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: Humble Monarch

Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem was his first public act proclaiming he was the Messiah – and he chose the humblest possible way to do it.

Here’s a transcript:

This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, so I’m thinking about the twenty-first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 21:1-11), Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

In Matthew, this was really Jesus’ first public proclamation that he was the Messiah. He had discussed it with his disciples, others had speculated about it, but here Jesus actually did something that people would recognize as a Messianic claim. Here Jesus did something that people would recognize as the act of a king.

It was still a somewhat peculiar choice. Jesus chose to have his disciples find a donkey, and in Matthew’s account they also brought a colt, so that he came into the city, matching not lots of other Prophetic or Psalmic descriptions of the arrival of a monarch. Instead, he emulated a prophecy of Zechariah. “Your king comes to you, humble and mounted on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

It is possible, even likely, that on the other side of the city another procession similar but much grander was going on. The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, would have entered Jerusalem at about this time: his annual visit to coincide with the Passover. That would have included trumpets, that would have included marching soldiers, that would have included the governor mounted on a great big horse.

On the other side of the city, Jesus entered to the accompaniment of cries of “Hosanna!” or “Save us!” His humble beast strode over people’s cloaks and branches that they laid in the road. It was a distinct, dramatic, and telling contrast to what would have happened on the other side of the city.

If it’s big and grand and showy we have to ask ourselves: just how Christian is it?

I come out of a tradition which includes significant influence from the Puritan part of the Protestant Reformation. The Puritans, in addition to concerns about clothing and modesty and all the rest of it, were very concerned about humility. Not always, I grant you, once they got into power.

Jesus, even as he made a proclamation of power did so in the humblest way possible. The twenty-first century since Jesus: so far, at least, it is not a humble age. It is not an age that values humility. It is not an age that rewards humility. Pride and hubris get the attention. Pride and hubris get the rewards.

But pride and hubris are not the ways of Jesus. They are not or should not be the ways of Jesus’ followers. Let us come into this Holy Week faithfully following the one upon a colt, the foal of a donkey, humble and coming to us and hearing our cries of “Hosanna,” “Save us,” “Help us.”

This is our prayer, O Jesus.

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 Sermons

Sermon: The Lord Needs It

March 24, 2024

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Mark 11:1-11

On its face, this story in Mark’s Gospel is about Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. We’ve got the crowds shouting, “Hosanna!” which means “Save us!” we’ve got the humble animal, we’ve got greenery spread over the road, we’ve got a quote from Psalm 118 “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD,” and we’ve got the Messianic reference to King David.

Curious, isn’t it, that Mark spent more time on the colt than on the parade? As Carl Gregg observes in his blog on Patheos, “Mark spends more than half of those eleven verses detailing the odd procurement of Jesus’ donkey.” By my count, Mark gave seven verses to the colt and three to the parade. And one verse to going back to Bethany.

Mark, who never used two words when he could use one, spent a lot of words calling our attention to that donkey.

It’s true that the donkey was another Biblical allusion, this time to the prophet Zechariah, who wrote,

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you;
    triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
(Zechariah 9:9)

Zechariah was a prophet active as the exile was ending and after it had ended. He encouraged the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, since Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed decades before. With Jerusalem’s fall the House of David had also lost its monarchical power. Zechariah promised that the ancient line of kings would be restored.

When Jesus decided to ride a colt or a donkey that day, he knew some people would recognize the reference to Zechariah and see a declaration that the new king, the Messiah, had come.

Let’s be frank, however. It’s likely that very few got the reference. How many of you are that familiar with Zechariah? It was probably much worse in the first century when most people simply couldn’t read. The Romans wouldn’t have recognized it; I’m pretty sure they didn’t spend a lot of time with Jewish religious writing. But the religious leaders of the city, the scholars, at least some of the priests?

Oh, they got it.

Well, maybe one or two.

Amanda Brobst-Renaud writes at Working Preacher, “So often, we read the Bible as if everything is by necessity and design. Most of us do not expect to laugh, nor to be delighted. But this scene is hilarious! Jesus instructs his disciples to steal a colt. It may be effective to cast the story in modern terms to gain a sense of what is happening: ’Go into the city, and you will find there a car with the keys in the ignition. Bring it here. If anyone questions you, tell them “The Lord needs it, and we’ll bring it back right away, we promise.”’”

Because yeah. That’s gonna work.

But it did work. That’s the confusing part, and that’s the part Mark insisted that we linger with. “The Lord needs it” doesn’t sound like much of a reason to us. “Oh, you speak for the Lord, do you?” We wouldn’t accept that for a moment.

In the first century, there’s a possibility that the owners, or the neighbors (Mark didn’t make it clear who those bystanders were), thought that the pair of Jesus’ disciples were talking about, well, somebody important. Somebody official. Somebody they would have knelt to and called, “Lord.” In the vicinity of Jerusalem that could have happened a lot. Nobles, priests, Roman officials, Roman army officers, Roman soldiers: Any of these could pass through on the road from Bethany to Jerusalem at any time of day. Any of them might look at the steep road down the hill and then back up the hill into the city and think, “It’s time for something else to walk for me. Get me a steed.”

“The Lord needs it.” “Yes, Lord!”

But would Jesus’ disciples have looked like the retainers of a Roman or a noble or a priest?

That seems… unlikely.

“The Lord needs it.” “Oh. Well. OK. I’m sure it’s fine then. If you bring it right back.”

“The Lord needs it.”

It shouldn’t have worked, but it worked. But I’m also wondering… why did Jesus need it? This is the only time in the gospel accounts where Jesus, or anybody else, rode anything. When Jesus moved about, he walked. In fact, he made the same trip from Bethany to Jerusalem and back on his own feet the next day, and the next day, and the next day. Yes, Jesus needed the colt to match the vision of Zechariah, but let’s face it, there were plenty of prophecies Jesus didn’t fulfill. If Jesus wanted to provoke the religious authorities of Jerusalem that was a good way, but it took days of debate and argument to scare them enough to seek his life.

“The Lord needs it.”

We do not usually consider that Jesus needed anything. Jesus doesn’t need anything now. Christian theology has definitely evolved to a point of view that says God is self-sufficient.

But what does God want?

It’s bigger than obedience. If God wanted obedience there are better ways that what God has been doing. God could have made us to be incapable of mistakes, or of resistance, or of sin. Instead, God made us capable of choice.

God could have engaged with us as a constantly present judge, one like our mother who was always over our shoulder when we were young saying, “No, you can’t do that.” Weren’t we all grateful when our parents stopped doing that? And weren’t we who’ve been parents or caretakers for children when they grew to a point where we were willing to stop doing that?

God could have set up a set of consequences for sin and error that would entirely prevent us from trespass. When my children were young, they would do things that we thought were bad for them or for others, behaviors we wanted to prevent. The trick was to make the cost of doing those things higher than they were willing to pay. Do the thing I don’t want you to do? I take away a thing you want for a while.

As they grew, they’d get to a point where they’d decide, “Ok. I’ll pay that price.” So we had to change the consequence. They were always just ahead of us, as I’m sure you can imagine.

God could keep the prices for us at a level that we would never be willing to pay.

But God didn’t. Hasn’t. Doesn’t.

What does God want?

I think that God wants a real relationship with us. We’re made in the image of God, says Genesis. Is that a coincidence? Wouldn’t a deity eager for relationship create living beings that bear some resemblance? Wouldn’t that deity risk disappointment and even betrayal for honesty and trust?

“The Lord needs it.”

These few words open up something about the relationship between God and human beings that made the Incarnation almost inevitable. Throughout the centuries the Scriptures record God’s efforts not just to make us straighten up and fly right, but to think beyond ourselves, to consider the needs of others, to extend our compassion beyond our smallest circles. To put in the front of our minds, “My neighbor needs it.”

When Jesus needed the colt, he needed to show that the people of Israel did not need another monarch in the style of the ancient warriors. Jesus’ neighbors did not need another war, another rebellion, another head beneath a crown. Tragically, they got it about forty years later. Tragically, human beings still choose war and violence when they might ride humbly on a donkey.

“The Lord needs it.”

The Lord needs partners in the quest for peace. The Lord needs partners in compassion for the poor. The Lord needs partners in the feeding of the hungry, the sheltering of the homeless, the healing of the sick. The Lord needs partners in the forgiving of the sinners, the comforting of the grieving, the inspiring of the hopeless. The Lord needs partners who are willing to carry some of the load through the confusion of the cheering crowds and across roads strewn with greens.

The Lord needs us to do our part.

Mark – and Matthew, Luke, and John – utterly failed to report whether the animal made it back home. We’ll have to assume that Jesus’ disciples kept Jesus’ promise. Jesus’ disciples haven’t always kept Jesus’ promises, I fear, but I have hope for this one.

Can we fulfill Jesus’ promises? Can we fulfill Jesus’ command to love one another, and to love those around us?

Can we be the ones Jesus needs to take on our burden and carry it faithfully until we can lay it down?

Amen.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Sermon

Pastor Eric makes changes while he preaches. Sometimes it’s intentional. Sometimes it isn’t.

The image is Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem by Wilhelm Morgner – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=155912.

Rev. Eric Anderson What I'm Thinking

What I’m Thinking: The Lord Needs It

We don’t usually think of God or Christ needing anything, but “The Lord needs it” were the words Jesus used to explain his disciples taking the colt for Palm Sunday.

Here’s a transcript:

Holy Week begins this Sunday. If that seems awfully early to you, well, that’s because it is. I’m thinking about the eleventh chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 11:1-11), his account of the events of Palm Sunday.

I’m sure you know the basic outline. Jesus sent some of his disciples to find him a colt to ride before entering Jerusalem. They found it. He mounted it. As he rode up into the city people came out and spread cloaks and green branches they cut in the fields across the road in the way, and they shouted and cheered, “Hosanna to the son of David.”

Mark’s version ends a little anticlimactically. After Jesus had arrived in the city he looked around for a little bit, and then left.

It’s not the end of the story, however, but the beginning that intrigues me this year. When Jesus’ disciples were asked to go find that colt they said, “What do we tell people if they ask us why we’re taking the colt?” And Jesus said, “Just tell them that the Lord needs it.”

Now “Lord” has a number of layers of meaning in the first century, but we tend to use it (and it was used then) to refer to, well, to God and to Jesus. That this implied a divine authority. And we’re not used to thinking of the Divine as needing anything. Indeed, theologically we maintain that God does not need. God gives.

But that’s not the way they thought of the Divine in the first century and it’s not necessarily the way that we should entirely understand our relationship with God. Maybe not in terms of need, but maybe in terms of being full participants in a relationship. It’s not a real relationship if one person is always receiving and another is always giving; that’s not how things work. And to expect it to be that way between us and God is to essentially leave ourselves entirely irresponsible.

I don’t think God wants us to be irresponsible. I think God wants us to be, if not equal partners, at least partners in the relationship that we have with the Holy Trinity, with the Holy Spirit, with the Creator and especially with our Redeemer.

“The Lord needs it.”

The Lord needed a colt on that Sunday morning. The Lord needs us to be a part of the healing of the world. The Lord needs us to be a part of making the things that are not so good better. The Lord needs us to resist the evils of the world. The Lord needs us, maybe not to lean upon, but to carry some of the burden. Because otherwise we are mere automatons, robots carrying out the programming of our Maker.

Instead, God made us with the ability to choose, to choose poorly and to choose well. Choose well and be a part of God’s salvation.

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.