Someone Has To Bring the Donkey
Matthew 21: 1-11
Here we are at Palm Sunday. I have to tell you this is one of my favorite Sundays of the year. Following the Lectionary as we do it’s sometimes a challenge to come up with a sermon that honors the scriptures of the day and at the same time speaks to you. With some of the scriptures in the Lectionary it’s just hard to write a sermon.
That’s not the case on Palm Sunday. Here the ideas flow. Here there are all sorts of approaches one can take. A preacher can preach on the crowd singing their Hosannas and relate that to how we should always be waiting to praise the coming of the King into our living. Or the sermon could be about hosannas quickly turning to cries of crucify. A sermon could come out of the people laying their coats on the ground in front of Jesus. And of course there’s the connection between Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the Old Testament prophecies. There are the coats laid out as a carpet over which he passes. There is the fact of Jesus riding on the donkey instead of some great horse as a conquering general. There’s the possibility of a sermon on how quickly the Hosanna can turn into a cry of “Crucify.”
On and on the possibilities go. On and on. And you would think that after four decades of preaching I’d have bumped up against every possible approach to this scripture. But in my readings this week Dr. Bill Bouknight who was pastor at the Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis, Tennessee for years showed me something we just gloss over when we read this story.
Before I tell you what the unrecognized portion is, let me tell you another story.
Her name was Eloise. Everyone called her Aunt Eloise. She was not a member of my church. In fact, I don’t know what church she was a member of. But I got to be friends with her when I realized she was making magnificent contributions to our church almost every Sunday of the year.
Aunt Eloise during the fall and winter would make dried leaf and such arrangements for our church. Now she didn’t drive, so she walked the two miles to our church and left those arrangements on the porch either Saturday evening or early Sunday morning. And then she walked to another couple of miles to the Baptist church where she left another arrangement.
In the spring and summer she worked almost all day in her gardens. She grew every variety of flower there was. And tending those gardens was her life’s work. I wish you could have seen the floral arrangements she provided us. I wish you could have seen her toiling away in those gardens on those hot summer days. She’d be covered from head to toe, with a bank holding her pants leg to her boots and a kerchief tied over her face.
You see Eloise had to dress that way. And her need to dress that way made her floral gifts to the church all the more precious. Eloise was allergic, badly allergic, to the beauty she grew and gave away.
I don’t think that many people knew where the flowers came from every worship service. And I’m sure they weren’t aware of the sacrifice made to provide them.
You know the scriptures are full of people like Eloise. Remember the story of the Good Samaritan? Did you ever think about the innkeeper. He didn’t have to trust the Samaritan to come back. After all, he was a Samaritan. Remember the loaves and fishes. The little boy didn’t have to share. Remember Simon’s sons leaving the nets on the shore, torn and tattered, and following after Jesus. Somebody had to take up the slack back home while they traipsed after the prophet. Who was it that brought actually hiked down the road to tell Jesus Lazarus had died. The Bible doesn’t say.
The Bible is full of these unrecognized characters. They’re like the credits that roll by at the end of a movie on TV. They roll by so fast the network can work in another commercial. They never get the credit they deserve.
And that brings me to this story of Jesus entry into Jerusalem. Now, if you read the story carefully you realize that there’s a bit of collusion going on here. Jesus gave the disciples a password for them to take possession of the animal. It was prearranged that the donkey would be there if needed. And so, I ask you, “Who provided the donkey?”
Who provided the donkey? Who’s this unknown character who is so essential to the story. This story would not be complete without him. Somebody had to bring the donkey.
That is true of any successful Christian endeavor. Someone has to bring the donkey.” Somebody has to be the unseen one who gets no recognition but without whom things just wouldn’t work out.
Aunt Eloise brought the donkey. She brought the donkey in the form of flowers grown and distributed for the love of her Lord.
Somebody has to bring the donkey. Look at William over here. For years he’s cut the grass at this church, and he just kept cutting even when we added three acres. William brings the donkey.
Jonnie sitting over her. And Judy there. Every Monday their in that kitchen back there laboring over that stove to provide the nourishment for Lynn’s Soup kitchen. They’ve done it since before she died. They’ve done it so long we don’t think about them doing it any longer. Judy and Jonnie bring the donkey.
Did anyone notice that all the flower beds were redone a couple of weeks ago? Did anyone notice that the parking lines have been repainted? Did anyone notice that the rough spot in the drive had been cleaned up? Larry helped us with that.
These are simple things that we take for granted, but listen, folks, we cannot be the church we are called to be unless someone brings the donkey.
“See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Jesus entered on the back of a donkey, the humblest of the beasts of burden. Jesus, still today, rides on a humble foal. But somebody has to bring the donkey.
We tend to think of a church being a success or a person being a Christian example in grandiose terms—lots of people in the pews, lots of money in the plate, lots of dynamic deeds done by persons bursting with personality. We need to quit thinking like that. We need to remember that somebody has to bring the donkey.
So this sermon today is preached to bring you just one message. To all of you who have done so many countless little unnoticed acts around here, from washing dishes, to making coffee, to teaching Sunday school, to delivering meals to the homebound, or just parking yourself in the pew, thanks. Thank you so much for bringing the humble acts of love on which Christ rides. Thank you for bringing the donkey.
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