The Power of Surrender A Sermon By The Rev. Denise A. Trogdon April 13, 2014 Saint Luke s Parish Darien, CT 1
Today we participate in a liturgy of contrasts. Standing at the gates of Jerusalem, our palms wave in celebration, our cloaks are spread for the coming king. We enter into the triumphal procession with shouts of praise, Hosanna in the highest! But those voices turn to angry cries in only a matter of minutes, as we retell the story of the passion. Let him be crucified! is our symbolic participation in that dark moment. No matter how many times I have joined in this ritual, that shift is a chilling reminder of our heart s capacity for shadow and light. Truth be told, I miss the days when Palm Sunday was observed on its own, without the passion narrative. The day was charged with hope and anticipation and the sacred story unfolded throughout the week. Over those days before Easter we were immersed in the walk to the cross, witnesses to the harsh realities of Judas betrayal and Peter s denial. Deep into Holy Week, our hearts were prepared to encounter that stunning silence. But if you wanted to avoid all the unpleasantness, it was as simple as just showing up the following 2
Sunday for Easter. Perhaps knowing the end of the story has made that pilgrimage to the cross seems less relevant. This Palm/Passion Sunday allows no rest in that happy ending, but rather thrusts us into an encounter with Christ s suffering. In sharp contrast to a triumphal entrance, we leave in an edgy, unsteady silence. On some level our hearts recognize this journey Jesus walks, as our own. Recently there was an article in the op-ed section of the NY times by David Brooks entitled What Suffering Does. He muses about a culture that seems obsessed with the goal of happiness, yet finds meaning in the hard experiences of life. He writes, When people are thrust down into these deeper zones, they are forced to confront the fact they can t determine what goes on there As people endure suffering they find they are not who they believed themselves to be. When adversity brings us to our knees we can choose how to respond. Brooks makes some important observations. People in the midst of difficulty often have a sense that they are swept up in some 3
larger providence. While some are not healed on the other side of pain, they are often changed and begin to feel a deeper calling. His conclusion is that people find meaning in suffering as they place hard experiences in a moral context and seek to redeem those dark times by letting them be transformed into something sacred. In our gospel story we find meaning and hope as we understand Christ s surrender and death as our redemption. How is this our journey? Surrender goes against everything our culture teaches us. Choosing to let go of our resistance shifts something deep within. In essence, we die to our need to be in control and a space is created for the new to be born. Ask anyone who has been involved in a twelve step program and you will hear that surrender is the beginning of healing. In that sense, our path to new life mirrors that of Christ. We are paradoxically empowered as we surrender our wills to God s plan and purpose. In the letter to the Philippians, Paul writes from the bowels of a prison cell, possibly at the edge of his own grave. He addresses the 4
young Christian church threatened by issues of authority and division. Paul reminds them that it is to Jesus every knee should bend. This man who has known suffering, urges his followers to let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God emptied himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. This poetic reflection on Christ s humility challenges our conventional understanding of power. It speaks to a new freedom found in dispossession, in emptying one s self of the things that bind us. It conceives of surrender as a courageous act of faith rather than weakness. The followers of Christ are called to be of the same mind, to empty ourselves in humility. Something new then can be born of what has been laid to rest. Theologian Paul Tillich writes about a witness in the Nuremburg war crime trials who lived for a time in a grave, along with several others who hid after their escape from the gas chamber. This man shared a poem he wrote about a birth. In a nearby grave a young woman gave birth to a baby boy and the old gravedigger 5
assisted. As the child uttered its first cry, the man prayed Great God hast thou finally sent the Messiah to us? For who else than the Messiah Himself, can be born in a grave? Our gospel assures us of the real and irrevocable death and burial of Jesus. Yet new life would not be new unless the old had come to an end. This Palm/Passion Sunday I invite you to reflect upon the tension we experience in this liturgy of contrasts. Our hearts are both light and shadow desiring and resisting God s movement towards us. To what does your knee bend? Are there shadows that encumber your heart? What might you leave at the cross? God offers the possibility of new life as we surrender our hearts to God s will. Come live the sacred story this week with a mind of Christ and a heart of humility. It is the path of most resistance but our greatest possibility for transformation. Only the Messiah can empower us to be born anew in our graves. Amen 6