I received a remarkable video this week by email about one Jason McElwain, a young man who managed his high school basketball team in Rochester New York. Now I understand that his story was on CBS news in 2006 and that it might be old news to you, but I had never heard it until I saw the YouTube video that was sent to me. You see Jason (Nicknamed J-Mac) is autistic, although technically he was labeled a “high functioning autistic, and was a special-ed student at Greece Athena High School in Rochester. He had trouble interacting with others at an early age, but started to develop social skills in high school, made friends, and even became the dedicated manager of the basketball team. In his senior year, before the last game of the year, the coach told him to suit up for the final game. He said if the opportunity presented itself, he would put him in the game so that he could once in his life taste what it was like to play in a game, because he so loved basketball and enthusiastically served the team. As fate would have it, Greece Athena was way ahead in the game and with four minutes left the coach pointed to Jason and said to “get in the game.” He almost immediately got an open look, so he shot the ball but missed badly. A few seconds later he missed his second shot. Everyone was cheering for Jason, praying that he would at least make a basket. And then it happened—he hit a three point shot and the crowd went wild. But that was only the beginning—shortly thereafter, he hit another three and the crowd and his team mates began going nuts. He hit another one then another. In the last four minutes of the last game of his senior year, Jason hit 6 three pointers, tying the school record for a game and scored 20 points overall. Unbelievable! After the game he was carried off the floor on the shoulders of a rabid crowd chanting his name. The media interviewed Jason, and he just said, “The coach put me in and I got hotter than a pistol.”

Jason’s fame spread quickly. As a result he met the likes of President Bush and Peyton Manning. He even was on the Today Show, Good Morning America, Larry King Live, and Oprah. He won the ESPY award for the best moment in sports in 2006, beating out Kobe Bryant’s 81 point game which happened to be the second best performance in NBA history. Topps Trading Cards has produced a Jason McElwain card, and he was in a Gatorade commercial aired during this year’s Superbowl.

I can’t believe being the sport’s fan that I am that I had never heard of Jason McElwain. It is a great story, and Jason’s performance is what sports should be all about. The story is timely as I could not help but contrast that to another story this week that of one John Calipari, the new coach at Kentucky who will possibly make four million dollars a year for the next eight years. Not a bad deal for a man who is supposed to be employed by a university to teach young people. Wonder what they pay the English professors at Kentucky? Yeah I know, 25,000 people don’t pay big money to hear an English professor lecture. So it is economics, but it says a lot about our priorities as well as a society. Sort of like here in Arkansas where the new director of the state lottery will make a half million a year, more than any state employee save the surgeon who is the chief cardiovascular surgeon at the Med school.

Well this is America where you can make your millions if you got something people want. I think Calipari better get the money quick, because his predecessor was a man named Billy Gillespie, who only lasted two seasons at Kentucky. Kentucky will pay his bought out contract more for not coaching than he made coaching in those two seasons. Who is Billy Gillespie and what happened to him? Just two years ago at this time, Gillespie was at the pinnacle of the basketball world. He was the golden boy, the up and coming coach that everyone wanted. His star was rising fast based on what he had done with the program at Texas A&M, a school doggedly known for its football and its political science professors. He took A&M to new heights in basketball, and the thinking was if you could win there you were a good coach. Kentucky was the biggest prize on the market two years ago, one of the best five programs in college basketball, and is second only to UCLA in number of national titles won. Kentucky is the winningest team in college basketball history winning 76% of their games all-time. So there is a lot of pride in the Blue Grass State, and they don’t take kindly to losing like we do here in Arkansas where we are nearly last in everything except in the rates of teen pregnancy, obesity, and smokeless tobacco usage, where we are clearly number one.

So what the heck happened to Billy Gillespie? How can one go from hero to goat so quickly? How can one be a rising star in one minute and a falling star the next? I had never heard of a coach fired after only two seasons. Two years is not enough time to get your players and put in your system. Just think if we had fired Nolan after his first two lousy years at Arkansas. But the tide can turn very quickly, you can go from hero to goat just like that, and that is exactly what we have happening in our text this morning on this Palm Sunday. You know the story: Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey and the crowd goes nuts. They had no doubt heard about his reputation of kicking the religious establishment in the tail, of his traveling miracle show, and of his dynamic preaching and life coaching. He was the rising star, and when he finally made it to the big city lights, it was pandemonium city. The Nazarene was all the rage, and the town folk lined up along the streets to catch a glimpse of him, and in true prophetic fashion waved palm branches at him and shouted “Hosanna” and proclaimed him the best thing since buttered bread, or at least buttered matzo.

So what were they so excited about, and why did things turn so bad in such a short time for the carpenter? I mean they turned on him faster than a Kentucky Alumni on Billy Gillespie. Well, the short answer appears to be that either he wasn’t what they thought, or they simply tucked their tails and ran when the powers that be reared their ugly heads. When the going got tough, the tough got going. I tend to think as a student of human nature, that once they actually saw this Jesus, they realized that he was not who they thought he was, and so they were willing to crucify him one week later, or at least were willing to wash their hands of him and to get busy looking for the next great messiah prospect.

So if their expectations were not met, what exactly were they expecting? One author I read this week offers this explanation:

As I have thought about this question, I keep coming back to that strange word, “Hosanna.”  You’ve got to admit that it is not a term that comes up in everyday conversation.  If you are like me, the last time you uttered “Hosanna” was, well… a year ago in March, last Palm Sunday.  It is a peculiar word–one that is difficult to define.  Scholars’ best guess is that “Hosanna” is a contraction of two Hebrew terms: yaw-shah, meaning to save or deliver, and naw, meaning to beseech or pray.  So you might translate the shouts of the crowd as: “We beseech you to deliver us.”  The people cheered.  They tossed branches from the nearby trees to the ground, and they called out, “Hosanna.”  They looked upon this prophet–rumored to be the Messiah–and they cried out to him, “Save us.  Save us.”  I’m thinking that the meaning of Palm Sunday hangs on those two words–on that simple plea.  Do we feel compelled to shout “Save us!” to our God as we prepare for Holy Week?  (Dr. Scott Black Johnson, Day1.org, April 5 2009).

So they wanted to be saved, and that is a powerful need for those who seem desperate for deliverance, but my question is this: what the heck did they want saving from? Hell, you say? Not a chance I say– they had no concept in their Jewish theology that they needed someone to come along and offer them salvation from a fiery hell. There are some who would read backwards and impose this theology on the text, but that would simply be our agenda and not this crowd’s. So what did they so desperately wanted to be saved from?

Well the traditional answer seems to be from Roman rule and tyranny. They were looking for a deliverer who could free them from political captivity, who could restore the Jewish kingdom, who could free them from oppressive taxation, who could put money in their pockets, who could whip their enemies, in a word the same things we expect from our national leaders, but only with a lot more urgency because their situation was much more oppressive. However, in the end Jesus was not this kind of savior, so they quickly jumped ship and wanted him dead for not being who they wanted him to be. And that was that, and it is also the story of Palm Sunday and the unraveling that we will reenact this Holy Week. But, lest we be too hard on the disillusioned Jerusalemites, I wonder if we are any different? What do we want to be saved from and is it realistic? What do we want from our messiah and what do we shout when we think of him? What did you come to this place this morning expecting from this Jesus?

Well, we want to be saved from hell. OK, I will buy that, since we all will be dead a lot longer than we will ever be alive on this planet, and I understand that we want some kind of assurance that we will prosper in the next life. But I also do not think that is all there is to it for us, as frankly we don’t really relate to whatever hell is very well and day in and day out don’t even think of the possibility or we all would be rabid evangelists. I was scared to death (pardon the pun) as a kid when my spit slinging Baptist preacher shouted “if you want to know what hell is like go home and put your hand on the burner on the stove and imagine that kind of pain forever and ever amen.” Well, I won’t even go there as I know that there are many who are fire insurance Christians. And regardless of what you believe about heaven and hell, the truth is that it is not a theology that consumes us 24/7. Our faith and spiritual need is at a much more pragmatic level.

Why do I say that being a good Baptist? I think by looking at the way we do church, by the things that we say about our faith systems, about the theology that we reduce to our clichés is proof that we expect to be saved in more ways that just being saved from hell. Our personal Jesus will save us from all kinds of things, just listen to what the average Christian says, does, and prays about. So I ask you this morning on a day when in our worship we sing Hosannas, when we wave our palms and boldly cry out, “Hosanna,” do we dare imagine what we really want God to save us from?  My guess the answer is as varied as we are– Save me from anger.  Save me from cancer.  Save me from depression.  Save me from debt.  Save me from the strife in my family.  Save me from boredom.  Save me from getting sent back to Iraq.  Save me from the endless cycle of violence.  Save me from humiliation.  Save me from staring at the ceiling at three a.m. wondering why I exist.  Save me from bitterness.  Save me from arrogance.  Save me from loneliness.  Save me from discomfort. Save me from inconvenience. Save me from poverty. Save my job. Save my 401k. Save me, God, save me from my fears. It is as Scott Black Johnson says:

In viewing Palm Sunday from that angle, we can begin to see the potential for some real depth in this celebration, for embedded in our quaint pageantry is an appeal to God that originates in the most vulnerable places inside of us; and it bubbles, almost beyond our control, to the surface.  “Hosanna.”  “Save us.”  Please God take the broken places that will tear us apart and make them whole.  We beseech you, God, jump into the water and drag our almost-drowned selves to shore.  “Save us.”  “Hosanna.” (Day1.org)

You see, the problem is that maybe Jesus is not that kind of Messiah either. Maybe he is not here to save us from what we so desperately want to be saved from. I will have to say that this week I did some hard praying, and you know me, in my skeptical self I figured it would do no good. I know that I cannot change God’s mind. I know that prayer is more than superstition, it is more than dragging the rabbit foot’s out of the pocket, it is more than manipulating the intentions of the almighty by badgering God into submission to let me have what I want to have. Prayer is not making a wish list and if you have been faithful enough, I somehow believe that God throws a carrot or two your way. So I found myself praying to the effect this week, “OK God, surely the heck you owe me one. I never ask for what I want because I know you don’t work that way. I also am skeptical that you will do something just because I ask, but for heaven’s sake, just this once, I won’t ask again anytime soon, can you please help me out here, can you please save me, hosanna.” I knew that by the time I got to this prayer fate was already set anyway, and that if anything the prayer was ill-timed. What I should have prayed for was the grace to deal with the situation regardless of what happened, and the strength to deal with the consequences. My prayer was in effect answered, but now I have a lawyer in the family, so be careful what you pray for!

We want desperately for this Jesus to save us, and what we mean by that is as varied as we are. But the truth is, no messiah can live up to our expectations, no messiah can be all the things that we need, no messiah is our personal genie. And when we figure that out, we have less use for such a savior, and we can easy turn on him. I see people everyday almost who are somehow disillusioned about God because of one, his people are hypocrites, or two, they have felt betrayed by the almighty because they did everything right and got sick anyway. The rabbit’s foot was no insurance, and they wondered if faith makes any real difference in our real problems.

No messiah can live up to all our expectations. Jesus of Nazareth did not live up to the hosannas that were being thrown his way on that first Palm Sunday, and their first clue should have been that he was riding a Jackass instead of a white stallion. After all, when you read the story, in Jerusalem on that week of passion we did not see any miracles. Nary a one. Jesus did not raise the dead or open blind eyes or heal lepers. The lame did not rise and walk, he did not calm the storms at sea not did he feed the masses. Not in Jerusalem on the biggest stage. He simply did an intense batch of teaching on what the Kingdom of Heaven was really all about, and he did so largely in parables that had a kick to them because it wasn’t like anything that they expected. He became increasingly confrontational not with the Romans but with everything religious and sacred. He in essence said they all had it all wrong, perhaps beginning with what they thought that they needed saving from. He drove the money changers out of the temple with whips for heaven’s sake, and he was not what anyone thought he was when he entered the city on that Sunday. So they got mad enough to kill him, and that is exactly what happened when events started to quickly unravel for him.

So what is the moral of our story for all of us who use our personal Jesus for whatever the heck we think we need saving from? I believe it is this: the gospel is not about us, it is about God. That is a subtle but profound shift in perspective. And when we realize this we will understand what happened here on this Holiest of weeks– the people were mad and felt duped when he didn’t jump through their hoops, so they got mad enough to hurt him. And it is still the same to this day except we are the ones willing to fight and die for our own theological sacred cows. You see, when we understand that the cross is about God and not about us that changes everything. It changes how we view sin, how we view Jesus’ sacrifice, how we view ourselves and how we view the amazing love of God. And if the implications of such are too hard to comprehend (they are for me), then consider that Jesus most likely would shake us up just like he shook them up on that week; he would turn our religious convention on its ears. He might even show up to our churches with a whip or two. He would do so because again, we would find that the Kingdom of God is not about us but in fact is about God. It is not about our programs or our agendas. It is not about our religion, our churches, our priorities or our culturally encapsulated theologies. It is about getting out these doors and loving our neighbors as ourselves, of loving our enemies because anyone can love a friend. It is about walking the second mile when we know good and well that walking only one is enough, it is about turning the other cheek, it is about doing to others as you would have them do unto you. It is not about sin and failure, but about love, acceptance and forgiveness. How we would change our churches if we could just realize the Kingdom of God in our midst?

I don’t know what we would look like if the carpenter’s Kingdom message ever really got of hold of us. But I think we might not shout “hosannas,” God save us, any longer; but we might just see what we could be about to save what needs redeeming in others. And in so doing, we might also find what we desperately seek– our own salvation. And that my friends, is the message of Palm Sunday, and that is why we call it the Good News. Thanks be to God! Amen.