Palm Sunday Yr C March 20 2016

Palm Sunday Yr C March 20 2016 Audio

I have chosen to say a few words at this spot today because it makes more sense to me to talk about Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, and then to receive the story of Jesus' passion in silence. Liturgically, we do something very odd here. We begin our worship together with waving palms, with the parade, and with Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, and we end our worship in quiet, as we prepare for the unfolding of this passionate story through out the week. Please know that it takes all week to hear this story, to participate in this story, to be able to approach Easter and resurrection. This week carve out time to participate, you all have full lives, but this week, of all the weeks of our lives, is the week to be here. In this culture of go, go, go, the only time we ever seem to slow down, or even stop, is when a loved one dies. We gather, we tell stories, about who they are, about the last time we were together, about the last things they were doing. We grieve and are sad, we cry, we wait, we celebrate their life, we eat, and we do all these things together. This is that week, this is that death, we do it together. 

So for the moment, I need to reflect on the Palm of Palm Sunday. Jesus and the disciples and thousands of other pilgrims have made their way to Jerusalem for the Passover. Jesus hailed as a king. Not Caesar, not the appointed Roman governor. But a new king –  one for the poor, for those without voices, for those left behind. Jesus is hailed as King, yet riding on a colt. The disciples welcome him into their city, Jerusalem, and shout "blessed is the king who comes in the name of The Lord" for now. They lay down their cloaks, holey as they are. And for the time being, we are all willing to follow. But are we also willing to follow into trouble, controversy, trial and death?

The colt, the disciples, the cloaks laid down. When we look closely we see the people gathered for this parade, this entrance into Jerusalem, are not the important and powerful, but the poor and marginalized, Jesus' disciples, Jesus' people. This very important but very brief story shows us that Love does not win by the world's standards. Love does not win by division, or by building walls, or by revenge or vitriol. But instead, Jesus comes as the fulfillment of the nation's hopes, answering our longings for a king who would bring peace to earth from heaven itself. Jesus brings the peace that surpasses understanding, and much of what is about to unfold in the next few minutes and the next days will be the price he pays to bring it. His disciples, of course, have seen things that have changed their lives forever and have raised their hopes. Indeed, our lives are changed.

This is not about the powerful Pharisees, grumbling about what will happen if the authorities in Jerusalem think that there's a messianic demonstration going on. From now on we see them no more. It is not about the people of the day who have wealth, it is about the Kingdom of God in which the last will be first and the first will be last. Love wins by God's defeat of evil, and our participation in the new life made possible by the work of Jesus. God gives up Godself for us, those God loves, thus empowering and emboldening us to do the same. 

This is the holiest of weeks. We have prepared ourselves throughout Lent for this journey with Jesus. We come to this Passover festival as Jesus' disciples, we come lean and fit, as that is what our lenten discipline has done for us. We have carried our own cross with us, we have remembered who and whose we are. We have left behind that which keeps us prisoner to the world's wants and wills, we have disassembled brick by brick the walls that we had build to shield us from God's love. We climb this mountain with Jesus, and revel in the pre-Passover party. 

Rejoice in this moment. This moment of welcome, when the shouts of "Blessed be The Lord" are heard throughout the cosmos. This moment is fleeting. It turns quickly to the terrifying shouts of the crowd, "crucify him." 

After the story this morning, we will sit in the silence for a time. As we leave this space today, we enter into a Holy Week. Please don't wait to come back until Easter, come back to walk these steps to the cross with Jesus, and your Easter joy may be complete.

Palm Sunday Yr B

This is one of the hardest stories to hear. Jesus, friend of the sinner, friend of the outcast, friend of the marginalized, put to death in the most horrific way possible, on a cross. Maybe some of you even squirm listening to me say it. It's hard to look in the face of death, especially when that death is violent and innocent. Remember when we all went to see The Passion of Christ? One of the criticisms was that it was so graphic. Who needs to see all that blood and gore? And yet, we'll go to the movies to see body parts and blood and guts flying across the screen when it's an action adventure, or a horror movie.

But when we go to church we really don't want to be confronted with life and death, do we. We really just want to feel good, sing some good songs, say hi to our friends, and then go out to breakfast. And then we are confronted with this story. Jesus was tortured and killed by the government of his day, for turning the tables, for raising the dead, for freeing the imprisoned.

It's not much different than what we do most of the time. We shy away from death and grief. Our language even reflects our discomfort with death. People say that someone has passed away, what does that mean? Or we lost our mother last week. What did she do, get stuck behind the sofa? Death is real and grief hurts. We know this, we are in the midst of it. A world without sadness is a world without importance. If we are not sad, if we are not inconsolable at the death of our loved ones, or at the death of so many we don't even know, we have lost the importance of human life, and we have lost humanity's relationship to our Creator God.

I read, like many of you, the Hunger Games. You may know the story because it's in the movie theaters now. It is an awful story, incredibly well written and awful. It's the story of a culture that has lost the ability to be sad at death. And like the gladiators of old in the coliseum, these killings are televised for the country to watch. But what makes these killings even more horrible, it is children killing children. Human life, life, becomes unimportant. Relationship, has become unimportant. Someone must point humanity toward toward the dignity and importance of life, in the Hunger Games, the main characters do that. In the story before us today, Jesus points humanity toward the importance of life. Jesus collects all of our pain and suffering and embraces it, Jesus takes it with him, and leaves us with love. Joy and pain, are part of love.

The week that lays before us, Holy Week, encourages us to live fully and completely in the sadness of death, and the joy of life. Both things are happening simultaneously. One cannot happen without the other. I encourage you to participate fully in the events of this week, the darkness and hope of the Service of Darkness on Wednesday night. The servant ministry of foot washing and holy communion on Thursday night. The story of Jesus passion told again in a new way on Friday night. And the Great Vigil on Saturday night, when we light the new fire of Easter, when we tell the epic stories that form us as a people, when we baptize and renew our own baptism, when we rejoice in the acclamation of Jesus resurrection, and the new life that affects for each of us.

I invite you to a Holy Week.