Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson on Palm Sunday, April 10, 2022.

A few days ago, I was in a conversation with several of you, and it was a good one, and then it went to an even deeper level when one person started sharing their feelings of dismay and despair at the state of our world these days. Naming the evidence of war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine, and other ways we humans are cruel to one another, they said something like,“There’s just so much to be discouraged about,” and the rest of us nodded our heads and felt the weight and the truth of those words of lament. 

We held this in silence for a moment. And then I said, “Well, you’ve got some company these days. This week brings Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week, and what you’re feeling resonates with me. At this time of year I always feel the weight of the events that lead to Jesus’ death, and I feel the sadness and brokenness of being human.”

Another person spoke up: “You know, Palm Sunday starts off so promising. Jesus is coming into Jerusalem and people are excited and cheering him, saying ‘Hosanna in the highest!’ But it doesn’t go very well after that, does it?”

This is something that’s always puzzled me about Palm Sunday. That in many parts of the Christian tradition, today is seen as a happy day, marking Jesus’ “triumphant entry into Jerusalem.” Maybe, if you don’t know how the story ends!

I often wonder, why didn’t Jesus and his disciples stay out in the country, where they were helping and healing people? Why go to the seat of power, which was occupied by the Roman Empire in those days, and which, like any empire, didn’t tolerate dissent or trouble. 

And here comes Jesus, the star of a rag-tag parade, in which people are shouting “Hurrah! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” In those days, the Roman emperor Caesar was seen as the highest power, he was seen as God, and so to claim Jesus was coming in the name of a higher God than that was was blasphemous, and a threat.

And have things changed much? You’ve seen what’s happened to Russian citizens who dared to stand up against the invasion of Ukraine. Even in our own country—how well do we tolerate dissent? Remember how, in the early days of the Black Lives Matter movement, people making that simple assertion were reviled and threatened, and all kinds of false claims we made against the movement?

Jesus goes to Jerusalem and creates a stir by just entering town, and before long he goes to the temple, and there he turns over the tables of the moneychangers and the trinket sellers, and plenty of people are mad at him. And things get worse from there—one of his disciples betrays him, the others flee when trouble comes, Jesus is arrested and killed like a common criminal. He’s made an example of—“don’t do this if you want to live.” One could think the moral of this story is to keep your head down and don’t make waves, if you want to survive.

That’s what the Romans were trying to say, but that message couldn’t be further from the truth of what Jesus’ life and ministry were about. His allure and his power came from the deep connection he felt to God. Bible scholar Marcus Borg describes Jesus as a “spirit person,” someone so filled with the Holy Spirit that others want to be near him, and get some of that good energy. This is what an early theologian named Irenaeus meant when he said, “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” The gospels describe Jesus as a fully alive human being, and isn’t that how we are invited to live too, while we are here? 

This is a very human story, and you don’t have to identify as Christian to get something from it. Isn’t Jesus a good example of an embodied life? A life of both suffering and joy, of pain and healing, of making human connections and living fully and freely, and at the end, not being afraid to die.

We live in a culture that that’s more comfortable with joy than sorrow, with health than illness, with light than shadow. But none of us get to live in the light all the time! Pain and sorrow come to every home. Every year, as we approach Palm Sunday and Holy Week, I feel the heaviness of this story. The pain and the sadness of it all. And I’ve learned that I need to travel this way, with Jesus and his friends, if I am going to be ready to celebrate the promise of Easter. Which is only a week away!

The way to Easter begins with Jesus’ life and ministry among the common people; the power he had to inspire and encourage, to heal and bless. And the tendency he had to stir up trouble. The way to Easter passes directly though Palm Sunday and Holy Week, and Jesus’ death on a cross. But it doesn’t end at the cross, or with his death. It doesn’t even end at the empty tomb, It invites us on, to more courageous and free and embodied lives. More about that next Sunday!

Right now the invitation is to spend some time in the shadows and in the struggle.  Which is actually were we live, much of the time, right? As Tori reminded us several weeks ago, engaging with the Divine and living our faith offers “not a haven from the world,” she said, “but what we find when we are below the timberline where we live amongst the things that break our hearts and the things that break them open.”

That’s the invitation of this day, and this week, to be openhearted, to even let ourselves be brokenhearted, to make our way through these shadows, so that when the light comes, we are ready, and we can welcome that too. We have vespers this Wednesday here at 6 pm, and on Good Friday we hold open a space for quiet reflection and prayer, from noon to 3 pm. You’re welcome to drop in for as long or as short as you wish, to light a candle, to just be here. Every thirty minutes we read part of the narrative from Mark’s gospel, and if you’re here and want to read, we’d welcome your voice to be part of that.

What I’m trying to say today is how good and important it is to be in this present moment, to be in your body, with what is going on right now, in you and around you. This is the way to a holy and heart-filled life. It’s simple, isn’t it? But it’s not easy. Especially when the invitation is to look among the shadows, to touch into your own pain and grief and loss. But we know how to do that here, don’t we? And you certainly have companions here—I hope you know that.

Maybe you’ll join me this week in reflecting on this story, and imaging how it relates to your own life. Where have you been brave, and when have you been betrayed? Where have you felt abandoned, and how have you showed up when that was hard to do?

It helps is to bring a sense of imagination to these stories the Holy Week story, and the stories of your life too. To look for signs and symbols in them, to bring a kind of spacious wonder. The way Mary Oliver wonders about the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem:

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

How are you being called to step forward in these days? What are you being asked to carry? And what, perhaps, are you being invited to put down? This is a good day, and a good week, to reflect on these things. How do I make my way through the valley of the shadow? Where am I invited to be more courageous, or more compassionate? What am I afraid of, and how can I face that, and not turn away?

These words from the Hebrew tradition remind us a powerful truth about this life:

..that wherever we go, it is eternally Egypt.
That there is a better place, a promised land; 
that the winding way to that promise passes through the wilderness. 
That there is no way to get from here to there 
except by joining hands, marching together (Michael Walzer).

My spiritual companions, the way to Easter passes through the daily struggles of our lives: through pain and suffering, through death and loss. It is a winding way through the wilderness, punctuated by moments of solace and even delight. The way invites us to be awake; to what is in us and around us, and who is with us on the journey. Joining hands, moving forward together. 

Now, and forever,
Amen.