Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Will you pray with me?
Dear God, open our hearts to hear your word and our mouths to speak it with loud and earnest. Hosannas Help us to discern the good prophets from the false ones, the sheep from the wolves, the sand, the rock from the sand, the empty hosannas from the meaningful ones.
Amen.
Our reading today comes from two passages in the Gospel of Matthew. The first is the very end of the Sermon on the Mount that we've been looking at since Christmas. And the second one is the more traditional Palm Sunday reading. So the first one begins on page 788 of your Pew Bibles.
Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
You will know them by their fruits.
Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles?
In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit. But. But a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear good fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
Thus you will know them by their fruits.
Not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
On that day, many will say to me, lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Cast out demons in your name, do many good works in your name.
Then I will declare to them, I never knew you.
Go away from me, you who behave lawlessly.
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person, person who built their house on rock.
The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it was founded on rock.
And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish person who built their house on sand.
The rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.
Now, when Jesus had finished saying these words, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes.
And now the more traditional Palm Sunday read.
When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethpage at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this. The Lord needs them, and he will send them immediately.
This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet.
Tell the daughter of Zion, look, your King is coming to you. Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them and the colt.
They brought the donkey and the colt and put their cloaks on them and he sat on them.
A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road. And others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed were shouting, hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven.
When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, who is this?
The crowds were saying, this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.
This is the word of the Lord.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: A few Sundays back, I referred in a sermon to a film about the 2008 financial crisis. A film called the the Big Short.
But another great film about that crisis is entitled Margin Call.
This movie Margin call details a 24 hour period in that fateful year 2008. A large Wall street investment bank suddenly discovers they have a big problem with a large portion of their assets. They're holding a lot of mortgage backed securities or MBS price products. These complex financial instruments were built on mortgages, are built on mortgages. And when those mortgages fail, as they were doing in 2008, well, the foundation of those products fell out underneath them, especially subprime mortgages.
The firm discovers suddenly that these assets they'd had that had been so profitable were now toxic.
The discovery is made one evening by a young analyst in the risk management department. He alerts his supervisor in the world quickly passes up all the way to the ears of this bank CEO, a character named John Told, played by Jeremy Irons to calls an emergency meeting of the firm's senior partners that very night, or rather in the wee hours of the morning. And at that meeting Told asks the analyst Peter Sullivan to explain to him and the senior partners gathered there the nature of the problem he has discovered. And he says as well, please speak as you might to a young child or to a golden retriever.
It wasn't brains that got me in this chair, I can tell you that.
Sullivan notes that according to the model he was using, and he tries to use as simple language as he can, if these mortgage backed securities that they held decreased by just 25%, the will be done for TOL then replies, so what you're telling me is that the music is about to stop. And we're going to be holding, left holding, the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of capitalism.
Sullivan says, sir, I'm not sure that I would put it that way, but let me clarify. Using your analogy, what this model shows is the music, so to speak, just slowing.
If the music, as you put it, were to stop, it would be much, much worse.
Told then says this to Sullivan, do you care to know why I'm in this chair with you all? I mean, why I earn the big bucks?
I'm here for one reason and one reason alone. I'm here to guess what the music might do a week, a month or a year from now. That's it.
Nothing more.
We then see Told look out the window of that boardroom located high in the skyscraper in New York City, and it's as if he's glimpsing a vision of the future out there in the night. One those seated around the table can't see, but he can, looking out the window and Told says, standing here tonight, I'm afraid that I don't hear thing.
Just silence.
In other words, he hears or sees the market for mortgage backed securities coming to a halt.
It's a scene that evokes in our imagination the portrait of a prophet.
A prophet. In Merriam Webster's dictionary, one of the definitions they give of a prophet is one who foretells future events.
And a synonym Merriam Webster offers for a prophet is predictor, as the character of John Told might put it in Margin call. A prophet is one who guesses what the music might do a week, a month or a year from now.
How do you know a true prophet from a false one? Well, if the prophet is a predictor, you judge them by the accuracy of of their predictions. Told presented himself as an accurate predictor. That's why he gets the big bucks.
You can find this image of profit as accurate predictor. Elsewhere in the financial world, there are private equity companies that go by the name Profit Shares, Profit Capital.
Profit Equity. Seeing future value.
Today, the implication of those titles is clear. We here at Profit Shares or Profit Capital, we can see the future. We can guess what the market is going to do a week, a month, a year from now. And so we can help you invest your money where you will get a great return for like a profit. We see what's ahead.
And certainly this is one way to understand biblical prophecy. Prophecy as prediction of the future in today's Palm Sunday Passage from Matthew 21 with John, August Swanson depicts like this.
In that passage we read of how Jesus instructs his disciples to go into the village where they'll find a donkey and a colt. They are to untie them and bring them to Jesus. He will then use them to ride into Jerusalem.
And Matthew's Gospel notes, this donkey and colt and Jesus riding in serve a very specific function. They're a fulfillment of the words of a prophet.
The prophet Zechariah is even quoted, look, your king is coming to you humble and mounted on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of a donkey. It's as if Zechariah saw a song that was going to be played in the future. And then as Jesus marches into Jerusalem on this donkey, the song comes to pass.
You could argue Jesus was a predictor, and that's one of the things that led crowds to call him a prophet three times. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus predicts his death and his resurrection.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus predicts that in times to come, nation will rise against nation. There'll be famines and earthquakes in various places. Believers will experience persecution. Jesus even predicts that the great Jerusalem temple will fall to the ground.
And we know from history that in 70 AD with the Roman siege of Jerusalem, that is exactly what happens often in Scripture. A prophet glimpses the future and then shares it with others, and then it comes to pass. Jesus does that.
But according to Jesus, a prophet should be judged not simply by their ability to see or predict the future. In the first passage, Claire, read the last section of the Sermon on the Mount that we've been going through as a church. Our Savior warns his listeners to beware of false prophets who are wolves in sheep's clothing. And how will you know them? Jesus says, you'll know them by their fruit.
A good prophet produces good fruit, just like a good tree produces good fruit. A bad tree produces bad fruit. Just as you can judge the quality of a tree by its fruit, so you can discern a true prophet from a false one by their fruit.
Well, what's the fruit of a prophet?
Well, if fruit represents produce, that's what we call it, right? What a tree produces, then, by that analogy, a prophet's fruit is, well, what emerges from them, their effects, the visions they see and articulate, to be sure, but also their deeds, what they do immediately after Jesus speaking of the distinction between a true prophet and a false one, he says, not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven and Jesus will end his Sermon on the Mount drawing a distinction between two builders, one who is foolish, another is wise. The foolish hears the words of Jesus and doesn't do them. The wise builder, the one who builds on rock, hears the teaching of Jesus and puts it into action. The Greek word for action, Poeo, occurs eight times in the text from the Sermon on the Mount you heard today.
The prophetic tradition Jesus seems to argue in the Sermon on the Mount is not just seeing, though it is that it's acting. It's what our mouths and our whole bodies do. Or poeo.
In the movie Margin Call, right after the CEO John Told predicts the music is about to stop. He then says this, so now that we know the music is stopped, what are we going to do about it?
This is to conjure the image of a prophet as well. I mean, think of the prophet Jonah proclaiming a coming calamity to Nineveh. If they don't turn, if they don't act, if they don't do something in response to what Jonah has helped them see, they will face a terrible fate.
They do repent and God relents.
They are spared.
Think of the prophet Joel, who proclaims, sound the alarm. A day of darkness and gloom approaches. A great and powerful army comes. Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart. With fasting and weeping, rend your hearts.
And God is gracious and merciful and may well spare you from that army and bless you instead.
Or think of the prophet Micah, who sees in the future Samaria and Jerusalem, a vision of mountains melting valleys burst in open floods coming down, and Samaria and Jerusalem made a heap of ruins.
And he also sees nations streaming to Jerusalem, that God may teach them God's ways. And the nations, he says, will beat swords into plowshares, and each will sit under their own fig trees. And presenting all this, Micah then calls the people to act. A terrible vision, a beautiful vision. Now he says, you know what is good and what the Lord requires of you. Do justice, love, mercy, walk humbly with God.
The prophet Jesus says in his Sermon on the Mount, do to others as you would have them do unto you. And later in Matthew's Gospel he will say, say, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang or hinge all the law, and the prophets vision and call to action. That's the work of the prophet.
What are we going to do? The prophet told asks the partners. A senior manager says, this Sell it all today.
Sell it all today. Told turns to the head of his trading and says, sam, is that even possible?
And Sam says, yes, but at enormous cost.
He says, if we stage this fire sale, if we sell these toxic assets, by the afternoon, those assets will be selling at 65 cents on the dollar, if we're lucky. And more importantly than that, Sam says, who are we selling this to?
We are selling something we know has no value, and no one who buys these assets from us will ever buy anything from us ever again.
Toad says to this I understand, but we have to do it for our survival.
And so they do, unloading this, to use Told's own words, odorous excrements on their neighbors, precipitating a crash in the market for those securities. And in the broader economy, a host of people see their pension plans and 401ks decline tremendously in value in a single day.
So would you call that company depicted in Margin Call Profit Equity? P R O P H E T I suspect not foreseeing a possible future. They act to be sure, but not the way the biblical prophets or the prophet Jesus would have counseled. You might call them False prophet Equity. At least that's how the movie depicts them.
Told might have seen the future accurately. There was a correction, if not an outright crisis coming in terms of mortgage backed securities. And they acted to be sure. But they produced what the prophets of Scripture would call bad fruit.
A true prophet. A true prophet in the Bible doesn't just see the future, and they don't just call people to act. The fruit they produce is truth, love, goodness, justice, mercy, faithfulness, concern for the neighbor, concern for faithfulness to God's call.
In today's passage, Jesus is proclaimed a prophet by the crowds. For like biblical prophets before him, Jesus not only makes predictions but calls the people to faithful action. His opening refrain in his public ministry according to Matthew was this, repent, repent, turn, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.
Matthew's gospel makes it clear Jesus didn't come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, to be a prophet himself. In today's Palm Sunday text, Jesus is proclaimed a prophet.
But we recall something else each Palm Sunday we celebrate with our palms and shouts of Hosanna that Jesus was not only a prophet in word and in deed, calling people to faithfulness Today and each Palm Sunday we recall the prophet Zechariah's words, look, your king is coming to you humble and riding on a donkey and on a colt the foal a donkey Each Palm Sunday we celebrate that our Savior not only gives us glimpses of the future as a prophet does.
Our Savior does not simply call us to act in word and deed and faithfulness to God as a prophet does. We have in Jesus more than a prophet. We have one in whom God's rule came near is near.
We have a king with the authority to forgive our transgressions and call us God's own children, citizens of God's kingdom, heirs of life in right relationship to God and neighbor and all God's good creation. We have this salvation as a gift from our King, one with the power and authority to grant it to forgive us in Christ. We have the kind of faithfulness we could not earn or accomplish. We have a faithfulness given to us, in part to us, imputed to us by a merciful sovereign with the power to do just that.
And yet today's text about Palm Sunday reminds us that even as we hail Jesus as king, remember he is prophet too.
This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. Praise God. We have one who rules over our lives and hearts and world and love and graciously for forgives us.
But that same sovereign is also a prophet. And that means our Savior has visions of the future to offer us. We see suffering and glory, death and resurrection, crises ahead like wars and famine and plague. And a day when many will come from east and west and north and south and feast at God's table. A day when a king will say to those who fed the hungry and clothed the naked, come enter into the joy of my kingdom. A day when the good news of Jesus Christ will be spread to all nations. A day when God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
Hard and hopeful visions of the future.
That is what we have in Jesus, as we would expect from a prophet, as we would expect of one who died and rose for us and bids us come, follow me.
Thank Heaven we also have in Christ that King who can give us the very power to fulfill and answer that call. Who is at work in us, who's planted the seed of the gospel such that people see good fruit because it is God's work in us.
Well, following this prophet and king, we sometimes get glimpses of the future. Thank heaven as I wake up each morning in Altadena and see homes getting constructed across the street and hear of my neighbors and of members of this church moving forward in their lives after the fire. Whether it's rebuilding or moving to a new house or starting, in some ways, a life after the Eaton fire.
I get hopeful.
I picture for a moment a future where the shadows of Eton and Palisades fires no longer hang over us with such force, we are freed to enjoy a new day.
I hope some of you who lost so much in the fire see that too.
Some days I attend a memorial service, as I did for Bruce Armstrong a week ago last Friday. And for an hour, I glimpsed the impact of this lifelong pastor person who worked with young life for years and brought a host of people to faith in Jesus Christ by a winsome spirit and confidence in his Savior.
And for a moment, I see a church with a vibrant future where the good news of Christ is lived and passed on, especially to young people.
I gather here with you and in worship, and I catch just a glimpse of a future where our lives, an intergenerational community, will be filled, enveloped in praise and delight in God and in the community and connections God affords us. I hear the stories of immigrants and the challenges they have overcome by faith and courage. And I envision a future where all immigrants and refugees, orphans and widows, those scripture names as vulnerable and in need of support, receive the blessings of home and family and the knowledge they are loved. I hear of somebody overcoming a terrible illness, and I glimpse, just for a moment, a future where illness and disease are no more.
I'm so grateful for those visions.
But other days, I wake up and see something different. Maybe you do as well.
I see the challenges and costs and risks of rebuilding and how the community that emerges may not be the Altadena or the Palisades we knew and loved.
I see churches closing their doors, as this church almost did back in 2003. I see church properties getting sold and refined purpose. And it presses on my consciousness, a future when all church doors may be shut. You know, if I really go down that dark rabbit hole, I see the terrible plight of immigrants and refugees. I see what Jesus saw ahead. Warfare, famine, plagues, nations failing to learn the ways that make for peace. And the shadows and suffering ahead can just seem overwhelming. The challenges to the ecosystem we inhabit, so serious, the way things not as God meant for them to be. You know what I mean?
You see that some mornings. I see the specter of death looming over those I love, including my own parents.
And so I try, as I know you all do as well, to hold both futures in mind and to just take one step forward in faith and discipleship, to take just one step, leaning on the grace of Christ and not my own strength, but with all that complex future ahead, to just move forward one step at a time.
The author of a book called Atomic Habits, James Clear, offered this recommendation, which I liked. He said, think of ABZ AB A is where you are.
Z is where you ultimately want to get to.
B is the next step you need to take on the way I can get so overwhelmed thinking of C, D, E, F, G, all the other letters, all the different possibilities, all the complexity of that and it just seems too much. Maybe I need to keep just in mind A where I am now, Z, which in God's eyes in scripture is the kingdom of God fully realized where God's pointing me towards and B, maybe that's what I need to hold to, the one next thing to do in response to God's gracious action towards me.
ABZ Steve Norris sent me this photo yesterday. And let me be clear. This is not a rebuilt Altadena. This is not a picture of churches and businesses and homes all rebuilt and enjoying a thriving new life together. And the ecosystem of that region and of the broader world recovered and enjoying sustainable life, affirming peaceful patterns forever.
This is one house.
One house built by Habitat for Humanity based on an architectural plan created and offered for free by a group called the Foothill Catalog.
One house for one housing insecure family in one part of a city decimated by a fire and built out of love for one's neighbor.
I can get my head around that and it makes me think, what's the one next step I need to take in love of God and neighbor?
And you and I both try to take that one step, trusting in the One who is our prophet and our King.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen.
