Sermon - "Can I Help?", by Pastor Ruth L. Foss, Suncook United Methodist Church, Suncook, NH, April 5, 2009, Palm Sunday

Mark 11:1-10

Can I Help?

The Lord be with you

And also with you

Let us pray,

Gracious Lord, Almighty God, we thank you that we are able to assemble in you temple this morning to worship you. We pray that you would be with us as we hear your word. Pour out your Spirit upon us gathered here today. May we hear the word that you have for us this morning. I pray that your word would be heard through me or in spite of me. May the meditations of our hearts and the words our mouths be pleasing to you Lord our Rock and Redeemer. Speak Lord, your servants are listening.

(Scripture reading according to the Gospel of St. Mark)

This morning we are really working with that Spiritual Discipline we talked about last week. We are Celebrating Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Can you imagine what it must of like to have been there? The person, that you have deemed to be the Messiah, is coming into town. You are all excited because you are about to be freed from the Government. This Messiah is going to fight for you and bring about change in your world. You are there Shouting “Hosanna…Hosanna to the King. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna!” You’re waving your palms and throwing you coats on the ground as if they were Rose petals before the one that would liberate you. What a sight that must have been.

During Lent, we have been talking about many things that are Spiritual Disciplines. We have talked about listening , worship, simplicity, prayer and celebration. All of these work together and causes us to do what I want to talk about this morning. All of this leads us to want to serve God, be in service to Him, in whatever capacity that he has gifted us for. It is our act of worship and obedience to God.

Have you ever thought about what service really is? What defines service? If you are in service to God, does everyone look at you and think you are saintly or a “holy roller”? Can I just do the service that I feel like doing or do what I have to do +anyway? Will what I do make a difference? I can’t do much of anything so will it really matter? Well…the definition of service is employment in duties or work for another, work done for others as an occupation or business, it’s an act of assistance or benefit, it’s also an act of assistance or benefit, but is also means an Active devotion to God, as through good works or prayer.

In the Scripture from Mark this morning, we have a scene of service that we might not readily notice. You see, Jesus was just about to come down from the Mount of Olives and he sent two of His disciple to fetch him a colt. Now you might think that this is not much of anything to do. All they were doing is getting Jesus a “ride“ into the city. But…this little, ordinary act of fetching a donkey takes up most of Mark’s account of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. He told these disciples what to do, where to find it, what type of colt, what to say, and so on. This was important to Jesus. What these men were doing had a great importance to Jesus’ entry into the city…This small act of obedience.

Now…we don’t know what these disciples were thinking when Jesus told them to do this…and we don’t even know which two it was. They may have been thinking…”Ok…we have been with you all this time. We have been arguing which one of us was the greatest. We should be put up on a pedestal because we are following the Son of God. And you want us to do what…get a donkey!” It is ironic and makes me stop and think because on one of Jesus’ most glorious day on earth, these disciples were told to muck around in the a stable…looking like a couple of horse thieves…tangling with a untamed colt, trying to get it back to the Mount of Olives for Jesus. I can just see the picture now…they’re racing and running around to try and catch this unwilling participant in their plan, maybe even falling and being covered with mud and Lord knows what else. Thinking to themselves “ We left our fishing nets to follow this guy…why?”

Why does Mark portray these disciples in this way? This is seems like a delegated chore…something like the worship committee planning Psalm Sunday worship…one of those mundane chores, one of those things that needs to be done within the church but there is no real action, no notoriety with it. I mean we are called to serve God with all our heart, and soul, and energy. These types of things…like making the bulletins…cleaning the bathroom…cleaning up after a Saturday night dinner…are not the most “glorious” things that are done but…without them, the church would not be able to function as it should…reaching out to the least, the lost and the forgotten. Jesus needed a donkey for His ministry to function the way God intended it to run. Jesus entered the city as a King but left as a criminal. But this was God’s plan at the start. And it all began with a ride into the town on a donkey.

So why is it that Mark puts these disciples in this light? Well I…being a Seminarian…would like to share my insight to this piece of scripture with you. You see…I believe that what Mark is showing us that even the mundane things are considered service. The Disciples I Mark get a boat ready for Jesus, find out how much food will be needed to feed the multitude, get a room for the Last Supper, and even find a colt, a donkey, for Jesus to enter into the city. It is the mundane that we need to reach down and bring forth that Spirit of service, no matter how hard that may be. These disciples, as well as us, were handling the “every day”, the nitty gritty chores of everyday life. We are called to prepare the way of Jesus’ ministry, His not ours. We are to be those donkey fetchers. But we are also called to do those mundane things that keeps His church alive and by doing so, we are taking part in His redemptive work in the world. So Beloved, there is no service too small that the Lord can’t use.

The gospel of Mark talks about the “great” things God calls us to do. The disciples cast out demons and healed the sick but he also talks about the other less glorious things that the disciples were called to do. One of the things that we can all do, whether we are great or small, young or old, is to take the light of Christ into the world and let our light shine before man and in turn they too may come into the light…into the sheepfold of the ever loving Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ. We need to share that light, that candle of Christ within us, and light the dark places of the world no matter where it may be.

(Video, Go Light Your World, by Kathy Triccoli)

Rejoice…the King has come…the prophesy has been fulfilled! Go out and light your world in the name of Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
AMEN