Palm Sunday
10 Apr 2022
If only the stones could talk. Stones do talk; they speak of forces that have rent apart the fabric of the earth. They whisper of long extinct species embedded and hidden in their matrix. Basalt tells of fire and lava and explosive volcanoes; granite speaks of immense pressure and heat. Sandstone tells us about oceans and rivers, the layers cut in the Grand Canyon are an open book telling the story of millions and billions of years of the history of earth.
A milkweed bursts and, with great fanfare and hope, sends millions of seeds out on the winds of fate. A thundercloud cannot contain its burden of wind and rain and looses it upon the face of the earth.
The stones do shout; they know of the wonders of creation and of the Holy One of love who made it all and who so wants the world restored to love and wholeness.
Come riding into Jerusalem, Jesus, on an ass; a symbol of peace. Zechariah prophesied about you: the bringer of peace and the restoration of a divine monarchy. Let the people spread their cloaks on the road before you, for the Holy One has announced you as the one who heralds the beginning of the realm of peace and justice.
Jesus comes to us in solidarity; he is one of us. Yet he is also the Holy one. Grasp that!! As it is said so often in the Orthodox church, God became human so that humans could become God. We have the spark of the divine within us; Jesus shows us the way to live that out in solidarity with God and with each other.
Jesus did not enter Jerusalem by the front gate, the gate for Caesars and kings, but by the other gate. Christopher Duraisingh observes that “A central aspect of the story of Jesus
is that he refuses to play the role of the dominant hero, but always moves to the margin and to places of solidarity with the oppressed.”
And so it is, Jesus, you supped with your disciples, you shared the bread and the wine, and you washed the feet of those bewildered disciples (perhaps making a watery mess on the floor). They would not understand what you were doing until after you had been crucified. Do we, so many years later, understand what you were showing us as the perfect example of the servant leader?
You loved extravagantly, wept when your friend Lazarus died, ate and drank and even laughed with us. You embraced every aspect of human life and now give it up, all control, to the Holy One. You took risks in your life; taught and prayed with your friends, and even your enemies. After you were crucified and risen, you had Mary carry the message to all.
In my entire life, I will never fully understand what Jesus did for me, for you, for all of us. I know at one point in my life I saw the story as one where Jesus intervened for me, and for all of us, to appease God or something like God, for all the bad things I and everyone else had done. And in some way I still believe that is true. He died because the empire, that part of humanity which values power, pleasure, and profit above all else, could not abide in someone who offered another way; who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey through the back gate because he saw Love as the Way of Life.
The rocks shout; they will not be silenced. Those who oppose Jesus try to silence his followers, but it is the Holy One who is shouting out and nothing can silence God!!
But what about us? I can imagine myself on the street, praising Jesus and praising God, but what would I do when the Romans came, or those native to Palestine who opposed Jesus? Would I have fallen silent; would I have been like Peter and denied Jesus? I supect I know the answer and do not like what is says about me. Even though Peter denied the Truth, he was not condemned. That is how deep, how wide, how high is Love.
One of my friends, at retired high school teacher and candidate for the priesthood, recently attended a funeral for one of her former students, tragically killed in an automobile accident. Sadly the family pastor spent the entirety of his homily, if you care to call it that, exhorting the attendees to make an alter call right then and there to be saved or they would face eternal damnation if they did not chose Jesus as their personal lord and savior. He had pamphlets at the back of the funeral home for them to learn all about Jesus.
The Jesus I accept as my savior would have been weeping with the family and praying with his friends. He would have been sitting shiva, mourning for a life lost so young.
That is the Truth. The Truth is a god who became Love embodied in the form of Jesus. Love rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, Love longed to gather her chicks under her wings. And his words were Truth. The Truth is that creation was made, and still is being made, by the Holy One. The Truth is that we are all invited to be co-creators and witnesses to the Gospel.
If Jesus rode into Jerusalem through the back way, what does that say about the truth? It means that there are no superior humans; no one is, in God’s eyes, better than anyone else. I am compelled to believe that means we must be truth tellers; because restoration of the realm of God, of creation itself, depends on our acknowledgment of our own wrongdoings and those who have gone before us. This is how we create the Beloved Community. We must all tell the truth: the truth of our own, our society’s, and our historical betrayal of the meaning that community. Otherwise, the entry into Jerusalem, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Jesus are for nothing.
A poem by Sarah Speed:
Even the Stones Will Cry Out
The Pharisees found Jesus;
they said,
“Order your disciples to stop.”
It’s not the first time
justice was almost
silenced. People stood on the
sidelines shouting hosanna
which means, “Save us,”
“Save me.”
It’s not the first time we’ve
heard that cry from the street.
The Pharisees said
stop. They wanted the people
quiet, but some things can’t be
silenced.
Justice will bubble up,
hope will raise its head,
love will rise to the surface.
Hate and fear will try to
drown them out,
but you cannot silence
what was here first,
which was love,
and it was good.
It was so good.
So even the stones will cry out.
Remember that
at your parade.
Justice will bubble up,
hope will raise its head,
love will rise to the surface.
Amen.
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