Scripture/Sermon of the Day

The Lord God has given me a trained tongue, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens, wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.

I gave my back to those who struck me and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.

The Lord God helps me;  therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame;

he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand in court together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me.

It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty? All of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.

I. We call this “Palm Sunday” but there are no palms in the readings this morning. Actually, palms are not mentioned in the gospels. We’re told that people spread “leafy branches they had cut in the fields.” In our readings today we don’t have these — not even Jesus riding into Jerusalem.

II. The first reading is from Isaiah. You know what Isaiah was called? In Hebrew the word is “navi.” It means “to call” or “an outgrowth of” or “something which flows.” In English the word is translated as “prophet.”

“The source from which the word of God issues, the organ through which the spirit of God speaks to people. Navi is not prophet, prediction, not one who foretells, but essentially the organ of God.”

III. Can you imagine being an organ of God? So that your thoughts are not really yours — but God’s? And the words you form in your mind and then speak are not yours? Can you imagine the trouble you’d have if you only spoke the truth?

How did the navi (prophet) Nathan know that King David was having an affair with Bathsheba, and had her husband killed and then stole her and made her his wife. How did Nathan know this? He did not live in David’s castle — he didn’t see David the day David was on roof of the palace watching Bathsheba naked, and he didn’t hear David order his attendants to take her so he could have his pleasure with her. Yet Nathan knew everything. When Nathan came to the palace and accused David of murder and adultery, maybe rape, Davids attendants wanted to kill him -- Nathan came close to being executed right there.

IV. Who wants that job? Aren’t you glad that you aren't a navi? Martin Luther King Jr. was probably the best and greatest example of a navi that America has had in its history. And like many in history whom God had called before King to be God’s navi, King was only in his 30’s when he was killed. Usually navi’s don’t live long — they don’t die of old age.

V. Like a shaman, a navi goes into kind of a trance — the Bible calls it “vision.” That’s where they become connected to God — God’s organ. I’m just scratching the surface here. I don’t understand really how this works or why some have this calling or whatever you want to call it and others, most others, don’t. No one in the Bible ever wanted to be a navi. Martin Luther King said he wished he could have been a professor in some quiet university and lived peacefully in an ivory tower.

VI. The passage from Isaiah this morning is called one of his “Suffering Servant” passages. There are four of these in Isaiah. It says.

Have you ever comforted someone with your words? Did you know that in those times, you were acting like a navi? You had become God’s messenger?

VII. SOMETIMES GOD SPEAKS THROUGH US words of comfort to the weary. SOMETIMES GOD LET'S US HEAR God’s thoughts — which are always some expression of love and forgiveness. This is good, right?

YES AND NO — because when God’s words and thoughts flow through people — they get whipped, their hair is pulled out, they are spat upon and insulted.

— the mind that we have seen in people like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Angela Merkel, Jacinda Ardern and the Dalai Lama.