How many of you are gardeners? What do you plant, vegetables, flowers, herbs? My father liked trees. He planted exotics like deodars and tapped our maple trees for syrup. My mother liked flowers and shrubs. And BOTH liked vegetable gardens. But I never got into it. I like the idea of gardening, you understand, and I can admire gardens all day long, but you have to admit it’s an awful lot of work. And it takes an awful lot of skill, too. How different all the plants are! They bloom at different times - that is if they bloom at all - and some need a lot of sunlight while others would just as soon stay in the shade. They need different nutrients and different soils and different climates. But one thing they all need. They all need water.
When you cut a branch or a twig - or a leaf or a flower - from its stem, you have to put it in water right away, or it will begin to die. Some cuttings will die even if you do put them in water; the dying process is just postponed. Some plants, however, will begin to put out new roots, and pretty soon you have a seedling you can go and plant right next to the old one.
But if you don’t put it in water it’s a goner. Even that orchid you put in the refrigerator after the prom isn’t going to last forever. And the palm branches the people waved as Jesus came Jerusalem that long ago day had an even shorter life span. By the time the day was over, all those once green fronds were lying in the dusty road, slowly turning brown.
It must have been an exciting scene, mustn’t it? There he was, mounted on a donkey in fulfillment of prophecy, coming into the city for the Passover, and along the roadside were crowds of people waving branches and shouting welcomes. Some even threw their cloaks on the road in front of him as a gesture of honor. The religious authorities were stymied. Jesus was too popular; they simply couldn’t move against him. “See,” they said to one another, “you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!" [v. 19] The disciples were undoubtedly nearly delirious with the thought that this was the time when Jesus would proclaim that he was the Messiah they’d all been waiting for, the Romans would be kicked out and they’d be partners with him in the building of the righteous kingdom that all the prophets had foretold. None of that gloomy stuff Jesus had been scaring them with was going to happen, look how the people loved him!
But Jesus knew better.
He knew what was in their hearts. John’s gospel, unlike the other three, begins with Jesus in Jerusalem for the Passover. And John tells us:
"When [Jesus] was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people... "[Jn 2:23-24]
He knew that what was in their hearts was too shallow to last beyond the day. Jesus knew that all the hoopla, all the cheering and waving, didn’t really mean a thing. He knew that what looked like an unstoppable grass-roots movement would be as dead the next day as the palm branches they were waving around so fervently. Their Sunday worship wouldn’t last out the week. By Friday, they’d be calling for his blood.
At the end of his life, the apostle John wrote down a vision which we call the book of Revelation. Early on there is a collection of letters to seven of the cities in Asia Minor, what we now know as Turkey. The letters describe the condition of the churches and warn them what they have to do to straighten themselves out. Two of the cities are in great shape. Not by the world’s standards, mind, they’re poor and persecuted, but by God’s standards they’re at the top of the heap. They are faithful. All they have to do is hang on, their eternal reward is ready and waiting for them. The rest of the churches all have some pretty glaring problems. A couple are tolerating heresy, one is gotten too legalistic, another is just going through the motions. The letter to the church in Sardis says, “I know your works; you have a name of being alive, but you are dead.” [Rev 3:1b]
What does it mean? What is a church that appears alive but is actually dead?
I think it’s something like that cheering and shouting that went on that day so long ago in Jerusalem. It was worship that had been cut off from its source.
Because, you see, for worship to be meaningful, it has to spring up from the inside. It has to be, as Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “in Spirit and in truth.” [Jn 4:24] True worship a living process: in it, our hearts respond to God with praise, and in return we are filled with spiritual nourishment, which in turn enables us to live our lives in a way pleasing to God when we leave. True worship doesn’t die when the noise dies down.
Those people who lined the roads cheering for Jesus weren’t responding to who he was. They didn’t even know him! They knew of the miracles, of course; it hadn’t been long since Lazarus had been raised from the dead, and there were the blind who could see and the lame who could walk and the lepers that had gone home healed. It was exciting! And well, maybe he was the Messiah and they’d get rid of the Romans at last.
The people believed because of the signs. They believed because of the miracles. They believed Jesus was going to keep on doing signs and miracles, and they hoped they’d get to see some and maybe even benefit from one themselves. But they were going to need a continuous dose of signs to keep their enthusiasm up, because it was all about externals for them. It was all about what Jesus was going to do for them, not about what God was going to do in them.
Jesus knew this. He had performed the miracles as signs, not as advertisements. They were like documents proving his identity so that he could get onto the real business he had come for. They were credentials, proving that he had the right to make the claims that so outraged the Pharisees. But they weren’t the point of his mission. And so when he saw the crowds waving and shouting, he looked at them and nearly wept. And Mark tells us that after he came into town, and went up to the temple, he turned right around and went back to Bethany. He wasn’t impressed.
There’s been a big debate going on in the American church for decades over worship styles. Some people insist that the only way the church is going to grow is if we turn in our organ for a praise band, and sing worship choruses with an overhead projector instead of hymns out of books. Some churches are investing megabucks in multi-media systems while others are experimenting with drama and dance. Well, I don’t have anything against praise bands or worship choruses; I love drama and once even included dance in a worship service.
But that’s not what makes worship real. That’s not what opens the door for the Holy Spirit to make an impact. Many churches whose pews are filled to bursting on Sunday morning have no effect at all on how their people live the rest of the week. Too many people who say “Lord, Lord” on Sundays say “Jesus who?” on Mondays. Religious fervor that’s all about externals doesn’t cut it with God. The prophet Isaiah warned the people of Israel: "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?" says the LORD.... "When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow." [Is 1:11, 15-17]
That is still important. Doing good, loving your neighbor, seeking justice - God still calls us to do all of those things. But nowadays even people who don’t know God agree that feeding the hungry and taking care of the sick is important... The residue of Christianity that still clings to our culture applauds these things, and many very good people are out there doing good. But is doing good things without reference to God any more pleasing to him than worshiping God without caring about your neighbor was?
Isaiah called Israel to a standard of worship which transcended the usual forms of religious observance. But Christ’s followers are called to an even higher standard. In his letter to the Romans Paul tells us what kind of worship is acceptable to God: it is "…to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” [Ro 12:1] He goes on to say, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect."[Ro 12:2]
We’re called to change not only our actions, but our very selves. And you know what? We can’t do it. We cannot do it by ourselves, any more than a palm branch can stay alive once it has been cut from the tree. The living water that only Jesus gives it what keeps us spiritually alive from Sunday to Sunday.
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus told his disciples, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower... Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. [Jn 15:1,4]
If we are not connected to Jesus, nothing that we do is any good. If Jesus is not dwelling in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, nothing we do has any spiritual significance at all. It doesn’t matter what songs we sing, it doesn’t matter if we lift our hands in praise or kneel in prayer, it doesn’t even matter if we tithe. What matters is that we are walking with Jesus, talking to Jesus, listening to Jesus, acting like Jesus.
This year’s palm branches get gathered up and burnt. They become the ashes we use next year at the beginning of Lent, as a symbol of sin and death. How much of our worship winds up being swept up, discarded, dead? Or does your worship spread out over the whole week, taking the sweet smell of clean water, the good news of Jesus Christ, out into the world? Are your branches bearing fruit?
