THIS PASTORS VIEWPOINTFor the week of April 17, 2011

“Son, weren’t you listening to me when I told you to weed the garden before you went off to play?” My father’s words may have been phrased as a question but they really weren’t a question. There was no upward inflection usually found at the end of a question.

“Now children, I want you to pay close attention while I explain this.” We all remember a teacher that would introduce a subject or task with those words.
I can remember as if it were yesterday a jump school cadre in the service get his face right in mine and shout, “Bigelow! You don’t look like you’re listening! Gimme fifty!” (Fifty rapid but perfect pushups were always required for minor lapses in good judgment.)

The times our wives or husbands can tell tales about their spouse not listening are probably legion. I suspect that not listening is something endemic to the human condition .

My mind was set to thinking about this condition when I read in Psalm 95:6-7 (NLT) in my Bible reading this week. “Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the sheep under his care. Oh, that you would listen to his voice today!.”

Oh, that we would, indeed, listen to God’s voice today…every day as a matter of fact. I believe that if there is any complaining that can be done about our not listening it could be done by God about his people.

Almost all Christians pray sometimes, many pray frequently and some with determined regularity. I’m not talking about praying in church when the pastor announces “Let’s pray.” I’m talking about the rest of our lives. The everyday part. What concerns me, and I’m sure it concerns God even more, is how much of our prayer time is spent in listening.

It is one thing to ask God to do something for us, yet something altogether different to ask what God may want us to do for him. That requires listening.
And so, as with so very much of God’s word found in the Bible, “Oh, that you would listen to his voice today,” speaks to each us. Without pausing to listen, how can we ever know what God wants? How can we obey the call to “follow me [ today]” unless we listen to today’s instructions. It seems, then, we should wake up each morning…listening, listening to God.

Sermon for Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011
Choosing Christ at The Crossroads, #6
SERVANT LEADERSHIP
Philippians 2:6 11

“…then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Former vice president Walter Mondale told this story on himself. When he was campaigning in Lewiston, Maine. A huge crowd came out to see him off.
"I'm really very, very flattered," Mondale said as he was about to board his plane. "There must be about two thousand people here!"

“Yes,” he was told by one of the natives. Then the citizen of Maine added, “But, to be perfectly truthful, we've never had a 747 land or take off at our airport before. Everyone turned out to see if it'll take off okay or crash."

Some of you are old enough to remember Alfred Hitchcock. You know, the man who mastered mystery and suspense in his movies. Hitchcock always managed to make a brief appearance in his films. This was one of his signatures as a director.

However, for the film LIFEBOAT (1944), he was faced with a difficult problem … the entire movie was set in a lifeboat out at sea, and there were only a few characters in the boat. His ingenious solution was to place a photograph of himself in a newspaper one of the characters reads during the course of the film. He can be seen in the "before" portion of a before and after ad for a diet product.

Pride. Ego. Hunger for status and recognition. Hollywood and Washington are famous for people with enormous egos… as does any great center of accomplishment. It’s difficult to be successful in life and maintain a healthy perspective about your own place in the grand scheme of things.

Psychiatrist Robert B. Millman has studied celebrities from a variety of fields, and he has concluded that sudden fame often results in a psychological disorder that he calls Acquired Situational Narcissism.

Imagine how you would react if tomorrow you woke up as a celebrity. People stared at you, called out your name, cheered for you as you walked down the street. Reporters begged you for interviews. Stores began sending you their best merchandise free. You got only the best tables at the best restaurants. Strangers asked for your autograph.

Sounds great to most of us. But it is difficult to live in that kind of world without having your psyche permanently changed. This is what happens to many celebrities according to Dr. Millman. They begin to think the world revolves around their needs.

So it comes as no surprise that Acquired Situational Narcissism is marked by an intense self-centeredness and outrageous behavior, like drug-taking and affairs which we see and hear about all to frequently these days. It could happen to almost anyone -- unless they are very, very special.

Here comes Jesus into Jerusalem. And the people shout, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

And children wave palm branches. And people throw down their cloaks before him. That would be enough to turn anyone’s head, wouldn’t it? Anyone except Jesus. It’s ironic, is it not? There has lived only one man around whom the world really does revolve … and he was the humblest man who ever lived.

Watch him welcome the leper, the blind man, the outcast. See him cradle little children in his arms. Observe as he washes his disciples’ feet. Marvel as he kneels in a garden and prays, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” (Mark 14:36)

That is why more than a billion people on this planet bow at the name of Jesus. The greatest of all became the servant of all, just as he instructed his followers: “He who would be greatest among you must be the servant of all.”

The phrase has become a catchword in business today, and yet
it sounds like an oxymoron. The phrase is SERVANT LEADERSHIP.

Servant Leadership is what Jesus was all about. It is what Palm Sunday is all about. It is what Holy Week is all about.

Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, “humbled himself unto death--even the death of the cross,” says St. Paul. “Therefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow . . .” Servant Leadership is strong leadership.

When Jesus told his followers to humble themselves, he was not telling them to be wimps. He was not telling them to be spineless. Who among us could admire a coward?
Jesus was no coward, and he would not want his followers to be cowards either. Only a brave man or brave woman gives his or her life for something noble, something lasting.

On August 17, 1944, American forces flew a desperate mission over the French city of Toulouse. Their objective: to free the city from occupying German forces. Citizens of the town remember one brave young pilot in particular. After his plane was blasted by enemy fire, he ejected from the craft; unfortunately, his parachute didn't open in time. The young pilot died in the fall, and German soldiers took his body away. Toulouse was liberated from its German captors only days later.
For over 50 years, no one knew the identity of this brave young pilot, but the people of Toulouse commemorated him as a hero anyway, and erected a plaque in their town to honor the Unknown American.

In 1994, a journalist for a Toulouse newspaper, aided by a retired French pilot, began delving into the mystery of the unknown pilot. Together, they discovered his identity: 2nd Lt. Daniel Haley, a twenty year old from Chicago who was engaged to be married when he went off to fight in the Second World War.

For years, the Haley family had grieved for him, and the grief was made all the more difficult because they didn't know the circumstances of his death. As a result, the town of Toulouse had another ceremony to honor the memory of the brave pilot, now known to all as 2nd Lt. Daniel Haley. Daniel's sister, Mary, was there to receive her brother's honors. She had cried when told that her brother had died a hero. Now the Haley family and the city of Toulouse can find closure in honoring the memory of this one brave man.

When we celebrate Christ’s passion, we do it in the same spirit that the citizens of Toulouse celebrated the life and death of this young soldier who gave of himself in their behalf. The call to servant leadership is a call to strength, a call to service.

Even more important, it is a call to sacrifice. It is a call to lay down something important, not for your own gain, but for the gain of all.
When a weak person answers the call to sacrifice, we can attribute it to a multitude of motives.

* Perhaps it was the pressure of the crowd.
* Perhaps it was a situational thing.
* Perhaps at that moment it was less stressful for the weak person to
say yes than to say no.

Ultimately, however, there is no virtue in the sacrifice of the weak. But when a strong person says, “Here is my life. Take it and use it as you would,” we know this is important.

When Dave Maurer was about seven years old, a strange man moved into his neighborhood. The man had a disfigured hand and a lame leg. His physical differences caused quite a stir among the neighborhood children. They came up with all kinds of stories about how he had injured his hand and leg. At all costs, they tried to avoid their new neighbor.

But one day, the lame man came by and invited the kids to his house. Not wanting to appear “chicken,” Dave and his friends accepted.

Maurer says “The man brought out some pictures to show the boys. They were glossy photos of a dashing young Navy pilot posing in front of a shiny, silver jet. He told them the story of his Navy career, and how it was cut short by a horrible crash landing during a storm.

From that day on, Dave reports, the neighborhood boys treated this man as a hero. They brought their friends to see him. And they never tired of his story.” As he writes, “The wounds and injuries we once shunned took on an entirely new dimension once we understood the story behind the scars.”

They were the scars of a strong man who had made a heroic sacrifice. The same kind of sacrifice that Christ made on the cross of Calvary.

Here is the point of all this: Today, in this room, Christ is looking for people who will live strong, sacrificial lives. Christ is looking in this congregation for people who will be servant leaders in our community, in our city, in our nation. Not weak people. Not spineless people. But people willing to live heroically and at the same time sacrificially.

That is what the cross is all about. Many of us have such a pathetic understanding of the cross. Here is your cross:

• Jesus is calling you to stand up and be counted for justice and righteousness.
• Jesus is calling you to do the decent thing, the loving thing, even when it might make you unpopular.
• Jesus is calling you to give, to share, to sacrifice--even though we live in a me-first society.
• Jesus is calling you to be a servant leader in a world where there are far too few heroes.

Will you heed his call? Are you strong enough to say “Yes” today at this crossroad with Christ?

Amen