“The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the king of Israel!”
Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it…” Jn 12:12-14.
This morning I was reflecting on the continual challenge of making church work, encouraging a diminishing attendance, sharpening our aging programs, maintaining our facilities, avoiding mission drift, and on and on it goes.
I had to wonder how Jesus always seemed to move with such simplicity. Surely when He spoke of “building my church,” He did not have our version in mind?
He, unlike the ruling culture, did not select the best steed nor the shiniest chariot, but the “foal of an ass.” Yet when he moved, multitudes followed.
At his most critical moments, such as the one that lay before him as he entered Jerusalem, it wasn’t with a marketing plan, nor the fanfare of a paid entourage, working the city before his arrival. He simply borrowed a donkey and let the Spirit do the rest!
Churches are at best tools, donkeys to be ridden. We in our postmodern times may have constructed something more akin to a Trojan horse?
It was never about the donkey that day in Jerusalem, but the message that the donkey carried.
When your church attempts to enter the marketplace are you greeted with palm branches of hope or sticks and stones?
No disrespect intended but I must ask, does your church carry the message, or are you, the messenger, now carrying the donkey?