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What a strange request. I wonder what the disciples were thinking when they went to retrieve that donkey for Jesus. I can imagine the conversation, “Do you know what he wants this for? Are you sure we’re supposed to steal this donkey? Isn’t a donkey a pretty strange choice?” Our friends, the ever oblivious disciples, probably weren’t thinking to themselves, ah yes, we’re going to bring Jesus this very important donkey so he can fulfill a prophecy. They probably didn’t even know that they donkey they were bringing would start the parade that would send the whole city into turmoil. I’m positive they didn’t know they they were knocking down one domino that would start the chain of events that would lead to the cross.
But that is what it was. One small action, one humble action, that is often overlooked. It’s like the bulk of church ministry, the people who make sure the bills get paid and the windows washed. It’s the people who keep us stocked in coffee hour snacks. But it’s also the small acts of kindness and service that ripple out into the world. It’s the butterfly effect of ministry, that even when we don’t realize it, what we do has an impact on the world.
Palm Sunday is a day to direct attention toward Jesus, to take note of his triumphal entry. But I don’t think we’re wrong if we also take a look at the companions of Jesus who helped make that possible. When the disciples untied that donkey, they helped unleash something greater than what they ever could have imagined.
You can’t have a conversation about donkeys, specifically untying donkeys for too long without turning to the book of Job. In the book of Job, one of God’s questions to Job is, “Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied it’s ropes?” This question comes after Job’s friends have failed to account appropriately for Job’s suffering, close to the end of the book of Job, when God’s answers from the whirlwind. The way God responds to Job is one of my favorite verses of scripture. It says “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.”
Gird up your loins like a man, Job. So it’s after this that God asks, “Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied it’s ropes?” This question, like other questions God asks Job like “Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?” are at their first reading a way to understand that God is the one in charge and Job is just this puny human. But if you start to take the whole thing in context, something else emerges. This puny human, Job, has somehow managed to get a personal audience with God. God has responded to Job directly. God has elevated Job to a position of responsibility. And sure these questions are mostly rhetorical, but I think we are also called upon to sometimes answer these questions. These questions tell us a lot about God, but they tell us about ourselves.
“Who let the donkey go free?” is a question of identity and accountability. God asks, who are you? These questions sharpen our identity and sense of our place in the world. Who are you? What have you done? God speaks to us, directs us, uses us, and the results are far beyond what we could have imagined. Gird up your loins like a man. Job didn’t slink away and neither should we. God might question you, to ask who you really are, and you might just find out that what you have done matters more than what you first thought.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the merger that just happened. Despite being included in the process, and probably more to do with the way my church email ends up in my spam folder, I found myself caught off guard last week. Puttering about, doing what I usually do, it took me a little while to really get in my head, yes, this is it. East Brunswick Congregational Church has moved in! My tendency was to be oblivious and just let things slip by in the way they always have. Maybe after the press we received this week about the merger it will click better in my head, and maybe for some of you too, what the magnitude of our decision is. For some of us this means a new pastor. For some of us this means a new building. And even though many of us have invested lots of time and energy into coaxing this process along, I think the tendency might be for us collectively to not really understand what we have done. So let me state it once again, East Brunswick Congregational Church has merged into Christ Congregation! If that doesn’t make you want to get out of your seat and wave a palm branch around, I don’t know what will.
But I want to be clear about something. I want to call attention to the merger because it is good work that needs to be recognized, but also because we, like the disciples, have a path ahead of us that could lead to some pretty crazy things. We have untied and unleashed something within our midst. We have opened ourselves up to being used by God.
So what happened after the disciples untied the donkey and brought it to Jesus? Well, things got a little crazy. First there was the massive parade, the political demonstration of Palm Sunday. Jubilant for sure, but this parade definitely got Jerusalem all worked up. From there, things started to go downhill, and that’ll be the events of holy week we will relive this week. Good Friday, the day of the death of Christ, is the most somber moment of the whole Christian saga. But from there, and at the risk of giving away the ending too early, the source of all our hope is revealed and life conquers death. Who let the donkey go free? Who untied its ropes? Hard to believe all of these events started with a couple of clueless disciples untying a donkey.
We have let loose something new in the service of God. We have to remain open to what God might do through us through this merger, and we have to remain open to the fact that this does not always lead to sunshine and everyone around singing kumbyah. We can see through the passion narrative that the work of God led to great celebration and rejoicing, like the joyous parade of Palm Sunday. But God’s movement also led to death, and I don’t want us to be afraid of naming that. Through this merger, God has called us to death. Let me explain what I mean by this. Our friends from East Brunswick have experienced the loss of their old worship space and church home, this is a death. They have witnessed the death of hopes, of hopes for new ministries and growth that just didn’t happen the way they wanted it to. But those from Christ Congregation will also have to go through a time a death. There will have to be a death of what Christ Congregation was before. Because if there is no death of what is fading, what no longer fits in our new, joined community, then Christ Congregation is not offering the space and hospitality it promised. God calls us all at one point to death of old patterns, old habits, our old selves. This is not an easy calling. I believe this merger will present some difficulties, as we transition and navigate how to let parts of our old identity go.
But as Christians, we have to hold on to what the disciples had forgotten and what we now proclaim, that through death there is resurrection and new life. Yes, I believe the consequences of this merger will be difficult and will at times lead to death. But when I talk about the merger, I also get giddy with excitement. Because I know that with a little bit of help, our God can do great things. We do not worship a dormant God. We worship a God who is alive and moving, who brings new life out of desert places. We worship a Christ who does not avoid the difficulties of death, but instead faces them and conquers them and is let loose resurrected into the world. God has given us an opportunity through this merger, but we have also given God an opportunity. We have let something free into our midst.
Who let the donkey go free? Who untied its ropes?
What we have done matters. It has significance, not just for our own little community, but for what God is doing in the world. We have been opened to celebration and life, but also have taken steps toward death. As we gather to witness the events of holy week, we can be reminded of the journey we are now on together. But let us remain in the hope that what we have done is being used by God to tell the story of life, to death, and then to the life to come.
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