Palm Sunday (Andrew Meher)

Andrew Meher: you So I have a question. I have a question. What did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on? Are you sure? It was a donkey? What kind of sound does a donkey make? Come down here, Sammy, can you come down here please on the floor? Come down to the spot down there. It goes, ee-haw. Right there, ee-haw. Ee-haw. Anyone know Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh? You guys know that? Do kids watch that anymore? Winnie the Pooh? I don't even know. Right? You know Eeyore? He's kind of mopey. He's like, what's something that he says? What's something that Eeyore says? What does he do? Sit down on the floor, okay? What does Eeyore say? Does he kind of like mopey? Is he like, ⁓ well? Is kind of sad all the time? Eeyore's just sort of like, ⁓ well, it always happens to me. Is that what you all think of when you think of a donkey? You think of Eeyore? Or something kind of a dumb kind of animal, a silly kind of animal. A cow and a horse? Okay, so I have another question for you. Jesus rode in on donkey, right? Okay, so I have a different question for you. If you need help with something, maybe you need help with something at school or like what? What's something you need help with at school? Mm-hmm. Hold on just one second, Abby. ⁓ you got a boo boo, okay? Yes. So what's something that you need help with? Just shout it out. I want to hear different answers. What is something you sometimes need help with like at school or at home? Mm-hmm. Yes, at speech. And where else do you need help? Yes. So we need help there. Where else do we need help? Where do you need help? In math you need help? Yeah, me too. I need a ton of help in math. That's a big problem for me. What do you need help with, Maddie? Do you need help with anything? No? Okay. What else do you guys need help with? There's something you need help. Do you sometimes need help with things with friends? Like do you ever get in arguments with your friends and you need help? Or, yeah, you do? Do you? What kind of things do need help with? Help understanding what's going on? Yeah, like you need a parrot maybe to come help? I have a question. If there was something that was really serious that you needed help with, would you want the strongest person or the weakest person? What do you want, Phoebe? You want the strongest person? Yeah, everyone say it, strongest person? Would you want the weakest person to come help? No, we don't want the weakest person. Why not? They don't know. The weakest person doesn't know. How about y'all in the room, the rest of you grown-ups? Would you prefer if you got a big problem to have the strongest person or the weakest person? You want the strongest person. Why? Huh? Because you need someone who knows. Do you want the smartest person to help you figure it out or the not smartest person? Okay? What if there's some people who are doing something mean? Do you want someone who's going to come in and force them to do what you want? So they can fix it? No? You don't want someone to tell the mean people what to do right away? You don't want someone to do that? Why not? You don't want someone to fix what the mean people are doing? You do. Please stop. What if they don't listen? What do you want the strong people to do? To fight them. What do you all want to do? I see nods from the grown-ups. The grown-ups want them to fight too. Violence is not the answer, Jonah says. So here's the thing, when I want to tell you guys something, shhh, listen, listen very close, this is very important. Do you remember how you were lining up over here? And John was pretending to be Jesus. And so all the people in Jerusalem were so excited because they heard Jesus was the King that was going to save them from the mean people that they were having problems with. And so they came and they were so excited and what did they see Jesus riding? ⁓ Was he riding a strong warhorse? Did he come in with his sword and he was ready to fight? What did he come in with? That's not right. How's Jesus going to fix the problems if he doesn't come in with his warhorse and a sword? How's Jesus gonna fix his problem if he doesn't come in with a war horse and a sword? He has strong friends. Shut up, John. Sorry guys, I'm being joking. I apologize if I just taught your kids a word you didn't want them to hear. ⁓ What do ⁓ we do? Jesus came in on a donkey. How's that gonna help save the people? Do you think the people felt excited or do you think they were kind of like, wait a minute? Do you think they were worried? You don't think they were worried? Do you guys think that they were worried? Anyone out there think they were worried? You know what? People started to get really worried because they saw Jesus and he didn't come on a strong horse. He didn't come with an army and he didn't come with any weapons at all. The verse that we read this morning, do you remember what we read? It says this, he came in on a donkey fulfilling the scripture that said, tell the people of Jerusalem, look your king is coming to you. He's humble riding on a donkey. Do you think Jesus is trying to teach us that we should be really, really strong or really, really weak? I think Jesus is actually teaching us we're supposed to be weak. Is that confusing? Parents, are you confused? Any of you want to admit to telling your kids they need to be strong sometimes? I'll admit it. You need to be strong right now. But the prob... I know, I want to too, but the problem is sometimes when people are being really mean, Jesus doesn't tell us to be strong and to fight them. Jesus teaches us to be weak like him and humble and gentle. What do you think about that? Humble means to be gentle. It means you still tell the truth because right after this Jesus told the truth in a very strong way. But you're gentle about it with the right people. Does that make sense? It's confusing, right? Parents, are you confused? On Palm Sunday, Jesus taught us what kind of king he was, what kind of people he was leading, and who we're supposed to be. And he didn't come in on a war horse like kings would have done if they were going to show off their strength and let people know they were ready for a fight. He came in on a little donkey. What's the donkey sound again? Can you imagine the king of the universe coming in with a, eehaw, eehaw? Would you take him seriously? Yes, Zion. What Zion? Let's listen to Zion. The war people had war horses, but Jesus kept telling his friends to put their swords away and not to ride on the war horse. They followed him on a donkey instead. That's very confusing, isn't it? Because a lot of times we learn that we're supposed to be really, really strong. But I want you to know that when we follow Jesus, he teaches us how to find a different kind of strength. But it's a strength that comes through being It's a strength that comes through not fighting back when people fight back. It's a strength that is willing to tell the truth about what's wrong without trying to hurt other people at the same time. And I know this is complicated to learn. Part of me is talking to the adults right now while I'm talking to all of you. And it's something we have to grow into because it's hard. But I want you kids to remember this one phrase and I you to it a couple times. We're called to be weak like Jesus. Inhumans! That's right. Okay, can you say this with me? Can you say, we're called to be weak like Jesus. Let's say it one more time together. We're called to be weak like Jesus. We're to be gentle, right? And we're to learn how to hear other people and listen to them and still tell the truth when we see things that are wrong, but we're not called to hurt other people no matter what kind of wrongdoing they're doing. That's important, right? That means that if our brother or sister or a friend takes something that's ours and we really want to scream at them and push them, right? That's not what we're supposed to do. There's other ways that we can talk about it and we can help and we can work it out. Yeah? Yes, thank you Jenna. We're not choosing violence. Hey, can you pray with me? Can you close your eyes for a minute? And let's pay attention to Jesus together. Jesus, this is very confusing and hard to learn, but we pray Lord that just as you showed us what kind of king you are, you would show us how to be weak like you were, in the same way you were. trusting that the Father would always take care of you. And we trust that God the Father will always take care of us. And we pray that you would help us to be weak in the same way that you were weak and humble. In Jesus name, Amen.