Prepare!
Pr. David Hewitt, - March 27 & 28, 2010
The preacher Ian Pitt-Watson once faced his congregation and told them the truth about his situation that Sunday morning. “Because I’m leaving for South Korea on Tuesday,” he explained, “I am not as well prepared as I ought to be. It reminds me,” he went on, “of a pastor-friend of mine, who thought, when he had difficulty preparing a particular sermon, ‘Hmmm. Perhaps the Holy Spirit will tell me what to say on Sunday morning.’ This thought returned to my friend several times during the week, and when at last he stood silently before his congregation, he turned to the Holy Spirit one last time for guidance, and a celestial voice said to him, “Tell the people you are unprepared!”
Well, as it so happens, I’m unprepared, too! No, not really. But to say “I am prepared” does not really explain everything: prepared for what?
This reminds me of a story similar to the first one in which a pastor begins his sermon by saying, “I am not well prepared this week. It has been a terribly busy week, and I just didn’t have much time to prepare my sermon. Well, we’ll have to rely on the Holy Spirit this time. Next time, I’ll try to come better prepared.” As if the Holy Spirit couldn’t possibly be better prepared than HE was, on his own!
That second pastor confused, as many of us do, preparation with control. Like the old saying, “the early bird gets the worm,” we think that, so long as I’m more ready than the other guy, I will win and he or she will lose. If I’m more prepared to argue MY side in a meeting, or in a conversation, My point-of-view will triumph. This is preparation as manipulation.
But when John the Baptist shouted to the sinful people around him, quoting the prophet Isaiah, to “prepare ye the way of the Lord,” he was not saying, “Let’s all pretend to be good, hoodwink our God, and get to heaven” – no. He was saying, “Let’s seek to do God’s will, and actually look with anticipation for God’s coming…and when He comes, let’s not only proclaim Him ‘Lord,’ but humbly serve Him as our Lord, from this day forward.’”
No, to prepare a sermon or to prepare to do some other “good work” for God, is to prepare, first of all, to listen – to listen to God’s instructions about how to do the preparations themselves – how to prepare to be slaves of our most loving Lord and Master. That’s something you do RIGHT NOW.
I’m not sure if us disciples now, or the first of Jesus’ disciples, ‘way back when, really understand or understood what that means. Take the first disciples in our Gospel reading for today – the Palm Sunday reading from Luke. When we read further in Luke, at the Last Supper, we would find the first disciples not at all concerned that Jesus was ever in danger, that this was to be their “Last Supper” with him. Let me read directly from Luke 22, verses 24 through 27: “A dispute also arose among the disciples as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest.” Obviously, the disciples were preparing – but for the wrong thing. They were preparing for Jesus as the kind of Messiah who would kick the Romans and the Sadducees and the Pharisees out of power and rule Israel in peace and righteousness – with themselves in power along with Jesus, at his right and left hand. They were preparing to rule, not to serve.
But Jesus goes on to say, in response, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But no so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.” (Lk. 22:25-26) He wants His disciples to prepare to be servants – to give their all on behalf of others around them. He then goes on to point to Himself as an example of such behavior: “For who is greater, the one who is at the table, or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as One who serves.” (Lk. 22:27) Strange to think of Jesus running around like a waiter, making sure the disciples have enough food to eat and drinks to drink; but there it is. Some might call that humiliating to do for a person who is God in the flesh. But that is what His Father God had called upon Him, the loyal Son, to do. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” says Paul, “who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave…He humbled Himself, and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:5-8)
Yet, in the days leading up to that Last Supper, the disciples had been given many indications that they were preparing for the wrong thing, and in the wrong way. They thought they were in on all of Jesus’ plans for that supper. Instead, Jesus orders the disciples go into Jerusalem – and wait…wait for someone carrying a jar of water – someone they do not know! – to take them to the place where the Passover Meal is to occur. “How could someone they do not know fulfill such an important role in the Master’s plan?” they may have thought. How little in control they were!
This incident was very much like the one, just days earlier, that occurred on Palm Sunday. As Jesus was nearing Jerusalem – that fateful, final journey – He mysteriously informs two of the disciples to “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt [a young donkey] that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ Just say this: ‘The Lord needs it.’” (Lk. 19:29-31) Those two disciples may have wanted to ask Jesus for details: Why a young donkey that has never been ridden? What are you going to do with the donkey? If you are going to ride a donkey, why not get one that is used to being ridden? Who is the mysterious other person who is asking us why we want this donkey? What if we’re accused of stealing this donkey? What if we don’t find this donkey? Why aren’t we told this other person’s name? How do you know him or her? But, because Jesus had just told Peter – when Peter objected to going to Jerusalem in the first place – that Peter was “Satan,” they may have decided to shut their mouths and just go and do it. So they find the donkey, bring it back to Jesus, and He rides that donkey into Jerusalem, fulfilling an old prophecy of Zechariah’s that the Messiah would arrive at the holy city “humble and riding on a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9)
Perhaps against their original wishes, likely with frustration and in confusion, the disciples helped prepare their Lord Jesus for His triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. They listened – enough, this time. But would they listen to Christ later, and prepare properly? Would Judas follow Jesus, or would Judas betray Jesus into the hands of His enemies? Would Peter follow through on his promise to stand by Jesus in his hour of need, or would he three times deny that he ever knew the man? Many times it is not that we aren’t prepared; it’s that we aren’t prepared for the consequences.
But God, in Jesus Christ, is always prepared for the consequences. God knows that, in our sinfulness, we want to go our own way; God knows that we are like the disciples, and want to plan and prepare in ways that sometimes run counter to His will. As Luther told Erasmus, “Man cannot, by nature, want God to be God, but instead Man wants to be God himself, and wants God not to be God.” And when our trying to control or manipulate or spin run aground, God is there to pick us up, lest we fall forever.
On this coming Good Friday we will mark the time, almost exactly two thousand years ago, when “for our sake God made Him [that is, Jesus Christ] to be sin who knew no sin” – taking all of our sins upon Him on the cross, so that we might, in all gratitude for this gift of eternal life, become, as Paul puts it, “the righteousness of God,” the “new creation” – people who can risk letting go of our own kind of preparations and instead let the Spirit prepare us to be God’s servants, God’s disciples, and God’s stewards alone. As the Apostle Paul again puts it: “And Christ died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and was raised for them” – raised for us – for you and for me. (2 Cor. 5:15-21)
How does one live for another? How do we become God’s new creations? How do we prepare the way for the Lord? Well, we saw a glimpse of it last weekend when we hosted the Tetelestai cast and crew. We prepared the way for them – we prepared by inviting them to our community, prepared by praying for them, prepared the sanctuary for the play, prepared some meals for them, prepared the community by telling them the play was coming, prepared to see the play, prepared by making them welcome and giving them a place to stay overnight, and prepared to encourage them and be delighted by their holy presentation of the gospel – their presentation of Jesus Himself. In return, they – our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ! – now want us to know how warmly they felt they were greeted and supported; they made it clear they want to come again next year!
Now this may be considered a small example of sacrifice and service. But what joy it gave to all of us – and what happiness when, as a kind of bonus, they worshiped the Lord with us! As Pr. Paul recently has said, true sacrifice is not “losing” something, it’s gaining something holy…but something that the Lord says is holy – not us!
I do believe that God, through Tetelestai and other recent events, is giving us a sign; God is telling us how to deepen our discipleship – how to be better stewards for God. For last week we were a little bit like one of the characters in our Palm Sunday story: the mysterious villager.
This mysterious person owned the donkey that the Lord Jesus needed. Would he be unhappy when those two disciples came and took his animal? Would he charge them with stealing? Would he be offended that Jesus would ask him to give more than he already has to Christ’s cause, to the ministry and mission of Jesus? Jesus didn’t think he would be offended; Jesus told the disciples, if the owner confronted them, to simply say to him about his donkey, his property, “The Lord needs it.” Jesus was sure that simply saying, “The Lord needs it” would be all that was required, and the animal’s owner would immediately relent: “Yes, you may have it,” he may have said, joyfully, “Go! Go! Go! And may God be with you!”
Would that we had such an attitude! That we would, in faith, give quickly to Christ’s mission and ministry all that we had available, all that we were called upon to give, in time, talent, and treasure, no questions asked. Yet we already HAVE such faith; the Holy Spirit has already placed such a trust in God in your heart! Look in your heart – there’s a spot there that KNOWS that God will take care of your needs now, and for all eternity – freeing you and me to love and serve Him and everyone forever!
So let us, like the owner, realize we are not owners of what we have, but rather, just caretakers of that in which the Lord may someday soon “have need of it”….that the Lord wants not only my donkey or this or that possession, but – thank God – He wants all of me! How privileged you must feel, that God has enlisted you in His mighty mission! That God has recruited you to help prepare the way for Him and His kingdom! That God has called from you His resources, His talents, His time and efforts, and that NOW is the time to give them back to Him! “The Lord has need of your donkey.” “Lord, not only my vehicle, but also my cow, my house, my family, and my life!” Amen!
