Rev. Dr. James Goodlet...Courageous Love

Sunday Worship - FPC LaGrange - March 29th, 2026.mp4

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I didn't know where your daughter had gone. I just she disappeared and then all of a sudden she came creeping around the corner. She would not be denied. She would not be denied. One of my earliest birth, or rather, one of my earliest memories centers around a birthday party. I was probably about their age. I think I was maybe turning five or six. And there was this trend in the mid-1980s. I don't know if it was a thing here. It was where I grew up in Marietta. And I didn't want to miss out on it. We had at our, for my birthday party at our at our home on 1366 Lansdowne Court in Marietta. We had a pony party. Did any of you all or your children have pony parties? Any raise of hands? Okay, all right. There's some pony parties around here. If you're wondering what was a pony party, it was exactly what it sounded like. Somebody, we would contract with them. I guess we signed our lives away. And they would bring ponies, little tiny horses, for children like me to ride. I don't remember all the particulars of said pony party. I can imagine there was some fear and trepidation about the pony party and what the ponies might do on the lawn or anything like that. But what I do remember is riding this valiant steed and being led in circles with my friends as they rode these ponies. And I get why this particular animal would have been marketed to our demographic, because five and six-year-olds ride ponies. That's what you do. You don't ride a horse. The pony is for the child, not the adult. Because an adult riding a pony would look silly, foolish. And yet, that's exactly what happened on this particular day, many, many years ago, in the metropolis that was ancient Jerusalem. A man rode in on not one but two, it says, two different ponies. Can you imagine what he looked like? He probably looked like a fool. And so the question is, well then why? Why would he do this? Why ride in on a pony that was meant for children and birthday parties? For Jesus, I think that may have been the whole point. I think he meant to play the fool. I think he thought this whole scene was absolutely foolish. I think he thought the whole idea of a military parade where somebody came in riding this war horse while everybody celebrated, and this hero said, Look at me, look at me, look at how amazing I am. I think Jesus thought that that was foolish. This was basically Saturday Night Live, Jerusalem style. It was parody at its finest. Jesus was poking fun at the establishment. But there's more to it than that. This wasn't only satire, it was also in Scripture. We've said it a number of times today. We uh Jacob read it in his in his uh the assurance of forgiveness. We quoted Zechariah. It was fulfilling the prophecies of the Jewish people that said that the new king of God's people would ride in on a colt. A humble one riding not a war horse, not a stallion, but a donkey. Jesus was fulfilling these scriptures. It was Jesus' way of proclaiming to everybody who would hear and see it that I am your king, but I'm not the kind of king that comes in on this, on secretariat. But I'm riding a pony. I'm different. He was drawing attention to himself so that people would know who he was, what he was about. And it wasn't just the people who were celebrating him, but it was also the people who were threatened by him. He was calling into question the powerful and the privileged. And there was a special place reserved for those kinds of people who threatened the establishment. There was a special place that was reserved for the kind of people who said, you know what, Rome, I'm not that into you. And it looked something like this. Jesus knew what was coming. He knew exactly what he was doing, and yet he did it anyway. And there's a word for that. The word is courage. If you Google the word courage, you'll see all these inspirational quotes. I was reading all these quotes. It was kind of a there was one thread that wove itself through those quotes. And it had to do with fear. And not necessarily the absence of fear, but rather the conquering of it. I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it, said Nelson Mandela. Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen. Bernet Brown. Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway. John Wayne. Hollis Hand calls it a talent show. I call it a display of courage. I will tell you, there's no way I can possibly imagine standing before a whole school of my peers and doing what some of these young people did. And I will tell you, there were kids who were clearly, some of them were clearly petrified to be where they were. It was as if the stage was the last place they wanted to be. They would get up there, some of these kids, and you could not tell their shoulders from their ears. And yet there they were. Letting themselves be seen. At that moment. Some of them were Presbyterians. Some of them played the piano. Because they belonged to Amanda. They played the piano, some of them, and they played fearlessly, but they wouldn't turn their back to look at the con the audience. Almost called them a congregation. There were people up there who sang solos, kids who sang solos. I might not have heard a word they said, but that didn't mean that they didn't show up. And some of them danced. But they did show up. And I believe, as I was thinking about that, I believe that courage is one of the more underrated descriptors of what it means to be Christ-like. We throw around words like love and grace and forgiving, and those are great, great words, but we don't often speak of courage. And the reality is that following Jesus is often the most courageous thing we can do. To show up for others when nobody else will. To show up for ourselves when the world wants to walk all over us. To show up for the kind of people no one else seems to stand up or show up for. Not at all. Look where he wound up. But we who follow Jesus know that that's not the end of the story, and that we are called upon to summon our own courage to stand up and show up for the very kind of people and world Jesus himself stood up and showed up for. And I call that courageous love. And that will no doubt require something of ourselves that is outside of ourselves. But following Christ has nothing to do with glorifying ourselves. That parade wasn't Jesus saying, hey, hey, hey, look at me. It was very different. If we espouse a Christianity that says, look at us, then we are entirely missing the point. And so my question for you this Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday is this. What does Christ-like courage look like in your life? Where or when do you need to stand up for those who are overseen or overlooked, often in favor of those who are overprivileged or overvalued, maybe even overconfident? When others are propagating themselves on war horses, how do you risk, how do we risk seeming foolish, maybe even weak, on the cults of righteousness? Where or how will we show up on stage for those who rarely, if ever, receive the spotlight? And I will be the first to tell you that it isn't easy. I struggle with this all of the time. Most weeks I stand up here in a pulpit, and what I really want to do is do this. I worry about upsetting people, offending people in the congregation whom I respect and love. And more often than not, I take the easy way out. It's not easy being courageous. But I will tell you that the moment will come for us all, individually or collectively, when we will have a choice in our quest to follow Christ, will we choose courage or cowardice? Will we choose strength or silence? Will we summon intestinal fortitude or weak spines? And I'll just simply say this to that. Your king is coming to you. Humble and riding on a donkey. Children of God, do not let fear overcome you. Saddle up anyway.