At the opening of her book To Dance with God, Gertrud Mueller Nelson tells the story of an afternoon she spent absorbed in a project at her sewing machine. Her daughter Annika, three years old at the time, dug into the basket of scraps that sat at her mother’s feet. Annika pulled out several long, bright strips of discarded fabric, gathered them up, and slipped away. Gertrud writes than when she went to find Annika, “I tracked her whereabouts to the back garden where I found her sitting in the grass with a long pole. She was affixing the scraps to the top of the pole with great sticky wads of tape. ‘I’m making a banner for a procession,’ she said. ‘I need a procession so that God will come down and dance with us.’ With that she solemnly lifted her banner to flutter in the wind and slowly she began to dance.”

How often do we celebrate our Lord? How often do we ask God to dance with us, acknowledging his amazing presence in our lives? I think we need to start out this Sunday by remembering that dance. This week we celebrate Palm Sunday, remembering the day when the crowds of Jerusalem offered a procession to celebrate the one who came to live, and walk, and work, and dance among us. This week we begin our service with glad songs and waving palm branches. We seek the joy and the attention of our beloved God. Hosanna!

We all cry out Hosanna, just as those crowds did long ago. We cry it triumphantly, gladly, rejoicing in the glory of our king. We smile as children call out, waving their palm branches aloft. We mimic the actions of the crowds around Christ. The crowds that lined the street and cheered for Jesus as he entered the city in his humble way. Some of the people there had already heard of Jesus and were followers, thrilled to have him come. But not all of them.

Knowing what i do about people and the way they act together, I imagine many of those gathered there that morning had been drawn in by the noise of shouting. And like any good crowd at a parade, they joined in, crying Hosanna! and waving branches with the others, enjoying a moment of spectacle in their day.

People are drawn to what is popular, to who is popular. It is the definition of popular after all. We cry out for the one everyone else cries out for. Be they politician or actor or reality TV show star. We cheer with everyone else.

The crowds that morning cheered together for Jesus. They were excited to see him, joyful even. Everyone who heard became caught up in the excitement and joined in the cheering. But facing this week, we have to ask, how did they go from cheering his entry on Sunday, to calling for his painful, bloody death on Friday?

I think it is because Jesus didn't behave they way they wanted him too. They were crying out Hosanna, which means, Save us. Please, Save us. The crowds cried to Jesus for salvation, but they didn't like how he went about it. Jesus didn't come with armies to save them from the Roman government, which is what many of the people thought the messiah would do.

Instead Jesus disrupts the status quo. He over turns the stalls of the money changers and drives them out of the temple. He preaches peace and forgiveness instead of war and freedom.  He doesn't do what they thought he would. And that scares them. So yes, they want him crucified. They want to forget about him. Better that than to change the way we look at the world.

Like so many popular people, Jesus did not act the way the crowds want him to act. It is like following a sports team; it is far easier to cheer when they are winning. Fair weather fans jump from team to team, based on whoever is winning that week. But not everyone who watches sports is like that. There are those true fans. The ones who stick with their teams no matter what. True fans always make me think of my father.

My father has always been a Pittsburgh Pirates fan. When he was a kid that was something to be proud of. They won the World Series a few times and always did well in the playoffs. In the last couple of decades, they haven't done so well. They barely make it to the playoffs and never last there very long. Yet he still spends his summer evenings on the back porch with his radio, listening to all their games. He isn't a fan just when they are doing well, but all the time.

This week is like that. Too many of Jesus' followers become fair weather followers. Even the ones who don't actually turn on him, pretend not to know him when things get tough. When he doesn't act the way people want him to. Yet there are those who stick with Jesus through the good and the bad. Even when his actions make no one happy.

We are like that even today. We forget the good that Jesus has done in the face of our current frustrations and heartache. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that Jesus isn’t helping because our lives aren’t going the way we want them to.

Palm Sunday begins an intrusive time for Jesus. He has quit preaching and gone to meddling. I think we sometimes like to tell ourselves that whatever the gospel means, it must mean that God wants to help us with our agenda. It must mean that God deals with us like an over indulgent and too permissive parent who wants his child to get ahead and be happy. It must mean that God is at my service and Jesus has come to help me be more successful, more fulfilled, more whatever it is that I want. Right?

Palm Sunday began to go bad when it became clear that Jesus was a threat to the way things were organized in the city of Jerusalem. Jesus was most welcome when it was believed that he would help you with illness, raise brother from the dead, cure cousin's blindness, make the demons go away; but he does not stop there. He wants to redirect life.

On Palm Sunday it becomes clear that when God enters our lives he not only blesses, heals, teaches and leads, he also confronts and disturbs. Palm Sunday is the moment when it becomes clear that God is concerned with more than our spiritual and physical health. He is concerned with our moral health and has claims on the power centers of our lives. You see we have little trouble with Jesus in the suburbs or even with Jesus in the hospital.

But Palm Sunday reminds us that God is not satisfied with being Lord of our spiritual lives or our inner lives, that is easy enough, but on Palm Sunday Jesus goes down town and enters the law offices, the financial districts, the brokerage houses and the halls of government and that is where the trouble really got started. Jesus isn’t just Lord of the spiritual edges of our lives, but our whole lives. Jesus calls us to be followers every where we go and in all that we do. Following Jesus in the day to day is a lot harder than following him on Sunday mornings.

While I want to see myself with the disciples during this last week, as wrong as they get it at times, I know that there are days when I stand with those crowds. Those are days when I feel like a fair weather fan. When I call out to Jesus to save me, and then get mad that he doesn't save me the way I wanted him to.  When Jesus doesn't just save me, but changes my life. Crying Hosanna to the Savior can mean that the Savior changes everything you thought you knew.

If you cry out to Jesus to Save you, you have to be ready for the changes that he will make of your life. Calling out Hosanna with the crowds, is inviting the Lord to come dance with you and your life will never be the same.

Despite our resistance. Even though we kick and scream and do not want to change, Jesus dies for us anyway. Even though we cry for his crucifixion, Jesus saves us anyway. He responds to our cries of Hosanna with such love and joy that our lives will never be the same again. Jesus saves us, even as we condemn him. Christ stays with us even when we are at our worst. We know what is coming this week, but we aren't quite there yet. We who stand among the Palm Sunday crowds know that the Word will soon be beaten, mocked, and killed. We know, too, that that is not the end of the tale.

But we have not yet moved on to that part of the tale. This week’s Gospel lectionary beckons us to linger alongside the road, to lift our voices in celebration, and to ask ourselves a few questions. I find myself wondering, what is the way that I am preparing for Christ? Do I dare to shout Hosanna, and accept what that means? Am I willing to be a true follower of Christ and not just a fair weather one?

Today we are called to take a cue from little Annika, and lift up our best that God might come down and dance with us. Amen.

Rev. Cara Gee

April 17^th, 2011