… I guess you are wondering. Why, if the Passion Gospel is over two pages long did I choose to only read two verses? The answer is simple … today is Palm Sunday. It is the day we remember Jesus entering Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week. Jesus rode in on a donkey with people waving palms along the way. Later he overturned the tables of the money changers in the Temple. He had a last meal with his disciples. He was arrested, tried, mocked, scourged, whipped, and hung on a cross to die. And then … three days later … he overcame death and rose from the dead. It all started because he chose to go to Jerusalem during the Passover festival. It all started when Jesus … while in Caesarea Philippi … the headwaters of the Jordan River in which Jesus had been baptized … it all started when Jesus turned his sight to Jerusalem. Today, he arrived and rode a donkey into the city.
Palm Sunday
March 20, 2016
In the name of the God of all Creation,
The God alive in each of us as God was alive in Jesus,
And the power of God known in the Spirit.
Amen.
March 20, 2016
In the name of the God of all Creation,
The God alive in each of us as God was alive in Jesus,
And the power of God known in the Spirit.
Amen.
So … I guess you are wondering. Why, if the Passion Gospel is over two pages long did I choose to only read two verses? The answer is simple … today is Palm Sunday. It is the day we remember Jesus entering Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week. Jesus rode in on a donkey with people waving palms along the way. Later he overturned the tables of the money changers in the Temple. He had a last meal with his disciples. He was arrested, tried, mocked, scourged, whipped, and hung on a cross to die. And then … three days later … he overcame death and rose from the dead. It all started because he chose to go to Jerusalem during the Passover festival. It all started when Jesus … while in Caesarea Philippi … the headwaters of the Jordan River in which Jesus had been baptized … it all started when Jesus turned his sight to Jerusalem. Today, he arrived and rode a donkey into the city.
If that is the case, why did those who select the lessons Sunday mornings choose to have the full Passion Gospel read? Again, the answer is simple. They did not trust that the people in the pews on Palm Sunday morning would come back to church on Good Friday to hear the whole story. So, if you want to hear the full reading of the Passion Gospel … and actually take part in that reading … I encourage you to defy those who don’t trust you and come back at 5:30pm on Good Friday. Not only will you hear … and participate in … the reading of the Passion Gospel, but you will also hear a sermon about my understanding of who killed Jesus and why … what I call the Other Good Friday.
But back to Palm Sunday. We began the liturgy this morning out on the steps with the blessing of the palms and then our processional into the church reminding us of Jesus triumphal entry into the holy city. But for Jesus this entry into Jerusalem was the end of a long journey that began at his baptism and his wilderness experience. That wilderness experience is really about the choices Jesus faced … and that we all face. As a child of God … made in the image of God and all that is holy … what does it mean to be true to that holiness? The three questions he faced were: Would Jesus sell out his authenticity to satiate his hunger? Would Jesus compromise the sacred trust that had been given him in exchange for the power of politics? Would Jesus trade the blessing bestowed upon him to be a mere miracle worker? Jesus left the wilderness knowing he would not do any of those things, but I wonder if he really knew the consequences of his decision as he began his ministry.
What Jesus did do is tell the truth … and Jesus found the truth in others. A person cannot be healed if they don’t want to be healed. A man will not see if he does not want to see. A woman will not stand up straight if she is afraid to stand up straight. Jesus told them the truth about themselves in a way that rang true with the truth they knew deep in their hearts.
But for some this truth-telling … and seeing the truth in others … is threatening. Some people deny the truth in their lives and pretend they are someone they are not. They use their position in society to hide their vulnerabilities. They conceal their real selves thinking they can fool others … and even themselves. But deep in each of us we know that we are made in God’s image … that there is something holy in each and every child of God. And we fear being exposed to others for what we really are. And we are afraid of being revealed even to ourselves. So, when Jesus … the pure example of what holiness means … entered the picture the last thing some people wanted was for him to get too close. He was a threat to the truth they were trying to hide from.
So Jesus wandered around Galilee teaching how to be an authentic child of a loving God. He cast out demons … another way of saying that he helped people come to themselves. He healed people by releasing them from the fears that held them hostage. He even brought some people back to life … maybe you know what that means. But Jesus also met resistance from those who were threatened by his authenticity … his ability to connect to that which was holy within him. They were threatened because of what they just might have to give up if they were to even try to do that in their own lives. And many of those who were threatened were those is power … those who were in control … the religious elite who held a position in the structure … the men of political power who existed in a system … a system where they controlled those under them because they were controlled by those over them.
At some point in his wanderings Jesus knew he had to go to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the seat of the religious hierarchy. The place that was supposed to be holy but was being scandalized by a corrupt system. Honest, hard-working people were going to Jerusalem every year at the Passover festival hoping that their actions at the Temple would bring wholeness to their lives, but they always came away lacking. An inauthentic religious structure could not and cannot provide an authentic sacred experience with the holy. But some of those people had heard that even one encounter with Jesus could and did provide that authentic sacred experience with the holy within them.
So Jesus went to Jerusalem. And, I think he knew the consequences of his choice. To show the power of truth … to show the deep authenticity of one who truly lived in God’s image … was to confront not only those who were living fraudulent lives, but also the whole system that supported them. But, Jesus went nonetheless. According to the gospels his arrival was welcomed by many of his supporters, and so we have labeled it the Triumphal Entry. However, present-day scholars have conjectured other possibilities.
Some who have studied the Gospels with new eyes suggest that Jesus’ Triumphal Entry was a bit of political theater. As the Roman Governor was entering Jerusalem from the east in a grand procession with an entourage and armed soldiers and banners flying, Jesus was entering Jerusalem from the west. Instead of powerful horses Jesus rode a small donkey … a beast of burden but also a symbol of peace. Instead of banners his followers waved palms. Other scholars propose that the story was actually written well after these events of Holy Week and conflate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem with a Jewish holy day that happens in the fall … six months after the Passover.
Someone once said, “The Bible is all true … and some of it actually happened.” What we know from the gospel reports is that Jesus obviously entered Jerusalem. We know that to be true because that is where he died. So, other than acting out that processional as part of our liturgy, what does that have to do with us today? Triumphal entry or just walking through the city gates with his traveling companions … that part of the story is not the point for me. The point is that Jesus had arrived at the city to confront those who had displaced their true God-given selves with the lust of power in the religious and political systems. And it wasn’t just Jesus that was doing the confronting … it was the God-image in Jesus that was confronting those who had sold their God-image for a false security.
How do we know this story to be true in our lives? If we are all created in the image of a loving God and called to live fully into that image … how well are we doing? What do you know about a part of you … a holy and sacred part of you … that has been compromised and therefore means you are not fully living into the image of God in which you were made? And what do you know about that part of you … again, that holy and sacred part … that is trying to confront those powers that have control of your life?
If we are to take seriously what Jesus took seriously then we not only seek justice and compassion and equity in the world around us, but we also confront those powers that compromise the holy and sacred that has been entrusted to us. Sometimes fear … fear of death … keeps us from confronting the powers out there. All we have to do is look at the world around us and see people who are actually being killed for standing up for the truth. But we also fear existential death … being ignored or discounted or marginalized. Saying something to an acquaintance about a racist joke when everyone else is laughing may leave you on the outs … that is the cost of truth-telling sometimes. But remember, that is not the end of the story … there is Easter … next week.
Sometimes those powers exist in our interior life. Maybe it is an addiction, and the holy and sacred part of us tries to replace the false spirit of the addiction with the blessed spirit of living in the image of a loving God. Maybe it is personal insecurity that is manifest as a false pride. The holy and sacred part of us tells us that we are fully worthy as a blessed child of God, but the power of being told that we would never succeed controls our life. Over and over again, the sacred and holy tries to overcome the voices of old, but the power kills what is holy. This is the story of Good Friday … the Good Friday we will observe at the end of this week … and the Good Friday that we know personally in our lives. It is a death … there is no doubt about it. But we also know the end of the story … death of the holy and sacred is not the end … it has a life after death called the Resurrection.
Today we are remembering the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem at the beginning of the last week of his life. Perhaps it was a Triumphal Entry … or maybe it was just a few men and women walking together through the city gates. But it was Jesus finally facing the powers-that-be in Jerusalem … the powers of the religious establishment … and the powers of the Roman government. He knew the risk, but he also knew that to be true to the image of God in which he was made there was no alternative. We, too, live with powers in our lives … out there and in our own interior life … powers that are contrary to living a life in the fullest image of a loving God. Sometimes we face those powers … and sometimes we feel like we have been killed by them. Yet there is still more to the story to be told. Stay tuned for Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
Amen.
If that is the case, why did those who select the lessons Sunday mornings choose to have the full Passion Gospel read? Again, the answer is simple. They did not trust that the people in the pews on Palm Sunday morning would come back to church on Good Friday to hear the whole story. So, if you want to hear the full reading of the Passion Gospel … and actually take part in that reading … I encourage you to defy those who don’t trust you and come back at 5:30pm on Good Friday. Not only will you hear … and participate in … the reading of the Passion Gospel, but you will also hear a sermon about my understanding of who killed Jesus and why … what I call the Other Good Friday.
But back to Palm Sunday. We began the liturgy this morning out on the steps with the blessing of the palms and then our processional into the church reminding us of Jesus triumphal entry into the holy city. But for Jesus this entry into Jerusalem was the end of a long journey that began at his baptism and his wilderness experience. That wilderness experience is really about the choices Jesus faced … and that we all face. As a child of God … made in the image of God and all that is holy … what does it mean to be true to that holiness? The three questions he faced were: Would Jesus sell out his authenticity to satiate his hunger? Would Jesus compromise the sacred trust that had been given him in exchange for the power of politics? Would Jesus trade the blessing bestowed upon him to be a mere miracle worker? Jesus left the wilderness knowing he would not do any of those things, but I wonder if he really knew the consequences of his decision as he began his ministry.
What Jesus did do is tell the truth … and Jesus found the truth in others. A person cannot be healed if they don’t want to be healed. A man will not see if he does not want to see. A woman will not stand up straight if she is afraid to stand up straight. Jesus told them the truth about themselves in a way that rang true with the truth they knew deep in their hearts.
But for some this truth-telling … and seeing the truth in others … is threatening. Some people deny the truth in their lives and pretend they are someone they are not. They use their position in society to hide their vulnerabilities. They conceal their real selves thinking they can fool others … and even themselves. But deep in each of us we know that we are made in God’s image … that there is something holy in each and every child of God. And we fear being exposed to others for what we really are. And we are afraid of being revealed even to ourselves. So, when Jesus … the pure example of what holiness means … entered the picture the last thing some people wanted was for him to get too close. He was a threat to the truth they were trying to hide from.
So Jesus wandered around Galilee teaching how to be an authentic child of a loving God. He cast out demons … another way of saying that he helped people come to themselves. He healed people by releasing them from the fears that held them hostage. He even brought some people back to life … maybe you know what that means. But Jesus also met resistance from those who were threatened by his authenticity … his ability to connect to that which was holy within him. They were threatened because of what they just might have to give up if they were to even try to do that in their own lives. And many of those who were threatened were those is power … those who were in control … the religious elite who held a position in the structure … the men of political power who existed in a system … a system where they controlled those under them because they were controlled by those over them.
At some point in his wanderings Jesus knew he had to go to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the seat of the religious hierarchy. The place that was supposed to be holy but was being scandalized by a corrupt system. Honest, hard-working people were going to Jerusalem every year at the Passover festival hoping that their actions at the Temple would bring wholeness to their lives, but they always came away lacking. An inauthentic religious structure could not and cannot provide an authentic sacred experience with the holy. But some of those people had heard that even one encounter with Jesus could and did provide that authentic sacred experience with the holy within them.
So Jesus went to Jerusalem. And, I think he knew the consequences of his choice. To show the power of truth … to show the deep authenticity of one who truly lived in God’s image … was to confront not only those who were living fraudulent lives, but also the whole system that supported them. But, Jesus went nonetheless. According to the gospels his arrival was welcomed by many of his supporters, and so we have labeled it the Triumphal Entry. However, present-day scholars have conjectured other possibilities.
Some who have studied the Gospels with new eyes suggest that Jesus’ Triumphal Entry was a bit of political theater. As the Roman Governor was entering Jerusalem from the east in a grand procession with an entourage and armed soldiers and banners flying, Jesus was entering Jerusalem from the west. Instead of powerful horses Jesus rode a small donkey … a beast of burden but also a symbol of peace. Instead of banners his followers waved palms. Other scholars propose that the story was actually written well after these events of Holy Week and conflate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem with a Jewish holy day that happens in the fall … six months after the Passover.
Someone once said, “The Bible is all true … and some of it actually happened.” What we know from the gospel reports is that Jesus obviously entered Jerusalem. We know that to be true because that is where he died. So, other than acting out that processional as part of our liturgy, what does that have to do with us today? Triumphal entry or just walking through the city gates with his traveling companions … that part of the story is not the point for me. The point is that Jesus had arrived at the city to confront those who had displaced their true God-given selves with the lust of power in the religious and political systems. And it wasn’t just Jesus that was doing the confronting … it was the God-image in Jesus that was confronting those who had sold their God-image for a false security.
How do we know this story to be true in our lives? If we are all created in the image of a loving God and called to live fully into that image … how well are we doing? What do you know about a part of you … a holy and sacred part of you … that has been compromised and therefore means you are not fully living into the image of God in which you were made? And what do you know about that part of you … again, that holy and sacred part … that is trying to confront those powers that have control of your life?
If we are to take seriously what Jesus took seriously then we not only seek justice and compassion and equity in the world around us, but we also confront those powers that compromise the holy and sacred that has been entrusted to us. Sometimes fear … fear of death … keeps us from confronting the powers out there. All we have to do is look at the world around us and see people who are actually being killed for standing up for the truth. But we also fear existential death … being ignored or discounted or marginalized. Saying something to an acquaintance about a racist joke when everyone else is laughing may leave you on the outs … that is the cost of truth-telling sometimes. But remember, that is not the end of the story … there is Easter … next week.
Sometimes those powers exist in our interior life. Maybe it is an addiction, and the holy and sacred part of us tries to replace the false spirit of the addiction with the blessed spirit of living in the image of a loving God. Maybe it is personal insecurity that is manifest as a false pride. The holy and sacred part of us tells us that we are fully worthy as a blessed child of God, but the power of being told that we would never succeed controls our life. Over and over again, the sacred and holy tries to overcome the voices of old, but the power kills what is holy. This is the story of Good Friday … the Good Friday we will observe at the end of this week … and the Good Friday that we know personally in our lives. It is a death … there is no doubt about it. But we also know the end of the story … death of the holy and sacred is not the end … it has a life after death called the Resurrection.
Today we are remembering the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem at the beginning of the last week of his life. Perhaps it was a Triumphal Entry … or maybe it was just a few men and women walking together through the city gates. But it was Jesus finally facing the powers-that-be in Jerusalem … the powers of the religious establishment … and the powers of the Roman government. He knew the risk, but he also knew that to be true to the image of God in which he was made there was no alternative. We, too, live with powers in our lives … out there and in our own interior life … powers that are contrary to living a life in the fullest image of a loving God. Sometimes we face those powers … and sometimes we feel like we have been killed by them. Yet there is still more to the story to be told. Stay tuned for Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
Amen.
