Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
"Here as in Heaven."
For more information visit : garden.church
Welcome to GARDEN CHURCH Podcast. We are a community in Southern California dedicated to raising resilient disciples of Jesus Christ.
Bill Dogterom:Good morning. It's good to be with you. Can we posture ourselves, with prayer for the hearing of the word today? Amen. Amen.
Bill Dogterom:So over the last several weeks, we have been spending time profitably I think in the stories of the early church, looking for the ways that God invites them to to give up their understandings of how things ought to be in the kingdom so that they have capacity to receive the people and the protocols of the real kingdom as it comes and recognizing the costs of that along the way and and the strategies by which you can kind of get yourself if you will into the flow of what God is doing, keeping in step with the spirit. Right? And and this is super important not just as an historical kind of isn't that interesting what happened then, but as a way of learning the the strategies if you will, rather than simply imitative of behavior, we want to kind of sink down deeply into the into the ways that they were shaped by the spirit so that we ourselves in our day and age can enjoy and get ourselves into the flow of whatever it is that God might be doing. And that's that's important because as we will learn in church history, it's not too many years after the passages that we've been in that it starts to go starts to wobble a little bit.
Bill Dogterom:It starts to go sideways as early on the church begins to wonder how can how can we leverage this power, this work, this movement of the spirit for our advantage rather than for the advantage of the world? How can how how how can we how can we kind of get a little bit of a booster into how we think the world ought to be? And you will recognize that Jesus won't have anything to do with that because the passage we look at today because we're gonna kinda put a pause on the book of Acts and go back to our origin story in a sense with this holy week and and look at how how exactly did Jesus become Lord of all? And surprise of all surprises, despite the fact that we have told this story dozens and dozens of times, the way up in the kingdom is the way down. It's a descent into glory not an ascent into glory.
Bill Dogterom:It's a humbling, it is a releasing of power not an acquisition of power. It is gentleness and humility not assertion. And the challenge with that of course is it's as problematic to us as it was to them. So we tell the story over over and over again. We celebrate, right?
Bill Dogterom:Resurrection, for goodness sakes, we've even got a billboard this year. Hello. Moving up in the world. And love, resurrection changes everything. Y'all, that's true.
Bill Dogterom:But resurrection has a prerequisite and that is you gotta die first. Otherwise resurrection is null and void, changes nothing. Right? It's an oddity that we can observe. Right?
Bill Dogterom:So Jesus doesn't do what he does in this sequence of days so that we could put him on a poster, so that we could Instagram, you know, highlights of Jesus's life, but so that we could learn how to follow him because we still have the same temptation today that they had then and that is to leverage Jesus for our personal gain. And whether that's supernatural empowerment or whether it's physical healing or whether it's political power, we still want Jesus to kind of do what we want Jesus to do. You know? Anybody else have an agenda for Jesus? Anybody else by the way, is he ghosting you, he's not returning your calls on that agenda?
Bill Dogterom:I don't think he's writing stuff down when I talk to him anymore. I think he's kind of moved on from that. But instead what he does is saying, you follow me. I don't intend to follow you. You follow me.
Bill Dogterom:Learn your life from me. And that includes then the events of this day that we celebrate, all hail king Jesus and watch how he subverts the systems, turns them right on their head. Here's the problem, we have the same challenge today that they had in the early days. You only see what confirms what you want to see. You only hear what confirms what you want to hear.
Bill Dogterom:The uninformed certain will not be helped by more facts. The uninformed certain will not even be dissuaded from their certainty by what they see if it doesn't conform to what they want to see and by they I mean we. So when we look at this story, the beginning of this holy week, we we It starts off with some measure of promise. We're in Matthew's version of this story beginning at verse one of chapter 21 and Jesus inviting us kind of in this retrospective says, the story is as they approached, the disciples and Jesus approached Jerusalem, came to the little village of Bethphage to the Mount Of Olives, he sent two disciples saying to them, go on to the village ahead, you'll find there a donkey tied with her colt by her. Untie them, bring them to me.
Bill Dogterom:If anybody says anything to you say that the Lord needs them. He will send them right away. This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet, say to the daughter of Zion, see your king comes to you gentle riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. So the disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on and a very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road while others cut branches from the trees, spread them on the road and the crowds went on ahead of him and those that followed were shouting Hosanna to the son of David.
Bill Dogterom:Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. When Jesus entered Jerusalem the whole city was stirred and asked, who is this? And the crowds answered, this is Jesus the prophet from Nazareth in the Galilee. Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there.
Bill Dogterom:He overturned the tables of the money changers, the benches of those who were selling doves. It is written, he said, my house will be called a house of prayer but you are making it a den of robbers. The blind and the lame then came to him in the temple and he healed them But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things that he was doing and children shouting in the temple courts, Hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant. Do you hear what the children are saying? They asked him.
Bill Dogterom:Yes, Jesus replied. Have you never read from the lips of children and infants, Lord, you have called forth your praise. And then he left them and went out of the city to Bethany where he spent the night. This is one of those stories that you kinda gotta buckle in because it is is hairpin turns, it is plunges and it is it's gonna spin you upside down on this because this is a story of what happens when when Jesus disappoints you. Anybody been disappointed by Jesus lately?
Bill Dogterom:Few of you, the rest of you, wait, because again I keep on saying if Jesus can't disappoint you, you need to get a new Jesus because the one who is the lord of lords wants to be your lord too which means that he doesn't always take direction very well. And in this particular case, we have the scenario in which everybody knows what I mean here we are, we're coming up to Passover. This combination of of of of of July 4, Independence Day, Memorial Day, everything all pulled in here. No Kings Day, all Let's get all of these people gathered around. We want this this celebration of Jewish independence.
Bill Dogterom:Remember the Passover was the day on which we celebrate our deliverance from Egypt. It is a coalescing national holy day that stokes the fire, stokes the fervor and on top of that you have the population compressed into the holy city. It's estimated that Jerusalem swells by three times. People are staying outside the walls in tents as they as they as they journey into the city for the holy day celebration. So here's this intensity, the pressure is increasing, the the it it is becoming a tinderbox of nationalism.
Bill Dogterom:It's becoming a con possibly a conflagration. All we need is somebody who will spark the fire and we will follow that leader wherever he goes. Oh look who's coming down the road now. Jesus said to his disciples who had the same expectations as everybody else in the crowd and thought they had an inside track on the revolution. Remember what they had been talking about on the way into Jerusalem?
Bill Dogterom:Which of them was the greatest? I'm just thinking they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer here because Jesus has been saying what on his way to Jerusalem? I'm gonna go to Jerusalem. I'm gonna be betrayed. I'm gonna be put on trial.
Bill Dogterom:I'm gonna be executed. I'm gonna rise again the third day. And because he was not saying what they wanted him to say, they stopped listening to him. Right? And anybody recognize that pathology?
Bill Dogterom:Right? So here here they have an expectation so he says to them, now go find something for a donkey will do. When you go into town you and apparently Jesus has been doing things without telling them. Isn't it annoying when Jesus has a life outside of you? He set up this apparently this arrangement that just if somebody asks, just say the lord, they'll know what you mean.
Bill Dogterom:They'll let the donkey go with you and and and of course, they they they are they are They've gotten used to his quirky ways, you know Jesus. Sometimes he just does weird things and and so rather than the stallion which we would expect the the the charger, right, that we would expect him to ride into Jerusalem maybe with a sword drawn, maybe just a suggestion that would coalesce all of these nationalistic fervor to revolution. We get a donkey and not even a working donkey, a donkey in full. Oh crap. Okay, well.
Bill Dogterom:So we spread our our and then he goes and Matthew says, now remember guys, he's writing two or three decades later looking back on that moment when he himself was one of the robes that was put on the donkey. This was done to fulfill the prophecy that says your king will come. Your king will come gentle on a beast of burden, a donkey and a colt. That's what was going on but Matthew I think would be fair to say we didn't see it at the time. We were blinded by what we saw or more particularly what we wanted to see.
Bill Dogterom:Right? So they go into town with this awareness and sure enough the buzz has started to build. I mean there was that moment on TMZ, know that episode they had, something's coming down, it's starting to go viral, it's starting to go viral and all of these people are gathered around and the crowd is gathering and they are putting their robes on the ground in front of him, submitting to his leadership palm branches. Now here's here's where prayer becomes demand because palm branches as you may recall from the last revolution were the symbol of the family of the Maccabees, the last deliverers of Israel. From the Greeks, they had coins minted and on the coins which were now illegal to hold but people held them was a palm branch.
Bill Dogterom:So here in every palm branch tradition tells us that's put on the road in front of this this donkey and its foe beyond beyond their expectation, every palm branch was a request but also a demand. Every palm branch was a prayer as well as a condition and they are calling out, listen to the language, Hosanna, the son of David, the David the great warrior king who established the city as his headquarters, as the capital of Jerusalem. The center of the world Jerusalem was to be and now is our chance to reclaim our identity. Now is our chance to be the people of God so we can take over the world the way we were intended to take it over. Let's make Israel great again.
Bill Dogterom:And Jesus, can you imagine how solid you have to be in your identity not to be bullied by tens of thousands of people projecting their understanding of who you are on you and you know just a whisper, just a hint could be leveraged to enormous power and position and place and wealth. And because Jesus had a solid sense of who he was and what he came to do, he just rides blithely on and lets them sing the song that they think they're singing. He hears the echo bouncing on the city streets, He hears the song of prayer, deliver us the Hosanna, come and save us and just in case Jesus you're not sure how we want to be saved. Son of David. That rings with strategy.
Bill Dogterom:And Jesus following this desperate for deliverance crowd, hearing the longing of their hearts for revenge, for an awareness of of how how bad this has gotten. Refuses to be pushed around by their desperation. I think it's important to remember that many in this same crowd are gonna be the ones who cry in five days crucify him. They didn't kill Jesus because he was a nice guy who healed people, they killed Jesus because he disappointed their expectations. I wish I could tell you that day is over but it is not.
Bill Dogterom:It is not. So he rides into town and apparently he forgot to read the itinerary that had him turn right and go to the Roman garrison and circle it at least seven times out of Jericho to send a message that their date He didn't do that instead he turned left and went to the temple. The temple. And there he cleans house. He goes into this outer court that had been designed back in the day first by by Solomon then by the rebuild under under Herod and and this temple had this this court for the gentiles, the the God fearers from the the people to whom they were supposed to be a light to the nations.
Bill Dogterom:Remember? The descendants of Abraham were supposed to bless the nations. And the best they could do was create a courtyard where the gentiles could come and pray. They couldn't get into the holy place much less the holy of holies but at least here they could as God fearers come to pray. But you know how it is during the festivals, we've got pilgrims coming, proper pilgrims, people who who have a right to come into the holy place and they're coming from great distances.
Bill Dogterom:They gotta figure out a way to convert their their their money to the temple's coin. So we'll just we'll just And maybe the poor ones need to buy a dove or two marked up of course, I mean it is. Oh holy days. And this whole courtyard that had been devised and developed and built for the gentiles to come and pray and seek God now had become a commercial zone and he calls it finally a den of robbers. You're ripping people off and he turns the tables over and he chases them out and you just don't wanna get on the wrong side of Jesus when he has Gentiles in his view.
Bill Dogterom:I wonder sometimes how much of our church doing makes it hard for people to come to know him. I'll just leave that because I don't know how to answer that one yet but I think it's worth thinking about, don't you? But here he comes into the temple, cleaning the house, setting the table again for the Gentiles to whom the mission of the of the nation was originally intended but had gotten subverted by their own pride, their own leveraging of specialness and the losers are always going to be the people on the edges. And then notice what he does next. He goes into the temple square and blind people and lepers and lame people and all other kinds of folks follow him and he doesn't just let them, he encourages them to come him and blind people are healed and deaf people are hearing and lepers are cleansed.
Bill Dogterom:Remember, these people should not be here. Their ailment makes them unclean. They are not intended to go into the place of worship and he is inviting the riffraff and children. Those perennial unclean rug rat, who knows where they've been crawling. Literally, you, if you, then you don't get to go into the holy place because you're You're unclean and Jesus is saying, let them come and they learn, they learn from a few chapters before.
Bill Dogterom:Not only do you not wanna get in Jesus's way when there are Gentiles present, you don't wanna get in Jesus's way when there are children present. He will mow you down on his way to them. Right? And the children get it. Hosanna, the son of David.
Bill Dogterom:Except it rings differently when it's said by children. It rings Do you catch the irony? Who sees more clearly who he is? The sighted people or the blind people? And Matthew is intentionally ironic in this moment that the people, the the the loved losers, the the people on the edges, the folks that have nobody to represent them, the folks that have have have no business being there are are invited to the to the and and so the the the folks who are threatened by what is happening here, the professionally religious people, folks like me come to him and said, do do do you you hear what these children are saying?
Bill Dogterom:And I could just see the twinkle in his eye. Do you hear what the children are saying? Because if you don't wanna believe something no amount of fact will help. They were seeing people healed before their eyes and still could not see beyond the moment to the one who was the healer. They couldn't see.
Bill Dogterom:Why not? Because these are not stupid people. These are people who reckon oh I know what I know where this is going. I know where this is going. If he's allowed to continue to do this, a) the Romans are gonna come in here and sweep.
Bill Dogterom:They've killed people on this square before and if this bubbles up, who knows? But more importantly, our positions are at risk. Our power is at risk. If if this is the because remember the buzz on the street when he came in, who is this? This is this is Jesus the prophet from Nazareth in the Galilee where the last three messiahs have come from.
Bill Dogterom:The last three pretenders had come from. They were they were they were You know that little backwater patch just north of Hemet where all the all of conspiracy folks are coming, it's bubbling up and my Barbara's best friend's neighbor's wife heard it, heard it, here he is, here he's coming. Maybe you saw the fake, the deep, there it is, there it is. They know where this is going. They know where this is going and cannot for the life of them allow it to go there.
Bill Dogterom:Because they will lose. Yeah, that's what happens when you want resurrection. You've gotta die. And then the most chilling verse in the entire passage to me. Verse 17, He left them and left the city and went to Bethany.
Bill Dogterom:This is not just a let's keep track of Jesus moment. This is not just about you know GPS coordinates. This is a theological statement having been identified as the son of David to whom we pray, save us. He left them very much in the way that the holy spirit, the spirit left in the vision of Ezekiel this very temple's predecessor and joined the people in exile to the East in Babylon. He left them is a chilling indictment on the end of their system and they are relieved that the trouble maker has left town.
Bill Dogterom:And notice where he goes, he goes to Bethany. This this kind of mile and a half, two miles outside the just kind of a one stop sign. It's small village. Bethany and Bethphage were were were two near villages. Their translation is a little different but Bethphage means something like the house of unripe figs.
Bill Dogterom:And Bethany means something like the house of pain, the house of the poor, the house of disappointment. And where does he spend his night? In the house of disappointment. The house of pain. The house of the poor.
Bill Dogterom:He's not gonna go back into Jerusalem overnighting until he is executed just outside the city gates on Friday morning. He will be back and forth in the city. And this is particularly important because you'll remember on his way into town the next day he's gonna come into a fig tree that is supposed to be bearing fruit and isn't. And the connection will be made to the temple system that is supposed to be bearing fruit and isn't. And he is going to say to his disciples gathered there, if you have faith, if you stand in the reality of who I am and if you stand in the reality of the kingdom come, you can pray to this, you can say to this mountain.
Bill Dogterom:He is pointing to the Temple Mount where the sacrificial system still reigns supreme. He says, you can you can say to this mountain, be cast into the sea and it will be done. Why? Because when you stand and the reality of the kingdom come, that mountain is no longer necessary nor useful. The system of sacrifice will become null and void five days from now with the final sacrifice.
Bill Dogterom:I mean it's just astonishing what Matthew's doing here and especially because Jesus doesn't do this so that we can make Jesus a poster child. He didn't die so we wouldn't have to, he died so that we would know how to and not just on Friday but on every day leading up to Friday, it is a descent that he looks back over his shoulder every once in a while and says, are you still with me? You still with me? Will you give up finally your view that more revenge will result in peace? Will you give up finally the view that more war will result in less war?
Bill Dogterom:Will you give up finally the view that you can just punish your enemies into submission? The only way, the only way that the world will be saved is by serving it to death. Are you in? That's the question because we want Jesus to bless our otherwise fairly functional lives. Resurrection is nice like once a year and we'll manage fairly confidently and fairly well most of the rest of the time.
Bill Dogterom:We want a little smear of Jesus. But he won't have any of it. He won't have any of it. He doesn't come to make your life better. He comes to kill you because he knows on the other side of that is what you most long for, life in him.
Bill Dogterom:Let's pray. Oh Lord, as we sit with this challenging text and I find myself resonating with the anxiety of disciples and rabbis and the chief priests who are just confused and chaotic by what they're seeing, what they're knowing and recognizing what it means. I find myself perhaps we find ourselves in the same way. We recognize oh lord that you come to save but that you will determine the conditions under which salvation is accomplished and it will not be in the ways that we would prefer where you take on all of our enemies and wipe the ground with them. It will only come in your way as you absorb their pain as well as ours, as you absorb their sin as well as ours, as you come and love them as much as you love us and then invite us to do the same in real time having learned our lives from you.
Bill Dogterom:I pray oh Lord for courage as we sing that you are Lord, as we sing and celebrate your identity. I pray that we would learn ours from you so that we can join you on this journey. In Jesus name, amen.
Intro/Outro:Thank you for listening. For more information, please visit us online at garden.church.