Of Palms and Passion Sermon by Rev. Peter Shidemantle Palm Sunday March 25, 2018

Transcription

1 Of Palms and Passion Sermon by Rev. Peter Shidemantle Palm Sunday March 25, 2018 I m sure that all of us remember when we experienced for the first time the death of someone close to us. For me it was when I was 12 years old. The family was gathered at home on a Friday night. I remember it was late, because Steve Allen was on the television. I wouldn t have been able to stay up that late on a school night. It was one of those nights when we lingered around the dining room table long past dinner. Those were some of the best times. The phone rang, and my Dad answered. He looked over at us and said, Mom died. What struck me was how, just like that, everything turned and changed. I knew enough to turn off the TV in the other room. This was serious now; there would be no distractions. I knew somehow that it was going to be a strange and difficult time. This was new territory for me. We were all close to my grandma. She was a kind, smart lady who used to walk with us kids uptown for ice cream when she visited. I felt the worst for my dad. His younger brother was sick with a brain tumor, his only sibling, 10 years younger. We thought the call might be about him. They grew up without a father, who died when my dad was 10 and his brother just a baby. When my dad got sad, which wasn t often, he d play the piano the same song, usually Star of the Sea. It kind of scared me when he went into himself like that but, as I said, he didn t do it very often and we respected the distance he needed when he did. Most all of us have memories of the first time death came knocking. Whatever the circumstance, it deepens you, over time. It brings a kind of holy hush, as people cry and embrace. Whatever else there was, right now this is what is no respecter of persons, their age or social standing. Death is the great leveler. The ones left to deal with it come together to get through it, and mostly do, finding a way to move on. 1 of 5

2 We don t talk about it very often, unless it has happened recently, perhaps, when it feels more important to talk about it. We might wonder why that is, since death is as much a part of life as anything we know. Yet, in our society, the cults of youth and health push an honest consideration of death as a part of life to the fringes, as if death were a defeat of some kind. And yet death is that to which all of life leads. Today, our worship has a kind of split personality. It is Palm Sunday, the day we commemorate what is generally called Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem like a victorious king marching into the city liberated from the harsh oppression of occupying forces. And so it was, except the occupying force was still in control. I ve referred before on this day in the church year to the striking image that Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan in their book, The Last Week, put forward to consider on this day. They suggest there may well have been two processions into Jerusalem that Passover week. From the west came Pilate with his horses and chariots and gleaming armor. He moved in with the Roman army at the beginning of Passover week to make sure nothing got out of hand. It is said there may have been as many as 200,000 pilgrims crowding into the holy city for the Passover festival, a city of maybe just 40,000 or so inhabitants. Insurrection was in the air with the Passover memory of God s liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt so long ago. From the east came this other procession, a commoner s procession, you might say Jesus, in an ordinary robe, riding on the back of a young donkey. Luke recalls the prophecy of Zechariah about the coming of a new kind of king, a king of peace who will dismantle the weapons of war. A multitude of disciples can t control themselves for the joy they are feeling: Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! But some Pharisees were there and said to Jesus he must make them be silent or they all of them followers and Pharisees alike, would be crushed under the boots of imperial Rome. So there is this clash of kingdoms on this day that recalls an ancient prophecy of a different kind of king and a different kind of kingdom, and that leads, as we know, to 2 of 5

3 the passion when the power not just of the state but of religion as well will come down on him. You may remember a time, as I do, when the waving of palms and the singing of hosannas was the only emphasis on this day. One pastor tells of a children s music director with whom he worked. She was just the sort of lively, talented and relentlessly cheerful person you like to have in that position. Nothing seemed to bother her, except Palm and Passion Sunday. Every year she would say, Why did they have to mess up my favorite holiday? What were they thinking? She d remind him that Palm Sunday used to be like a mini-easter, with everyone marching around smiling and waving palms. Since there were no Easter baskets or big family meals to worry about, there was no pressure just a happy Sunday that helped build momentum toward Easter. Now it is the more common practice to commemorate both the Palms and the Passion, recognizing that this isn t the end of Lent but the beginning of Holy Week. Often we ll sing, Ride on, ride on in majesty; in lowly pomp ride on to die. We know it s there, that last part out there ahead of us, just as it s out there for him. You see, the turning, the changing that the death of someone close brings to us, when it takes over, when all that was is suddenly and abruptly what is this is the work that Jesus had been doing all along. Unlike Pilate, who used the threat of death to impose the will of empire and control over the lives of its subjects, Jesus followed the will of God right into the deepest darkness, into the valley of the shadow of death, the holy hush of death s closeness, in the awareness that his future was held by a wisdom and a love greater than his own. And so, as Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians, this enabled Jesus to spend no time protecting himself he had emptied himself of all that. Supposedly, he could have claimed his union with God to get him a special pass at the end, but he did not count his equality with God a thing to be grasped. In other words, he submitted to death the same way he submitted to everything else that made him fully human. Let the same mind be in you, Paul writes. This isn t just about Jesus, but about us too. 3 of 5

4 On Palm Sunday, and on through Holy Week and Easter, we don t focus on what we believe about Jesus. We focus on what he did how he emptied himself, how he took the form of a slave, humbled himself, became obedient to the will of the Father. In him those who are in Christ can have that same mind, that same Christ-mind, and are capable of that same kind of self-emptying. Apparently, Paul believes this is within our reach. Like Jesus, sooner or later we will be called to be obedient to death. In the meantime, we are as free as Jesus was to decide how we will spend our energy on selfprotection or self-donation, on saving ourselves or giving ourselves away. As free as Jesus was to give ourselves away. I cannot help but think of yesterday s March for our Lives in Washington and so many other cities, including Syracuse (we had our Pebble Hill contingent there) in this way - those Parkdale students, so close to death, choosing to give themselves to such a powerful affirmation of life. It is inspiring because the deaths of their friends and classmates has not paralyzed them in fear for themselves or the seeming futility of people their age being able to impact the entrenched system of gun violence and the gun culture in our country and the politics swirling around all of it - but has activated them to advocate for the lives of others, with a wisdom beyond their age. They are free. Our hope, the hope of the church, lay not in our kingdom-building ability, but in our following of the one who emptied himself of every claim and walked willingly to the place where only God can take over. Our ending is God s beginning; that s as true in life as it is in death. I imagine that, like me, you still have some emptying to do before God takes over fully. The Christian walk isn t about the righteous acts you can add to your resume, or the number of verses of scripture you can quote by heart. It is more about what you are letting go of, the baggage of life you realize you don t need to carry around anymore. Here at the edge of Holy Week, I invite us all to renew our walk with him. Think of something you can set down or let go of as we head into this last stretch of road to Good Friday to exercise the freedom of life in Christ. Allow yourself to lose a little bit 4 of 5

5 of control over your life as God is making ready to begin again with you. Easter comes only after Good Friday resurrection only comes through the cross. What else needs to die in you, in us, before God takes over? Then get ready to stand back and watch out because Easter is coming. 5 of 5