March 25, 2018 - Palm Sunday - For Where Two or More are Gathered in My Name...

Palm Sunday. I did not attend Creator worship due to strong symptoms of an allergic reaction that I go through every Spring around this time.

I still was a participant in an on-line presentation led by theologian / philosopher Peter Rollins yesterday called Salvation from Salvation. This was the last Sunday session in his series Atheism for Lent. He considers this Lent discipline to be a decentering practice regarding what we may believe about God. He also describes this as part of his "liturgical technology".

Let me break those statements down a bit.

For those who believe God is beyond our ability to understand through our individual faith journeys at particular times, Rollins offers Atheism for Lent. For three years now the group has challenged my concepts of God and lead to new spiritual understandings. This becomes a chance for the freedom to doubt - normally not an essential part of my spiritual routine. This is my discipline for Lent and is definitely a difference from giving up chocolate.

The question of whether this presentation was worship or a lecture is a legitimate one. Let's tackle possible concerns. Physically I was alone yet I interacted with the lecturer, receiving responses to typed questions. There was no ritual but there were liturgical rituals discussed. There was no doctrine that all of us would have agreed on and even a belief in God was not shared while what I felt what I understand as Dietrich Bonhoeffer's religionless Christianity to be.

Missing Palm Sunday specifically turns my reflections to group behavior, group think and faith. The traditional reading of Palm Sunday is that as Jesus rode the donkey into Jerusalem, the crowds were shouting “Hosanna!” to acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah, as shown in their address “Son of David.” Theirs was a cry for salvation and a recognition that Jesus is able to save.

Last Sunday the joy of Palm Sunday and the sorrow of Holy Week was mixed in the response Jesus gave to Peter and Andrew about the Greeks who wished to see him. This gave new significance to me of the crowd of Palm Sunday. I was once taught that obviously a different crowd was gathered a few days later - the crowd who called for Barabbas to be released rather than Jesus. That does not appear to me to be obvious any more. What resonates with me this year is how fickle people can be when our expectations are not met in life and how our groups influence our thoughts, behavior and faith.

On this Palm Sunday I remember past Palm Sundays. I didn't see what the worship attendance was this year but if it follows Creator's trend there were, perhaps, a few less gathered. There are obviously many factors and reasons that have been well discussed over the years as to why church attendance overall is on a downward trend in America currently.

This, however, may be another blessing from the God of surprise and unexpected reversals. We imagine some "ideal" Christianity and sometimes, like N.T. Wright whose book we finished, the model we look to is first century Christians. If that is true, shouldn't we also accept the status of Christians that that time? Read 1 Corinthians 4:13 "when we are slandered, we answer gently. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world." That Christians would be a misunderstood minority in society rather than in control of it seems natural.

We are drawn to and love the triumphant Jesus to whom every knee shall bow and confess that Jesus is Lord. Jesus on the cross, alone, identity unacknowledged, part of the refuse of the world also draws our hearts and compels us to empathize. We vacillate between these two opposite perspectives that we find in the Bible and neither can be ignored. Yet the power of the second contains what is truly unique about the Christian experience.

Celebrating Palm Sunday outside of attending worship changed this heart radically today. Rather than go in peace - which closes every worship - perhaps go in pieces seems the more appropriate blessing to end this particular post.