And little children shall lead them
Thursday worship at the Worship & Music Conference benefits from youthful participation
MONTREAT, North Carolina — Palm fronds, provocative liturgy and, of course, prophetic preaching marked Thursday worship at the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship and Music Conference, being held this week and next at Montreat Conference Center. In all, about 1,400 people are participating.
Thursday’s theme was meekness, which the conference preacher, Dr. Margaret Aymer, stressed is not weakness. “To clothe oneself with meekness or gentleness means to hold one’s power lightly, not using it to oppress or destroy,” she said, relying on John’s account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem as her preaching text.
Children were featured throughout the service, playing chimes, processing down the aisle of Anderson Auditorium and waving palm fronds, reading prayers and scripture, and singing an anthem, “Festival Sanctus” by John Leavitt.
“Thank you to all our children,” Aymer said, “for all your worship leadership this week.”
Meekness “affects how we treat others, how we walk through the world as followers of Jesus,” Aymer said. “Too often in our culture we have concluded a truly strong person is forceful, aggressive — even a bully. The cultural myth of the alpha male affects everything from middle school text messages to the rulers of nations, including our own.”
On the day of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, the Roman governor Pilate was there as well, as were upwards of 300,000 pilgrims “suffering under the thumb of Roman oppression,” Aymer noted. Pilate made a show of force; accompanying him were no fewer than 1,000 soldiers, brought in to reinforce the Roman garrison.
“People in his day understood strength,” Aymer said. “Jesus enters Jerusalem by the Eastern Gate. He also comes in strength, but his strength is not accomplished by bluster, threat or cruelty. His strength comes cloaked in meekness and gentleness.” In the Chinese martial arts, competitors greet one another with a fist covered by the other hand, “a show of strength cloaked in meekness, gentleness and self-control,” according to Aymer.
“John tells us Jesus has something Pilate never could have,” Aymer said. While Pilate could kill, Jesus could bring people back to life, as he did to Lazarus.
As Jesus rides in, the people quote Psalm 126, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” They lay palm branches at his feet and cry out, “Hosanna!” which means, “Save us!”
“In this moment, the crowd recognized Jesus’ strength and they hope for the toppling of Rome and the establishment of their own strong man, who will use his strength and brutal ways to help them,” Aymer said. But in this brief account in John, Jesus is silent. “His one action is to find a donkey and ride into Jerusalem,” she said. In this way he invokes Solomon and the prophet Zechariah, who wrote, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.”
“This is the promise of a ruler with meek and gentle power,” Aymer said, “a ruler who opens the way for peace.” Jesus is “a man so certain of his own power that he can be gentle.”
However, “Jesus’ strength can be hard to accept when what you really want is vengeance,” she said. “That’s why Peter’s instinct is to cut off the ear of an already oppressed, enslaved man.”
“Jesus’ strength does not allow for brutality,” Aymer said. “He heals even those who would capture him.” That can be “hard to accept when you’d much rather see the legions of heaven unleashed. It is to the cross that we as disciples are called to return, again and again, that we might learn the true strength of being clothed in meekness.”
“We are not called to be minions of any strong man,” Aymer said. “We are called to be disciples of Christ, to cry out our hosannas to the meek one who emptied himself and became obedient, even unto death on the cross.”
“Dear friends,” she urged, “let us clothe ourselves with meekness.”
Worship then turned to a section called “Solemn Reproaches of the Cross.” Liturgy included, “O my people, O my church, what more could I have done for you? Answer me?”
“I have offered you peace … and you have made a cross for your Savior.”
Yet another worship highlight was David LaMotte singing his song “Peter,” accompanied by the Rev. Bill Davis on cello.
Among the lyrics: “I meant what I said, Peter, put down your sword/Did you forget or did you think I was joking?/That is not why I’m here, Peter, not to destroy/The world is already so broken/Maybe you think I’m a fool/Maybe a fool’s what I am/Maybe I will die for nothing/And nothing will change in the end.
“God bless the children of Abraham/God bless the Romans who reign/God bless the peacemakers and warriors/Who each think the other insane.”
After the congregation sang “The Church’s One Foundation,” the service concluded with Paul Halley’s lovely “Pianosong.”
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