If These Stones Could Talk
Palm Sunday
John Wilkinson Third
Presbyterian Church
April 1, 2007
Luke 19:28-40
It seems difficult to believe that Holy Week is upon us. I hope
that the events of this week, leading up to the celebration
of the resurrection a week from today, will be a blessing to
you. A brief reminder of the schedule and encouragement for
your presence, and an invitation to invite a friend to join
us: Maundy Thursday, with the sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper and the poignant and powerful extinguishing of the light,
supported by wonderful choral music. On Good Friday, we continue
our partnership with the Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word,
this year next door at 12:15, and our evening partnership with
Downtown United Presbyterian Church this year in our Sanctuary.
On Easter morning, come to the Divinity School at 6:30 a.m.,
and then festival worship here at 9:00 and 11:00 a.m.
I am also mindful, and this is no April Fool’s Day joke,
that I first preached here six years ago this very day. That
also seems difficult to believe, since none of us has aged a
day since then. I need to say that time does fly when you are
having fun, and that I, along with Bonny, Kenneth and Ann, remain
very grateful for this call to serve and the ministry that we
all share together in this place in this season.
***
You will no doubt recognize the name of Charles Finney. Finney
was born in 1792 and died in 1875. No larger figure loomed in
American religion in the era between the American Revolution
and the Civil War. He is known equally as an icon of the evangelical
tradition in the Untied States, still much studied, and one
of the first leaders of religious-based social reform in America.
For several decades Finney was essentially a traveling evangelist,
though he held a pastoral post in New York City and later became
most famous for his presidency at Oberlin College in Ohio.
But for six months, Finney was headquartered in Rochester,
New York, on what was viewed as fertile evangelical ground,
a frontier in need of conversion and reform. And Finney’s
base was none other than Third Presbyterian Church. In fact,
at certain social and ecclesiastical occasions I will not hesitate
to identify him as one of my predecessors, and hope that no
one will ask too many questions! He preached here most Sundays
– actually, in a former location – and then at many
other churches and city-wide gatherings.
Finney’s was a fire-and-brimstone approach, very oriented
to the personal renunciation of sins and the acceptance of Jesus
Christ as lord and savior. Along with his personalistic evangelism,
he was committed to the conversion of the culture. In Rochester,
he shied away from some controversial topics, such as sabbatarianism
– whether business could be done on Sunday – and
the anti-Masonry movement. He zeroed in on temperance; in fact,
the ground near a former Third Church location is soaked with
the whisky poured out at a particularly zealous temperance revival!
Later at Oberlin, he focused more of his energy on the abolition
movement, and to a lesser extent, women’s rights.
His methods were not without controversy. Many religious leaders
who supported both his calls to salvation and his efforts to
rid cultural of temptation were extremely uncomfortable with
the emotional approach of his revivals. In fact, later in its
history, the Session of this congregation determined not to
invite him back to Third Church to preach.
Finney is still the subject of extensive academic and religious
effort. We get calls here on a regular basis. People want to
come and see where he preached, and are inevitably left disappointed
when we tell him that our location has changed several times
since the 1830’s. Some come anyway, and we will be sure
to take them to the front yard of the church, on East Avenue,
and show them the large stone and plaque, what we call the “Finney
rock,” that commemorates his time in Rochester and at
Third Church.
When I am driving to the church down East Avenue, or walking
the grounds to check things out, as I did earlier this morning,
I will pause at the Finney rock and imagine for an instant.
I will imagine what it was like back then, Rochester on the
frontier, a wave of economic boom and religious fervor gripping
this region. What was it like for Finney to preach in such a
context? What was it like to hear him, to experience the emotion
of his message? Would I have wandered down to sit at his anxious
bench, convicted of my sins? What was it like to connect –
as we seek to do now – matters of faith and public life?
Our list is a different one, no longer temperance or the Sabbath
or Masonry or even abolition. We have a new list, but a list
nonetheless.
If the Finney rock could talk, what would it to say to us?
What would it say to each of us, you and me, and what would
it say to this congregation, to this region? What are we doing
well, and where is there room for improvement?
There are other icons in this place, other “stones.”
The stained glass windows in both chapel and sanctuary, seeming
at some moments to look at us as much as we look at them. The
portrait of Lilian Hert Alexander that reminds us of the story
of women’s ordination in the Presbyterian church and the
call now to a new season of full equality. If that portrait
could talk, what would it say to us? If the now-unused fireplace
in the pastor’s office could talk, what would it say to
me, to us, about the nature of our ministry, about the goals
we should be pursuing, the vision and perspective we should
be bringing to our current life together based on the more than
100 years it has witnessed. Or the choir room. Or the kitchen.
What would they say to us, not only about the preparation of
meals to feed the hungry, or the practice of music to lead us
in worship, but the commitments, the relationships, the vision?
We know this day’s story well. Palm Sunday. Hosannas,
waving palm branches. More recently, the broader church has
thought about the link between Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday
and the events today’s parade foreshadows. We get tastes
of both today. Each evangelist offers a slightly varied version.
Luke tells us of the unfolding events: Jesus sends two disciples
ahead to secure the means of transportation; the triumphal entry;
the shouting multitude. “Blessed is the king who comes
in the name of the Lord…” borrowed from the Psalm
we just shared.
A close college friend was a contestant on Jeopardy this past
week. He actually won his first night, on the final question.
If you saw it, you may remember that the correct response, put
in the form of a question, was “Pharisees.” When
I spoke to him, I feebly tried to claim some credit as his biblical
advisor.
Nonetheless, more than just a game show response, the Pharisees
are present with us today. They are watching this parade with
a combination of envy, worry, disgust. You will remember the
great line from “Jesus Christ Superstar.” “Tell
the rabble to be quiet we anticipate a riot, this common crowd
is much too loud.” Here is how Luke reports it: “Some
of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order
your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you,
if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’”
This morning we couple the most iconic of psalms, Psalm 118,
with the Palm Sunday story. The connections are obvious and
deep. Not only do we sing God’s praise as we enter the
gates of righteousness, but we implore God to save us from whatever
it is that perplexes us or vexes us. Our “hosanna”
is both a song of celebration and a cry for salvation. Save
us. And because God does save us, the psalm ends as it began,
with words of praise.
J. Clinton McCann writes that in Psalm 118, “Praise and
petition join in affirming God’s sovereignty and the persistent
reality of human neediness…serving as a model for prayer…human
need and God’s saving activity.” (Texts for Preaching,
Year C, page 243)
It is that saving activity that had the religious establishment
so worried. They realized that their power was being threatened;
perhaps at an even deeper level they realized that their world
was about to undergo a radical reorientation. They are keen
to maintain order; this unruly parade was certainly disorder
to the max. “Jesus, tell your followers to calm it down,
tone it down, shut it down.” “I will not,”
he says, “but even if I did, salvation will not be shut
down – the rocks themselves will take up the cause and
sing the song of salvation.” Even if we human followers
were to lose our voices, his acclamation is inevitable.
Jesus not only does not tell his followers to be quiet, but
reminds the Pharisees and all who would overhear this story
that creation itself is called to praise God’s name and
God’s creative and redemptive salvation, for each of us,
all of us, all the world, all creation.
What would the stones say? Something about the hope of Jesus,
I imagine, the compassion of Jesus, the possibility of Jesus
in the face of impossibility.
What would our icons say, our personal version of the Finney
rock? We all have them, the little things that have witnessed
the living of our days. Coffee cups. Key chains. Old photographs.
Paperweights. What would they say about the living of our days,
what they have witnessed, the vision, the decisions, the commitments,
the relationships? What would our bodies say, our hearts, our
spirits?
If we were silenced, and the stones of our lives were given
voice, what would they say? Something about the hope of Jesus,
I imagine, the compassion of Jesus, the possibility of Jesus
in the face of impossibility.
If the stones of our lives could talk, if the walls of this
place could talk, if the streets of the city could talk, if
the lives of the voices that long have been silenced could talk,
what would they say? Would they utter a song of hope and justice
and love, in the face of efforts to be shut down and silenced?
Would they sing of reconciliation, of broken bread and an overflowing
cup? What would they say?
What do the stones of our lives say? Something about the hope
of Jesus, the compassion of Jesus, the possibility of Jesus
in the face of impossibility.
Palm Sunday calls us to pay attention, to pay attention to
the parade and how we march in it. It calls us to pay attention
to icons like the Finney rock, to icons in our own lives that
give silent witness and call us to speak out, to say “hosanna”
with our voices and live “hosanna” with our lives.
The stone the builders rejected, the psalmist tells us, has
become the chief cornerstone. That’s the stone we are
called to listen to, the song we are called to join. “Blessed
is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the
highest.” Amen.
