April 14, 2019 - Palm Sunday - Planted - Celebrating Jesus' Procession into Jerusalem

This is the last Sunday in Pastor Ray's Lent examination of Acts in the 40 Days of Generosity series. The sermon topics in Lent this year focused on the ideas of giving.

Photos by Ron Houser

Creator makes a decision each year whether to center Palm Sunday worship on Jesus' processional arrival in Jerusalem or the Passion narrative. I missed Palm Sunday worship in 2018. In 2017 and 2016 the focus was on the Passion narrative. Passion Sunday is all about a recovery of ancient Christian practice, not only of this Sunday, but of Lent itself.

This recovery was part and parcel of many findings of liturgical scholarship and ecumenical work that began in the late nineteenth century. The reason for the Passion narrative on Palm Sunday was to recover the church's mission of discipling people in the way of Jesus, and realigning current worship practices to support that mission.

Yet Creator has another tradition for celebrating the Processional arrival as well that does not include the Passion narrative. The decision this year was not to follow the Passion narrative in detail this particular Sunday.

Instead we followed the topic Pastor Ray chose for the last in this Lent series which was Planted. Following the understanding you can take in the location you were placed in to do God's work and, essentially, "bloom where you are planted". Pastor Ray preached that this is all about connection, communion, and calling. The Gospel text was  John 15: 1 - 5, one of Jesus I am statements in John.

The connection is fairly obvious in the vine metaphor. The communion taps into how each of us, through our connection in Christ, become one body from all of us as individuals. And part of what Pastor Ray preached about calling was captured in a quote he gave from Oswald Chambers:

"We are to be centers through which Jesus can flow as rivers of living water in blessing to every one. Some of us are like the Dead Sea, always taking in but never giving out, because we are not rightly related to the Lord Jesus. As surely as we receive from Him, He will pour out through us, and in the measure He is not pouring out, there is a defect in our relationship to Him."

Jesus calls us to be his friends. Like branches for the vine he wants us to live rich lives that bear fruit for others. 

Our Processional Hymn was Hosanna! The choir sang Michael W. Smith's Hosanna and Let Heaven Ring, Hosanna! There was power and joy in all our sung hosannas that filled the sanctuary.

Another theme throughout the service was picked up in the Hymn of the Day - A Dazzling Bouquet. and the Communion song - Jesus, Name Above All Names that names Jesus "vine of the branches". These references were underscored by physical plants, the palms in the Processional Hymn and the orchid from Pastor Ray's office that he used for the Children's Time.

Today I thought about the crowds in Jerusalem like I have in the past. Where was this Processional crowd when Barabbas was chosen to be freed over Jesus? Many think it was just a different group that chose, or was chosen, to be there when the Barabbas clemency was offered. I could easily see this as being the same crowd, however, following a different mindset.

What separates the two mindsets, either proclaiming God or submitting to the ways and justice of this world, are strangely close, despite their differences. This is the perfect place to start from to raise the question as to whether we should interject a joyous note at the beginning of Holy Week or continue with the mood of the Lenten journey that we are already steeped in and will take up again during Holy Week.

Perhaps a different perspective on Holy Week is needed to explore the options. We normally think of this as a week of sadness. We somberly remember the Last Supper tinged with melancholy. We become lost in the grief of Good Friday, Our minds are filled with betrayals and the heaviness of the trial before Caiaphas, Pilate, leading; eventually; to the cross.

Yes, that is all there but there is something else as well which is hidden in this story. This is a narrative of men who do not properly see divine connections and where betrayal, judgment and death are the major components in the Passion narrative.

Now what if the disciples had followed the way of  Mary of Bethany or the Prodigal Son? What if Judas had realized that, much more than just leaving Mary alone, he could acknowledge how special her gift was in honoring the moment? What if this last week in Lent had been marked by this kind of gratitude and joy? If paths of connection and abundance had been followed, would death have been undone without violence? Would the Table stand in lieu of a cross?

We still have the echoes of Jesus suffering and dying for our sins in many secret places within our hearts. To my mind these echoes diminish the God we worship if we are not careful. If Jesus must suffer and die for our sins any attempt to save Jesus defeats God's plan for our collective salvation. The Passion narrative is locked in to endless suffering and death. Certainly there is unexpected new life in the end but he story must inevitably play out exactly as "foretold".

Let's imagine something different. Instead of Jesus dying for sin, however, what if Jesus dies from the sin of what some might think of as righteous action that must be performed? Jesus died from the thinking and humankind's response to a notion of the divine that springs from fear, powerlessness, and distrust. We are always thankful that God's love is not stopped by that thinking. However there is an insidious understanding that tempts us into thinking that God's salvation and the kingdom of heaven must be predicated on retribution, suffering and death. They are willing to accept that even if that suffering and death is taken on by God alone. They feel justice can only be achieved through this kind of retribution.

When Jesus dies from this sin God does not intentionally create a place for any violence to redeem the world and does not condemn through judgment. God showed through Jesus that the worldly myth of redemptive violence was ultimately impotent – and that the way of redemptive non-violence has the power to change the world.

"Father forgive them" as a prayer is not easy for humankind to say, to accept, or to act on. Jesus empowers us to become friends and what God gives us is a way to help overcome the fear and distrust encountered in this world. The God I worship today, instead of  judging humankind, finally declares in complete love and compassion and in answer to and through Jesus' prayer, "I would rather die than judge and condemn".

Jesus throughout his life and in his death shows us how to "bloom where we are planted".