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Luke 19:28-40

Rev. Kenneth M. Locke

The Downtown Presbyterian Church

April 4, 2004

Palm Sunday

What do we wave on this Sunday? What did the people shout when Jesus entered Jerusalem? What was he riding?

Did you notice in our text today there is no mention of palms? Did you notice no one shouts “Hosanna”? Did you notice Jesus rides a colt, but there’s no indication whether it is a donkey or a horse? Those details are in Matthew’s version of this story, not Luke’s.

I point this out not to try and trick anyone but to make a point. Most of us Christians tend to run things together, combining stories and gathering details from many sources and merging them into mega-stories.

And that shouldn’t surprise us because it reflects our thinking about Christianity. Most of us think of our faith in Broad Themes: God loving us, God saving us, Jesus dying for us. We’ve seen that this Lent. We’ve talked about God’s prodigal love, the need for repentance, Jesus’ humanness. All Broad Themes - grand, huge ideas.

Learning, discussing and remembering these huge ideas is important. But just as important, Christianity is also how we live day to day, hour to hour, telephone call to telephone call. Christianity is about how we spend our money, where we work, how we talk to people on the street and at the supper table. You know the old saying, “The Devil is in the details.” It’s equally true that “Christianity is in the details.”

In the 80s and 90s my parents were missionaries in China and my Dad says during all those years they only met one person who was a real communist. He was the president of the university where they were working. Many teachers had large homes, he lived in a small dorm room. The administrators had their own lounge, he ate in the dining hall with the students. When he gave tutorials he didn’t charge extra so he could afford televisions and radios like some did. He lived simply, as a good communist. Communism was not just a “Broad Theme” for him. It was details of his living. My father said he hoped his Christian witness was as powerful as that man’s communist witness.

Lent is drawing to a close now. Next week we will celebrate Easter. I hope this time of introspection and pondering some of the Broad Themes of our faith has been a blessing for you. And I hope that as we celebrate Easter and move on through spring and summer that these Broad Themes will be lived out in the day to day, hour to hour, telephone call to telephone call details of your lives. For if our faith is alive it is lived out in the details of our living. When people look at the details of our living, may they see a truly Christian witness. Amen.