Ticket to Ride

7-14-19 Sermon Notes“Ticket to Ride”
Recently my mom told me about something that she would do when she was a little girl. She grew up on a farm during the Great Depression, and they grew and raised what they ate. They had a big garden, and pigs and milk cows…the whole nine yards. And they had lots of chickens. My mom said that one of her jobs was to listen, and anytime she heard the screech of a hawk flying around, she was to take the dish pan out in the yard and bang on it to drive the hawk away. She said that she can see clearly in her mind what the mother hens would do when they heard the cry of the hawk. They would gather their chicks underneath their wings and become a shield for them. Their instinct was to protect…even if it cost them their lives.
In my mom’s story, the chicks always obediently came and sheltered under the mama hen’s wings. But what if there were “rogue” chicks… chicks who though they were smarter than mama hen… chicks who defiantly ran away from the shelter of the wings? Sounds funny, until you read the passage from Luke 13…
31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32 He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ 34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Luke 13: 31-35 NRSV)
We will continue our Beatles series this Sunday with the song, “Ticket to Ride.” What’s the connection? Well…in the song, the lovestruck guy has the “girl that’s driving him wild” going away. “She’s got a ticket to ride…and she don’t care!” That’s what Jesus was saying as he wept over Jerusalem. “Jerusalem…you’ve got a ticket to ride…I would take you under my wings…if only you would…but you don’t care!”
Join us this Sunday as we think about our ticket to ride, and what it means to be ticket ambassadors.

See you Sunday!
Pastor Sam