Palm Sunday: St. Paul's, Monroe
March 28, 2021
Day like no other
There is no other Sunday in the year like today. Well, I guess we could say that about any Sunday. Or about any day, for that matter. I do remind myself regularly, that today is all we've got to work with. But the thing that makes this day extraordinary in the church is the joining of two very different narratives.
One is an exuberant account of a triumphal entry into a city full of people. From the point of view of the main character it must have felt rewarding in some sense. But the main character was a very sensitive and insightful man. He also knew – did it let it on with those around him? He let them know the following Thursday. Did his behavior over the course of this week communicate the foreboding of this week of preparations for the Passover? He also knew the other side of this seemingly triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It would be the place of his condemnation and execution.
The paradox
We generally like our proclamations to be one-sided. What we hear today – triumph and death by execution – is not one-sided. We want our sins to be plainly stated and clear to identify. We like our politics expressed as one of two extremes – the right way and the wrong way. We want our good guys (or gals) to be good and our bad guys (or gals) to be bad.
We want our global pandemic to bad and caused by bad actors. We want our faith to be propositional: "Do you believe in God?" (Yes / No) "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" (Yes / No) "Do you believe in the Trinity?" (Yes / No)
In the modern world – at least in my lifetime – it has become more and more common for our authors, our artists, our movies, our advertising, some of our politicians, some of our preachers, to tell us that – well, it's complicated. We have books and movies where the characters are fuzzy – a little bit good and a little bit bad.
But it's not that Palm Sunday is not one-sided – it's clearly not that. But it's not that it is complicated either. It's something else. It is paradoxical. It is two contradictory things held together in one truth.
As Christians we are committed, in this one day, "today", that we have been given, to proclaim the Gospel and to live it, by grace, as each of us is called. This thing we are committed and called to is inherently paradoxical -- not one-sided and not complicated. It is life and death held together at the same time.
More than words
During the course of my ministry, I have been reminded again and again that often times the most important communications we give and receive are not with words. They may be actions with words and gestures. They may be gestures and decisions without words. They might even be silence. Or all combined.
St. Francis is often attributed as saying: "Preach the gospel at all times -- and use words if necessary." Such a direction seems particularly relevant at times like today. We come together – whether in person or virtually – on a day that is inherently paradoxical. This day – Palm Sunday – begins a week of inter-related remembrances and liturgies. We call it "Holy Week" for a reason. I often think that we begin a proclamation, a narrative, a story, a liturgy, on Palm Sunday; and it takes a week to tell the story. There is only one Sunday in the year where we read the Passion of Jesus.
Pause and think about that. Only one Sunday do we actually tell the story of Jesus' death. Pretty much on every Sunday after that we make reference to it.
But it makes sense to me that today – this paradoxical Palm Sunday – is just the beginning of a story that we spend a week telling.
The rest of the story
The Easter story is where we're headed. But you can't tell the story by jumping ahead. We know how the story ends, but it is the telling of the story that makes all the difference.
Mary Pat and I have remarked from time to time about how there are certain movies that are powerful and magnificent -- even though we know how they end. One of the first time I was aware of it was with the movie "Sully". It was, you remember, the story of the "miracle of the Hudson". The pilot Captain Sullenberger managed to land a crippled airplane into the Hudson River and not lose a single passenger. We know how the story ends. The movie begins with it. But the story itself is commanding, arresting, and beautifully told.
Very recently we watched the movie "Gandhi". It's the same thing. The movie begins with his shocking, violent death. Then the story is told in breath-taking beauty and it is the story, of course, of non-violence as taught and lived by a holy man.
The Easter story is like that. We know how it goes. But the whole point is in the telling of it.
Now, of course, it is our lives that are the true telling of the story. It was much more important that there really was a Sully Sullenberger and a Mohandas Gandhi. It is important that there is a you and there is a me. Proclaiming the Gospel with our lives, and using words when necessary.
Part of the way we reshape our lives, little by little mold them to be more and more like the one in whom we put our faith -- Jesus the Christ -- is by telling the story with majesty, with dignity, with all the care-ful-ness we can muster, with beauty and with sincerity.
That is our task today.
core-story
At the heart of the lessons today, there is a heart-breaking core that goes something like,
"It wasn't supposed to turn out like this.
"Do you remember how we dropped whatever it was we were doing in order to follow him? We just knew that he was the one.
"The stories he told. The parables that were at the same time so ordinary and so filled with light and insight.
"When Lazarus walked out of that tomb it's not even that we were amazed. He broke all the boundaries that we knew. We were undone and remade. Tears were not enough to express what happened to us inside.
< "The joy that we had when we entered Jerusalem with him was beyond measure. More than we could say.
"And now this. The events of the last days have undone us. He lies in the tomb. Our highs have become unbearable lows."
That is how I imagine the disciples responding. But liturgically it is the story that we tell over the next week. The scripture passages for the first 3 days of Holy Week are about betrayal and the descent into imprisonment and trial Thursday is the last meal Jesus had with his friends. Friday is the day he died, we call it "Good" Friday.
Then with Saturday evening – the time of the Easter Vigil – a methodical climb out of the deep cavern of that tomb, through the image of the creation of the earth and the drama of human cultivation and catastrophe -- out into the proclamation of an empty tomb which is Easter.
Closing
Since this year we will not be gathering at all during Holy Week. It is perhaps appropriate that the telling of this story shifts to our homes, to where each of us is living our lives. The most important sermon today is not what is pronounced from pulpits – either in person or digitally. The only sermons that count are the ones that you and I are telling – today – which is the only day we've got.
Preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ my friends.
