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The scripture reading of the morning is from 2nd Corinthians, the 10th chapter. I begin the reading at the verse number 7. "Look at what is before your eyes. If anyone is confident that he is Christ, let him remind himself that as he is Christ so are we. For even if I boast a little too much of our authority which

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the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I shall not be put to shame. I would not seem to be frightening you with letters. For they say his letters are weighty and strong but his bodily presence is weak and his speech of no account. Let such people understand that what we say by letter

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when absent we will do when present. Not that we venture to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves, but when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding." And may God bless to us and to our understanding this

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reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. The Palm Sunday problem was this. Jesus came to Jerusalem as its king, but the people in charge of the city had no room for him in their system. The leaders of

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the Jews, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, were highly educated. They were highly esteemed. They were passionate in the pursuit of their religion. They were genuinely patriotic. They understood they thought what was right. Unfortunately, what they thought was right was quite wrong. They were looking,

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you see, for a militant Messiah. They wanted someone who would lead them to economic and political and social freedom. They wanted someone who would advance their ideas, echo their sentiments, personify their hopes, march to their music. But Jesus didn't do this. He came meek and lowly, riding upon an

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ass and talking about love and truth and sacrifice and justice. And so they rejected him. That's the Palm Sunday problem. And it's a perennial problem. Some years later, the Apostle Paul was having difficulty with the Corinthian Church, which he founded. So he sent them a series of letters in order to lead

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them correctly. But some of the local leadership of the church, believing that it and it alone was right, rejected the counsel of Paul. They made up some lies that the only reason he sent letters was because he was afraid to come to them in person. And they claimed to have credentials as good as Paul's, though that

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was in no way the truth. In other words, their minds were already made up. They didn't want to be confused with any facts which the Apostle had to offer them. Paul, writing about them in the passage I just read in your hearing, says they themselves, measuring themselves by themselves, are without understanding.

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They were self-satisfied. That's the Palm Sunday problem. And as I say, it's a perennial problem. A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal published an advertisement produced by Ketchum Communications, Incorporated. I was much taken with this advertisement and got in touch with Ketchum and asked them if I

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could use it here this morning. And they said yes. The title of their advertisement was "Fat Cats Don't Innovate." What they were saying in the ad was this. The most vital commodity that any corporation or business or organization can have is innovation. Now, they define innovation just exactly as Webster does, the act of

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making a change in something already established. They go on to point out in this ad that as an organization or corporation gets bigger, it tends to rely more and more on bureaucracy, more and more rules, more and more standardized way of procedure, more centralized control, and that leads to conformity,

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people bowing down before the god of the status quo. This, the ad says, is to become pheles obeisai, that is, a fat cat. A fat cat wants no change, no disagreement. And of course, you have to have disagreement if you're going to innovate. What happens is that the organization begins to rot from the inside. A healthy organization,

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like a strong boat, can stand some rocking. But fat cats are opposed to new thoughts. They don't want any new ideas. They don't want any difference. And the advertisement concludes with these words, "Watch out for fat cats, especially when you look into the mirror." Jesus met fat cats in Jerusalem. Paul encountered fat

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cats in Corinth, and we find fat cats still today. Back in the year 1890, Andrew Carnegie wrote a letter to some friends in Great Britain, and in that letter he said, "British equipment should have been scrapped 20 years ago. While you struggle with the used up, America will turn you into a back number." And that's exactly

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what happened. Britain has never succeeded in becoming the dominant trade force which it was before. But look what's happening today. Japan is saying to America just what America then said to Britain. Japan is saying, "American equipment should have been scrapped 20 years ago. While you struggle with the

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used up, Japan will make you into a back number." What's being said, you see, is that self-satisfaction leads to death. Back in the year 1912, Captain E.J. Smith, who was the commanding officer on board the Titanic, said just before that ship sailed, "I cannot imagine any condition which would cause this ship to flounder." Three

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days later, the Titanic was on its maiden voyage, and it received a warning over the wireless to be aware of icebergs. Three hours after it got its first warning, it received a second warning, which it also ignored. Two hours later, another warning was received. This time, the captain took the warning to a member

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of the board of directors of the White Star Line traveling on the ship. The member of the board looked at it, crumpled it up, and threw it into a wastebasket. One hour later, a fourth warning was received. The captain sent word to the bridge, "Watch out for icebergs," but he didn't cut back on their

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steed. It was 22 knots, full speed ahead. At 930, another warning was received. At 1130, another warning, and this warning was greeted with the reply from the Titanic, "Shut up! You're jamming our airwaves." Eleven minutes later, the Titanic, going full speed, hit an iceberg, tearing a 300-foot gash in its hull. But no one

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was particularly upset, because they all knew the Titanic was unsinkable. There were a series of watertight compartments which would handle the situation, but one after another, 16 bulkheads gave way, and finally the word came to go to the lifeboats. But you see, they were so self-confident, there had been no

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lifeboat drills, and some people were still laughing about it. They said, "The Titanic is unsinkable." You know, when those lifeboats were picked up later, there were over 500 empty seats in them. People didn't think it was necessary to get into the lifeboats. So 1,503 people drowned, and the wreck of the Titanic

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still sits at the bottom of the sea. And why? Because a captain, and some directors, and some crew, and some passengers thought they knew it all. Like the Sadducees, and the Pharisees, and the Corinthians, and the captains of industry, and the leaders of churches, they thought what they understood was all that needed

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to be understood. What they knew at that time was sufficient to meet any situation. The result of that attitude is invariably death. You know what the seven last words of a fat cat are? "We never did it like this before." You see, fat cats don't innovate. They suffer from what I call psychosclerosis. Now you know what

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arteriosclerosis is, that's the hardening of the arteries, it'll kill you. Psychosclerosis is the hardening of attitudes, and it will kill you too. It's the Palm Sunday problem. It affected Jerusalem and Corinthians, it affects business leaders, and church leaders, and individuals. Fat cats don't die. Fat cats

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don't innovate, they die. Now what does the Bible say to this kind of attitude? Well, the Bible from its first page to its last speaks about progress. The central concern of the Bible is that the children of men will repent and come to God. Now to repent is to reject that which was crooked before. One is then

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purged by the Holy Spirit. That's the opening to the winds of the Spirit, and out of this comes growth and progress in the things of God. Look at how often the Bible presents this picture. Jesus says in Luke 9, "Once you have put your hand to the plow, don't look back again." Jesus says in Matthew 24, "It's those that

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endure, keep on pressing on to the end, that will be saved." In 1st Corinthians 9, Paul says that we're engaged in running a race, and no wise runner of a race is going to be looking back over his shoulder. Paul says in Philippians 3 that we are to grow into the fullness of Christ. The image of the shepherd appears

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again and again in the Bible. What does the shepherd do? He leads the sheep. The Scriptures repeatedly condemn prideful arrogance. In Proverbs, we are told that the great goal of the believer is freedom, and freedom involves the making of choices, which is the process of innovation. Moses and David are both

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presented as great innovators who came up with new situations, and with those ideas that they brought to those situations, created new progress. Jesus is described in the New Testament as having nothing to do with old legalisms. "You have heard that it has been said, but I say unto you." He knocked down old

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patterns. He stepped on old orthodoxies. He pushed aside old structures. Now mind you, the Bible does not hold tradition in contempt. It honors what is good out of the past, but it never allows the past to suffocate the present or the future. It never allows the past to become a kind of idol. The Bible instead pushes for

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real progress, and real progress is progress which produces something better than it replaces. Samuel Hazo of the faculty of Duquesne University produced a book last year which has received wide acceptance across our city called "The Pittsburgh That Starts Within You," and in that book he speaks about

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progress in Pittsburgh, and he uses as his source an idea from Flaubert. Flaubert said that all real progress is moral. That is, it is concerned with excellence. It is not simply concerned with age, with how long a time. Progress is to be involved with something that is better than what was before, but of course in

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order to find out what is better than what was before, you have to be willing to try. And Hazo concludes his discussion with these words, "Pittsburgh's future will be best served by those who believe that what is new is not desirable if it is inferior to what it is supposed to replace." But how do you discover that?

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How do you discover when progress is going to be inferior or superior? You only discover it by trying, by innovating, by moving into new dimensions. Think of it in terms of music. How often do you hear people say, "I like the old hymns. I don't like the new ones." Now the fact of the matter is, every old hymn was at one

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time a new hymn. And if the people in that day had rejected that hymn simply because it was new, then you wouldn't have it as an old hymn and a favorite today. Not too many months ago, the Methodists were rewriting their hymn book and tried to drop onward Christian soldiers. And there was a tremendous

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"ew" and cry across Methodism about this. And so they put it back in. Now in 1865, when onward Christian soldiers was first heard, there were those who didn't like it because it was a new song. But if they had never listened to it or rejected it or never learned to sing it, well no one would have been able to argue about its

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excellence or lack of excellence today. The Bible, the Holy Spirit, has written down for us the truth about this. It's in Psalm 96. Listen to these words. "Honor and majesty are before the Lord. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. So bring an offering and come into his courts and worship the Lord in holy array. Sing a

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new song." In other words, the highest praise, the grandest offering, is to sing a new song. Ever seen a new song come into a closed life? When I was ministering in California, we had an elder in the church, a young man, but a young man who was stuck fast in yesterday. He was opposed to anything new.

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And strange to say, he was always sick. His head ached, his feet ached, his front ached, his back ached. He was complaining all the time. And incidentally, he was terribly constipated. Now what was happening to this young man was simply this. He was so locked into himself that it affected his health. You know what

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psychosomatic illness is. Psycho mind, soma body. The mind gets an idea and it makes the body sick. That's what happens when you have a stomach ulcer. You worry so much that you eat a hole in yourself. Well this young man had that kind of thing going on. Now the only thing that can cure a person with a case of

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psychosclerosis like that, dying from his own inner decay, the only thing that'll cure them is to open the doors, to smash the windows, to kick down the obstacles, to rip up the obstructions, to get rid of hate and belligerence and fear and arrogant pride. You know what the most creative thought in the world is. The

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most creative thought in the world is this, Jesus. And Jesus will not dwell with the negative. Jesus will not dwell with the sniveling, with the depressing, with the narrow. Jesus is at the place where fresh air is. Jesus comes to the place where change is because Jesus is alive. And change is alive. It is only death

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that never changes. So Christ entered Jerusalem and he entered it with a new song. Just as he entered the life of this young man with a new song. He'd suffered from the Palm Sunday problem but he learned to innovate with the infinite and it made a total difference in his life. So how about it this morning? Are you

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part of the Palm Sunday problem or are you part of its answer? Would it be easier for a breeze to blow through a billiard ball than for a new idea to enter your head? But let me give you a little quiz. Just a couple of questions. Answer them in the silence of your own thinking. Have you changed your hairstyle

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in the last five years? Have you changed your clothing style in the last five years? Do you like to try new foods? Have you made some new friends? Can you point to two new friends, good friends, that you've made in the last year? At any time in the last ten years have you voted for a candidate of a political party other

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than your own? If you went into a new town, would you be willing and open to joining a congregation which was not Presbyterian? Do you enjoy innovation and worship when they use children and palms and interesting instruments and balloons? If you had to make a change in job, would that frighten you or would it excite you?

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Can you hum or better yet, can you recite the words of any song that's been written within the last year? How open are you? Are you aware of the changes that are happening in the society which are affecting the church? For example, did you know that repeated studies have shown that the pulpit is no longer the

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most effective place from which to evangelize? The small group is. We're going back to the days of Romans 12 where Christian hospitality is what brought people to believing. Many, many people will accept an invitation into your home before they'll come into your church. They'll sit down and have a coke

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with you before they'll share communion with you. And we are discovering across the length and breadth of this country that it's not proclamations from this place that brings people to faith. It's the experience of other believers in the small group. Are you aware of the fact, for example, that programming is largely

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out in Christian groups today? You know, it used to be whenever a Christian group got together you had to have a speaker. You had to have a program. Most thriving Christian groups today are groups where you come together for a brief teaching time and then immediately go into discussion. People don't want to listen

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to others. They want to share their own hurts and their own needs and their own victories. Did you know that in the average congregation today, and this is the first time in our national history that this has been true, half of the people are single? 44% of the congregation of the First Presbyterian

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Church of Pittsburgh is single. Never married, widowed, or divorced. That takes a totally different approach than the couple approach which has been basic to the church for decades before. Have you thought at all about the impact of television? Haven't you ever thought how strange it is when people line up to get

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the autograph of a weatherman? Particularly a Pittsburgh weatherman. I mean really, someone sits in front of a television camera at night and reads you the news and doesn't read it very well. And people line up to get their autograph. They ride in parades on the

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back of open limousines. Why? Why this fascination? Why this popularity? Just because they're on television. Twice in the last four weeks I've been asked for my autograph here in Pittsburgh because we're now on television. You see, if it's on television, it's got to be important. Well, the gospel is important and by

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taking the gospel onto television, we're taking it to the place where people truly listen. And that's one of the great evangelical avenues opening now which hasn't been opened before. Christians can be, and most Christians are, aggressive and alert and open and dynamic and creative and innovative. And when you

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encounter a Christian who is stuck fast in yesterday, who cannot handle a new idea, well that Christian is a contradiction in terms. They suffer from the Palm Sunday problem. Fat cats don't innovate. A few years ago, the Episcopal Bishop of Colorado, a man named Hines, was making a lot of changes in his diocese

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and he received a letter. Only one sentence. Let me read you the letter. "My dear Bishop, if Jesus knew what you are doing to our diocese with all your devilish ideas, he would turn over in his grave." Well, there it is, right there. That's the fat cat attitude. Jesus is dead.

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Everything that's new, everything that's exciting, everything that's positive, that's all of tomorrow and we're not interested in tomorrow. Jesus isn't tomorrow, Jesus isn't today, Jesus is dead. When he hears those things, he rolls over in his grave. That's the Sadducee attitude, that's the Pharisee attitude,

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that's the Corinthian attitude, that's the attitude of those who are dead in Christ and not alive in Christ. The Lord of Palm Sunday and the Lord of Easter is altogether alive and make no mistake about it, he is always out there ahead of us saying what he said to his disciples a long time ago, "Come on, follow me." Let us

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pray. Father, through the lips of thy Son, we once heard the word, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." We pray today that you will forgive the fat cats who won't innovate, for those locked into yesterday, but more than for their

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forgiveness, we pray that thou will break into their lives, that thou will tear down their defenses, that thou will take them off the corn of slavery and give them the K-rations that go to the Christian walk and march, that thou will lead them into tomorrow, singing the songs of faith, the new songs of faith, to

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the praise and the honor of thy Son, in whose name we lift our prayer. Amen. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]