Palm
Sunday: An Invitation to Live
a sermon based on Matthew 21:1-11
by Rev. Cindy Weber
William Hazlitt wrote that
no young man believes that he will ever die, and the truth of the
matter, I think, is that in some measure that is true of all of us.
Intellectually we all know that we will die, but we do not really know
it in the sense that the knowledge becomes part of us. We do not
really know it in the sense of living as though it were true. On the
contrary, we tend to live as though our lives would go on forever. We
spend our lives like drunken sailors (Frederick Buechner, Listening to
Your Life, p. 226, adapted ).
In the book, Four Spirits,
by Sara Jeter Naslun, Darl and Stella are talking:
“Do you know the average
altitude for the flight of robins?” he asked.
A spurt of laughter flew
from between Stella’s lips…”I don’t have the foggiest idea,” she
said.
“About thirty inches.”
“What a waste!” she said.
“To have the gift of flight and to fly so low.”
And that’s what we’re all
scared of, isn’t it, having the gift of flight and yet flying so low,
coming to the end of our lives and realizing that we lived like
drunken sailors, coming to the end of our lives and realizing that
most of what we’ve done is to play it safe, that we’ve only had a few
moments when we’ve really shined, when we’ve really managed to hold on
to what matters most....
As we read this morning’s
scripture, we see Jesus heading into Jerusalem, purposefully,
publicly. His triumphal entry, as it is often called, is not as
triumphal as it is a sort of a street theater...
click here
to see all resources
