there in Korea. Trapper goes to the party anyway and allows the hilarity, festivity, and joy of the evening to proceed for a good long while until he’s asked to give a final speech, at which time he tells everyone the truth: he’s not going anywhere after all. But throughout the party, both Trapper and Radar have a look in their eyes that betrays the truth, if only anyone had looked close enough to notice. Trapper smiles and even laughs during the party at times but it’s a bit muted and the sadness in his eyes tells the reason why: it’s a nice party but it’s not going to end the way he had hoped or the way all the other partygoers were anticipating...Reframing Palm Sunday
There’s a private group on Facebook known as “McCrea Family.” It was created for my Aunt Mary and her extended family to keep in touch with each other. Even though it’s designed for use by my cousins — most of whom I haven’t seen in decades — I was invited to join, too. That’s where I learned that my first cousin, Jennifer McCrea, was recently interviewed on a national radio program. That’s not all that surprising since Jen is a nationally-known leader in the field of fundraising. She is faculty member at Harvard University, co-author of the best selling book, The Generosity Network, and is a fundraising consultant for a large number of non-profits. So I was interested to hear what she had to say in her interview. One of the things that stood out to me came early in that interview when she was talking about her background. She talked about graduating from a small college, which, if I remember correctly, was Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania — the same school my father and several of my cousins attended. Jen said that when she graduated with a degree in philosophy, she was offered a job with the school’s development office — that is, the fundraising group. She was given plans for a proposed new building and a list of wealthy alums and then sent off to New York City. For the next six months, she worked very hard, meeting with the people on her list and making presentations to them. Yet, in spite of her efforts, she was getting nowhere. As she returned to her hotel from the latest rejection, she began to think about searching for a new job. But before she did that, she tried to figure out why she was being so ineffective. And that’s when she had her epiphany...The Palmesel
German sculptural tradition provided the last through a form called a palmesel (palm donkey). The figure of Jesus, usually about half life-size, is seated on the donkey, and the sculptural group is on a wheeled platform pulled through a town or city as part of Palm Sunday processions. Townspeople spread their cloaks, along with palm branches, on the ground before the Palmesel. Just like they did in the gospel accounts...In the Safety of the Crowd
Many years ago, around the time I faltered at being a funny (ha-ha!) Palm Sunday preacher, I agreed to spend several hours calling strangers in Texas. I was handed six pages of names to call in or around the Gulf Coast town of Palacios, Texas. Other volunteers worked in the same room, their fingers punching in Lone Star area codes and their voices ebbing and flowing while they encouraged the fine citizens of Dallas or Laredo or Wherever to give a big fat vote to Obama. I started figuratively walking the streets of Palacios. (Later I learned from the town’s Chamber of Commerce website that it’s dubbed the “Shrimp Capital of Texas.”) My task involved attempting over 100 calls...Ain't No Rock Gonna Shout for Me
It was Palm Sunday, but because of a sore throat, 5-year-old Annie stayed home from church with her mother. When the rest of the family returned home, they were carrying palm fronds. Annie asked them what they were for. "People held them over Jesus' head as he rode by on a colt," her father explained. "Wouldn't you know it," Annie fussed, "the one Sunday I'm sick and Jesus shows up and offers pony rides!"On Leaving the Sidewalk
For a conquering hero entering Jerusalem, his approach was surprisingly humble. No, I’m not talking about Jesus’ ride into the city. I’m talking about a triumphal entry that happened just over a century ago. On December 11, 1917, the British General Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem on foot, through the Jaffa Gate. With him was his guerrilla commander, T.E. Lawrence: the famed Lawrence of Arabia.The General’s approach, as I’ve said, was humble: and deliberately so. It was out of respect for the holy city, he said, that he dismounted from his vehicle and walked through the gate. Immediately he issued a proclamation declaring that the centuries-old arrangements by which various religious groups looked after the holy sites would remain intact.But make no mistake about it: General Allenby had conquered the city. He wrested it away from the Ottoman Turks, who had ruled it for centuries. And he did it without a shot being fired...
Illustrated Resources (and Other Resources of Merit) from 2016 to 2018
A Time to Weep
("Although Detroit has a grand history, there has long been a dark lining to this history. Back when Edgar DeWitt Jones first came to town in 1920, Reinhold Niebuhr was serving as pastor of Bethel Evangelical Church. Although Niebuhr would leave Detroit in 1928 for Union Theological Seminary, during his time here he spoke out clearly against the presence of injustice in the city. He also spoke against the complicity of the churches in this injustice...")The Stones Would Shout
Darwin Minnesota is one of several towns which claims to have the largest ball of twine in the world. It had a population of 350 at the time of the 2010 census. Every August, the town and tourists celebrate Twine Ball Days. There are events all day long with a parade at noon. I understand that the parade is so short that when they’ve done the route once, they all go around again just to make it last longer.Reflections on Palm Sunday: Archbishop Oscar Romero
I am reminded of a 20th century saint whom the Lutheran church commemorates this week, Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was martyred March 24, 1980.The Donkey: A Subversive Choice
On a Christmas Day during World War II in Nazi-occupied France, Pastor Andre Trocme gathered his congregation together in the Protestant church in the small mountain village of Le Chambon. The people of the area had formed an underground network for saving refugees, many of them Jewish children. Fear kept them from talking too much to each other --- none of them knew which of their neighbors might betray them to the German occupiers. The rescuers of Le Chambon knew that they might face concentration camp or worse if found out.Peace That Passes Understanding
When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil’s walking parody On all four-footed things.The Donkey
Hippolyte Flandrin's nineteenth-century painting of the subject shows a very balanced, almost rigid event. Strong horizontals (the road, the top of the crowd of heads, the city architecture) are perpendicularly counterpointed by strong verticals (Jesus' body, the crowd of people mostly standing upright, the palm branches, the vertical lines of the city wall)His Triumphal Entry
Seven days changed the world. These seven days have been the topic of millions of publications, countless debates and thousands of films. These seven days have inspired the greatest painters, the most skilled architects, and the most gifted musicians. To try and calculate the cultural impact of these seven days is impossible. But harder still would be an attempt to account for the lives of men and women who have been transformed by them.The Hero We Need
When that Jerusalem crowd is waving palm branches, it’s not because they’re trying to keep cool on a hot day. The palm branch was the symbol of the Maccabean revolt, nearly two centuries before the time of Jesus. Mattathias Maccabee and his two sons, Judah and Jonathan, led a war of independence against the Seleucid Greek empire — one of the smaller kingdoms that was left after the death of Alexander the Great. The Maccabees actually succeeded in overthrowing their foreign overlords and achieved independence for a brief while. So, to wave palm branches in the face of the Romans is a way of saying, “We want another revolution, just like that one!â€
Illustrated Resources (and Other Resources of Merit) from 2010 to 2015
The Witness of Stones
("Annie Dillard, prolific American writer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is a keen observer of both nature and human nature. During a time when she lived on an island off the coast of Washington State, she wrote an essay that begins: 'The island where I live is peopled with cranks like myself. In a cedar-shake shack on a cliff is a man in his thirties who lives alone with a stone he is trying to teach to talk...") ["Knowing that Easter is coming must not make us impatient to get to next Sunday morning but instead our Easter knowledge allows us to see the cross itself as the source of our salvation. On that cross our God in Christ saved us. Knowing what is yet to come a week from today allows us to perceive the paradox of the cross...")Living in the Vineyard
("In the kingdom of heaven is my end and my beginning And the road that I must follow night and day. Travel on, travel on to the kingdom that is coming, The kingdom will be with you all the way...")Blessed Is the King Who Comes in the Name of the Lord
("Catherine Gunsalus Gonzalez notes in The Abingdon Women's Preaching Annual, that the crowd on Palm Sunday "seemed to recognize him. Even during the week, their presence protected him. But we know that their mood changed by Friday. Once Jesus was in the hands of the rulers, once he no longer seemed to have power, then the recognition faded that in this man God was visiting his people...")Faithful Followers and Fickle Friends
In 1969, the rock group, Blood, Sweat and Tears recorded a song called, "God Bless the Child That's Got His Own." One of the verses goes like this: And when you got money, You got lots of friends Crowdin' 'round your door When the money's gone And all you're spendin' ends They won't be 'round any more No, no, no more...If Anyone Asks
("I've been reading Anne Michaels' book The Winter Vault, which tells the story of the Aswan dam in Egypt. The Nile was dammed to create Lake Nasser, flooding Numbian villages and their date groves. But the image that stays with me from Michaels' book is that of the Numbian evacuation. The people in the villages, leaving date groves which had sustained their families forever, cut branches from the trees. They waved them as they walked away, and they decked the trains with them before leaving the villages to the flood...")The Sun-Scorched Path
("Holy week was first unholy. Palm Sunday was a wreck of a day. The Gospel writers, God bless them, knew resurrection was around the corner and come Sunday, but didn't shrink from the whole, sordid tale of a crowd that shouted, 'Hosanna', and continued with, 'Crucify him'...")For Peace He Came
("Every year in Celina, Ohio, they host the annual amphibious car rally. The cars, which were made in Germany, come from all over the country to be part of the celebration. The highlight of the event is when the cars parade down Main Street and head for Grand Lake St. Mary's...")Do We Get What We Pray For?
("Zero Dark 30 is a tense thriller about the special-forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The movie lays out the years of intelligence work that led the CIA to conclude that bin Laden was very likely living in that walled compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan Then, in the tense 30 minutes or so at the end of the film, that closely corresponds to the real time of the raid, it tells the story of the successful attack on the house that culminated in the deaths of bin Laden, three other men and a woman...")
Illustrated Resources (and Other Resources of Merit) from the Archives
Celebrity Christ
("What if the events of Palm Sunday happened in today's media conscious world? I suspect that all the reporters would cover the event. It just might happen like this: 'On the Today Show, Matt Lauer reports, "While our cameras are showing you the scene from the streets of Jerusalem, NBC brings you this exclusive report concerning Jesus' plans...")I Love a Parade
("When I was a young girl, there was a little boy named Jeter who lived in our neighborhood. He was an only child of well-to-do parents who made sure he received everything his little heart desired. Well, one day his little heart desired the very thing my little heart desired--it was a drum that had appeared in the display window at Penney's...")The Failures and Successes of Love
("The first African-American baseball player in the American League was a rookie, Larry Doby of the 1947 Cleveland Indians. He was reputed to be a good player and an excellent hitter. He came to bat at the first game, and the fans had waited to see him. He swung at the first three pitches and missed all of them by a foot..." and other illustrations)Palm Sunday (C)(2007)
("Do you remember that song from the 1950's It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To? That song's title was deliberately ironic, of course, because parties and weeping do not go together. Indeed, nothing can kill a party as quick as tears. On the classic TV program The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary could never quite pull off a successful party...")Swinging Over the Abyss
("Pat has shared with you before a wonderful Mary Oliver poem called In Blackwater Woods. Oliver speaks of this movement at the end of the poem: 'To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal, to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and when the time comes to let it go, to let it go...")What the Master Needs
("Listen to Max Lucado's reflection, 'Sometimes I get the impression that God wants me to give him something and sometimes I don't give it because I don't know for sure, and then I feel bad because I've missed my chance. Other times I know he wants something but I don't give it because I'm too selfish...")Palm Sunday (C)(2001)
("Once there was a woman stock broker who presided over a very successful mutual fund. It was a highly speculative fund and identified as such. It made, as the teens would say, tons of money, gaining twice as much as the Dow during its first year. The woman was a hero to everyone but rivals in her own company...")When the Two Johnny's Come Marching into Town
("Borg and Crossan write: 'Jesus' procession deliberately countered what was happening on the other side of the city. Pilate's procession embodied the power, glory, and violence of the empire that rules the world. Jesus' procession embodied an alternative vision, the [empire] of God' The confrontation between these two kingdoms [or empires] continues through the last week of Jesus' life...")The Things That Make for Peace
It happened in a congregation that was comprised of a large number of people who were hearing impaired. Their only way of comprehending the scripture readings and the sermon was to look at the hand signals of a person who knew how to translate English into ASL, or American Sign Language. Half-way through the Palm Sunday reading the verbal reader had to pause as the deaf congregation erupted into gales of side-splitting laughter. It seems that the signer had made a mistake. She had confused two similar signs and she signed, "Jesus came into Jerusalem riding on a reindeer"The Riddle of the Stone
Back in 1942 a composer by the name of Felix Powell sat down to play the piano at a party he was attending. He played and sang a song that was extremely popular in World War I. He had composed the music; his brother George had written the lyrics...Palm Sunday (C)(2007)
("A friend and I went to the Final Four Championship game last Monday night at the Metrodome. We bought tickets from a scalper and didn't get scalped too badly. It was really exciting to be a part of it. There were thousands and thousands of Duke fans cheering their team on and thousands and thousands of Arizona fans rooting for their team...")Season's Greetings
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. tells a story about Philip Gourevich, who has written about genocide in Rwanda. One day Gourevich was standing in front of the Holocaust Museum in Washington reading a newspaper. On the front page were photographs of murdered Tutsis, their swollen bodies floating down a river...Saying Yes
("Most historians, when asked, will state that the world's greatest leader in the 20th Century was Winston Churchill. His leadership in England, in the nation's darkest hour was, by virtually anyone's standards, beyond belief. He rallied a defeated and weakened nation, gave them the resolve to fight World War II when they had virtually no resources..." and another illustration)So That the Stones Can Be Silent
("Do you remember the student in Tiananmen Square facing off against a column of tanks? I suppose that's one of the twentieth century's most famous pieces of photography. You know the story. In May 1989 a group of students and other protesters occupied Beijing's Tiananmen Square. They erected a statue to liberty and openly called for freedom and democratic rights....")I Love a Parade!
("When I was a child growing up the neatest thing in the world to me was to march in a parade with the other Cub Scouts! When I went to high school I took drum lessons. One day Mr. Jerry Friday who was the band director at Octorara High School came to me and asked me if I'd be willing to join the high school's Marching Band...")Victory In Christ!
("Even before the dawn one Friday morning, I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear, tenor voice 'Rags'. Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music...")If I Were King
Years ago Charles Schulz gave Charlie Brown a baby sister. CB was elated but genuinely concerned about the terrible condition of the world that his new sister was entering. He began to share those concerns with his friend Linus. Before Charlie Brown got very far Linus interrupted his friend by saying “I think that the world is better than it was six years ago.†Charlie Brown protested: “Don’t you read the papers, don’t you watch the television? How can you say the world is better today than six years ago?†To which Linus replied, “I’m in it now.â€...Palm Branches, Politics and Parades
A group of people gathered around the apartment building of their Hungarian born pastor, László Tőkés, on December 15, 1989. They did not look very imposing. They did not chat threatening slogans against the government. They did not deliver political speeches. They sang the psalms and recited prayers. They were not radical militants. Few would have suspected them of being subversives. Many of them were women and children and members of the Hungarian Reformed Church in Timişoara, Romania. They only gathered to protect their pastor from being evicted from his apartment and pulpit, but their initial stand would directly lead to the toppling of the 22 year reign of Nicolea Ceauşescu's reign as the Communist dictator of Romania.1 How could that be? How could a religious vigil have political consequences? Are we suppose to keep religion and politics separate? Ironically, throughout Biblical history religion always had political consequences. Even Jesus' short unassuming ride into the city of Jerusalem was a political statement that we often set aside in favor of a moralized religious interpretation of the events. However, from a review of the details of that ride, we can only conclude that Jesus intended to make a political and religious statement that morning...When Stones Find Their Voice
("In 1501, the Opera of Florence commissioned Michelangelo's David. Michelangelo found a single block of marble for this enormous statue, a block previously worked on by another artist, but then discarded as an inferior block of stone. Michelangelo's approach to sculpting, however, was 'to take away', and not 'to add'..." and another illustration)Playing to an Audience of One
("An Episcopal priest by the name of Barbara Brown Taylor writes about a Sunday morning at a church she served when the snow began to fall. It was a pretty bad storm. Not a soul showed up for worship. There was just Barbara and her Associate. They sat there in the sanctuary for a long time, thinking about what to do...")The Passion of the Christ: "Exalted"
("Tony Campolo tells how he was asked to be a counselor in a junior high camp. He says everybody ought to be a counselor at a junior high camp. A junior high kid's concept of a good time, Tony says, is picking on people. And in this particular case, at this particular camp, there was a little boy who was suffering from cerebral palsy. His name was Billy. And they picked on him...")In the Name of Peace
("During a run over Kassel, Germany, in World War II, Elmer Bendiner's B-17 bomber took a barrage of flack from Nazi anti-aircraft. He could feel the plane being hit, yet he and his crew returned to base after a successful mission. Bendiner was even more amazed when he was told that a 20-millimeter shell pierced the fuel tank but did not cause an explosion..." and another illustration)The King of Peace
("Jackie Robinson made history when he became the first black baseball player by joining the Brooklyn Dodgers. But, it wasn't easy. He took verbal abuse from other players and many fans. One afternoon he was having a rough time and the fans were shouting 'boos' from the stands..." and other illustrations)The Stewardship of Praise
("while on a train from New York to Boston, George Gershwin was inspired to compose the major portion of Rhapsody in Blue. It was on that train, of all places -- with its steely rhythms and its click-clack regularity of sound and its bells and whistles and all of the other distractions that Gershwin was inspired and suddenly heard the complete construction of the Rhapsody from beginning to end...")A Fool's Wisdom
("Listen, too, to these words of novelist and preacher Frederick Buechner, reflecting on what it means to be a fool for Christ: 'If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business....")
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Offered as Hallelujahs
Hallelujah was a song that Cohen actually struggled with for many years, he wrote about sitting in anguish in a New York City Hotel Room, banging his head against the floor thinking “I can’t finish this song”. He had written about 80 drafts before wrestling it into the version that made it onto his 1984 album Various Positions, an album that his label, CBS Records initially refused to release – having no inkling at the time that “Hallelujah” would become one of the most haunting, mutable and oft-performed songs in North American music – Cohen estimated that in his lifetime over 300 versions of the song had existed...