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LINKS TO THE SERMONS |
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| The Donkey Luke 16: 29 - 40 April 1, 2007 This has always been the part of the story that is hardest to swallow – how they got the donkey. As a general rule, I don’t tend to be a skeptic about Biblical stories; I take them at face value. I can buy the proposition that God created the world in six days, or that Moses parted the Red Sea so the people could cross on dry land, or that Abraham and Sarah had a child at the age of eighty. But the idea that a couple of guys walk up and untie some guys donkey – he catches them in the act – they say, “The Master has need of it,” and the owner says, Well, okay then: that stretches credibility more than my threshold of tolerance for blarney can handle. I’d like to see someone try it down at the Mercedes dealership – “Hey you! What are you doing in that 450 SL?” “The Master has need of it.” “Well, in that case, here are the keys.”
Maybe it was set up in advance like in one of those old spy movies and that line was the code phrase. One guy is wearing a trench coat with a hat pulled down low. Another guy strolls up beside him, lights a cigarette and says, “It looks like rain, it must be Thursday.” The other guy responds, “Yes, and the geese are flying south early this year.” Then they exchange the micro-film. “The master has need of it.” That was the code phrase they agreed on when they rented it the night before.
Or maybe it was like in “Star Wars”; Obyone Kenobi and Luke Skywalker are riding in the speeder with R2D2 and C3PO when they are stopped by storm troopers. Obyone says, “These are not the droids we are looking for.” The soldier repeats the phrase in something like a hypnotic state. “You can go now.” Obyone explains that the weak minded are easy to control. Maybe that’s how they got the donkey – the “force” was with them.
Or maybe the response was so outrageously simplistic they couldn’t think of anything to say except, “Okay.” When Emily was two we were at the breakfast table and she wouldn’t eat her cereal unless I fed her. So, I asked why she didn’t feed herself and she said, “Because my arm keeps falling down. “Well, okay.”
Or maybe when they said, “The Master has need of it,” they knew who the Master was and what it meant. Maybe they knew that it was an essential ingredient in the drama that was about to take place. Jesus had walked his whole life and suddenly he needed a donkey – to go about two blocks! It was the symbolism that was important. That’s how Zachariah said the Messiah would come. And that is how the King would enter the city. A conquer comes on a white horse but the rightful heir to the throne comes riding on a donkey. And that’s who the people thought he was; “Hosanna, son of David,” they cried out. Maybe the donkey owners knew that their beast was essential as the opening act of a week that would change the world forever.
Maybe the donkey owners were disciples of Jesus and, as such, didn’t hesitate when the Master asked them for something. Maybe that story is there as a reminder to us latter day disciples that we may have some thing that the Master has need of. Even though the request seems trivial or outrageous, our compliance may be the key that sets up a whole sequence of events that change everything. Maybe God has been setting up a complex miracle with dozens of seemingly unrelated players and you hold the final piece that locks the whole thing in place. You don’t need to know what the plan is, you just contribute what the master has need of and trust that God is using it to make a miracle.
And the prominent roll it played in Palm Sunday didn’t hurt the donkey’s image either; the Donkey Anti-Defamation League had to be pleased. G. K. Chesterton wrote a poem about that:
The Donkey
When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood, Then surely I was born;
With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil’s walking parody On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was shout about my ears, And palms before my feet.
As always you can get a DVD of this sermon. Contact the church office.
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