Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to comm.church for more information.

Today is Palm Sunday. That moment in our year when we enter into the final steps that lead us to Easter, and we commemorate together Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem. Now there's a lot of symbolism and meaning and even politics involved in that moment, and so we'll take some time to unpack it today. But first, we need to look back at where we've been. Because all through Lent, we have been working our way through the second half of the Gospel of John that is sometimes called the book of glory.

And it's called that because, as you've seen, every week we keep coming across that word, glory. It's a theme that weaves its way through this conversation. And that's important because the truth is everything that we have been looking at and working our way through this series in Lent is a single conversation happening around a table, a meal often called the last supper. And here, Jesus has one last chance to say one last thing to some of his closest friends before the events of Easter unfold. But that means that everything in this series, the entire conversation from John 13 all the way through to John 17 where we find ourselves today, everything we have been talking about during Lent has actually been happening during Holy Week.

See, in the Gospel of John, Palm Sunday is pretty early to all the way back in chapter 12. And there Jesus enters the city and the crowds come to greet him. In fact, it's in John that we get the reference to the palm branches that have become synonymous with this day. But then, after the crowds go home, Jesus and his friends withdraw from the public for a meal together. And it all starts with Jesus washing his friends' feet.

Now, that was about as awkward then as it is today, although for different reasons culturally. Now, the washing of feet was certainly more common, at least in public. We don't do that often. I mean, let's be honest here. Do any of you actually wash your feet?

Really? Come on. It's church. You can be honest here. We kinda just trust gravity to look after that when we're in the shower.

Right? That's working smart. Are you really gonna get down there and scrub your toes? No. You're not.

Okay. Fine. Forget I said that, but people in Jesus' day were a little more deliberate about this than us. After all, they lived and worked and walked in open toed sandals all day, so the washing of feet was a normal part of life even when you entered someone's home. It was however still something for the lowly.

So it's not just the feet that starts this dinner party off on an awkward foot, pun intended. It's that Jesus, this one that they all look up to, has taken the lowly space in front of them. Which, if we're really being honest here, is not what we want in a leader. I mean, we want someone who's humble, or at least who gives the oppression of that, but we want a leader who we aspire to be. And often, we don't aspire to serve, at least not in the way that Jesus does.

Not this way. In fact, Peter even tries to refuse his foot bath because he does not want to see his role model acting like this in front of him. And so our book of glory begins with Jesus leaving the adoration of the crowd to pick up a towel and wash his friends feet even against their objections. Glory. Next, Jesus predicts his betrayal.

In fact, he tells his friends he is at their mercy and that one of their number will misuse that power over him. Even those that he trusts the most in the world will eventually abandon him. Again, more glory. Now Jesus talks about himself as the way and the truth and the life. He says, there's only ever been one way to God, and that way looks like me.

And maybe this is where we start to think that we've got something more like the glory that we expected. And yet again, as we saw in this section, it's not a threat. It's not a boast. This is not Jesus as jealous gatekeeper of God. This is an invitation to see God everywhere.

Wherever you have found a way, and wherever you have experienced truth, wherever you are finding life right now, that is it has always been me, says Jesus. Way and the truth and life, they find their culmination in Jesus even though we sometimes walk past them every single day. Glory is all around us all the time says Jesus. We heard Jesus talk about gardens and gardeners and vines and branches. And he talks about this beautiful flow from the father to Jesus then to us and through us.

And that led to this arresting idea that God is constantly pruning us, shaping us, and helping us to become all that we were meant to be. And that guidance and even correction, this is something to lean into rather than run away from. And the image here is the gentle care of a master gardener who longs to see us flourish. And I love this line that Scott used, the green thumb of grace because that too is glory. And then last week we spoke about spirit.

And I think in some ways this was actually my favorite part of the series. Bobby walked us through Jesus' gift of the Paraclete, the comforter or sometimes better known as the Holy Spirit. I always resonate with that section in John, I think because it's not a topic I talk about regularly. For that reason alone, I think it can be helpful to hear your ideas, your reflections reflected back to you in someone else's voice. Like, I'm not a charismatic preacher.

I like to think I have a modicum of charisma, but that's really not the same thing, is it? Right? And yet this language of spirit, and breath, and gift, and empowerment, and comfort, all of that is something that resonates deeply with part of my story. So to notice those moments where spirit enlivens wisdom and tenderness and awareness of those around us, that's an integral part of the Christian story. Faith is not just ideas, It's the conviction that the divine desires to reside in you and then through you to the world.

And if that's hard for you to make sense of at times, I know it is for me, then perhaps we can rest in this idea that when Jesus wants to talk of a spiritual world, he reaches back to these ancient Hebrew ideas of Hassaton, which means accuser, and he speaks of Ruach or breath, which he calls our paraclete or our defender. And so Jesus' conviction is that there's a voice in the world that will accuse and tear down and seek to humiliate and interrogate you constantly. And whether that comes in the voice of a coworker or a parent or an egg on Twitter, even if it's just a voice inside your head, accusation is the enemy. But it's not the only voice available to you. Because for Jesus, to sense the divine near you, to be in touch with spirit is to listen for that voice that defends and heals and advocates for you always.

That's what paraclete means. It's not to say that spirit always tells us what we want to hear about ourselves. Remember Jesus talks about the pruning that comes from the good gardener intent on healing all things, but this paraclete language that Jesus uses to speak a spirit, spirit as advocate and comforter and defender, this is language explicitly designed to contrast all that accuses and injures us in the world. God is for you. Even when, perhaps especially when, the gardener is at her work in you.

Now, today, we have one last prayer that Jesus offers from the table to draw all of these thoughts together. And, we wanna see how that can draw us back to Palm Sunday and then move us together toward Holy Week. So, let's pray. Spirit of God, who is present in and through every breath, with every rise and fall of our chest, might we slow ourselves enough to notice you here in this moment with us, surrounding us today, leading us in quiet confidence back to your true image, humble on a donkey, coming in grace and in peace amidst a world that clamors for more volume, strength, and power. As we remember your prayers for us.

As we rehearse your entry here today. As we approach your final steps toward your cross. Would you awaken us to the truth and the beauty of your example that still lays before us. Not only that you came, but how and why and for whom you were willing to give your life away. That we then follow in those steps in humble service to all that we encounter with grace and peace and confidence that you are still our way in the world.

In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Alright. Today, we want to talk about prayer and the gift and glory and all the things that bring us back to the heart of God. But, let's pick up where we left off last week.

Where in John chapter 17 verse one, we read this. That after that Jesus said all this, he looked toward heaven and prayed. Now, are we gonna keep going here, but let's talk about this just for a second. Jesus is praying, and that might not seem all that remarkable. Jesus prays a lot in fact, but there are some things that I think are worth reflecting on here.

First, we are being invited right now to see a very tender moment between Jesus and the father. This whole section in John is pretty intimate. It starts with washing each other's feet. It's a recounting of a private conversation between Jesus and his closest friends, but now we get to listen in on a prayer. And prayer is, I think, for a lot of us, hard.

Often, I think because we're just not used to being open and tender and vulnerable with our words. I mean, we all of us feel big things, but rarely do we vocalize them in real life. Look, I have no interest in prescribing for you how you should pray, but just know this. There is beauty and the stretching and even a freedom in disciplining ourselves to find ways to express those things happening inside of us. And so whether you speak it or you write it or you sing it or you draw it or you just walk it out, it can be important to find some way to pray.

Prayer is no more and perhaps no less than naming what is really real for you in the moment. It's that one space where all pretense falls away and you can say what is. Which means that hearing someone pray, listening to someone pray, perhaps especially Jesus, this is a privilege. Prayer occupies this strange space. Right?

Where it can be deeply intimate and private and yet also public and performative all at the same time. Jesus is praying to God, but he's praying for his friends here. Many of us, I'm sure, have experienced the awkwardness of being asked to pray in public for something, trying to find the words on the fly to express something profound. Now others of us like myself do it for a living, and that too can make prayer kind of awkward. Professionalization tends to distance us from work.

But here, Jesus is in the midst of a kind of mixed moment. He's speaking to his father and he is speaking for his friends. Right? Most Sundays, you hear me pray twice. At once, after we recap the previous week and again at the end of the message.

And most of you realize this, but I script that first prayer. In fact, we script most of our public prayers here at Commons. As a team, we work really hard to craft words that can capture the intent of a moment and soften our hearts to receive and give the gift of words to feelings that have woven their way throughout the community. Often, all of that feels far too sacred to just get up here and wing it. But then, at the end of my message, I do usually, almost always, actually leave space so that I can pray extemporaneously.

And in that moment, I try to reflect back on the sermon or maybe notice what seemed to resonate in the room and I try to be sensitive to Spirit. And what Spirit was doing is we spoke together often in spaces that I might not have expected going in. And over the years, what I've come to value is both of those moments as equally meaningful. I find the performance of a crafted prayer that I have worked hard to create and edit and shape alongside the reflective spontaneous thankfulness for where God was present to me in unexpected ways. I find both of those profound.

And you may come from a tradition that values one of those expressions over the other, perhaps maybe even to the exclusion of the other. But in looking at Jesus, particularly here on the verge of Holy Week, what I would suggest is that both of these are offered to us as a gift. So here's your homework this Holy Week. If you're more familiar with spontaneous prayers off the top of your head, take some time to sit down and reflect and write a prayer that you can perform before God this week. Craft something that you are honored to offer to God.

And then if you're more familiar with reading prayers, perhaps from a book or writing and editing your own prayers, then this week find some time to speak to God in the free flowing language of friendship and conversation. Just let your words tumble out without an edit. Both of those are valuable experiences, particularly I think as we move through this holy week. But back to the table and this prayer. Jesus looks toward heaven and prays, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify your son that your son may glorify you. Again, here, we get that glory theme returning again over and over again. Right? But he continues, for you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given to him. Now this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in the presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. Okay. That's a really interesting prayer for a number of reasons. But first, let's talk about this glory proposition to start because that's the theme that has run throughout this entire section, and it's what Jesus comes back to here again.

Glorify your son that your son may glorify you. Allow me to glory in the presence I had before the world began. That's some bold language. Right? Earlier in the series, we talked about this mysterious idea of trinity that God is one and yet God is also somehow some kind of divine loving community.

And that it's only in Jesus that we see the divine fully and clearly in history. Like, God speaks in a lot of ways. God speaks through scripture and God speaks through creation, but it's in Jesus that we see the divine unhindered. Except now Jesus says, not only is he the divine son of God who is going to be with God, but that he has always been with God since before the cosmos began. That's the Greek word Jesus uses here.

Cosmos. It's the same one that Bobby talked about last week, the world and everything in it. This is about as close as Jesus is going to get to outright declaring divinity for himself anywhere in the gospels. I mean, he's gonna hint at that in other places, and there are implications from some of his statements in others, but this is about as close as you get to Jesus articulating his unique relationship with God. And yet maybe what's even more remarkable here is this mutuality Jesus expresses between himself and God as father.

I mean, he's already told us that to see one is to see the other. Remember that a few weeks ago? Now he adds that to glorify one is to glorify the other. Except notice here, the way that God is glorified in the world is through gift. Three times in this verse, this Greek verb, to give away or to gift is used.

All authority is gifted to Jesus so that all those gifted to him might be gifted eternal life. That's a more literal translation of verse two. And that movement, that gift, that receiving and then giving away, that for Jesus is in some sense God's glory in the world. I think sometimes we hear this word glory or we hear this phrase, the book of glory. It sounds very big and impressive, imposing even, and so we immediately jump to songs and thrones and prayers and crowns in our minds.

And all that might be true in some sense, but when Jesus wants to talk about the glory of God, and when Jesus wants to focus us on God's glory, it's not actually thrones and crowns he talks about. It's gift and reception and then gift again that he points us to. What comes to me, I give to you because that is the heart of God says Jesus. So glory is not what comes to God. We we don't create glory.

We don't give glory to God. Glory is what comes from God. Glory is the good gift of a generous God that loves. See, think sometimes we get distracted by religious words and it sounds so big and grandiose that we forget that the way that God has chosen to be known in history is through gift. And that means that you and I, we will never point to God's glory with any more clarity than when we gratefully receive God's blessings and then we generously give them away.

God's glory is not our prayers, it's not our songs, it's when we receive and we give. Because that flow from God to Jesus to you and then through you, that is in some very real sense God's glory made real in God's world. It's who God is. And that brings us all the way back to chapter 12 and Palm Sunday. Because remember, this whole conversation, this whole series has been taking place immediately in the wake of Palm Sunday.

John twelve twelve, the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. So they took palm branches and they went out to meet him singing Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the king of Israel. Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it as it was written, do not be afraid daughter Zion. See your king is coming seated on a donkey's colt.

But at first, the disciples did not understand any of this. It was only after Jesus has been glorified that they realized these things that had been written about him. You see, context here is that all of these symbols, like palm branches and singing Hosanna, declaring Jesus the king of Israel, even the donkey, All of these are political provocations. In the years after Jesus' death, another would be Messiah would rise up. His name was Simon Bar Kokhba or Simon's son of the star.

And he would lead a revolt against Rome and he would even take control of a part of Jerusalem for a short time. New coins were minted for his Jewish government, coins that bore the image of palm branches. They were a symbol of political independence from Rome. Now, that uprising was unfortunately eventually put down by Rome violently. One ancient account from the time says hyperbolically that Jewish blood flowed through the streets so deep it flooded horses nostrils.

Thing is, Jesus saw all of that violence coming. John tells us that between the waving of palm branches Jesus rides on a donkey. Now that's an image from Zechariah, the significance being that kings would ride out to battle on a war horse, but they would come home in peace on a donkey. Even Caesar would do this. It was a way of saying, look, the fighting is over.

The time of battle is done. Peace has finally come home. But that juxtaposition is key here because the crowds want a warrior. That's why they wave palm branches and Jesus says, no. In fact, the writers of both Luke and Matthew record Jesus riding through the celebration quietly weeping to himself, Realizing that what he offers is not what the crowds are looking for.

When he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it saying, would that you even knew had known on this day the things that make for peace, but now they seem hidden from your eyes. That's Luke. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing. That's Matthew. See, we think God's glory is in God's strength, and God's ability to force God's way, and God's power to bend the world to God's dream.

And yet Jesus rides right past our demands on a donkey of peace, weeping when we look the other way. And so when the crowds disperse and they go home realizing that he will not go to war for them, and he lays down his AR 15 and they lay down their palm branches, only then does Jesus sit over bread and wine with friends that will betray him desperately trying to show them the truth of God's glory. Glory is not seen in the fight or in the power. It's not in strength. It's certainly not in the ability to force your way on anyone.

Glory is not in the palm branches. It is only in the gift and the reception and the giving away again that is God's character made real in the world. Palm Sunday is the icon of God's glory. It is representative of Christ who comes in peace despite our calls for violence. And you see this entire book of glory in John, it's about upending our imagination of glory.

It's about starting on Palm Sunday with all of our misconceptions of strength and glory and slowly leading us to the cross when God finally fully gives God's self away. Because God comes near to us, But God is not like us. God is holy and God is other, and that does not mean that God is us but turned up to 11. It means that God is kind and humble and gracious and giving. It means that God is infinitely loving even in the face of our demands for war.

And that unstoppable gift of love is something that we could not, we cannot overrule even when we try because that gift is God's glory. God loves always. And that love is what you and I are offered every year this year in Holy Week. It's what we get to make real in the world every single time we choose the way of Jesus, the path of peace. It's what we get to live out when we lay down our palm branches and we choose the Jesus who comes to us.

So may your steps be holy this holy week and bring glory to God in some small measure as you participate in the peace that this earth so desperately needs. In your words, in your relationships, in the ways that you choose the path of Jesus over all other path there's that are so much easier to walk. Let's pray. God of peace, who comes to us to show us divine glory writ large. We are sorry for the times that still we have missed it And instead fixated on something so much smaller and dimmer and less spectacular.

Glory that looks like strength or power. Glory that looks like the ability to demand one's way and to force it on another. But instead, as we begin this journey toward the cross this holy week, might we see that your glory is to receive gratefully and to give generously even to the point of giving your life away. May that become our path in everything that we do. May all the blessings that flow to us, may we receive them gratefully, joyfully, may we celebrate in them, and then might we do our best to pass all of it, every part of it along to someone else so that the world can experience the joy and the gratefulness, the generosity of a good God who is different from us, but who calls us to follow a new way, a new path toward the likeness of your son.

May that path this holy week slowly become ours and may we bring some small slice of peace to this earth that you love. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.