expectations | Pastor Partridge

Disappointing Expectations

March 28, 2021*

(Palm Sunday)

By Pastor John Partridge

Mark 11:1-11

Have you ever been angry?

I’m certain that you have.

But have you ever been angry at another person, and later discovered that you were the one who was really at fault? That sounds confusing. But maybe this will help, there was a time when I received some good counseling for some anger issues with which I had been struggling. And one of the sources of my anger was the disappointment that I felt in the attitude and behavior of another person. But during that conversation, my counselor said something that has stuck with me for a long time. And that was basically that there are many things that we cannot control. We can’t control the attitude and the behavior of other people, and there are many other things in our lives that are similarly out of our control. But while we can’t control the actions of other people, or the actions of government officials, or which team is going to win the football game, or your bracket for the final-four in the March Madness basketball game, the things that we can control are our expectations.

When we expect a particular team to win, and they don’t, any anger that we feel is largely our own fault for the expectation that we set. When our children don’t behave the way that we expected them to, it’s okay to be disappointed, but our anger if often our fault for expecting more from them than was reasonable. We are guaranteed to be disappointed if we expect the impossible or expect someone to do what they never intended to do. You shouldn’t expect the basketball team to win a football game, or expect a pharmacist to solve your engineering problem, or expect your doctor to solve your accounting problem. When you expect the wrong things, you are certain to be disappointed.

And, in large measure, that is exactly what we are watching in the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem in Mark 11:1-11.

^11:1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, ²saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’”

⁴They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, ⁵some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” ⁶They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. ⁷When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. ⁸Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. ⁹Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,

“Hosanna!” [which means “Save us”]

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

¹⁰“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

¹¹Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

This is a wonderful story, and it is one of the most well-known stories in the New Testament as well as one of those that we read and repeat every year. But it is not just a story about Jesus being recognized as Israel’s Messiah and king, it is a story about misplaced expectations. The people shouting for Jesus to save them (remember that “Hosanna” means, “save us”) were expecting that the messiah would come as a conquering king. But scripture says that the messiah would be both a suffering servant and a conquering king. When Jesus did not immediately begin raising an army to oppose and overthrow the Roman garrison, he failed to meet the expectations of the people. And, as we mentioned earlier, when our expectations are too high, and people fail to meet them, we humans often direct our anger toward the other person rather than remembering our own failure to set reasonable expectations.

In this story, Jesus clearly demonstrates his power and authority as the messiah and redeemer of Israel, and he fulfills many of the Old Testament prophecies regarding God’s coming rescuer and king, but because he did not meet their expectations, the people were angry and easily persuaded by the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees to cast their vote to release Barabbas and crucify Jesus.

But this also serves as a cautionary tale for us in the twenty-first century because the people of Jerusalem in the first century were not the only ones who have placed unreasonable, impossible, or just plain wrong expectations on the person, purpose, mission and ministry of Jesus Christ. Many of the people who reject religion, or who have left the church, have done so because their understanding of Christianity, and the person, purpose, mission, and ministry of Jesus Christ is filled with unreasonable, impossible, misguided, and wrong expectations. Yes, Jesus came to save the world, and yes, Jesus offers everyone the opportunity to follow him, be forgiven, and receive eternal life. But the first coming of Jesus did not make suffering, pain, and death go away. Christians do not live perfect lives free from pain, suffering, inconvenience, sickness, mental illness, and death. Violence, war, crime, and all sorts of evil did not end with the resurrection and neither did poverty and injustice. When we expect Jesus to do all these things, and expect Jesus to make our lives perfect, in this present age, then our expectations are not in alignment with the teachings of scripture, and we are certain to experience profound disappointment.

The people of Jerusalem failed to accept Jesus because they expected him to do things that he had not yet come to do, and the fault was not with Jesus but with their misplaced and misguided expectations. Today, we fail in the same way when we expect Jesus to heal the sick, clothe the naked, make our lives painless and perfect, and to eliminate evil and injustice from the world. Scripture says that Jesus will do those things, after the second coming and the judgement of the world. But until then, the mission to do all those things been given to us, the church.

Let us not allow the people around us to be disappointed in Jesus.

Whenever we witness injustice and evil, or find the sick, the naked, and the hungry among us, let us not be disappointed in Jesus, but instead put on our work gloves… and get to work.

You can find the video of this worship service here: https://youtu.be/xs-faxbmLWg

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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio. Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you. Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601. These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org. If you have questions, you can ask them in our discussion forum on Facebook (search for Pastor John Online). These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

The Wrong Kind of Savior

April 05, 2020*

(Palm Sunday)

By Pastor John Partridge

Matthew 21:1-11

Before we begin, I want you to shout “Hosanna!” as if we were together in our sanctuary and waving Palm branches together. Ready? 1-2-3 – now – “Hosanna!”

Okay, maybe that felt a little silly but, just as we would have done if we’d been together, I want you to be ready. Because when we get to that part of today’s scripture reading, I want you to do that again and shout “Hosanna” along with the crowd.

A year or two after Patti and I were married, we bought a house near the Summit/Stark County line with seven acres, a barn, and two fenced pastures. In short order we had a pony, a couple of cows, some rabbits and, of course, various dogs and cats. But even though this was the kind of a home that Patti and I had both dreamed of owning, since both of us grew up in town, there were a few things that required that we learn a few things. We learned a lot about raising all those animals, I learned how to turn wrenches and maintain our lawn tractors and small antique farm tractor, how to improve and maintain a fence line, and many other things. But one of the things that I didn’t really expect, was our war on poison ivy.

There was a spot, at the end of our garden and not too far from our kids’ swing set, that regularly grew a patch of poison ivy. It took a little while but, with the help of the guys at Copley feed, we finally found an herbicide that worked. As long as we put in the effort to put on long sleeves and gloves, pull the big stuff by hand, bag it, and throw it in the trash before we sprayed the little stuff, we got that spot under control and kept our kids safe.

But none of that was really much help when we discovered that one entire fence line, between our property and the neighbor’s property was absolutely full of a well-established patch of poison ivy. While there wasn’t any danger that the kids would get in it, that tangle of ivy had thick vines, was in an almost inaccessible thicket, and there was no way that Patti and I could pull it, nor could we afford enough herbicide to spray the entire fence line. We were stuck for a solution, and all the while, that tangle of poison ivy grew taller, and thicker, and was taking over that entire side of the pasture fence.

But, as it turned out, we were looking for a solution in the wrong place. You see, once our calves grew larger, we had to alternate them between our two pastures in order to give the grass a chance to grow back on one side while they ate down the grass in the other. And that is when the cows gave us the solution that we didn’t even realize we needed. As it turns out, cows really like poison ivy. They like it more than grass, or almost anything else. They worked hard at eating our poison ivy and stretched over and through the fence anyway they could, in order to get every leaf they could possibly reach. They didn’t kill it, but they controlled it so well that we never needed to worry about poison ivy around the pastures ever again.

The solution was there all along, but we were looking for it in all the wrong places.

That isn’t uncommon.

Human beings do things like that all the time. We look to government to solve our problems when the answer lies in changing our own behavior, or in simply asking our neighbors for a little help. And the same is often true in our spiritual lives as well. We want God to wave some sort of magic wand and give us things that we had in our hands the entire time.

And that realization helps us to understand what was happening as Jesus entered Jerusalem on the day that we call Palm Sunday. We read that story in Matthew 21:1-11 where we hear these words:

^21:1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, ²saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. ³If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

⁴This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

⁵“Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

⁶The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. ⁷They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. ⁸A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

[Right NOW! Say it with me… “Hosanna!”]

¹⁰When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”

¹¹The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

From the beginning, it is obvious that Jesus knows what lies ahead. Jesus has been telling his disciples that he would be arrested, crucified, and rise from the dead, and he’s been telling them that for weeks. Now we see that Jesus not only knows what will happen to him, but that he knows the details of the lives of people and animals that he’s never even met. Jesus knows that there will be a donkey tied up in the village ahead of them. He knows that, with the right words, his disciple can borrow them, and he knows that by arriving in Jerusalem in that way, Jesus will fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 which describes the arrival of the messiah.

But although Jesus knows that he is fulfilling the prophecies about God’s messiah, it is just as obvious that the expectations that the crowd, and the disciples, have for the messiah, rescuer, and savior of Israel are misguided.

Jesus is not what they are expecting.

The crowd wants the wrong kind of savior.

The people call Jesus the “Son of David!” and, in so doing, use a title of earthly kingship. They shout, “Hosanna” which means “Save us” because they believe that Jesus is an earthly messiah, a military and political rescuer that will unite their nation, raise an army, and overthrow the Roman occupation.

But Jesus isn’t that kinds of savior.

Jesus didn’t come to earth to rescue God’s people from Rome.

Jesus came to rescue them from something far more sinister, addictive, and deeply personal. Jesus came to rescue God’s people from themselves, from their unwholesome and unhealthy desires, from their rebellion to God, and from their sin.

But it was the people’s dissatisfaction with Jesus, because of their misplaced, misunderstanding of Jesus’ mission, that ultimately led to his betrayal, abandonment, trial, and crucifixion just a few days later. And even though we live two thousand years later, and even though we are able to read the entire story, and even though the meaning has been explained to us, and even though we understand the events in a different way than the disciples and the people of Jerusalem did that day, we still run the risk of casting Jesus in the role of the wrong kind of savior.

Jesus is not the savior who can be called upon like a genie in a bottle to grant all our wishes and make our lives painless and perfect.

Jesus wasn’t then, and still is not a nationalistic savior that came to rescue his, or anybody’s nation. Jesus didn’t come to save the United States of America or to make America great, or to transform the United States into the New Jerusalem.

Jesus is not the savior that came to make his followers rich, or even healthy. In fact, one of the few things that Jesus promised, was that life would be painful and difficult.

But the best news is still the Good News as long as we remember what kind of a savior Jesus is.

Jesus is our savior, our redeemer, and our rescuer.

Jesus came to rescue us from our sins, to redeem us in the eyes of God, to restore us to God’s family, and to call us to a life of purity, holiness, service, love, and outreach.

Jesus is that kind of savior.

And thankfully, that’s the kind of a savior that we need the most.

I hope that each of you know Jesus in that way. I hope that you have already answered his call to follow him. But if you haven’t, I hope that you will talk to me, or email me, so that we can talk about how you can belong to God’s awesome family too.

Have a great week everybody.

You can find the livestream of this message here: https://youtu.be/VXrvfleMohI

A longer version with music can be found here: https://youtu.be/aU0ofTV9c6Y

Did you enjoy reading this?

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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio. Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you. Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601. These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org. If you have questions, you can ask them in our discussion forum on Facebook (search for Pastor John Online). These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.