April 5, 2009 Des Moines
Palm Sunday
Last in a series on Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Scripture: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Here's
My Heart
The offering was huge that day.
Collected in the plate, so to speak, according to all the stories we’ve
been told, were palms waved in adoration and acclamation, coats and cloaks laid
down as a kind of runway carpet to honor the way; and shouts of praise and
expectation: “Blessed is this one who
comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna
in the highest!” Crowds of people, we
are told, generously “giving it up” for the one who came riding on a
donkey.
There have been, of course, all kinds of speculation about and
interpretation of the signals and symbols embedded in that act. There are those who cite the prophets whose
descriptions of a “coming one” find echo in Jesus’ manner of approach. Zechariah, anticipating a messiah, had
written:
“Shout aloud , O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to
you; triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a
donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
He will cut off the
chariot from Ephraim
and the war-horse from
Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall
be cut off,
and he shall command
peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be
from sea to sea,
and from the River to the
ends of the earth” (9:9-10).
Maybe, some have
concluded, after months of reticence, Jesus is finally coming clean and going
public with who he really is.
Others point to ritualized patterns of enthronement – the
protocols of every king as he assumes his appointed office: entering the city in precisely this humble and
ceremonial way. Perhaps, these
interpreters have speculated, Jesus is “throwing down the glove,” so to speak,
boldly and publically challenging the legitimacy of the sitting king. “The main issue here,” writes Mark Hoffman, “is not so much
prophetic fulfillment as it is political statement,” and the bystanders along the way would have
gotten the point. This, writes Hoffman,
was more “political protest” than “pious procession”, and “any Roman official
who might have been watching would have understood the mockery, and Jesus would
have been identified as a threat.”[1]
Still
others see in the simple beast and the humble pose the very image of who they
had observed Jesus to be: one who, just as
he had said, did not come to Lord it over others, but to serve.
But
simple or symbolic, I see in Jesus’ entry this pivotal day less a statement
than a gesture: the posture of a willing
vessel, fully mindful of all that lay cluttered behind him, and all that
awaited threateningly before him, outstretching his arms to the God who could
fill him, as if to say, “here I am. I’m
yours.”
The
offering, as I say, was huge that day.
“I’m yours. Use me as you can;
use me as you will.”
That,
I want to suggest, is the focus for us this day as well: less a word than a gesture. What began several weeks ago with the
impression of a faithful supplication ends here with a gift of grateful
dedication. “Tune my heart,” we have been praying all along the way. “Take my
heart” we now conclude. “Take my heart, O take and seal it; seal it
for thy courts above.” An offering
of the deepest kind.
It
is the free and exuberant joy of a child who erupts through the door grasping a
bouquet of freshly picked dandelions and breathlessly offers them to mom or
dad. “Here! I picked these just for you!” Weeds, perhaps, but you recognize among the
sneezes their true identity. Here’s my heart, the child is singing.
It
is the wordless peace – the settling and expansive silence – in the still and
sundrenched morning after a violent night when the lightening and ripped the
darkness and the thunder had rattled the windows and the wind had hurled rain
like shotgun blasts. Face now full in
the gentle morning sky, arms outstretched; an offering prayer of wonder and
praise. Here’s my heart, you find yourself singing.
It
is the enlivened vigor of survival – of thrashing around through hours or days
or weeks or months of violent illness; moments when “hanging on” seemed to
require everything and return nothing; finally emerging on the other side –
with less hair, perhaps, but passionate and determined; receiving each day as
the gift that it is; arms outstretched.
An offering of gratitude and promise.
Here’s my heart, you can’t
help but sing.
It
is the humbling surprise of wrestling all night with God and waking, like
Jacob, with only a limp and a fresh comprehension of the precious wonder of
life. It is the settling and sobering
comprehension of the younger son, as the party music plays in celebration, of
the immensity of forgiving and welcoming grace.
Arms, outstretched, offering one’s all.
Here’s my heart, O take and seal
it...”
It
is, of course, an act of generosity, but it is a generosity that flows from a
grateful sense of abundance – an abundance that has nothing to do with how much
we have gained and everything to do with all we’ve been given. Generosity as the grateful stewardship of
blessing.
But
if it is a grateful generosity, it is no less poignantly a mindful
generosity as well. We, like Jesus, know
all that has cluttered the way behind us and brought us to this place – our
proneness to wander; our tendency to leave; our recurring likelihood of
drifting out of tune. And because of all
that trails us, we have a pretty good sense of what awaits us.
And
yet still our arms outstretch, gratefully, hopefully, prayerfully: “Here’s
my heart. Take and seal it for your
courts above.” Here, I am the
gift. Use me as you can. Use me as you will. And who’s to say how God might take you up on
your offer.
·
According
to the stories, Jesus continued into the city where he overturned tables and
shattered routines and called God’s people to account. And God could be calling you to just such
disruptive work as God clears away what is to make room for what can be.
·
According
to the stories, Jesus continued on through the week with the attentive in tow
and shined new light on the shape of faithfulness and the character of God’s
desire. And God may be calling you to
just that kind of illuminating work that enables disciples to see more clearly
the ways of God, and more deeply understand.
·
According
to the stories, later that week Jesus sat down at table and broke the bread and
blessed the cup and invited those who would to eat and drink in remembrance of
him. And God might be calling you to
that ministry of holy memory.
·
According
to the stories, Jesus got down on his knees, washed his disciples’ feet, and
called it an example. And God could well
be calling you to a deeper ministry of embracing love and floor level service.
And of course you know the rest. While we would rather return to the parable
of the prodigal son and the festival party with the fatted calf, what we know
to be more immediately in store is betrayal, arrest, trial, derision, and an
incomprehensibly painful death. Which is
ultimately to acknowledge that God could be calling you to literally give
everything you have – body, comfort, freedom and soul – to the larger purposes
of God.
But somehow
the prospective particularity of the call – of the specific ways that God has
need of us – doesn’t finally seem to matter.
Having spent these last several weeks getting ourselves in tune, we are
here in awe-filled, humble gratitude to reach out our arms and all the rest of
ourselves so that they can carry and represent and prayerfully proclaim, Here I am.
Use me as you can. Use me as you
will.
Open the gates of righteousness,
we pray, as willing and
grateful disciples,
that we, too, may enter through them and give thanks.
The Lord is God who has given us light.
O give thanks to the Lord, for God is good; God’s steadfast
love endures forever.
Here’s my heart. Take and seal it; seal it for thy courts
above. Amen.