Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church

Matt 21:6-11, Zech. 9:9-10

I was a witness to a crime. In fact, I was a victim. I had a gun held to my head and was told to open the safe. I was the night manager at a Burger King. Armed men came in. One jumped the counter and started opening cash register drawers. Another came into the office through a side door. He put the gun to my head. I got the safe open. He took the money. Then they put all the employees and me in the walk-in refrigerator. As soon as the door closed, I pushed the silent alarm. We stood, shivering from cold and fear and adrenalin, waiting. One employee asked if we should see if they had left because there might be customers out there. I said no, we would wait until the police opened our door. After all, what could people do, rob us?

The next day, a detective came and took down all our accounts of the event. We were all documented as witnesses. A couple weeks later we were driven by squad car to the city jail and actually participated in a lineup. It works exactly the way they show it on TV, with a lineup of similar-looking men, each holding a number, looking at us through what we assumed and hoped was a one-way mirror. The case never went to court. I never had to testify to what I knew.

But if I had testified, the only thing they would have wanted was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. My value as a witness was as good as my ability to recount the truth. That is all the judge and jury wanted.

There is a slight difference in dealing with real people with real issues. Real people want the truth and one more thing. I’ll give you some examples.

I have met with parents of teenagers hurt in accidents. And I have met with children whose elderly parents were having surgery. I have met with young couples trying to decide if this was the kind of world they wanted to bring children into. I’ve met with people who had just lost their jobs and with people who had just broken up with someone. In every case, they wanted the truth, the details, the facts of the accident or surgery or job or whatever their situation was. And then they all asked a version of the same “next question.” “Are they going to be alright?”

Real people want truth and hope. On a day 2,000 years ago, people ran into the streets, threw down their coats, waved palm branches, and shouted Hosanna because of truth and hope. They had truth about the man from Galilee. They had heard the stories, the facts about the miracles he performed, and the lessons he taught. And there was hope that he would be more than any who had come before him, hope that he had come from God and would make a difference in their lives.

Those people that day were witnesses to the truth they knew and the hope they had. Like a witness to a crime or an accident, we as Christians have the responsibility to be witnesses to what we know to be true and also to what we hope. Scripture tells us to speak the truth in love, but did you know that it also tells us to always be able to explain our hope?

Is there anyone you know or can imagine in our neighborhoods, in our offices, in the seats next to us, on airplanes or restaurants that need hope? Do we have it? Can we give a reason for the hope that is in us? Not that they are asking for it. People don’t generally walk up to us and ask if we have hope or truth. In fact, have you noticed that when someone finds out that you are a Christian or attend a Presbyterian Church, that they ask you about your beliefs, not your hopes, not what you know to be true? I don’t know if that is just small talk or a defense against deeper things. In a well known Bible story, Jesus met a woman at a well and offered her truth and hope, but she threw every religious question in the book at him about God and the temple and true worship.

People do the same thing today, but I’ve begun avoiding those kinds of religious questions, opting instead to be a witness to truth and hope. I’ve learned that if you can’t talk about hope; don’t bother arguing about predestination, or transubstantiation, or pre-tribulational rapture, or the salvific efficacy of the crucifixion. Actually, only seminary graduates ever use words like salvific efficacy. But I think as a general rule of thumb, we should not spend much time talking about any word or concept with more than three syllables. All the important words have three or less. Salvation, forgiveness, mercy. In fact, almost all the most important words are one syllable words. Truth, hope, grace, mercy, joy, peace, faith, love. Beginners like us would do well to stick with one syllable words.

So let me ask you to think about this. What do you know is true about God and about your relationship with God? I know most of us could sit down and write a long list of things we have been taught, things we would say are true. But like a witness on a witness stand, would you swear to it on a stack of Bibles? Do you remember a few weeks ago, Bruce talked about authority no longer coming from science but from story? People aren’t so compelled by what you know because you read it or have heard that it is true. But they will listen to your experience. Years ago people might have listened if we said, “I know Jesus loves me.” But today we might be better heard if we said, “I know Jesus loves me because when I was at the end of my rope, he loved me through people I would never have expected to care at all.” I know because when I was at my worst, he reached out and gave me his best. That is the kind of truth people are interested in hearing from us today.

Let’s think about hope for a minute. What do you hope for? I know most of us could sit down and write a long list of things we could say we hope for. I encourage you to write that list. Then, in each sentence, replace the word “hope” with the word “wish” and if the sentence still works, cross it out. We aren’t talking about wishing for something. People aren’t interested in the kinds of hopes that are really just wishes. No one cares that I hope/wish for my daughters to marry rich men who will be able to take care of me when I retire. But people can relate to my hope that my daughters will find good men who will care for them and love them. And while bad things happen in this world, I have seen things work in ways that I can’t explain and I have come to believe that it is true that God loves my daughters and wants their best, even when bad things happen.

If that was the content of my conversation or yours with a neighbor or co-worker, do you think they would listen? I think so.

I was sitting in the window seat of a full plane recently. Two women were sitting beside me. The one in the middle was very tired. She tried to sleep. She even put her head down on her tray table. But a glare was shining in her eyes from the window in front of us. I asked that person if I could close it but it was stuck. So I figured out how to jam a safety card into it to block the glare. Then I closed my own window. The lady beside me said she didn’t want to ask me to do that. I said it was no problem and I just turned on my reading light. She tried to turn hers off but it seemed stuck. I fiddled with it and got it to turn off. I guess what I am saying is that I was a nice guy on that plane trip. I happened to be reading a book about the Missional Church, the concept we have been studying here at RBCPC. Towards the end of the flight, she asked, “Is that a good book?” Two thoughts went through my head. First, I’m glad I’ve been a nice guy and not a jerk on this flight. And second, how do I describe “missional” to someone who has never heard of it, who may have never been in a church?

I told her that “missional” is about trying to help people in the church figure out how to be neighborly. It seems simple but it isn’t easy because no one knows their neighbors anymore. Both of these ladies got engaged in the conversation. We talked about how people feel isolated today and how helpful it would be if we knew and trusted each other. Right there, we had a conversation about truth and hope. And, I realized later, I had been “missional.” I had been neighborly and I had been able to give a reason for the hope I had.

What truth and hope do you have as we head into Holy Week and Easter? This week, more than any other, we recognize that Jesus gave so much and that there is so much hope in him; in fact, infinite hope in him. There is truth and hope that can only be found in him. That’s what brought those people out of their homes with palm fronds that day in Jerusalem. It’s what got them calling to their neighbors to come and see what this was all about.

Are there people in your world who are ready to be invited to come and see what this is all about? Why not invite them to an Easter Service? Why don’t you take the information in the bulletin and invite them? Are there people that you know who are just not ready for that direct of an approach but who could use a friend, a kind word, some hope and truth? We have just the idea for you. We have searched for and found what might be the best witnessing tool available in our world today. Why not bake them some cinnamon rolls or a plate of cookies, or a vegetable platter if they are diabetic, or even a bottle of wine? Take an appropriate, neighborly gift to them and if you need to say something say, “We hope for a happy springtime for you.” Go with no more agenda than that and see what God does. Follow God’s lead, even if it is only to be neighborly. Because it turns out that the most important truth in the world is also their greatest hope and it is only four syllables long. Jesus loves them. Amen.