BLESSED RAGE FOR GOD

April 12, 1987, 11:00 a.m. Worship Service
John M.. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Scripture
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Matthew 21:1-14

“And Jesus entered the temple of God and drove’ out all ‘who sold and
bought..." ~-Matthew. 21:12 {RSV}

There are times when religion ought to get under our skin a bit,
occasions when faith ought to do more than provide assurance, comfort and
solace. Palm Sunday is one of them. In the Fourth Gospel account of the
event there is a haunting line...:. his opponents are observing the virtual.
riot he has incited by coming to Jerusalem on the first day of Passover
week, and are lamenting that because of his enormous popularity they seem
to have no way to get rid of him, which is what they are planning to do at
the first opportunity, and as the parade passes by with the shouting people
and the children, in a kind of pregnant futility they say -—."Look, the
world is going after him."

That's a hauntingly beautiful line. And indeed, for twenty centuries.
the world has gone after him, or at least has never ceased being intrigued
by him and compelled by him, and has never succeeded in ignoring him for
very long. But."the world" is also defined by the fact. that the Palm
Sunday parade didn't last very long, that the crowd which welcomed him with
such exhilaration, tearing branches. off trees and coats off backs, shouting
“Hosanna” was, in rather short order, shoved aside and replaced by another.
crowd which observed his public humiliation and participated ‘in it by
screaming for his crucifixion. The worid is partially defined by the
possibility that at least some in those two crowds ~ the crowd that _we
know, the crowd that Ciamored for execution — were Uhe same people. That's
the world we live in: ambiguo —ckle. The parade doesn't Tast. Palm
Sunday is the first day of the week in which Jesus Christ: was put to death.
Holy Week is Holy, in chureh tradition, not because of today's temporary
triumph, but because of that awful triumph of love which happened on
Friday.

Why did. he do it? Why, in the face of all the good advice to remain
in Galilee, why,.in the face of powerful opposition to him, the high-level
decision to eliminate him at the first opportunity - why.did he insist on
coming to Jerusalem? The answer is that he knew something no one else
knew. The premise on which he lived - and the truth that he taught ~ is
that life is lived best when it is given to high and noble purposes: | that
life is to be given extravagantly, that prudent caution can-limit life in
the name of protecting and preserving it. He said plainly - “it is more
blessed - (which means happier) to give than to receive.”.: lle said plainly
“the person who loses life for my sake will find it." ..And so, even though
it contradicls our wisdom, going to the city was a consistent playing out

of: those great motifs he had been expressing all along. The man knew
- something no one’ else knew. : ses

3

I think he knew that his life was rapidly approaching its supreme
crisis.. I have never been able to believe he was simply playing out the
divine script. His: humanity, like ours, filled him with anxiety, fear, and
hope for a peaceful and long life. I believe he made’ decisions that -day -
which were fateful, but which were utterly free and utterly human. [ think
he came to Jerusalem because he, knew it was his vocation: it was the
consistent expression of his own sense of himself, and to decide not to
come, to opt for the relative safety and serenity of Galilee would have
been a denial of who he was. . There is a day, I believe, when who we are is
simply declared to us - given to us Dy Cod... It is the day when the
mountain must be climbed, the race run, the campaign conducted, the
decision made, the battle fought, when not to act, to hesitate, is to deny
our very being.

He knew he was a wanted man. The Sanhedrin had decided several
months before to have him arrested: whenever the opportunity presented
itself. He knew that. wherever: he went: people were beginning to call him:
Messiah and King. He knew that:he could die for that: He knew that those

titles sounded like treason and blasphemy to powerful people in the capital
city; that it's one thing to be called the Christ in the gentle hills
around the Sea of Galilee and it’ is another thing:altogether to be called
the Christ:within earshot of the High Priest in the busy precincts of the
Temple. Like it or not what selis in Peoria often doesn't make it An
Manhattan or Chicago. .

And he knew how explosive the atmosphere was every Passover, when
hundreds of thousands of pilgrims crowded into Jerusalem to celebrate the
nation's liberation from Egyptian slavery centuries before. He knew that
patriotic fervor ran high and that Passover made the. Romans very nervous.
It's no wonder. the disciples:and the small entourage of friends followed
along behind, caught up in a combination of admiration: for his courage and
at-the same time terror at the probable outcome and their own-involvement
in it.

They stopped for the night: at: Bethany, the -home.of Martha, Mary and.
Lazarus. The next morning, the first day of Passover week, he began to act
very deliberately. Having’ come °all the way from Jericho on foot, he
requested a donkey for the last few miles. So, he rode into Jerusalem, and
the Galileans who knew him or about him, the country folk on holiday in
the big city, were there to greet him. What they saw must have taken their
breath away.- One of-their favorite: passages of Scripture was the messianic
“prophecy in. the- Book of the Prophet Zechariah - "Lo, your king comes ‘to |
you: «triumphant and: victorious.-is he,: humble and: riding’ on an ass.".:.

They erupted. Literally...’ Having come to the city to celebrate
Passover they were caught up in-the possibility that the rumors about him
were true. He was the Messiah. He was saying as*much. .He was claiming.

ait. They were about to witness’ something their forebears had waited for,
prayed for, longed for, for generation after generation... And so they -tore
branches: from the trees and the clothes off their backs to lay in his path.

fo

4-12-87

As he headed for the Temple the intensity would have increased. The
authorities were getting more nervous; the people more frenzied. What
happened next did nothing te dissuade them. The outer court of the Temple
was public space: Gentiles were welcome there. But in 30 A.D., the High
Priest, Ciaphas, in a dispute with the authorities, had allowed merchants
and money changers to set up shop there. ‘Gifts, tithes and temple taxes
had to be paid in Jewish coinage. So tables were arranged for exchanging
Roman money for appropriate coins - for a fee. In addition, the law :
required that only animals without blemish could be offered as a sacrifice.
Pre-inspected animals were available for pilgrims. And so the Outer Court, -
where Gentiles were welcome for worship and prayer had become a noisy,
raucous, smelly, and immensely profitable bazaar.

With his band of friends and ‘the noisy demonstrators behind him,
Jesus took one look and overturned the tables of the money changers and
drove off the salesmen and their livestock. It must have been quite a
scene. it, too, was reminiscent of a precious Messianic prophecy everyone
on the premises knew by heart -

“The Lord. whom you seek will suddenly come to his Tempie...but
who can endure the day of his coming?" the prophet Malachi had
asked... “For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's
soap," ;

That was it: the moment to which all the deep hopes of generations
had been pointing. All he had to do was’ say the word and the Temple would
have been theirs and the Kingdom would come... Instead; he sat down and,
of all things, blind people, sick people, crippled people came to him and
he healed them. After a while he got up and left and went back to Bethany
for the night. The crowd was gone. The King they welcomed turned out not
to be the King they wanted. The scene was set for spurned love to become
hatred, for the nervous authorities to make their move. - The day. which -had
begun with such high promise had made the crucifixion: inevitable.

There is about Jesus on this day a high and holy intentionality. =
There is a sense today that he truly was in control: | that the only one
acting with absolute integrity is the strange Rabbi on the donkey. There
is about him this day an intensity, which is both attractive and
frightening, which flashed in anger and which, borrowing from a book title
by Chicago theologian David Tracy, I have come to know asa Blessed Rage for
God. I have come to believe that to participate in that, to stand back a
bit as those frightened disciples did: to know the awesome rage of this
utterly intentional man on his way to his death - is agenda enough for this -
day. ;

First of all there is the flash of anger...which contradicts,
sometimes, favorite images of Jesus... Anger puts us off; doesn't it?
Polite, refined culture, -at least .of the WASPish genre, doesn't know what
to do with anger, is made uncomfortable: by anger. Some of us learned over
the years that anger itself is not appropriate, that we ought not to be
angry, that good people, nice people, don't get angry. And it has taken
some of us a lot of years to discover that we were created with the

* wonderful capacity for a range cof emotions, from joy to grief, from love to”

hatred, from affection and Just to anger. It has taken ‘some of us years to

4-12-87

‘learn - with a solid assist from the psychologists, that while we: are
responsible for our behavior,.we are. not responsible for having - feelings:
that you don't. have to punch or insult everyone with whom you are angry,
but you do_ yourself. no favor. and..probably.a lot .of harm by denying that you
are angry. ' . ;

Jesus! blessed rage at what was transpiring in the Temple courts
ought at least to allow for the productive use of occasional anger, even
outrage. Those nen who gathered. in-Philadeiphia in the summer of 1776. and
declared our Independence, turned out to be, upon historical inquiry,
controlied and focused, but nevertheless thoroughly angry. young men. -
Sometimes we ought to get angry. It might be good: for us and.for the whole
system. Sometimes there are injustices so profound that the only way ever
to cope with them creatively is to begin with the anger they stimulate.:
Two weeks ago I was.at.a-shelter for .the homeiess.for just a few minutes,
and: in: the course of. my:stay a one-month old baby boy: was plunked into my
arms. His mother has had four babies, three of whom. have been placed-in
foster homes... She is fighting to keep this one. But she has no- home.
Nothing. about her past cor present has prepared her. for child raising or
even for coping with the ordinary details of daily living.. She doesn't
even have an address. . She is one of. the thousands of people who doesn't
come close to reaching the bottom of the sagging support system we must not
ever call a safety net. Her son will die soon - if not of exposure and
malnutrition and disease then surely he will die-emotionally,
intellectually and spiritually,. which means that his. actual death will. be
at the hands ofa gang, or the police,.or in prison. .-And so I have been
dealing with anger - that this wonderful system which serves some of us so
generously,.can produce that - or allow that - or rationalize that. - or
disguise that... His. blessed rage invites.ours, I. would. propose.

The major motif, of course,:.is that he came to the city in. the first
place. For twenty centuries Christian people have tried to.pretend that he
didn't; ‘that the focus of the. Gospel narrative.is. in. the.countryside,. the .
gentle hills of Galilee. For if it ‘remains there, his Gospel can be
confined .to. the serene contours ofthe heart and never-have .to confront
the’ jagged edges, and- blunt, harsh realities of the city.. We. have tried
valiantly to maintain that. what: Christianity is-about is the internal
spirituality of the individual-and that: everything. outside. that private
sphere is worldly, tainted, secular, inappropriate-to be in relationship
with Jesus. re

In our time that emphasis has met, head-on, a-cultural phenomenon
called the "“New.Narcissism" -.the-protracted concentration on the self. -
self -fulfillment, self actualization, which earned the nick-name, the “Me
Generation": and which used to be called selfishness, and it was love .at
first sight. Now you can have. it-ail: the assurance of your personal
salvation and God's unconditional love for. you without any. spill over into
the ambiguities of life. You can feel good about who you are without
feeling. bad about anything - without muddying the. water. with a lot of human
ambiguous issues, political, :social and economic issues. A young friend
of mine, a very successful. broker, whose integrity I admire and whose.
friendship I.value, called. me to. say that he, a.nominal.Presbyterian,. had
been turned on spiritually, had "found the Lord" -- was quitting
Presbyterianism:and. joining a."“booming" church because it was: "spiritual"

A-~19-R7

and affirmed who he was and didn't ask him - his words, net mine - to
change his lifestyle or values - and. didn't ever make him "feel bad."

1 wonder where he found that Lord? © It wouldn't have been an Palm
Sunday. Because he's busy - in the center of the city, turning-tables ever
in the Temple and challenging the priests and politicians and the business
community in an act of moral outrage, which concludes with him sitting down
and dealing with the poor, sick, blind, and crippled - who the politicians
and the religious authorities quite forgot.

The blessed rage of our Lord means that what happens in the city, in
the intense focus of humanity which is what city means, is blessed and holy
because it is so secular and so human. It means that the line between
sacred and secular is not distinct. It means that when the elevators don't
work at Cabrini-Green because we can't seem to generate the funds to keep
them fixed, we are dealing with a matter about which Jesus Christ cares.

; What made him so angry in the Temple courts, I think, was the
profaning of God's name. That is the everlasting danger of public religion
- that in the process of being so public, God's name is’ misused,
misrepresented. That is the tragedy of the front page debacle television
religion has experienced: when all is said and done, it is not moral
lapses - but the theological misrepresentation.

Reinhold Niebuhr, writing for another genération but remarkably
relevant at this moment in history proposed: "Secularism is, on the one
hand the expression of our sinful self-sufficiency. It may be, on the
other hand, a reaction to profanity. Some people are atheists because of a
higher implicit theism than that professed by believers. They reject God
because his name has been taken in vain, and they are unable to distinguish
between his holiness and its profanization." [The Christian Church in a
Secular Age, The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr, R. W. Brown, p. 85]

Some of the secularism about which we are so concerned may reflect an
integrity, a deeper sense of God's justice, God's grace, God's love, God's
mercy — than what is proposed with consummate media and marketing skill by
the televangelists.

Jesus came to the city with a holy intentionality and a blessed rage
for God. He calis the Church to be there - to be his presence: to remind
the city that there is a God: to open its arms to lonely, forgotten city
people with an- inclusive, unconditional acceptance and love. We are called
to a ministry of presence here, at this secular intersection. And on this
day we must remember that part of that presence is the brave intent to
change the place, to be the instrument for its reconciliation, to be the
advocate for its outcast and lost sheep, and to be about that presence with
an occasional blessed rage for Gad.

It is a strong Christ who bids.us to follow today: a Christ whose
strength has always been compelling to me even as it has frightened me: a
Christ I. love and respectfully proclaim to you. He is a Christ who takes
the world seriously enough, loves the world profoundly enough to get angry.

That strong Christ, 1 believe, will be even more personal and

1

intimate to you,.-¢f you allow him to be in the city and if. you would dare
follow him there:; that is, if you-simply erase the line between him and the
rest of. your life, the line you have drawn between spiritual. and secular
matters, the line: between your faith. and economics, politics, or social,
familial, sexual.or marital concerns. That strong Christ will minister

to you, will be your Lord and Savior in powerful and creative new ways. if
you will-open yourself to the transforming possibility that he has more-in
mind for you than your emotional enjoyment.

That.strong Christ will be there fer you and with you in the crises
of your life which are probably not going to confine themselves to the
department you have labeled “spiritual.” That strong. Christ will take your
hand in his...

~-as you face an unknown future

--as you make difficult decisions about your life

--as you feel within yourself anger at unfairness and injustice.

--as you lie in a sleepless hospital bed. at 4:00 a.m. waiting for
surgery bores

-ras.you stand with influential people torn between your principles:
and expediency.

That strong Christ, capable of anger and profound love, faced the
reality of death, and will take your hand in his and be your Lord and your
savior when you walk that same road. He has been there ahead of you... . he
will be there with you and for... he bids you follow along behind... to
join that blessed company which began that day and continues to this day -
about whom it was said -

"Look,...the worid has gone after him." Amen. |

Praise to you Lord God -- for strong and impatient love.

Praise to you, Lord God - for courageous love which became in
Jesus Christ - a blessed rage for you and your Kingdon.

Praise to you - for the impulse in ourselves.- ta follow - to ;
stumble along behind...to raise our voices and wave our branches.

Praise to you for Jesus Christ your son —- our Saviour and our Lord.

Amen.

6

4-12-87