McPhail Baptist Church

Sunday April 5th 2020

Sue Sparks Playing Chorale Prelude on Rockingham

Scripture Reading: Luke 19:28-44                                                                

28 After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

32 Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

34 They replied, “The Lord needs it.”

35 They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. 36 As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.

37 When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

38 “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”[a]

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Recognizing God's Moment
Rev. Ernie Cox

                                                             

G. K Chesterton wrote a poem entitled The Donkey. The poem speaks of the donkey as stubborn, ridiculed, with hideous ears and a sickening cry when it opens its mouth. But in the last verse Chesterton gives us the thoughts of the donkey and writes:

Fools!  For I also had my hour;

One far fierce hour and sweet;

There was a shout about my ears,

And palms before my feet.

In my first church, a three-point rural charge,  where many of the parishioners were farmers, I would tell the story of the farmer who owned a couple of mules. Every once in a while the mules would turn stubborn and wouldn’t want to move. According to the farmer, the only way he  could get the mules to move was by swearing at them. 

           

One day he had to go into town with the mules, and he was very late in getting back. His wife asked him, “What took you so long?” The farmer said, “On the way back, I had to pick up the preacher, and from then on those dang mules didn’t understand a word I said!”

Well, today is Palm Sunday, and here comes Jesus, riding on a lowly donkey, and a borrowed one at that. We all know the story. The Palm branches, the coats laid down in front of Jesus, the shouts of Hosanna, the noise of the crowd.

It was April, Passover time, good weather, lots of people in town for the celebrations. What a great day for a Parade! But wait! Something doesn’t add up. I’ve seen a few parades in my day, so have you. In the parades I’ve seen I remember people smiling and waving and laughing. But I don’t ever remember seeing anyone in a parade who was crying.

But our text in Luke says that when Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it. And Jesus wept because He knew that  there would come a day when the Romans would surround the city, and tear down the temple stone by stone. Jesus said it would happen. And it came true in 70 A.D. when the Jews revolted against the Romans. The Roman General Titus surrounded the city and killed thousands of men, women and children. 

In the siege many Jews fled to the Temple. The outside of the Temple  was plated with gold. A drunken soldier set fire to the temple. The fire was so intense, the gold leaf melted and went into the cracks of the temple stones. The Romans tore the temple apart stone by stone to get the gold in the cracks. Just as Jesus had said.

Jesus saw the city and wept, says the text from Luke. But the main reason He wept over the city is found in the last verse of our text, where Jesus says: “You did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” Another version translates it this way: “You did not recognize God’s moment when it came.”

                                                           

Sometimes it’s true that we miss out on God’s moments when they come. We fail to recognize them as God’s moments. Perhaps it was an opportunity that came our way, but we didn’t move on it. Or maybe it was the urge to take a risk, but we were afraid. Or maybe it was  an opportunity to defend someone and we kept quiet. Maybe it was an opportunity to reach out and help someone, but we turned away. These things might have been God’s moments when they came,  but we failed to recognize them as such. 

Think about God’s moments of joy, for example. The Rabbis have a saying that says, “At the judgment day a man will be called into account for all the good things he might have enjoyed but didn’t.” Now, that’s  a twist on the idea of judgment, isn’t it. The traditional notion of judgment is that we will be called into account for the things we did wrong. But might we also be called to account for failing to recognize all those good things, all those lost moments that could have brought us joy, when we failed to recognize God’s moments when they came?

The Pharisees had to tell Jesus to tell His disciples and followers to pipe down, they were making too much noise in the parade, there was too much joy. But soon the joy turns to tears when Jesus sees the city and begins to weep. That’s a picture of life, isn’t it. Joy and tears. We know that the moments of joy that come to us aren’t there forever, but when we get them we need to live in them fully, and not rob ourselves of those moments, because the fact is we can’t stay forever in the parade—that’s not the way life is. 

Not all the troubles and sorrows of life can we waved away by shouting Hosanna. We know that life is often a mixture of joy and tears. And no one has ever said it better than William Blake:

Man was made for joy and woe

Then when this we rightly know

Through the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine

A clothing for the soul to bind.

Blake has another wonderful poem:

He who binds to himself a joy, 

Does the winged life destroy. 

He who kisses the joy as it flies,

 Lives in eternity's sunrise.                            

“Kissing the joy as it flies.” Recognizing God’s moments of joy when they come to us, and living in them fully, before they fly away. 

    

And then, we might also think of recognizing God’s moments of grace. The writer Kathleen Norris was staying in a monastery, worshipping with the sisters. There was a procession of nuns up to the altar area. Norris noticed that the nuns bowed when they reached the altar, but then she also noticed that after they bowed to the altar, they turned and bowed to each other. After the worship was over, Norris asked the nuns about this, to which they said: “First we bow to the Christ who is at the altar. And then we bow to the Christ in each other.”

In my upbringing I was taught to look for God in the church, in the Bible, in the preaching, in attempts to be good and holy, but not  taught to look for God in other people. But over the years I’ve discovered something about the grace of God— that when you see Christ in others, it’s easier to dispense the grace of God to them. For you’re apt to be less judgmental, likely to be more forgiving, likely to be more accepting when you think of Christ being in a person.     

I think of an episode from the All In The Family which aired a number of years back. Edith and Archie are attending Edith’s high school class reunion. Edith encounters an old classmate whose name was Buck. Edith hadn’t seen him since school days, and by this time, Buck was excessively overweight. 

But Edith and Buck have a delightful conversation about old times and the things they did together. Remarkably, Edith doesn’t seem to notice how obese Buck has become over the years. Later, when Edith and Archie are talking, Edith says to Archie, “Archie, ain’t Buck a beautiful person.” With a disgusted look on his face, Archie says, “You’re a pip, Edith. You know that. You and I look at the same guy—you see a beautiful person and I see a blimp.” Edith shows a puzzled expression on her face and then she says, “Yeah, and ain’t it too bad.”

“You did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you,” said Jesus. And when we fail to see God in people, we’re in danger of missing out on God’s moments. It was Mother Teresa who said, “I have been given the grace to be able to see the face of Jesus in its most distressing disguises.”

The trouble with some of the people Jesus had to deal with in His time, was that they couldn’t see God in Him. They didn’t recognize God’s coming to them. “This can’t be God,” they said, “God can’t be in Him, He breaks all the rules. He doesn’t keep the Sabbath, He’s too compassionate,  too forgiving. He says that God loves sinners even before they clean up their act.” “No, no, this Jesus can’t be God.”

And Jesus wept because they did not recognize the time of God’s coming to them. They failed to recognize God’s moments of grace. They failed to see God in Jesus. 

I read about a mother, who, when she tucked her children into bed at night, instead of saying to them “How was your day?” she would say to them, “Where did you meet God today?” And one by one her children would say, “I saw a tree with lots of flowers on it.” “A teacher helped me.” “There was a homeless person in the park.” And then the mother would tell her children where she, too, met God during the day. That mother and her children were tuned into recognizing God’s moments, tuned into recognizing when God came to them, by seeing God in others. 

“You did not recognize God’s moment when it came,” said Jesus. But whenever and wherever there’s caring and sharing, and compassion for others, those are God’s moments. 

                                            

Jesus entered the city on a Palm Sunday long ago. On this Palm Sunday, may God help us to let Him enter our hearts and lives, so that for all the days of our lives, we might recognize God’s moments when they come. 

              

The Inner Person

Rev. Steve Zink

Hymns:

Great Is Thy Faithfulness (first and last verses)

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.
 
Refrain:  

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see;

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided,

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

It Is Well With My Soul (first and last verses)

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows  roll;
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, 
"
It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Refrain:

It is well (it is well)

With my soul, (with my soul)

It is well, it is well with my soul.

And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,

The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,

The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend:
“Even so”—it is well with my soul.

Coping With The Corona Crisis

(First in a series of responses from our McPhail congregants)

Anne & Douglas Rutherford

1.)  All of us are confined to our homes.  How are you spending your time? 

Anne

Going for a 40 minute walk everyday (weather permitting); keeping in touch with friends and family; reading more books; watching more TV (including Netflix, Britbox, and Acorn); working on an early family photograph album beginning with my parents’ childhood and ending with their adulthood; cleaning the house (when I can force myself to); cooking (I may even resort to baking!); grocery shopping at Senior’s Hours.

Douglas times his daily walks to a full hour. He tries to help inside the house a bit and even did some vacuuming the other day. His retirement has allowed him to get used to taking a long time to do things and our daughter’s setting him up with Netflix recently has opened a whole new window for him. He formerly watched little more than news, seasonal sports and Jeopardy. 

2.)  How are you staying connected with others?

Anne

Some by email; others by FaceTime (preferable, as it would usually be to friends I would chat with for 2+ hours); some by phone (least preferable). My book club of 10 members have begun “virtual meetings” via Zoom – it’s a bit hilarious and disorderly but I think we’ll get better at it.

We FaceTime our grandchildren as they are so adorable to look at and they’re able to show us their school work and what their father is cooking for dinner etc.

Douglas - during his working years Douglas became accustomed to using the Internet and communicating a lot by email and currently corresponds electronically with multiple groups and individuals daily.  

3.) Some people have stopped following most of the Coronavirus news suffering an overload of information, much of it not encouraging. How are you handling all the Coronavirus news? 

Anne

I try to limit myself to small amounts each day. I keep hoping I will hear happy news...

Douglas regularly begins the day with coffee and a leisurely reading of the morning newspaper from cover to cover, but spends considerably less time doing that now since such a large proportion of it consists of Coronavirus news, none of which is “good news” to date. He wants to know the up-to-date scientific and practical information about the virus and how to deal with its infectiousness, but thinks the overload of virus-related news is probably causing a great deal of conscious and unconscious stress on everyone.

4.)  Have you found a "silver lining" in the current situation?

Anne

I have starting using some recipes that I haven’t used for years and find that we really enjoy them! I actually look forward to going for a walk; an empty calendar; not having to fill my gas tank; trying take-out from one of our favourite restaurants with success and are trying another tonight; the Ottawa Citizen - so every morning I can check it to see what day of the week it is.

Douglas feels a little relief in that he now has an excuse for being so relatively inactive after a very busy working career, but wouldn’t go so far to call it a silver lining.

5.)  What things do you especially miss?

Going to movies and out for a meal – especially with friends; being able to take my time in a grocery store; being able to go to any kind of store; being able to plan ahead with confidence; McPhail on Sundays; working for my “charitable/voluntary causes”; in other words – my former life...

Douglas says that not being able to go to our daughter’s house to feed and walk her dog, or have our daughter over to our house, with or without her dog is beginning to feel very strange notwithstanding our usual almost daily telephone and online contact. He agrees with me that not being able to go to church on Sundays leaves a significant hole in the week, making Sundays too much like every other day. He finds watching a pre-taped full worship service such as can be seen on-line, even from a church he is familiar with, just doesn’t replicate the experience of being there and involved in the reverence of the moment. He thinks we will miss outdoor activity with others more and more as spring and summer progress if we remain under these restrictions for as long as some are currently forecasting..