Palm Sunday 2018

Palm Sunday

After another week with another school shooting,

I sit here listening to the Passion story with a heavy heart.

Why must we feel the need to act out on our fear and anger

by killing other people?

Hasn't the human race grown out of this behavior yet?

Alas,

we have not.

The senseless violence

of the Passion story is all too evident.

Even Pilate asks,

Why crucify him?

What evil has he done?

Jesus indeed had not committed any evil.

He stood for peace, for relationship with God

for caring about the poor and oppressed

he stood for love and grace and mercy.

And we gave him no mercy.

In our human fear and anger

we sentenced to death a man

who wanted to teach us a new way of living,

which scary and vulnerable as it is,

is also one of peace, justice, and eternal life.

Palm Sunday is a day of tension in the Christian life and story.

Traditionally, we start this day with the triumphant entry of Jesus

into Jerusalem

and then we read the story of Jesus' sentencing and crucifixion

and death.

Starting the morning with excitement and joy

and ending with violence and sorrow.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Like any of us need any more tension or sadness in our lives?

Certainly, we don't.

We don't do this because we need more tension or sorrow in our lives.

Modern society gives us enough of that as it is.

We do this for numerous other reasons,

theologically, socially, pastorally, and literarily.

We need to remember the full story,

the whole story.

The Easter story next Sunday would not be the same

without knowing the sorrow, desperation, and abandonment

which comes first.

Theologically, we need to remember that Christ

has been through death.

That Christ knows our sorrows,

knows our pain and suffering

knows our fear and anger.

And as each week with a school shooting teaches us,

we are not good as human beings about living into tension

about reaching out in vulnerable and empathetic ways

to those we do not know

instead of acting out in anger and fear.

We need to learn how to live in the space

between knowing and labeling.

We live in spaces with other people

between being able to say that we know them very well

and having labeled them so that we don't need to get to know them.

We need to learn how to live joy

even in the midst of destruction.

And to acknowledge our own part in the destruction

even when we can find all the reasons in the world to distance ourselves from it,

blame it on someone else, and act out against them.

We share the whole Passion Gospel narrative every year 

because we can learn from it.

Hopefully.

At least that is what we like to believe.

We remember this story every year

in hopes that, this year,

Jesus will change our hearts and our minds.

And times of tension are really the best times for that.

Think about it, when you're relaxed and happy,

you really have no incentive to make a change.

When you're completely safe and contented,

you have no desire to change your life.

But when you are stuck, caught in a tension in your life,

that is when change starts to happen.

Tension brings along some of its own benefits

surprisingly enough.

Creativity comes out of tension.

Progress forward comes out of tension.

Tension brings motivation and a boost of immunity and brainpower

and when worked through,

instead of acted out on,

brings resilience and tenacity.

Which is part of the reason

Christianity has survived for so long.

The early church was constantly in struggle

theological debates, persecution, natural disaster,

all led the people into conversation, choice, and adaptation

which has formed the church and allowed the church to carry on,

in many and various ways.

None of it was easy.

I highly doubt any saint, theologian, reformer, or bishop

of any previous age,

would say that it was easy.

Working through fear and anger

in constructive and reconciling ways

is never easy.

But it is important

and it is part of the calling of Jesus in following him.

Through death

and into resurrection.

We stand today in the middle of a messy

messy

messy

story.

The human story is not one which could easily be picked apart.

The layers of grief, struggle, fear, anger, sorrow

are heavy.

But Jesus stands in the midst of all of our stories.

In the midst of his Passion story,

in the midst of our stories of pain,

in the midst of shootings and deaths and disconnection,

Jesus stands

for hope,

for peace,

for mercy,

for love.

Let us walk through this story together this year

breathing God's grace deeply into each place of pain,

recognizing Jesus as he stands in the midst,

and following the promise of joy,

for the end 

is just the beginning.

Amen.