The Gift of Misfits
SCRIPTURE TEXT: Luke 19:29-42a
Rev. Monte Marshall
Holy Week begins today with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. When we look ahead at the next seven days through the lens of the Dark Wood—this image that has guided us through the season of Lent—this is what we see: intensifying darkness and a treacherous path that twists and turns, leading us from shouts of praise and acclamation on Palm Sunday, through gut-wrenching scenes of bitter resistance, a last supper, anguish, betrayal, arrest, brutality, crucifixion, death and a tomb.
This journey together with Jesus through the terrifying Dark Wood of Holy Week is not at all easy, but there are gifts to be found in the Dark Wood. This is what we’ve been learning over these past weeks. We’ve been discovering that while the Dark Wood is a place of fierce struggle that we would just as soon avoid, it’s also a place of spiritual awakening as we meet God and discover our true selves.
So today, on this Palm Sunday at the beginning of Holy Week, we seek the gift of misfits. Let us pray. PRAYER.
When we find ourselves in the Dark Wood, it is a gift of extraordinary value to make the journey with others. Eric Elnes writes: “Up to this point in our exploration of the Dark Wood, we’ve been considering the quest for our life’s path primarily from the perspective of our journey as individuals. It is only as individuals that we awaken to find ourselves in the Dark Wood, and each of us must find our own distinctive path through it. Yet, given the difficulties and challenges we encounter in the Dark Wood, walking alone is about as advisable as walking alone in a physical dark wood. It’s easy to get lost without the aid of companions.”1
So did we notice? As Jesus prepared to enter Jerusalem, and not only Jerusalem, but that intense Dark Wood experience of his final days before death, he was not alone. His disciples were with him, at least at the start. In fact, Luke’s story begins with Jesus sending two of his disciples into the next village to arrange his transportation for the parade into Jerusalem, a colt that no one else had ridden.
The owners of the animal cooperated. The story suggests that a code had been arranged with them in advance to insure that the disciples would get the colt at the appropriate time.
The disciples prepared the colt for riding. The disciples helped Jesus mount the animal. And then, as Jesus made his way down from the Mount of Olives, Luke notes, that “the entire crowd of disciples joined them and began to rejoice and praise God for the display of power they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the One who comes in the name of our God! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.’”
In Luke’s account, the crowd around Jesus as he entered Jerusalem was actually the community of his disciples. These were the supporters of Jesus. And they needed one another. They needed one another to survive because they were all misfits. Their little parade into Jerusalem, with all of its royal, Jewish symbolism, was actually a parade of misfits. And these disciples of Jesus were misfits because the One they followed was a misfit.
And Jesus was a misfit because he paid attention to God in his life. He said “yes” to the Spirit. He aligned himself with God’s reign. As a result, he embraced other misfits and even called them together into community.
But there was a problem. His faithfulness got him into trouble with all sorts of people who expected him to go along, and get along, and fit right in. Their resistance to him formed the Dark Wood through which he had to travel. For example, when Jesus preached to his hometown folks and told them a couple of Bible stories that challenged their bigotry, they drove him out of town and tried to throw him off a cliff.2 Mark’s gospel even tells us that his family thought that he had lost his mind.3
To the religiously orthodox, he was a heretic. Some of them even said that he was in league with the devil.4 To the ruling authorities of the Empire, he was a royal pretender and a rebel who threatened the public order and the existing power structure. This is why they ordered his execution in a public place. They wanted to make an example of him to deter other like-minded misfits.
Sure enough, in Luke’s story of the passion of Jesus, when the cost of being a misfit- follower of Jesus became too high, the disciples turned-tail. They abandoned Jesus in the Dark Wood. When Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane, the disciples scattered, except for Peter. He bailed out later when he denied Jesus three times in the courtyard of the high priest’s house.5 And during the crucifixion, Luke tells us that some acquaintances of Jesus, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, watched the unfolding events, but from a distance.6 All of these misfits were apparently afraid!
It took something called resurrection to finally give courage to these once-cowardly misfits so that they could come together, and stick together, and help one another through the deepest darkness of their own Dark Wood experiences. And we are their heirs!
So when misfits manage to overcome their fear and journey together through the Dark Wood, they become gifts to one another. Let me tell you about Ann. Ann was a bright, creative and energetic woman, but she was deeply troubled. This made her a misfit.
She and her husband joined a church just before their wedding, and they quickly got involved in a small discipleship group. But it didn’t take long for the members of the small group to notice Ann’s erratic behavior. At times she was so energetic and loquacious that she would drive everybody crazy. But at other times she would withdraw, and keep her head bowed, and neglect her appearance and disappear into her bed for days on end. The group soon discovered that she was bipolar.
At one point, Ann really hit a manic period. She went on a binge of self-destructive behavior that threatened to end her marriage and disrupt the peace of the small group. Members of the group were appalled by her behavior, but they never once wavered in their support of her. They were misfit followers of Jesus, because over and over again, the counsel they received from others was to give up on this woman. But they didn’t.
Some members of the group managed to find a way to get her admitted to the psychiatric wing of the local hospital. Ann began to receive treatment that helped her find some balance to life.
Over the years, Ann often slipped, but her small group remained steady—loving her, gently pushing her, welcoming her back after a manic episode, and reaching out to her with meals and companionship and prayer when she was depressed and overwhelmed with loneliness and isolation. Slowly but surely, the tenacity of this trust and compassion began to sink in. Ann started to trust herself and her ability to stay well, and she developed a deep-seated and perpetual sense of gratitude for the gift of life. She even became deeply involved in her small group’s ministry to the homeless. This is what can happen when misfits travel together through the Dark Wood.
A TIME OF REFLECTION
8:45 Each week during Lent we have taken time to reflect, accompanied by music. This last week, you are invited to take the thank-you note provided in your bulletin, and write on it the name of someone who has been part of your “misfit” community—someone who has been with you in the Dark Wood journey of your life. Later in the service, as we celebrate Holy Communion, bring your note forward and place it in one of the bowls provided at each serving station as an offering of thanksgiving to God for the person you named.
11:00 Each week during Lent we have taken time to reflect, accompanied by music. This last week, you are invited to take the thank-you note provided in your bulletin, and write on it the name of someone who has been part of your “misfit” community—someone who has been with you in the Dark Wood journey of your life. When you are done, bring your note forward and place it in one of the bowls here in the front of the sanctuary as an offering of thanksgiving to God for the person you named.
Thank you, God, for all the gifts of the Dark Wood, but especially for the gift of misfits. Amen.