Two Palm Sundays

Matthew 21:1-11

            On Palm Sunday one hundred fifty-five (155) years ago, the beginning of the end of the American Civil War occurred when General Robert E. Lee, Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant, general of the United States Armies.

Lee Surrenders to Grant, American Battlefield Trust

For the American people who had long prayed for salvation from the carnage of war and the fracturing of families and country, this beginning of the end of the bloody conflict was a sign to many that God had finally answered the prayers of the nation. For the war now coming to an end was the bloodiest war ever fought on American soil.    

            It had torn this country apart, killed 620,000 Americans, still more than any other war in American history. By comparison, the number killed in all other conflicts on this or any other soil combined stands at about 640,000 according to battlefield.org. With the ending of the Civil War, the North prevailed – though no one really won in this conflict.

            Still, the events of Palm Sunday 1865 brought cause for celebration, even jubilation, and hope for the future.          

            We began our worship this morning with the traditional Palm Sunday processional gospel – though of course, due to the trials the day there was no procession or parade here today. Yet, we remember the triumph, the celebration and the hope of that first Palm Sunday – the day of Jesus’ triumphant procession into Jerusalem. 

            Chaos and confusion filled the air as people waving palms shouted, “Hosanna! Hosanna!” which means, “Save us! Save us!” and other people shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Presumably, those making up the crowd along the road that entered the city were among those who had followed Jesus during his journey to Jerusalem.

They make up some of the crowds that the we read about in the Gospels, to whom Jesus has addressed his teaching and preaching all along his journey to Jerusalem.

Others may be among those for whom Jesus has performed miracles and healing. They have heard him say that God is enacting God’s saving grace for them, and that God will set them free from the power of evil.

They believe Jesus’ message that God, full of mercy and abiding in steadfast love is sending a liberating ruler for them. Some believe Jesus to be a great healer and messenger sent from God. Finally, God has answered their prayers and pleading for liberation.

Others claim that he is a prophet from Galilee, sent by God. More are simply caught up in energy of the mob and join the procession.

            As they enter the city, they are joined by throngs who have gathered there for the festivities of the Passover. Many of these have not heard of Jesus and have had no former contact with him. Others have likely heard of him but don’t really know who he is or why the crowds follow him so.

The Pharisees have decided that he is a danger to the peace between them and the Romans. Caiaphas, high priest charged with controlling the Jews and keeping the peace of Jerusalem is one of those who fear that Jesus will stir up the Jews and threaten the peace.

And so, while some are shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David,” others are questioning, “Who is this?” and yet others are plotting to destroy him.

            Just who was this Jesus, who comes into Jerusalem riding on the back of an ass draped with cloaks, with more cloaks spread upon the road before him as if he were royalty, riding into the city upon a champion steed?

He looks royal and yet his accoutrements are humble – for what kind of king would ride a donkey? He is receiving a royal welcome with the waving of branches of palm and myrtle, and shouts of acclamation, even as the question, “who is this man?” echoes along the road.

As news of Lee’s surrender on Palm Sunday 1865 spread, and one by one other confederate brigades and armies also surrendered, there was a sense of relief and jubilation, yet by the end of the week, whatever joy had been found or felt was shattered – by the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln five days later. The country as a whole was cast into mourning and the future was once again uncertain. How quickly things change.

Following the first Palm Sunday, somewhere around the year 33 AD (CE), came a week that was utterly confusing. No sooner had Jesus entered the city in triumph, than he began agitating the religious authorities, overturning tables, criticizing their behavior, cursing fig trees, casting judgment on the nations, and predicting the destruction of the temple. Finally, at the end of the week he is arrested and tried and five days after the triumphal entry, he dies upon the cross.

Followers of Jesus fall silent and go into hiding. Even those who have been closest to him, who have declared their unending love for him, and belief in him, deny and abandon him in the end. Indeed, how quickly things change.”

The shouts of “hosanna” – “save us” are muted in the horror of the crucifixion as the taunting call, “save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!” echoes down the hill.

“Hosanna” is not a word that we normally use in the course of our day, or ever really, but today as a church around the world, we sing out our hosannas. But when we consider the meaning of the word – “save us” – what it is that we are asking God to save us from today?

At this point in history, April 2020, the answer that rises to the top probably seems pretty obvious: coronavirus. As we live into yet another week of ever-stricter guidelines and stay-at-home orders that now affect the entirety of our state and many other states and countries around the world, we are praying for the healing of the afflicted, the eradication of the virus, and comfort of those who mourn: “Save us, Lord, from COVID 19”.

We pray that God would save our lives, save our families, our jobs, our businesses, our communities, our church and the economy: “save us from destruction”.

We pray that the world might return to “normal” sooner rather than later.

We pray for the most vulnerable among us, made even more vulnerable by the reality of an unprepared for, non-curable, invisible menace.

These are just the latest in a long list of things from which we could cry out to be saved, just as the people who have gone before us have asked God to save them from the trials and tribulations of their time,.

In every age we have a pretty good idea from what we need to be saved and we think we know how we should be saved. We expect Jesus to come and make it better. With hope and trust, we cry, “save us” and wait, watching for signs that God has heard our prayer and the answer is coming.

Yet still we find ourselves afflicted by greed, beset by illness, vulnerable to death. Still, we find ourselves in endless conflict – in our relationships, our politics, our sense of justice, our economics, and with the environment.

Into this reality, Jesus comes, not as the conquering king expected both then and, in a sense, even now. He is not the military leader they thought they needed, but a humble servant king, riding on a donkey.

He came as one who would bear our pain and brokenness up the cross. He came as one who was born, lived, suffered and died in solidarity with the whole hurting and beloved world. He came to save, but not in the way they imagined or the way we expect to see.

            On that first Palm Sunday, Jesus accepted their hosannas and praises, knowing his friends would betray him and the crowds would turn on him. Jesus accepts the way they honor him as king, even knowing that the only crown he will wear will be made of thorns. Jesus “rides on, rides on, in majesty” as the old hymn goes, not counting himself as equal to God but emptying himself, so that he may be filled to overflowing with God’s love, and then shed that love on us.

            I recently read this Palm Sunday scene being referred to as the “glittering sadness.” Isn’t that a perfect description? For even as we imagine the jubilation of the crowds, we cannot help visualizing the reality of the cross: The cross upon which Jesus dies, for us; the cross from which his body is taken for entombment; the death from which he rises again, in glorious victory over evil, sin, and yes, even death.

            The people in the crowd didn’t get it. They didn’t understand who Jesus truly was or what he would do for us.

The Pharisees and Caiaphas feared his influence and misunderstood him. The merchants and moneychangers at the temple, and those who came to worship there didn’t get what his beef was. Even his disciples didn’t fully understand who Jesus was and how his death fit into the promises of God until after his death and resurrection.

            Jesus is the emissary and embodiment of God’s love for the world: the understanding and the misunderstanding, the faithful and the unfaithful, the repentant and the unrepentant. Jesus is mercy for the believer and the unbeliever, the ones who greet him as “Son of David” and “Messiah” and the ones who taunt him as he hangs upon the cross.

            The glittering irony is that Jesus came to be love and in love, he died for the sake of all of us. In Jesus, God comes to us to be with us and for us through whatever we suffer or experience – illness, brokenness, pandemic, fear, loneliness – all of it.

            He comes to us and bears with us in mercy and love beyond our imagining or understanding, shattering our expectations and assuring us of life and love everlasting. May this reality be our comfort and the force that accompanies us through this Holy Week and all the way to Easter. Amen.

             

           

Scorpions, Hens and Chicks: the Cosmic Hesed of God

Luke 13:31-35

There is a story of an old man who used to meditate early in the morning under a big tree on the bank of the Ganges River. One morning, after he had finished his meditation, the old man opened his eyes and saw a scorpion floating helplessly in the water.

As the scorpion was washed closer to the tree, the old man quickly stretched himself out on one of the long roots that branched out into the river and reached out to rescue the drowning creature. As soon as he touched it, the scorpion stung him. Instinctively the man withdrew his hand. A minute later, after he had regained his balance, he stretched himself out again on the roots to save the scorpion. This time the scorpion stung him so badly with its poisonous tail that his hand became swollen and bloody and his face contorted with pain.

At that moment, a passerby saw the old man stretched out on the roots struggling with the scorpion and shouted: “Hey, stupid old man, what’s wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don’t you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?”

The old man turned his head. Looking into the stranger’s eyes he said calmly, “My friend, just because it is the scorpion’s nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save.”

Just because it is his nature to sting, that doesn’t change my nature to save. Doesn't that sound to you a lot like Jesus?

The lament of Jesus in our gospel today sounds an awful lot to me like the lament within the old man’s statement. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” he cried out, and we can hear the sadness in his words, “….How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you did not want me!” (a literal translation of the Greek).

And yet, Jesus perseveres. From his birth to the cross, Jesus reaches out to the people of Jerusalem. Indeed, he gets stung again and again and again. Yet, even as he makes his final march toward that city, the Pharisees come to him to warn him away. Were they really looking out for Jesus or was their motive more sinister?

Jesus' response, of course, foreshadows what we know of as the Great Three Days of our salvation. Despite humanity’s nature to sin, despite the institutional rejection of Jesus by the Jewish leadership, despite his upcoming persecution, passion, and death at the hands of the Romans, Jesus perseveres in his walk of love, mercy and compassion. On the third day, through his resurrection, Jesus will indeed finish his salvific work on behalf of the stinging creature, humankind.  

How many times has God set out to establish equanimity with humankind, to show his love, to show us a better way of being at one with God and with our neighbor, and we would not follow, would not listen, would not obey God. No matter our nature to turn our backs on God, God’s nature to save continues.

As I met with other clergy in a text study on Wednesday, one of my colleagues remarked about how through the various readings we have before us this week, we really do get a vision of God that is one of cosmic nurturer. Isn’t that a beautiful way to picture God? As the one who nurtures the universe and all that is within it; as the one determined to save, regardless of the cost.

Abram and Sarai, his wife, have reached a point of hopelessness over ever being able to conceive a child of their own union. Yet, God promises and delivers not just a child but countless offspring through vast generations to come. As God so often does, God does not just meet the need but fills the desire with overflowing generosity.

See the heavens stretching out before you? [God asks Abram] Can you number the stars? They are more than you can count, aren’t they? And God promises to fill the cosmos with descendants in numbers as vast as the stars in the sky. And God keeps God’s promises.

A couple of months ago, Patti invited all of us to write our names on stars that she then hung from the ceiling in the hallway leading to the education wing.[If you didn't get a chance to put your name on one, we have them laid out again on the table with the nametags in the narthex).

Every time I pass through that hallway, I look up. All those stars suspended in the air overhead is heavenly. You can read some of the names…Mel, Pat, Ruth, Bob, Julia, London, Nazie, and so many more names; even my name is up there, somewhere. God’s generous answer to Abram’s need is a vast abundance that includes you and me.

While all Abram wanted was a single heir, God’s vision was so much bigger. It extends thousands of years and all around the globe. 
Today there are three major religions of the world,, known as the Abrahamic religions whose adherents worship this God who is so generous, so creative, and so masterful. We each have our own ways of understanding the nature of God and how God relates to us, but we all believe in the same God, one God, and the content of our stories and our scriptures overlap.

In Islam, God is rendered “Allah” in Arabic, literally “the God”. God is the absolute one, all powerful and all knowing ruler of the universe, and the creator of everything in existence. Islam emphasizes that God is strictly singular and unique, inherently One,  all-merciful and omnipotent.  Muslims consider God neither a material nor a spiritual being. According to the Quran and teachings of Islam, "No vision can grasp him, but His grasp is over all vision: He is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all things."

In Judaism, God has been conceived in a variety of ways. Primarily, Jews hold that Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the national god of the Israelites, delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and gave them the Law of Moses at Mount Sinai as described in the Torah, their holy book.

God is understood as the absolute one, indivisible, and incomparable supreme being who is the ultimate cause of all existence. Traditional interpretations of Judaism emphasize that God is personal yet also transcendent, while some modern interpretations of Judaism emphasize that God is a force or ideal.

The names of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible are the Tetragrammaton (YHWH Hebrew: יהוה) and Elohim, also, El Shaddai and Shekinah. Whatever name is used, there is but one God .

For Christians, God is one God in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three persons are indivisible – not three gods, but one God. As we state in our creed, we believe that God is the creator, all knowing and all powerful, who took on flesh and became human in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the savior, the incarnation of a god who is so in love with humanity that he will do anything to save us from our sinful, warring madness, even join us in our own suffering and die for us, to ensure our eternal life with him through the resurrection.

God continues to bless, sanctify and endow fill our spiritual needs through God’s Holy Spirit, who contains all the aspects of God within herself.

The heart of Christian belief is that indeed, God did not keep Jesus from receiving the final sting of death, but allowed it, that all might be brought to eternal life through the power of the resurrection.

It’s a lot of heady stuff, all pointing to one thing – that despite our differences, these three major world religions basically share the same main beliefs about God: that God is one, that God is the creator who engages with humanity in ways that are unique and mysterious and merciful. And this immensely interconnected, generous and creative God exists for us all, binding us together in one humanity.

That’s an important truth for us to grasp, especially today.

Human conventions have created ideologies around each of these religions, resulting in misunderstanding, creating factions of extremism within each, and producing conflict, war, and struggles for power.

We see the result of this in our world today. Sadly, we even saw such division used this week as one inspiration and justification for a horrible act of terrorism and hatred directed toward a religious community.

Mercifully, however, we have also seen an international and interreligious response of support for the Muslim community and condemnation for the cowardly and hate-filled act taken against them.

We are right to pray for and support our Muslim brothers and sisters in New Zealand and anywhere in the world where they face injustice, prejudice and hatred. Adherents of true Islam are indeed our friends, created in the image of God as are we, and deserving of our love and support. As worshipers of one true God, Christians, Jews and Muslims alike speak out against injustice and promote peaceful coexistence, and in so doing, have become easy marks for power-hungry, extremist, and hate-filled groups in the world, and we see attacks against all three groups with increasing regularity.

We all seek comfort and consolation from the brutality of the world from the same loving, merciful God. The image of God as a hen who desires to gather her brood under her wings, is the picture of an incredibly nurturing God.

The lament of Jesus and his true sorrow is that despite God’s nurturing nature, despite covenants offered and needs addressed, rejection of God’s love and mercy abound. And now, as the incarnation of God’s hesed – God’s abundant, steadfast love and mercy embodied in Jesus Christ, the scorpion stings – but the true nature of God persists.

Lamentation is Jesus’ response to the sting; the cross is God’s response to the rejection. Even now, Jesus is calling us all into loving relationship with him. Even now, God is providing for our salvation through the cross. Even now, God reigns supreme, regardless of the worldly reality of sin, hatred, violence and denial.

The thing is, it is the nature of God to continue nurturing the cosmos. For the same God who sent Jesus as love for love’s sake is with us still, washes us in the waters of baptism, feeds us through the holy sacraments, blesses and empowers us through the work of the Spirit.

Thanks be to God, mothering, fathering, blessing, loving, merciful creator and redeemer. Amen.