Today is a day about expectations. Palm Sunday has everything to do with our expectations. The story of Jesus entering Jerusalem during the Passover festival is often called the triumphal entry, but it’s not called the triumphal entry because Jesus said so, it’s called that because that’s what we expected. We expected a triumphal entry.

That’s what we focus on today, but what I hope we can do this morning is take a more in depth look at all of our expectations. I know that there are practical expectations we all have, like getting paid on time or the trash being collected on a set day of the week. But let’s focus on our life expectations. Complete the sentence for yourself: In my life, I expect…

Let’s look at it this way. Have you ever been filling out an application for a job or a scholarship or a college and you have to answer this question: “Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten years?” That question is just as helpful as it is ridiculous.

If I had been asked that question when I was an undergraduate student at Texas, enrolled in the College of Communication seeking a degree in journalism, and occasionally joking about my disdain for cats, I would never have answered that I would become a pastor living in Aggieland with my two cats, George and Gracie. I used to call them Stacy’s cats, but now I’ve warmed up to them as our cats. And now you see how that question can be a little ridiculous.

You had expectations when you were younger, but you still have a lot of expectations now. Would it be any less ridiculous to ask that question now? The question is, “Where will you be in a set amount of years,” but it’s really asking, “Where do you expect you will be?”

And when you think about your expectations, past and present, how many of your expectations have changed. How many of your expectations haven’t been met. And now that some of those expectations have been altered, how do you look at the world around you?

There are times when our expectations surprise us and change for the better, like in the example I just gave. But there are so many other times when our expectations are shattered. We expect to get a job. We expect for our kids to get into good schools and do well in said schools. We expect for the people we love to love us back. And I don’t know about you, but I have this mythical expectation that once a person reaches the age of 80, that they deserve a peaceful, natural death. I expect that. But in 1999 Desmond Llewlyn was killed in a car accident. He was the guy who played Q in the James Bond movies, and he was well into his 80’s. Sweet old man. Died in a car crash, and one of my innocent expectations died with him.

What I’m trying to say is that when the things we expect are denied from us, we change. And how we change in those moments in our lives is what is crucial for us to understand this morning.

Today is the prologue to Holy Week. It’s Palm Sunday, and just like the people who lined the streets of Jerusalem, waving their palm branches in the air, we have particular expectations. The Roman governor at the time, Pilate, he knows this. On the west side of town, Pilate gets on a war horse and rides into Jerusalem from the capital city of Caesarea with his Roman garrison and imperial cavalry in tow to make sure that no rebellious riots break out. And on the east side of Jerusalem, Jesus rides into town with his own counter-procession, riding on a donkey, humbly, peacefully swaggering through the city.

On one end of town, our expectations are being met by a mighty imperial leader on his warhorse. And on the other end of town, our expectations are shattered by some guy riding on a donkey. Jesus knew what he was doing. He didn’t ride into Jerusalem on that donkey because it was all he could find. Remember, he tells the disciples to go get him a donkey to ride into town. Jesus enters Jerusalem like this because something has to change.

You could say that Jesus is shatters our expectations of a leader when he enters Jerusalem on the other side of town. What we expect of our leaders changes on a routine basis. Right after A&M advanced to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA tournament, my dad was talking to one of his ol’ Aggie buddies, and Dad asked him what he thought about prospects for the new A&M president. His buddy said, “Who needs a president? We’ve got a basketball coach!” That’s a different way to look at it.

But on Palm Sunday, Jesus is not shattering our expectations about what a leader is supposed to look like. He’s changing our expectations into hope. He’s breaking our expectations of how things could be, and molding them into hope for how things should be.

We revere people like Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox because their expectations changed into hope. Christopher Reeve didn’t expect to be thrown from a horse and become paralyzed. Michael J. Fox didn’t expect to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s. But when Reeve had the accident and Fox got the diagnosis, they were given a new set of life options. They were given a list of things they could expect to do with their lives from that point, and they looked at those new expectations and said, “No thanks. I’d rather just live. I’d rather just hope to be me and all that I can become from here on out.”

Oh, if all of us could look at the world like that…look at ourselves like that. The world might be a more perfect place. It would certainly be more hopeful. And isn’t that God’s will?

One little girl expects a backpack full of school supplies, a bus ride to school, a hot meal, a playground to play on, and a dinner with milk, meat, bread, and yucky vegetables. Another little girl expects a day of rummaging through garbage for recyclable items that she might redeem for money for her family, and maybe one meal of beans and rice.

One man expects for people to do as he says, for traffic to move steadily enough for him to get to his destination on time, for his project to be completed before its deadline, for his income to continue to rise above and beyond the measly rate of inflation, and for his blackberry to not malfunction. Another man expects for the sun to be relentless during his 12-hour day of migrant work, and for his wages to provide him with enough to make it to work the next day.

How many times in even the most recent history of our country have people been told to lower their expectations? “I want to be a doctor,” says the teenage boy living with his single parent and three siblings in a poor school district. “I want to be a preacher,” says the brilliant, firecracker of a girl sitting in the pew of a church where women are taught to be subservient to men and never dare speak out. “I want to change the world,” say the ones with no voice and few choices. How many times have these dreams been snuffed out by the response, “Oh, don’t expect that. Choose something else to do with your life, but don’t expect that.”

My dad came across a thesis that one of his middle school teachers wrote. He wrote his thesis about teachers in Texas during the Great Depression, and here was one of his findings. From 1929 to 1933, salaries for white males went from $1,509 to $1,204. White females went from $1,040 to $868. African American males went from $820 to $696, and African American females went from $591 to $527.

What’s alarming about these statistics isn’t the percentage of loss during the Depression, it’s how much different salaries are from one group to the next no matter what the economic weather. The salary of a white male during the Depression is still greater than a woman’s before the Depression. God forbid that equality should tip the scales. God forbid that everyone’s expectations would be equal. Or maybe God, let it be for our expectations to be set aside for the sake of hope. Teach us to hope for each other, O God.

The world’s expectations are too low because too many people’s expectations are far too high. When one person expects doors to be opened for them, another person has that same door slammed in their face. When one person expects riches, another person can only expect poverty. When one person expects it all, then the other person has no choice but to receive nothing. And Jesus sees how the scales of God’s justice have been ransacked by humanity and smashed to hell, and he says, “I’ve had it. Something has to change. Go get me a donkey so I can ride into town.”

Jesus says, “It’s time for me to lead a counter-procession in this town, because the people don’t need another set of options. They don’t need another list of alternatives. They don’t need more manmade expectations. They need hope.”

The philosopher, Carl Jung, interviewed an old Indian chief once. And the chief said to Jung, “We don’t have anything against the white man. We just don’t understand him. His face is always tight, and his eyes are always fixed on things. He always wants something. And then he gets it, and he wants something else. We don’t understand that.”

The air in Jerusalem during that Passover festival was thick with expectations, and look at us now: five years after 9/11, four years into a war, one and a half years shy of another presidential election (and we’re already being bombarded with political news, as if we’re supposed to cast our ballots this Tuesday), and only seven years into the still-rising dawn of a new millennium—the air is still thick with our frantic, scared, intolerant, anxious expectations.

You know, apocalyptic Christians love to talk about how Jesus is coming again. But you don’t have to be into apocalyptic theology to affirm that Jesus is coming again. I believe Jesus is coming again. Of course, I see the coming of Jesus as more of an omnipresent arrival where we will experience the Christ and come to know Jesus by being in communion with our neighbors. Jesus is coming again in the form of all of those silenced voices in our world that we need to hear now more than ever, “I want to be a doctor. I want to be a preacher. I want to change the world.” That’s Jesus talking through God’s Creation, so we must let our expectations go and start hoping together. We need to prepare for this coming of Jesus. Like the bumper sticker says, “Jesus is coming. Look busy.”

Jesus says to his disciples in no uncertain terms, “If you want to be great, you have to serve.” He says this to them after they’d had supper together for the last time. And maybe their blessing was as simple as: God is great, God is good.

God is great and God is good. We, as God’s creation, we are good by simply being who we are. We are good when we simply embrace who we are—when we’re true to ourselves we are good. When we not only accept but cherish who we are—male, female, tall, short, fat, skinny, introverted, extroverted, outgoing, shy, tightly wound, laidback, gay, straight—then that is good. Imagine God, the Divine Creator, witnessing us as we embrace our true selves, and God sitting back and saying, “Hmm. Good. That’s good.”

But what about greatness? God is great and God is good, so we obtain greatness by being in communion with God. And the only way for us to be in communion with God is to become a servant. As Jesus says, we have to become a servant to all if we want to be great. Friends, a servant doesn’t expect anything. A servant hopes for everything. Oh, if we all would just do that.

Sisters and brothers, don’t expect anything, but hope for everything. God is love, and love protects all things, trusts all things, endures all things and hopes all things. And love never dies. Jesus is coming. Easter is coming. Let our expectations give way to hope, so that the world’s suffering can give way to love. Amen.