Palm Sunday - April 1, 2007
Seminarian Justice Schunior
St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, Alpharetta, Ga.
We all know this story. It’s maybe slightly less familiar than the
story of Jesus’ birth – the shepherds, wise men, and angels - or
perhaps the empty tomb that we’ll hear about a week from today. But
still very familiar. And like those other well known stories from
Jesus’ life, it’s easy to get the gospels confused. One account blends
into another until it’s difficult to hear this gospel with any kind of
fresh perspective.
Perhaps that’s why we seem to be trying to ratchet up the drama on
this day. We wave palms, parade around the church, we cast ourselves
in the story. All of that is to say “Pay attention! This is very
important!” Mel Gibson, in his Passion of the Christ, used all the
tools of cinematic story telling at his disposal to try and hit us
with this gospel right in our hearts – to get us to feel this gospel
on a visceral level.
And this gospel is important. We do need to pay attention, to take a
closer look, to keep it from just washing over us without a second
thought. This gospel is at the heart of our faith and it demands a
response. Without Jesus’ betrayal and violent death we would have no
Easter, Christmas would be without meaning, and we would understand
his life and teachings in profoundly different ways. The cross – an
instrument of death that hangs above this altar – defines us as
Christians.
But we need to tread very carefully. This gospel does have power. It
has the power to hurt; it has the power to be a weapon. In earlier
times, Christians would go out and murder Jews in response to Palm
Sunday. Through the centuries this story has been used to vilify
people of the Jewish faith and for many of them the cross is not a
symbol of hope, but one of terror and oppression.
It can also be a weapon used against ourselves. What else are we
trying to do when we cast ourselves as the crowd that shouts for
Jesus’ crucifixion than to stir up our own guilt, our own sense of
failure and inadequacy? There are victims among us who hear this story
and think “Yes, it was right that I was abused. I deserved to fail.
The pain in my life is justified.”
We’ve got to be very careful. Because that it not the response God
wants from us. God does not ask us to respond with hate against
ourselves or others under any circumstances. Even on this day, when we
leave the story with a dead man on a cross, we are not to respond with
violence against anyone. The persecution of a righteous man does not
give us the chance to persecute others.
What then can we point to in this story of betrayal, grief, and loss
that has a spark of God’s redemption and love? I turn to the line
early in the story before the horrible events of the night begin to
unfold when Jesus says to his disciples “Satan has demanded to sift
all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith
may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your
brothers.” What a great image – sifting. It is violent. It sounds
difficult and painful, perhaps frightening, but not life threatening.
We will be sifted, but not killed.
And in the midst of this sifting experience, we will be prayed for;
others will strengthen us and we will strengthen others. Our response
is not persecution or guilt but one of care and concern for each
other. Our community is with us. Jesus is with us.
We have the sense of many sifting events in our lifetime – times when
we seem to be tested with failure, weakness, disappointment and grief.
Times when it seems there is no light at the end of the tunnel, times
when the right choices, the right actions seem to be too difficult.
During those times God is not absent, God is not berating us or
accusing us, but loving and strengthening us.
Perhaps we can take this sifting experience with us throughout Holy
Week. We might then enter this week not weighed down with guilt or
anger, but lifted up with the sense that, yes, life is not without its
tremendous losses and moments of agonizing sadness, but we are not
alone. God puts us in positions to help each other.
In fact, God uses sifting times to do God’s work. In today’s gospel,
God uses this darkest of hours when it seemed that humanity was at its
worst for a dramatic transformation. A righteous man is persecuted and
God uses this, of all things, to do something wonderful. And it is a
cosmic event. It is once and for all. Everything is different after
the cross.
We don’t reenact this story every year so that we can kill Jesus over
and over. You and I do not crucify him, however loudly we might
proclaim it. Jesus is risen and God has acted. We are Easter people
even in the midst of Lent – even when we come to the foot of the
cross.
We reenact the story so that each of us may know that in our darkest
hour, that too can be an opportunity for God’s transforming love. Even
in the face of our own failure, weakness, and betrayal God can and
does act to bring new life.
Let’s walk into this week with ears and hearts open to listen to the
story and all its drama of grief and joy. We should prepare to be
sifted, to not let the liturgy pass by unnoticed. But we also should
not forget that this gospel is not the end of the story. We should not
forget that God never leaves us and that no human failure is too great
for God to overcome.
© Justice Schunior. All Rights
reserved.
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