Rev. Eric Anderson Sermons, Uncategorized

Sermon: Help Us!

March 29, 2026

Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 21:1-11

As Jesus rode the donkey – maybe two donkeys, according to Matthew – into Jerusalem, the crowds gathered and shouted. They quoted Psalm 118, a song of thanksgiving and, quite possibly, related to an ancient religious procession from the city entrance to the area of the Temple at the city’s summit. They also called “Hosannah to the Son of David!”

That was a pretty bold thing to say.

As D. Mark Davis writes at LeftBehindAndLovingIt, “The word “Hosanna” is only found in the entry stories of the NT. The Greek term Ὡσαννὰ [Hosanna] seems to be a transliteration of the Hebrew הושיעה־נא [Hoshiana]. When הושיעה־נא [Hoshiana] appears in the OT, such as in Psalm 118:25, it was translated in the LXX as σῴζω [sodzo], “to save.”

Calling for help and aid doesn’t sound so bold, but calling for it from the “Son of David” was. “Son of David” was a royal title, indicating a legitimate claim to the traditional throne of Israel and Judah. It was just short of calling Jesus, “King Jesus,” and not all that short of it.

Bold.

It could well have been even bolder, because it wasn’t just the city’s residents in the city at the time. At JourneyWithJesus.net, Debie Thomas writes,

In their compelling book, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Last Days in Jerusalem, [Marcus] Borg and [John] Crossan argue that two processions entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday; Jesus’ was not the only Triumphal Entry.

Every year, the Roman governor of Judea would ride up to Jerusalem from his coastal residence in the west.  Why?  To be present in the city for Passover — the Jewish festival that swelled Jerusalem’s population from its usual 50,000 to at least 200,000.

The governor would come in all of his imperial majesty to remind the Jewish pilgrims that Rome was in charge.  They could commemorate an ancient victory against Egypt if they wanted to.  But real, present-day resistance (if anyone was daring to consider it) was futile.

When the crowds shouted “Hosannah! Save us! Help us!” to Jesus, they did so aware that the ones they wanted help against – the Romans – were present, armed, and prepared to bring violence just the other side of the city.

Help us!

A bold cry, or a desperate one, or sometimes maybe there isn’t much difference between desperate and bold.

Jesus chose an odd prophetic image to emulate with his donkey and colt. Jesus could have done things to look more like a traditional monarch. He might have sent his disciples to find a horse. He would have looked great on a horse. Everybody looks good on a horse – at least until it starts moving. After that it helps to know how to ride. It would have even matched a prophecy from Jeremiah rather than Zechariah.

If you want to look like a king, get a horse. Not a donkey.

They were bold and they were desperate, and they shouted, “Save us,” because even on a donkey Jesus was the best they had.

As D. Mark Davis writes, “I like how the word κράζω [kradzo] (cry out) is like an onomatopoeia, imitating the croak of a raven. It is used for both loud crowds and desperate people, like a woman crying out for help and Jesus crying out from the cross.”

Desperate people. A woman crying out for help. Jesus crying out from the cross. Matthew 27:46: “’Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

Help us!

I don’t know for sure what that crowd wanted. As with most crowds, I suspect there was a good range. Some hoped for that royal Messiah who would cast out the Romans. Others probably hoped for a new religious, but not political, leader who would do something about the priests. I’m sorry to say that religious leaders aren’t always the best of friends to the people they’re supposed to serve, in the twenty-first century or in the first century. Some might have been shouting “Help us!” because of their individual needs: Healing for an illness or injury, a word of assurance for the hopeless, a gift of food for the hungry. I suspect as well that some joined the crowd and shouted and waved palms because people get caught up in that kind of excitement even when they don’t know anything about what’s going on. “Who is this?” they asked, and there’s always plenty who don’t bother to ask.

Help us!

I don’t know whether Marcus Borg and John Crossan are right that Pontius Pilate entered the city on the other side as Jesus entered on the near side. It would have required some knowledge and planning to time things that way – which, to be sure, Jesus was certainly capable of. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. The crowd would have contrasted the Jesus parade with the Pilate parade. They would have noticed the distinct lack of soldiers. They would have noticed the complete lack of marching drummers and trumpeters. They would have noticed the replacement of the warhorse with the donkey.

“Crossan notes that Jesus rode ‘the most unthreatening, most un-military mount imaginable: a female nursing donkey with her little colt trotting along beside her.’” (quoted by Debie Thomas at JourneyWithJesus.net)

I’ll help you, said Jesus in his choice of mount, but not quite as you think, and probably not quite as you expect, and more than you dare to hope.

I am depressingly conscious of the number of people crying out for help in the world today. Some of them are near: people on this island, O’ahu, and Maui picking up from the wreckage left by floods and high winds over the last two weeks. There is a national UCC emergency offering for that, by the way. Look for information on how to contribute to it in the Weekly Chime on Tuesday.

Others near us suffer from injuries or illness, from the pains of long-term disease, from the fogs and storms of mental illness. Some cope with grief, with feelings of failure, with the words of others telling them that they aren’t of much worth. Some cope with the oppression of violence, violence from those who claim to love them, or violence of those who are supposed to protect them. Let’s face it. Federal courts have clearly stated that a law enforcement agency of the United States is routinely abusing its authority, taking people into custody without due process of law, abusing those it has detained, and avoiding accountability before the courts.

If they do it in Minnesota and Maine, they’ll do it in Hawai’i.

Some of those crying for help are not so near. They live in some of the world’s poorest regions, vulnerable to famine or disaster. Or they live as a marginalized group of people in some of the world’s most oppressive nations. Those people might be identified by skin color, or by national heritage, or by sexual orientation. These people might simply be women.

Some of them are just people living in a place engaged in war. That includes the United States. The war has come home with grief for mercifully few families so far, but the only certain thing about armed conflict is that more families will grieve. It’s for certain that a lot more families are grieving in Iran, and most of them have nothing to do with the issues between the governments. That’s the great tragedy and the great immorality of war. Whatever the justice of the cause – and the American administration has made no coherent explanation answering the questions of just cause – the most just cause in the world inflicts horrendous suffering on innocents. During the Second World War, it’s estimated that twice as many civilians died as those in the military – and again, most of those soldiers and sailors and aircrew had nothing to do with the aggression of their governments.

There are a lot of people in the world crying, “Hosannah! Save us! Help us!”

Jesus, in the meantime, makes his way through our lives on a donkey, not a warhorse. Whatever the show on the far side of the city, the great gift is before us here.

How will he help? Not with military conquest. He didn’t do it in the first century. He’s not going to do it in the twenty-first century. Not with grandeur. He chose a donkey. Not with coercion. He didn’t force anybody to cheer him. Pilate almost certainly did.

The things that Jesus offers – nearness to God, richness of soul, abundance of life in this world and the promise of life eternal – just aren’t as grand or as compelling as the parade of Pilate. They don’t answer the cries of “Help us!” all that directly – but I ask you: if we all truly lived as Jesus calls us and as Jesus expects, would we be at war now?

I didn’t think so, either.

Help us, Jesus!

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes as he preaches – sometimes deliberately, and sometimes not. The sermon as he prepared it is not a direct match for the sermon he delivered.

The image is The Entry into Jerusalem by Jan Baegert (ca. 1505-1510) – Wuselig, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104993708.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Persistence

Jesus encouraged his followers to practice persistence so that people’s needs get met.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking about the eleventh chapter of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 11:1-13) and about one of the stories that Jesus told in that chapter.

Imagine somebody who had gone to bed, he said. All his family, all his children, were already snug and sleeping. A neighbor came to the door and began to knock. He said that a visitor, a relative, had come, and that he had nothing to put on the table before him. The man in the house protested that everybody was in bed and asleep and there was nothing he could do; wait until morning! But the man at the door kept knocking and calling.

Because of his persistence, said Jesus, the man in the house would get up and bring him the things that he needed.

Persistence.

Jesus told other stories about persistence: about a woman who persisted in her complaints to a judge who didn’t care. Persistence is one of the valuable traits of human beings. I grant you that persistence at young ages can be, well, let’s just say it: annoying and frustrating when that two and three-year old persists and persists and persists in that demand for candy. A demand that we can’t meet, at least not meet and be the loving and considerate parents that we want to be, because a diet based on candy won’t do the child or, for that matter, the rest of us any good.

In Jesus’ story the need was real. I mean, to us in the modern day it sounds a little thin. I mean, the man could easily have gone down the street to the 24 hour store — except there was no such thing in the first century. The man could have — well, what could he do?

Except to go to a neighbor and a friend and to get help. And it was a real need because hospitality was such an important part of daily life in the first century.

So what are the needs that we have in our time that require us to persist? It’s not likely to be that kind of hospital hospitality (although it might). It might be the needs that arise when a loved one is ill, and there are things that we need to do to take care of them, and some of the other needs of our household: we’re going to look to others for their assistance.

It might be the needs in the community, where there people that just don’t have the skills, or the health, or whatever it is that allows them to find shelter, and to find food, and to live as dignified a life as they can. They are the ones who need our assistance, who need us to trouble ourselves from our comfort and even our rest, in order to see that they can come to a dignified and productive life within our community.

And for far too many in the world, the need is peace. For some it is because they literally live beneath the shadows of war. For others it is because they live with the threat of violence, sometimes from loved ones, sometimes from threats of the outside.

They are knocking on our door. They are calling for our aid. Can we stir ourselves from our comfort and let them in?

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: Gifts of the Angel

When Elijah fled from the threats of his monarchs, an angel brought him simple things to revive him: a meal and a rest.

Here’s a transcript:

I’m thinking that I’m very grateful to Lori Yamashiro, the Office Coordinator of the Hawai’i Conference of the United Church of Christ, because she will be delivering the message this coming Sunday while I’m traveling. I’m deeply grateful and I’m looking forward to hearing her wisdom when I return and can watch the recorded service.

I am, however, also thinking about the nineteenth chapter of First Kings (1 Kings 19:1-15). The prophet Elijah had had a great success calling down fire from heaven to ignite a sacrifice soaked in water, when the prophets of Baal could not. The queen of Israel, Jezebel, however, was not impressed. She sent word that Elijah was to be sought, arrested, and executed.

Despite his recent success, Elijah fled, and he headed out into the wilderness — in fact, towards the wilderness through which the people of Israel had wandered many years before. Along the way, he settled down next to a book and he went to sleep, asking that he might awake and die. When he woke, he found an angel standing there, and there was food and water for him. The Angel told him to eat and drink and sleep. Elijah did, and then found the angel with food again. He ate, he drank, and he slept again.

And then he continued his journey.

I’ve been known to say that (it’s not original with me) this is a Scripture text that demonstrates the power of a nap and a snack for carrying on with the work of God. And however trite it may seem, it is also true. Elijah, after all of his exertions: he was tired. And Elijah, despite his success, also knew that the power of the nation was not to be disregarded lightly, and so he feared.

Tired and afraid, he fled.

Each of us finds ourselves in places where we get worn out even by the successes, even by the triumphs. And you and I also find ourselves in places where we fear: where we fear perhaps to fail, or perhaps we fear some outside agency, or we just fear that we’ve worn ourselves out and we’ve got nothing left.

Elijah took a break. He thought it was going to be a longer break than it was, but he took a break, and that is a guidepost for us: because there will be times that we need to rest and recover. There will be times when we need to renew and reform. There will be times when we need someone to take care of us, give us something to eat, and encourage us to sleep.

There’s one other thing that occurs to me. This did not end to the story of Elijah in First Kings. He had more to do (and God gave him his instructions later on), but it occurs to me that giving somebody a snack, giving somebody the opportunity to rest: this might be the single easiest way for us to act as angels to someone else.

So where are you? Are you weary and afraid? Rest and eat.

Or is there somebody weary and afraid around you? For them, be an angel.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.