Palm Sunday April 5, 2020
Palm Sunday
Matthew 21:1-9 & Philippians 2:5-11
April 5, 2020
“My King”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Over the last ten years I’ve read a handful of articles describing the continuing rise of narcissism in America since the 60s and 70s. Our narcissistic tendencies continue to grow and some say many of us are even borderline personality disordered. Narcissism is, put simply, the excessive love of yourself. We’re in love with ourselves! Infatuated. Self-absorbed. Self-centered. Self-serving. We worship celebrities because we want to be celebrities. We’re less and less involved in community because we don’t have time for others. We’re obsessed with stuff—materialism—buying more and more for ourselves.
And we even applaud it. We teach it as a good thing. We strive for it. Look at all these words used to describe supposedly good qualities: self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-esteem, self-actualization, self-confident, self-assured, self-fulfilled, self-aware, self-determined, self-admiration, self-acceptance, self-improving, self-worth, self—ie! That’s a lot of self. And somehow one virtue that never seems to make the list of good things anymore is self-control. Ugh! Self-control?! Why would we want that? Control ourselves?! No way!
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