Cultivating Honor & Letting Go of Fear of Betray

Cultivating Honor & Letting Go of Fear of Betrayal

Luke 19:28-40

            Today, I am talking about cultivating honor and letting go of the fear of betrayal.  This is Palm/Passion Sunday.  Christians tend to think of this day just as Palm Sunday and jump right into the splendor of Easter the next week.  Yet, we cannot get to the resurrection without pressing into the betrayal resulting in Jesus being crucified.  Today, we see Jesus being honored by his disciples.  This week we will see Jesus betrayed by his disciples.  So, today we call it Palm/Passion Sunday.  In our lives, we want to cultivate honor. We want to let go of the betrayals that we commit and the betrayals in which we are the victim.  Here is a truth you will experience written by Samuel Chand, “you’ll grow only to the threshold of your pain.” (Chand, Samuel. Leadership Pain(p. 241). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.)

            I cannot imagine the enormity of pain Jesus carried as he approached Jerusalem.  Jesus carries the great burdens of the people he loves.  He carries the resistance and hate from the people that despise him.  These detractors, in Luke, are not so much the religious leaders they are more those who bring the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome.  Roman peace is built upon their ability to subjugate populations through violence, force and coercion.   It is the peace that comes in quiet of battle field after all of the enemies have been slaughtered.  It is a peace that comes because enemies cower under the strong hand of leader.  

            Jerusalem has been conquered by the peace of Rome. Jerusalem has submitted to the peace bought through violence.  Before Jesus entered Jerusalem, another king had come to town.  This was King Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great. King Herod road into town with a Roman military guard clearing the way.  With all of the flash of metal and might one could muster, Herod came into town on a war horse.  He may have even hoped for resistance to his arrival for the Passover so that he could crush the resistance and demonstrate the might of Rome.  I cannot imagine Jesus’ pain as he watches.  

            The way of Rome shamed anyone who did not agree with their ways of leadership.  They shamed people so that they kept their heads down in submission.   This is why Rome devised crucifixion.   Only slaves and rebels were subject to execution by crucifixion.  They made it so awful and shameful that no one would risk resisting Rome and ending up on the cross.   “Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” (Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 39.)  Shame is all about fear.  If we are convinced that we cannot communicate our hopes, our dreams, where we are from, where we want to go, what we believe, how much we are struggling, then shame shackles our lives.  We feel like Wayne and Garth, yelling, “We’re not worthy!  We’re not worthy!”  This only works in the movie, Wayne’s World, because shame is seeded deep into our humanity.  

            Brené Brown says that the most assured way of gaining resilience against shame is to expose it.  Jesus does just that.  Jesus exposes shame by embracing shame.  Think with me about Judo.  If Judo means “gentle way”, using an opponent’s force to combat against himself, Jesus does a kind of Judo on Rome.  Jesus counters the entrance of Herod and the Pax Romona with an entrance of a spiritual king and the peace of heaven.  Jesus embraces a humble, maybe even a shameful, entrance, his feet perhaps dragging on the ground as his colt carries him up the hill into the city.  Think with me a little deeper about the Jesus entrance. 

            Curiously, the story told from the Gospel of Luke is the story of Palm Sunday without the palms.  You will notice that in Luke there is not even a cut branch laid on the road before Jesus.  There are not stalks of greenery waving in the air.  Instead, they lay their cloaks on the ground.  Laying your cloak on the ground before a person, is a sign of gratitude and gives deep respect and honor.  In Luke, the disciples don’t use the word, “Hosanna.”  Palms and Hosanna are national symbols for Israel.  They symbolize the monarch coming victoriously into a city following a great battle.  Luke leaves these national symbols of triumphalism out intentionally. The “King” to which Luke draws our attention is a call for peace, not a call for rebellion.  According to Fred Craddock, “In Luke especially, the King is associated with peace. Think back to Jesus’ birth. Jesus is worshiped as King, but deeply connected with the heavenly host promise “Peace on earth.””

            “Palm Sunday” happens because the disciples are faithful. The disciples are heavily involved in the events of the day.  They carry out Jesus’ orders, but they also help him - literally - carry out the plan.   They secure the colt on Jesus’ behalf.  No one has ridden the colt. It’s a wild horse - uncastrated, never ridden.  They place Jesus on the colt.  They cheer him when he enters. They praise him “for all the great things they have seen.” They cheer “Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.”  Not a political rally cry by far.  

As opposed to John, where crowds were there because of Lazarus, and Matthew’s crowd is there because it is Passover, in Luke, the crowd is specifically named disciples.  “His disciples did not fully understand his messiahship, to be sure, but neither are they persons who sing praise and scream death in the same week. The portrait of such a fickle crowd must come from some account other than Luke’s.” (Fred Craddock, Interpretation: Luke,  p. 227).  They might not completely get it, but they know they have seen something special. They cheer for this King - not because he is going to come and conquer - but because he will usher in peace. Some wish they would just be quiet, but in the end, they cannot be silenced.  

            The Pharisees object.  They want the crowd to be silent.  Their motivation is not known, but it fits with their previous action (in Luke 13:31) that they wish Jesus to preserve his own life.  They may fear reprisal.  Not from Jewish leadership, but Roman officers.   They fear wrath will come down, possibly even unsettling their position.   “That stones would shout is, of course, a figure of speech, but the expression does remind us that in biblical understanding, the creation is involved in events that we tend to think affect humans alone” (Craddock, p. 228)

            As the story continues beyond what was read, Jesus enters Jerusalem with peace as his purpose.  “As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it…”.  Jesus laments for the lack of peace, “‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes…”  Jesus declares a bold counter call to Pax Romana.  

Jesus then goes to the Temple and the infamous clearing of the Temple takes place.  “…he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, ‘It is written,

“My house shall be a house of prayer”;

   but you have made it a den of robbers.’

In Luke,  entering Jerusalem, weeping for Jerusalem and clearing the Temple all happens in one day.  It all points to a spiritual revelation rather than a political revolution.  

“If you lead long enough, you’ll inevitably endure the deep wounds of betrayal,” observes Samuel Chand.  “It’s a paradox of leadership: our efforts to help people experience the love and power of Christ create envy in the hearts of some who are watching (and receiving our love). Most people are grateful, but a few—and it only takes a few—undermine us with open opposition, lies, and gossip.”  For Jesus, the events of this day, set-up the betrayals that are coming.  

In Leading with a Limp, Dan Allender defined this wound and described how it further isolates the victim:

Betrayal is a deep psychic wound that hardens the heart against grief and deadens its hunger for intimacy. Grief is meant to open our hearts and eventually move us to care for others. But what if we feel profound shame with our grief? Shame distances us from people and the comfort they could offer us in our grief; shame also causes a person to hate the innate desire to be connected to others.

“Allender observes that betrayal occurs primarily in two forms: abandonment or abuse. When those we trust turn their backs on us, refuse to support us in a time of need, and withhold love when we need it most, the impact is like a knife in the heart. Undoubtedly, that’s how Jesus felt when all his closest followers (except John and the women) left him as he suffered torture and death on the cross. The other form of betrayal, abuse, is an active, brutal, direct wound.”  Like Jesus torture at the hands of the soldiers.  In our everyday life, “the hurt isn’t caused by the absence of a kind smile when we need one; it’s the presence of a scowling, bitter face when we need support.”  (Chand, Samuel. Leadership Pain (pp. 39-40). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.)

            So what do we have here, we have Jesus standing Jerusalem on its head by giving it spirit driven leadership, bringing the peace of God in juxtaposition to Herod who brings the Peace of Rome by shaming the people who serve him.  All of which, trigger the betrayals that come in four short days.  I believe that you cannot cultivate honor without recognizing and responding to shame.  Jesus recognized and responded to shame.  If Samuel Chand is right, “you’ll grow only to the threshold of your pain,” (Chand, Samuel. Leadership Pain (p. 241), Jesus increased his threshold of pain, by taking on the shame of a city.  

Stacey Edwards a former praise team member who moved to Maryland last fall, sent Candy and I a book to read, Hope Healsby Jay and Katherine Wolfe.  It is a book of hope exposing the spiritual struggles of two people who worked against shame and worked against the feeling of being betrayed by God.  In the book, “With her six-month-old sleeping in the next room, Katherine Wolfe screamed for her husband, Jay, and crumpled to the ground. Her modeling career was just taking off in Malibu, California, and Jay was ready to take his final law school exams in the a few hours.  But those plans changed in an instant.  On April 21, 2008, Katherine suffered a massive brain stem stroke.  She was rushed into micro-brain surgery, where the neurosurgeon told Jay, “I need you to know there’s a good chance she will not survive.”  As the sun rose the next morning, Katherine had survived the removal of part of her brain. And that’s when the hard part began.”

Katherine and Jay know something about Samuel Chand’s comment that,  “you’ll grow only to the threshold of your pain.” (Chand, Samuel. Leadership Pain, p. 241). Seven years deep into her recovery, Katherine writes, “May be it takes life being undeniably terrible before we can truly recognize its undeniable splendor.  Suffering powerfully informs who I am now.  While awful and painful, afflictions have led to a heartbreaking but beautiful deepening in me.  I have learned to embrace the suffering.  I have learned to not push back, but to lean in hard when it hurts the most and press on. Pain has been an instructor, teaching me deeper truths about myself and God and bringing me closer to Christ in a way I never was before this happened.” (Wolfe, Hope Heals, p. 241)

Folks go on this day of Palms and Passion leaning in hard when it hurts the most.  Press on to the deeper truths when things are undeniably terrible that you my participate in undeniable splendor.  For this is the Palm and Passion of Jesus Christ.