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The Truest Weapon

Sermon by Brian Russo
March 7, 2010, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill

Zechariah 9:9-13
John 12:12-15

What is power?

Is it ever understood through the Messianic prophecy in Zechariah – such that humility, grace, and peace suit up as its coat of arms? Or is it more often revealed through Nietzschian-like corollaries – such that clout, force and dominance are the instruments of its incarnation?

Now, admittedly, that’s a bit heavy of question to begin with, so how about we start with an easier one, shall we?

What is a weapon?

Well, of course there’s guns, those are weapons, common ones in fact. Knives too. I guess you’d also have to say cars, boats, airplanes, and even fists can all be weapons as well. I guess really anything can be a weapon. For if I were to pick up this Bible and whack you over the head with it, then that too would have to be considered a weapon -- it certainly is quite heavy after all.

But you know what, I don’t think I would even have to physically hit you with the Bible in order to categorize it as a weapon. All I would have to do is simply parrot some difficult passage in the Old or New Testament, thereby arming an offensive attack targeted at inflicting you with the guilt of sin. It’s certainly been a technique used before, and probably still is from some fiery pulpit in this country.

And that is precisely what I find to be so amazing about this kind of weaponry, and by its larger extension, power. For all too often it has been the “Christians” speaking louder than the masses, vocalizing their displeasure with both the micro and macro of this world; and worse, arming up with scripture, turning the Word into a vindictive arsenal in some sort of misguided crusade of muscle and might.

Have they forgotten that the very derivation of Christianity comes from the Christ who taught them otherwise! I mean, how can believers so easily forget that it was Jesus who tried to do everything in his power to crumble the very façade of offensive power? And yet they think that if they raise peculiar verses from scripture just like Constantine suspiciously raised the cross, then all those from differential mindsets must bow down before their sanctimony. And so they have forgotten, or perhaps neglected, that they have been called to be as reverential as our Savior was humble -- and in doing so, have become the living reincarnation of those crowds in Jerusalem awaiting their Messiah.

If you can humor me for a moment, quietly imagine that you were a member of that crowd, specifically the scene that was given to us through John in our text this morning. A friend of a friend tells you that a profound healer with an extraordinary gift of parabolic teaching, who also goes by a somewhat-special title, “the only begotten Son of God,” is coming to your city. Pretty exciting, right? And being a devout Jew you instantly think, “Praise Yahweh! Scripture is unfolding before my very eyes! For at long last, here comes our savior, the king of kings, who will come sweeping in on a mighty horse, finally delivering us from all external forces of control!” [after all, this was the kind of Messiah that Jews were waiting for – a warrior king]. Completely moved by such, you decide to join in with the rest of crowd, sprinting toward the nearest palm tree (which symbolizes victory by the way), breaking braches in a hurried frenzy as you sing yourself merry in anticipation for the most triumphant entry ever to be witnessed in your time, or all time for that matter... But what happens next? What does Jesus do as he hears the terrible commotion you all have made in expectation of such a royal entry? Does he saddle up onto that war-horse which was so common to your theme of kingship? Does he come wheeling in, charging through the streets with the bravado of king David? He doesn’t, does he? Rather, he has the audacity to lasso up the most feeble and humble of creatures – a donkey – and instead trots in triumphantly on that.

My friends, you can stop imagining and you can start gawking, for the metaphor really is that astounding! And doesn’t it just make you smile and say to yourself, “that’s so Jesus”? For in but a solitary moment, Jesus completes a historical 180, reversing any such notion that the Kingdom of God is at all to be categorized by the sword or a determination to cripple others through malevolence. Instead, just as it was proclaimed in Zechariah, Jesus personifies that the Kingdom of God, and the dominion of true power, will forever be marked by the quality of unpredictable humility – the truest weapon of them all. Just how cool was this dude, Jesus?

That’s right, I said it, Jesus was one cool guy – the truest of role models, whom we should all keep in the foresight of our memories. We’ve got to stop always putting him beyond the clouds, turning his reality into a mere apparition dancing in and out of sight on the horizon, and we’ve got to get him back down to Earth, recognizing him for the courageous, unpredictable revolutionary that he was. For it was precisely because he didn’t live up to normative expectations, that he forever separated himself as the Savior of saviors and the Redeemer of redeemers.

And I fully suspect that this awareness, this kind of relationship with a personal, radical and humbling Jesus, is the catalyst behind the extraordinary story of Ryan Moats and his mother-in-law. For those of you who don’t know the story, you should -- it’s both explosive and inspiring; not to mention that Moats himself was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2005…

In Dallas, Texas, in the early hours of March 18th last year, Ryan Moats received an urgent call from the local hospital where his wife’s mother, of only 45 years, was about to die from a losing battle with breast cancer. Naturally, he rushed out of the house and raced toward the hospital as fast as he could. Remarkably however, Ryan did not apathetically speed through any stop signs or traffic lights like I certainly would, but rather, he put on his hazards and checked both ways before cautiously continuing onward. I know all this, because it is all there for each of us to see – a video shot by the dashboard camera of a police officer who had thrown on his sirens when spotting Ryan roll through a light at an intersection close to the hospital’s proximity.

Noticing the sirens behind him, Ryan nonetheless pulled his SUV into the emergency room parking lot, and there found a second later, much to his surprise, Officer Powell rushing out of his vehicle only to draw his weapon. He drew his weapon… and ordered for both Ryan and his wife, who was with him, to put their hands on the car and not to move. But his wife painfully cried out, “my mother is dying, do you understand that? and then ran into the hospital, disobeying orders. Ryan, however, remained outside while Powell lectured him, wrote a ticket and threatened to arrest him even after being told by Ryan AND hospital employees that his mother-in-law was in fact near death inside the hospital.

And this went on for 13 minutes! 13 minutes. And if you watch the video, you’ll witness how Ryan was pleading with Powell, saying…

13 minutes went by before Powell finally allowed Ryan to go inside the hospital, and when he finally got to his mother-in-law’s room, she had already died.

Well the next day there was an obvious outcry. People were calling for the head of the officer, declaring that it was an unnecessary use of force and a grave perversion of power. And yet… Ryan, who you would only expect to be furious and contemptuous with rage, went on the Morning Show and said that he forgave Officer Powell. We all have messed up, and I forgive him.

Instead of getting on the horse and meeting the expectations of the crowds, he got on the proverbial mule and employed the truest weapon of them all -- unpredictable humility. Ryan Moats, an NFL football player, who was induced with athletic aggression since the day he picked up a football, completely reversed roles with another man who was hired into a position of power meant to keep the peace.

Who does this remind you of?

Obviously.

But how about someday also yourself.

Amen.

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