“The chorus of Hosannas is bigger than we think”

(Psalm 148 and Luke 19:28-40)

Hosanna in the highest!  Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna to the king!

Kingdom talk permeated everything Jesus had said during his public ministry, and he fleshed it out with specifics so it would be clear this was no ordinary kingdom.  In the kingdom of God, the hungry are fed, the poor are released from oppressive debt, justice and righteousness are the order of the day, grace and forgiveness abound, and all God’s children sit at table together, recognized as equals in God’s sight.  According to Luke’s gospel, these are not only echoes from Hebrew law and prophets, they are lessons Jesus would have learned at his own mama’s knee.  Remember those brave, prophetic words Mary sang before her son was born?   “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…for he has scattered the proud and brought down the powerful, lifted up the lowly and filled the hungry with good things.” (Luke 1:46ff).  An unmistakable vision of God’s Kingdom.

Lest anyone misunderstand what we’ve been about here in worship throughout this Lenten season, we’ve been about the work of that Kingdom.  God is our King, as Emily reminds the kids downstairs each week.  And because that is so, we’re encouraged to live as citizens of that Kingdom.

Kingdom living isn’t some sort of pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking about “won’t it all be great when we die.” Kingdom living also happens here and now.  We catch glimpses of the Kingdom of God wherever Mary’s song begins to find fulfillment, wherever God’s people stand together for justice, righteousness, and peace.

Among other things, Kingdom living involves living as faithful stewards of God’s creation.  This is why we’ve sought to include in our Lenten disciplines this year very simple, concrete actions to reduce waste and pollution, conserve energy and water, shop thoughtfully – not because it’s trendy (though thank heaven it finally is), but because it is our Christian responsibility.

This morning’s specific call, as you’ll see on the bulletin insert, is to protect and restore biodiversity, for the glorious array of God’s creatures, hundreds of thousands of species of plant and animal life, mustn’t be taken for granted.  That diversity is shrinking everyday through human carelessness, and worse.  And while this would be a worthy concern whether or not we were people of faith, as Kingdom people we have a whole different perspective on the tragedy of extinction.

Who can forget the book Emily read for us during children’s time a few weeks ago, with its marvelous recounting of the many sorts and kinds of stars and water and plants and particularly that huge (and well-spoken) mouthful of animals she rattled off for us: “hummingbirds as small as bees and whales as big as buses, chameleons that can change to any color, sloths that grow moss on their backs…moths that look like leaves and insects that look like sticks, skunks that smell disgusting (except to other skunks), squirrels that fly, bees that dance, worms that eat mud and goats that eat anything, dolphins that smile, crocodiles that grin and hyenas that laugh, butterflyfish and parrotfish and lionfish and batfish and catfish and dogfish and hogfish and…”[1] the list continues on with dozens of other examples.  Of course these are still only the tiniest percentage of things that God has created.  The biodiversity of our planet is breathtaking. 

      What we sometimes forget, self-centered folk that we are, so focused on our own species and its triumphs and tragedies – what we sometimes forget is that every last one of these creatures (animal, vegetable, and mineral) is praising God in its own way.  As an old song puts it, “All God’s critters got a place in the choir.”  But think about it – that also means anytime a species becomes extinct, an enormous chorus of praise has been forever silenced.

Sure it requires an imaginative stretch to consider that moths and sloths and mountains and molehills can offer praise to God.

But biblical authors are unafraid of such talk. This morning’s psalm says it especially well: “Praise the Lord, fire and hail, snow and frost!” Praise the Lord, wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and all birds!”  We find similar reminders throughout the Scriptures.  In Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God.  The book of Job urges us to “ask the animals, and they will tell you, the birds of the air, the plants of the earth,” for they will speak wisely of God. (Job 12:7-10) Our women’s Bible study even read recently in the book of Jonah of animals in the city of Ninevah lifting heartfelt cries of repentance to God.  (Jonah 3:6-10)

I found it helpful this year to keep all of this in the back of my mind while reading our familiar gospel text for this day. Jesus, entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, says if the Hosannas from the crowds are silenced, the very stones will shout out.  Well, if the rest of Scripture is to be believed, it’s not like they hadn’t had practice!  Some of those stones had already been rockin’ out for God for millennia. 

Perhaps the absurdity of the image is not so much the concept of stones shouting words of praise, as it is the irony that we humans – who ought to know better - so often forget to do so.  Could it be that whales and skunks, azaleas and cedars, clouds and stars ‘get it’, in a way we sometimes don’t?  The glory of creation.  The magnificence of God’s handiwork. The realization that this one entering Jerusalem today on the back of a donkey is a King like none other.  The desire to get in on the action, to sign on as citizens of this Kingdom, to live like we mean it.

We’ve been talking a lot in this Lenten season about “repentance in the plural,” a phrase I came across in an article by Kathleen O’Connor. “Lent summons us to repentance,” she says, “to a change of heart and behavior, to a turning around so as to walk in the way of discipleship.  [But] too often,” she says, “Lenten traditions reduce repentance to tiny shafts of personal failures … Any practice of repentance that awakens our spirits, increases prayer, and opens us up to God is good for the whole world” she continues.  “Hooray for such practices!

But even when observed with faithful motives and humble attitudes, such focus on the individual alone is myopic [if] our collective sin never appears before our eyes …When we repent [only] of the sins that disturb our peace within the narrow walls of our cocoons, we remain unmoved by how the way we live harms God’s other peoples and God’s good earth… Can the call for repentance,” she challenges us, “move from the singular to the plural?”[2]

Another reason for working toward repentance together in this Lenten season is simply that the task before us, in the area of caring for creation, feels enormous.  As many of us have said to one another over the last 5-6 weeks, it’s all too easy to become overwhelmed, and then stuck, paralyzed by our seeming inability to make a real difference.  We need to encourage one another as a Christian community, remembering that God honors our efforts to repent. That is, our efforts to change direction, to alter our path, to turn toward God and be intentional about Kingdom living even in things as seemingly mundane as the way we use our water and dispose of our trash.

But perhaps the bigger question is why repent at all in this season?  Why is humility especially required in Lent? Because without it, we’ll never be able to appreciate the incredible cost of Good Friday, or the amazing good news of Easter Sunday.

My sister drew my attention awhile back to a wonderful quote from Moby Dick that, while certainly dated in its language, offers a helpful twist on this same idea: “Heaven have mercy on us all, Presbyterians and pagans alike – for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.”

Indeed we do need mending! Our brokenness is all too apparent, as individuals, as a nation, as a planet.

Thank heaven help is close at hand.

Thank heaven Jesus our King has now entered Jerusalem, and we too are invited to wave our palms and shout our Hosannas, as the events of that holiest of weeks begin to unfold once again.

Thank heaven our small efforts at repentance, our humble attempts to live as Kingdom people, will once again be honored in no less holy a place than a cross.

Thank heaven human weakness - whether to conquer individual sin or to rescue a planet - is all put back into perspective, with the events of Easter Sunday morning.

It’s not all up to us, and thank God for that!

But what an amazing gift of grace that we are invited to take our place and play a part.

People of the Kingdom, don’t let the birds and the fruit trees, the stars and the sea monsters have all the fun.  Sing your praises too!  And live them. Amen.