St. Andrew’s Picton

-remember Kermit the frog and his theme song, “It’s not easy being green.”

-I don’t know the words to the song but it seems to me that it could pass for the Irish national anthem

-the Irish people have had a very troubled history

-my family was part of that history coming from Ireland during the potato famine because with the potato crop destroyed, there was absolutely no food to be had

-thousands died during those years and thousands more on the boats trying to come to Canada

-meanwhile back in Ireland, neighbours lived in strife because of religious and historic differences that are complex and deeply rooted

-I don’t think it’s easy being green

-but, you know, come St. Patrick’s Day every year and everyone wants to be Irish

-one day of the year and everyone forgets that “it’s not easy being green)

-Jesus lived most of his life on the edge

-we are told in the gospel of Matthew that from the moment he was born, there was a bounty on his head

-in Luke we read that those who belonged to his own  synagogue ran him out of town after he preached his first sermon

-in John we read that during public ministry he had violent clashes with the temple authorities

-and in Mark we read that God’s plan for Jesus from the beginning was the cross

-his life was not safe as long as he announced God’s vision for a new kind of community

-it wasn’t easy being Jesus

-yet on that one day when he came into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, nobody remembered

-instead they cheered and they waved palm branches and they shouted Hosanna

-this was their hero-this was their king and they were going to pay him tribute—for 1 day

-and so for that 1 day the crowds gathered along the sides of the road and everyone forgot what this king had warned them about discipleship

-yet a week later when the consequences of discipleship were all too clear, the crowds and the disciples were nowhere to be found

-we recognize that event today—if only this is were the end of the story

-everyone loves a great parade…everyone loves a hero

-but our journey with Christ does not end in a parade but at the foot of a cross

-and so where do we go from here once the palms have made it into someone’s compost heep

-After the Hosannas have been sung?

-well, that leads us to our questions again:

What kind of people do we want to be?

What kind of church do we want to be?

-and you know you could almost divide church life in 2

-there is the part that feels good, singing our favorite hymns, attending a party, hanging out with people with among whom you feel a deep sense of  belonging

-part of church is like being lined up on the roads while the parade goes by—not much is required and its kind of fun

-there is another side of being the church that I wouldn’t call fun

-it’s the other side of discipleship

-it happens when we reach out to people in need; it happens when we step out of our comfort zone to touch someone in their lonliness or their poverty or their fear

-it happens when we take the scales off our eyes and take seriously the world that God gave us to care for

-there is a story of a little girl who driving with her mother in the care one day declared:

“Mom, I think that God is part man, part woman and part skin.”

-Jesus came to us as the spirit and the vision of God clothed in humanity

-it was not a vision that suited everyone

-there are days that it may not even suit us

-but  we are called to  reflect such a vision and to construct our life together as a congregation so that others will look at us and see God in the flesh

Amen.