Father Gary’s Sermon

Inspired from Luke 23: 1-56

Proclaimed on April 4, 2004

Several years ago, Beckah Fink from Texas wrote a letter to Dear Abby. It was about a young man, named Bill, who had grown up in a very wealthy family. This family lived in a home in the midst of a neighborhood that was filled with many other wealthy families. Indeed, it was a custom in this neighborhood that each child graduating from high school received a new car as a graduation gift. It appeared that it was going to be no different for Bill, as he and his dad spent weeks looking for the perfect car. However, on the eve of his graduation Bill was given a simple wrapped package from his father. This was not exactly what he was expecting. As he opened the box, his disappointment grew. Inside the box he found a new Bible. As he sat there looking at this gift, his disappointment turned to anger. Finally, he became enraged, threw the Bible down and ran from the house. He never saw his father again.

Many years later, he returned home again, this time for his father’s funeral. While going through his father’s possessions he came across his graduation Bible, now covered with dust. Wiping the dust from the cover, he opened it for the very first time. Inside the pages of the Bible he came across a cashiers check, dated for the night of the graduation for the amount of the new car.

In much the same way this too is the story in our Gospel reading this morning. So many people were expecting so many great things from Jesus while he was in Jerusalem. As he approached the gates of the city they proclaimed loud “Hosannas” to him as their newly expected king. As he traveled among them riding a colt, they scattered branches and clothing before him. He was their man! He was their champion! All bets were on him! But then, like the father who had given his son a Bible for his graduation, Jesus let them down! He did not defeat the Romans. He did not establish a new kingdom. He was a complete dud! And the people’s reaction?! Like the boy when he first saw the Bible in the box, they were first disappointed, then angry, and then they became enraged. Their shouts of “Hosanna” turned to screams of “crucify him,” as they pronounced him “guilty” at his trial.

How much is this like us some two thousand years later? Let’s be honest, how many of us may be angry with God, because of some sort of disappointment? A couple of years ago, I attended a Clergy/Spouse Weekend, where professional songwriters entertained us. One, Richard Leigh, had written the award winning song “Don’t It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue?”--a song inspired from his pet dog.

The other, a close friend of his, Ray Alger, was a songwriter of some merit himself, having written several hit songs for Garth Brooks. During this evening Ray Alger told us a wonderful story about prayer and disappointment. When he was teenager he had a crush on a particular young lady that went to school with him. He remembered praying daily, begging God to make this girl his for life. They were long anguished prayers, prayers straight from the heart, prayers as sincere as any he had ever offered. Well, this relationship did not last as he had hoped and prayed for so desperately.

We don’t always understand the ways of God. But we are familiar with spiritual disappointments, as well as spiritual failures. The same was true this week some 2000 years ago, when Jesus failed to answer the prayers of the people. And yet, what a difference a week had made, what a profound change had occurred. Like the man going through his father’s possessions so many years later, discovering his father’s graduation present to him, so those people so long ago, enraged at Jesus for failing to give them a new kingdom, now discovered that God had made him a Heavenly King.

We just don’t know. As humans our perceptions are so limited and our emotions so intense. And as it was for those people 2000 years ago, so it is for us today, for their story is truly our story. Remember the agonizing prayers of Ray Alger? Remember his disappointment when they were not answered. Like those people during the time of Jesus, that was not the end of the story. Some twenty-five years later he was at a ball game with his present girl friend, as lovely a person as anyone has ever set eyes on. Surprisingly, however, as they were making their way through the crowds, he came upon his old high school flame. How shocked he was to see her. How the years had changed them both. How good it was to exchange memories again. After introducing his old flame to the new girl in his life, he later went home inspired to write a new song entitled, “Thank you, God, for unanswered prayer!”

Perhaps this is the time to ponder just how it is that God has failed us. How long have we been disappointed? How long have we been angry? How long have we been running away from God? And now today, like that man coming home to his father’s funeral, we too are re-living God’s funeral. And like the man rediscovering his father’s graduation gift to him, how do we feel about our inheritance? Perhaps it’s time to set aside our disappointments, set aside our anger and rage, and stop our running away long enough to discover the truth and be able to say, along with the song writer Ray Alger, “Thank you, God, for unanswered prayer!”