songs of the heart: prayer for the journey

from my message on Palm Sunday, 4/1/12, from Psalm 118

So, I had a phone call from Bishop Dorff on Thursday, asking me to move to another appointment.....April Fools! I had you going there for a minute. Yes, today is April 1, April Fools Day, but in the church it is also Palm Sunday. I want you to go to your earliest memories of Palm Sunday. For me, it was like a victory parade for Jesus. We, as children, would wave the palm branches and shout Hosanna. I thought Hosanna meant Hurrah! or Yeah, Jesus! But Hosanna doesn't mean that. If you can wait just a few moments, I will tell you what it means.

What I want to get across to you about this parade imagery on Palm Sunday is that there is movement. Jesus is on a journey. We are too. Journey is a good metaphor for being a follower of Christ. Today, we are looking at Psalm 118 as a song of the heart, a prayer for the journey. This psalm would have been sung as Jesus was entering the city of Jerusalem. You see, if you were a faithful Jew and lived near Jerusalem, you would make a pilgrimage, you would travel there 3 times a year for 3 major religious holidays. This particular one was Passover, which our Jewish friends, still celebrate today. In fact, it begins this Friday night at sundown. Passover is the festival that remembers how God saved his people from bondage in Egypt. God delivers his people, and they set off across the wilderness to a Promised Land. Jesus probably had this feast with his disciples as his last meal before his passion. So the people are singing Psalm 118 as Jesus enters Jerusalem, and Jesus is living out what they are singing.

The words are familiar to many of us. I will illustrate by starting a quote, that I bet you can finish. This is the day the Lord has made...Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118, verse 24. I must confess I didn't have this message very well developed till yesterday. I was on retreat with our Stephen Ministers. I asked for their help. One of them upon reading the psalm, said, "Don't miss the joy of this passage, finding joy in the moment." That's a good word. This psalme is called a Hallel psalm, a praise God song. At the Stephen ministry training, we spent 2 1/2 hours talking about aging. What a downer! All that time talking about dealing with loss...of hair, of hearing, of movement. One of the leaders was talking about dealing with her mother-in-law, who went to an assisted care facility. One of the biggest losses she faced was that of her faith community. She could no longer attend worship like she used to. She turned to the TV. On Sunday morning, she would go to worship with the TV preachers. She told our leader, "I don't agree with most of what they say. Their theology is pretty thin. It is a gospel of success, about health and wealth. But one thing you can say for them: they're happy!" In this journey, it is a good thing to pray, looking for joy, thanksgiving, celebration. This is day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Now we come to Hosanna. Did you notice that the word was not used in Psalm 118? It was there in verse 25...if you read it in Hebrew. The word Hosanna means.....save us, help us! I have had the confirmands coming into my office this past week to have a conversation with me. I don't bring them into the office to scare them. I want to show them that they can have this relationship over a lifetime. Wherever they go, there will always be a pastor to listen and pray with with them. I ask them if there is anything we need to talk about. More than one said to me, "Pastor Lynn, is it ok if I ask God to help me with the STAAR test?" The State of Texas has just initiated a new evaluation instrument. Several of the students had anxiety over taking this test. My answer to them was "Yes." You are saying Hosanna, help us, save us. And the thing is that the more you pray, the better you get at praying. The more you pray, the more the Lord reforms and refines your prayer. It is a journey in prayer. Prayer changes things. The first thing prayer changes is YOU.

The point of this journey in prayer is to bring us closer to Jesus. I will illustrate with something I don't get to do too often, tell an Aggie math joke. I have a degree in mathematics from Texas A & M. I started in 1971 when there were not too many girls on campus. That first semester, my calculus professor was teaching about limits. He was drawing the difference between a math major and an engineering student. He said, "Imagine on one side of a room, a beautiful girl (at A & M, called a Maggie). Put a math major and an engineering student on the other side of the room. Each time, the math major and future engineer get to move 1/2 the distance closer to Maggie. So the first step is to go halfway. The next step they both go 3/4 way. The next step 7/8 and so forth. You ask the math major, do you ever reach Maggie. No....the correct answer is that between any 2 points on a line, you can always find another midpoint. You ask the future engineer, do you ever reach Maggie. He responds, You get close enough."

All God wants to do with us in prayer is to draw us closer to Christ. We are being lead not to a place, but a person. The 24 th verse....rejoice in the Lord and be glad in it, could also be traslated as be glad in him. The verses in Psalm 118 are familiar because we say one over and over again in the communion liturgy. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. In prayer, we are being drawn to Him. The psalm says, the stone that the builders have rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Jesus, despised and crucified, has become God's instrument of salvation. Jesus wants to be more than a teacher, good man, or prophet.

I illustrate by telling a story from Don Saliers, a UM pastor, teacher, & writer, who wrote in the Daily Disciplines this past week. Don was helping a mid-sized church with "pumping up" Holy Week. They asked him for suggestions. "Have you ever had a palm processional?" They hadn't. There were some fears about the weather. More about whether the children would use the palms in sword fights. But they decided to try it. Palm Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day, with perfect weather. The children took the palm branches. They entered the church, singing, Hosanna, Loud Hosanna the little children sang...Yes, there were some sword fights with the branches. But when they looked up...they saw what was at the end of the aisle. There was the cross. The mood changed. They knew that Palm Sunday was not the end of the journey. Jesus wants to be more than teacher, good man, or prophet. He wants to be Savior, the one who releases us from the past, from guilt, from shame, from the power of sin. He wants to be Lord, the one by whom we orient our lives.

Jesus goes this journey through Holy Week for us, with us. Come Thursday night, as He washes our feet. See how he changes the words of the Passover, saying This is my body, This is my blood. Come Friday night to experience several different stations, inside and outside that take us to His passion. Come Saturday night when several will be baptized here.

Jesus is on a journey. We are too. Our Methodist theology says that we are going on to perfection. The Holy Week Walk the children do today takes them close to Jesus. The early Christians were called Followers of the Way. Our vision statement says, Following One, Serving All.

I am moving, not to a new appointment, but even now after all these years, closer and closer to Jesus. How about you?