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This Sunday is Palm Sunday when we remember Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, welcomed by a cheering, palm-branch-waving crowd. In the sermon, I will be talking about Jesus’ crazy, risky love that carried him into Jerusalem that day. The same crazy, risky love he asks us to share. Here’s a preview.
Jesus moved through the world acknowledging those everybody else cast aside. He touched the lepers. He ate with sinners. He stood up for them and defended them too. He interacted with the town pariahs. He recognized their humanity. Tended to their needs. He embodied hope and mercy and compassion wherever he went. He moved through the world bringing love, not condemnation.
Jesus’ echoing, risky love was for the underdog, the downtrodden, the forgotten, the stigmatized, the disempowered, the persecuted, the judged. Jesus found that little piece of God inside every person and nurtured it, fanned it into a flame of worth and hope and life.
This is our work too. If we’re going to call ourselves Disciples.
We say what needs to be said. We do what needs to be done. We stand up to those who take advantage of others, those abuse their power. And we stand up for those who have no power, those who have no voice. We take risks. We go boldly. We dare and dream and do. We open our ears and our stubborn, stubborn hearts to the urgent current of need crying out for justice right here, right now. “Hosanna, please!” they cry. “See us. Hear us. Acknowledge us. Be with us. Defend us.”
Can we do these things, Disciples? Because if we can, we are bearing the fruit of the kingdom.
I’ll see you Sunday.
Jennie
Worship at 8:15 and 10:30 a.m.
On-site at 302 South Main Street Eureka, Illinois
Online at eurekachristian.org/worship-online or facebook.com/eurekacc/live
