Palm Sunday
April 13, 2014
Rev. Linda Simmons
It is an interesting time of year for Unitarian Universalists.
These are the weeks in Christianity that Jesus was crucified and then some believe was raised from the dead, Christ, the resurrected one- and in Judaism when the houses of Jews were passed over by the plague of death on all first-borns that God wrecked upon the Egyptians for not setting his people free. It is of course not only the Jews and the Christians who celebrate this time but faith traditions all over the world that mark the coming of spring faithfully and ritualistically.
Many of us do not hold these traditions as sacred truth, and yet something draws us here, year after year. There is something mystical in the air during this time of spring and rebirth, this time when all of us feel spared after the long winter, offered another year of life, warmth, sun.
This is Palm Sunday in the Christian tradition. I am fascinated by the tradition born up around the writings of Jesus’ life. In divinity school, those training for Unitarian Universalist ministry had to study Christianity and the New Testament as well as become proficient in a biblical language. I chose ancient Greek, based on some romantic notion that reading the New Testament in its original language would be life changing. I am not sure what changed my life more, 4 hours a day wrestling with ancient Greek for 2 years or finally getting to the point where I could translate sections of the New Testament with great pain and hesitation.
What calls me most in the New Testament stories is not the debate about what is and is not factual but rather the great passion in the gospels that comprise the New Testament, those writing that were allowed into this great cannon, as well as some of those, like the Gospel of Mary, that did not make the cut. Each gospel tells a particular story for a particular reason, in a particular community struggling with coming to terms with the life of Jesus and their relationship to that life and the meanings constructed around it.
Today, we will look more closely at the story that lies behind Palm Sunday and then into the stories that shape our own lives, always hoping to uncover more courage, hope, and commitment to ourselves and each other.
The following is taken from Bible Gateway, an online Bible website, and refers to John 12:12-19. All those numbers used to direct one to a bible passage remind me of a joke I will tell before we delve into the New Testament and get serious.
An elderly woman had just returned to her home from an evening of religious service when she was startled by an intruder. As she caught the man in the act of robbing her home of its valuables, she yelled, "Stop - Acts 2:38!" ( which is about turning from your sin). The burglar stopped dead in his tracks. The woman calmly called the police and explained what she had done.
As the officer cuffed the man to take him in, he asked the burglar, "Why did you just stand there? All the old lady did was yell a scripture to you."
"Scripture?" replied the burglar, "She said she had an AXE and two 38's!"
From Bible Gateway:
Passover was one of the three feasts that Jews were supposed to attend in Jerusalem, and consequently the population of Jerusalem swelled enormously at this time. As this great crowd is beginning to gather from around Israel and the larger world of the diaspora, news about Jesus is spreading, and people are wondering whether he will come to the feast (11:55-56).
[As Jesus enters the town riding a donkey] they shoutedHosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! (v. 13). These are lines from one of the Psalms of Ascents (Ps 118:25-26) sung as a welcome to pilgrims coming up to Jerusalem.
As such, this is an entirely appropriate thing to do as Jesus is coming up to Jerusalem. But there is more involved here. The cry of Hosanna! is a Hebrew word (hoshi`ah-na) that had become a greeting or shout of praise but that actually meant "Save!" or "Help!”. Not surprisingly, forms of this word were used to address the king with a need (cf. 2 Sam 14:4; 2 Kings 6:26.
This Bible Gateway commentary goes on, Clearly the Jews saw Jesus as the king who would save them.
Marcus Borg, Professor of Religion at Oregon State University and the author of many books, including The Meaning of Jesus, Two Visionswrite about the same story told in the gospel of Mark, the first gospel to be written by what scholars call the Markan writers.
Jesus planned his entry in Jerusalem in advance. It was not a last-minute decision, as if he decided to ride a donkey because he was tired or wanted people to be able to see him better.
And - this is the crucial connection - riding a donkey into Jerusalem echoes a passage from the prophet Zechariah.
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey (9.9).
That king, the passage continues, will be a king of peace:
"He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations"
How should we interpret all of this? And more importantly I think is the question: Is there any meaning we can make of this that matters to us still? I think the answer to that last question is yes.
After reading these passages, I began reflecting on prophecies, those stories that get raised up andare made common, universal, known. I found myself wondering, what are the prophecies of our time and how do our lives fulfill these? Or better said, What are the stories that our lives speak?
The prophecies of our time effect us all, impinge on us all to be or become more or less than we are, are used as measuring sticks of what’s possible, necessary, useful, expected. What are our new prophecies?
One of the precepts of Unitarian Universalismthat I love is that revelation is continuous. Revelation traditionally means: God's disclosure of Himself and His willto His creatures. Revelation is continuous means for us as UUs that the holy, the profound, the mysterious, the understanding of who we are and what is needed to go on well, is always being revealed and not confined to one text, people, time or place.
How do we know what is needed, what is happening, what is now being asked of us, required of us, revealed to us? How do we know how to live into and author our stories? What prophecy are we fulfilling now?
The prophecies of our time are familiar to us all: the earth is changing, warming, irrevocably headed toward demise, there will be an end to fossil fuels and water, greed and power are destroying us.
I was talking to someone about this the other day who asked if the prophets are not those Christians who insist the world is ending. I told him they had nothing on the NY Times.
The movie Noah is all about prophecies. It has stirred up a lot of controversy for some Christians. It surely deviates from the Hebrew Bible. I did not mind this deviation. I am always on the look out for what meaning a story told can have in our lives now so that we might all live with more compassion and hope.
In the movie, after Noah builds the arc and his family enter it with all the animals, Noah informs everyone that God has told him that human beings could not enter the New World. They were too evil, corrupted, damaged. Noah had a plan that involved each member of his family killing the next until the last one had to kill himself.
When his son’s wife gives birth to twins, Noah approaches them, knife unsheathed, to slay the babies crying in their mother’s arms, hours after their births. He lifts his knife and inches from the baby’s head, back away. He throws down the knife and tells God he cannot do what He asks.
After reaching the new land, Noah withdraws from his family, feeling a pariah, too weak to fulfill the word of God.
His daughter in law whose babies he spared comes to him then and tells him that God knew whom he was choosing to build the arc. God knew Noah had the courage to choose. She tells Noah that he chose love and mercy.
This Palm Sunday, I reflect that every age has its prophecies, its words that are fulfilled by the lives of all of us and that every age demands of all of us that we chose how we will fulfill the prophecies of our lives, that we have some choice in how we respond to the call of greed, planetary destruction, misuse of wealth and resources.
How will you live into the prophecies of your lives? How do you maintain the humility to enter each day of this prophecy or sacred story with attention to all of the details of who you are, who you have become and who you are still called to be?
Eckhart von Hochheim who lived from about 1260 – 1327, commonly known as Meister Eckhart was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in the Holy Roman Empire.
Eckhart came into prominence during the Avignon Papacy, at a time of increased tensions between the Franciscan Order and Eckhart's Dominican Order of Preachers. In later life he was accused of heresy and brought up before the local Franciscan-led Inquisition, and tried as a heretic by Pope John XXII. He probably died before his verdict was received.
David Appelbaum in the article, Four Meditations on Seeing writes,
For Eckhart, the unveiling of reality coincides with letting the blocks and limits go, holding back no longer. This allows us to learn who we are and what we serve.
Who we are and what we serve.
I think of the story of Jesus, man who would be king. I think of the healer, teacher, rabbi, social revolutionary and I wonder about that donkey he rode into the town in which he would turn over tables and so come to the attention of the Roman authorities who would put him to death for sedition. And the literature does strongly suggest it was the Romans and not the Jews who convicted and crucified Jesus.
I am called to humility by this man and to the question: How do I fulfill the prophecies of my own life, riding a top of what grand ideas of my own worth and merit that keep me from seeing the people around me, the work to be done, the simple need for love?
In my own life, I have lived and out lived many personal prophecies surrounded by the prophecies of the 60s, 70s and 80s that promised we as human beings could make a difference, that authenticity mattered, that social engagement belonged.
When I was little, folks told me I would be a doctor. Traveling as a rebellious young woman, refusing the scholarships and college acceptances to study medicine, I was told I might be a journalist. Giving birth to my daughter in Frankfurt, Germany and coming home without a husband, I was told I was not worthy of an education as a single mother living on welfare. After receiving my BA in economics, I was told I would be a good investment banker. After 15 years of working with at risk youth, I could no longer hear any prophecies or calls so I went to the New Seminary in NYC for 2 years to find my heart, which eventually led me here.
When I look at it all now, I see each story in my life, shaping me, leaving me unfulfilled, asking more of me than I knew how to give, leaving me with more questions than answers.
And how I carried those questions, how I carry them still, defines me. How do I enter each day, riding on a donkey or in a chariot, holding myself how, sitting with the mystery of life with hope or despair, love or angst, kindness or judgment? How do you enter each day; how do you fulfill the prophecies of your lives?
I think of Pope Francis and his recent visit to a prison where he washed and kissed the feet of two female Muslim inmates and I know that the stories of Jesus can still offer us all humility, forgiveness, compassion, and the courage to live into the stories of our own lives with more passion and love.
I cannot know who Jesus was or what visions called him forth but I can know that the call of the gospels, whoever wrote them and to which ever historical or lack of historical presence they point, calls us to this question over and over again, Who are you and what do you serve?
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Our friends at St. Mary’s Church shared some of their palms with us today. Palms are an unbranched evergreen tree with a crown of long feathered or fan-shaped leaves, typically having old leaf scars forming a regular pattern on the trunk. I love the part about the old leaf scars that form patterns.
We all have scars from the stories of our lives, those left by pain and joy and around those scars wraps the green growth of this day, this new story, this new moment.
The palms I invite you to take today are not those we use to wave over a savior but those that might remind us the saving message within each of us, the role of each of us to chose how we fulfill the prophecies of our lives, to remember with this touch of greenness that all things are connected on this one small, fragile, earth and each other.
I invite you to come forward and take a palm and let it call you into the story of your own life.
Amen.
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