Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

 It is a challenge to “post” my sermon from yesterday.

You see, this past Sunday's service for many years has beared the burden of an incredible weight.  What you mostly see in pictures are people waving palms, shouting “Hosanna”, and smiling faces.

But by the end of the service, there is something completely different.

Ever since the 1928 Book of Common Prayer Book renamed the day “Sunday of the Passion:  Palm Sunday”, the Sunday before Easter in the liturgical Episcopal Church has two responsibilities.  The first is to recount or reenact (pending your community) the event known as the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.  Equally important, the Sunday must show that the way to Easter Sunday and shouts of “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” only happens because of his crucifixion and death, and works under the assumption that many people attending Church will not be back until Easter.  

The traditional way of engaging this second responsibility was a passion reading, after Eucharist (which covers the Last Supper part), that picks up at the meal’s conclusion and ends with the crucifixion of Jesus.  Often this would be done with different people reading the dialogue, the narrator’s role, and the gathered congregation shouting the parts of “the crowd” which calls out “crucify him.”  

The message I clearly got, as a child, was how fickle the crowd was:  shouting praises to Jesus at the beginning of the service and chanting for his death by the end.  I was told by adults that this was to show that WE crucified Jesus, which was a better message than what The Gospel of John seemed to be saying (that “the Jews” killed Jesus).

But in reality, neither of these are true.  THE ROMANS crucified Jesus.  Their military and political might brought deathly fear upon the people.  The Romans silenced cries and hopes of reform, and they believed that they would end the Jesus story.

Consider that the shout of “Hosanna” is not some safe, Lenten version of Alleluia (a word you are not supposed to say in Lent.)  Hosanna is SAVE US!  The people saw in Jesus an alternative to the brutality of Rome.

This was the whole point of the procession found in the Gospels.  It was a counter-demonstration to the formulaic show of force that the Romans would use in their occupied cities, but with an unmistakable difference.  Where Caesar (or his proxy like a Ponticus Pilate) would be seated on a war horse or pulled by war chariot, Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a humble donkey.  There was no way to equate this with military power, and that was the message about God!  God was not about dominance and control, but about relationship and compassion.  The people understood, even as they hoped that it would lead to systemic change.

Others got the message too.  “Worried leaders in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” (Luke 19:39-40)

So our service began with this reenactment, but then we went further into Luke’s Gospel:  hearing about the cleansing of the temple, the parable of the tenants, the trap of paying taxes to Rome, the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, the sacrifice of the poor widow, and the insight of the temporal reality of the Great Temple of Jerusalem (which by the time Luke had written, had been destroyed by the Romans).  It is all these things that lead to the Romans seeking to destroy Jesus and shame his vision of God.

I shared two readings during my sermon.  First, the conclusion from Joan Chittister’s “Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope.”

Chittster’s words included the following:  “When despair comes, in order to dispel it with hope, we have to make the effort.  Hope is not a matter of waiting for things outside us to get better.  It is about getting better inside about what is going on inside.  It is about becoming open to the God of newness.  It is about allowing ourselves to let go of the present, to believe in the future we cannot see but can trust to God.  Surrendering to the demands of the moment, holding on when holding on seems pointless, brings us to that point of personal transformation which is the juncture of maturity and sagacity.  Then, whatever the circumstances, however hard the task, the struggles of life may indeed shunt us from mountaintop to mountaintop but they will not destroy us.”  (Joan D. Chittister, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope, page 110, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003)

Then I coupled it with the Franciscan blessing I have heard many times, but also read in Diana Butler Bass’ reflection for Palm Sunday.

May God bless us with discomfort — discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger — anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless us with tears — tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, hunger, and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with foolishness — enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.

We concluded our service with Eucharist, and then hearing what happens after the meal in Luke’s Gospel, but ending when Peter is left alone weeping (Luke 22:24-62), and then the rubric in our bulletin: “This story continues on Good Friday.”

I offered one last thing, a rare moment of me singing alone in Church:

"Jesus walked…this lonesome valley…he had to walk…it by himself….

Oh!!!!   Nobody else…could walk it for him…he had to walk…it by himself."

(Based on our “Sunday of the Passion:  Palm Sunday” liturgy at St. Paul’s Episcopal SLC on April 13th, 2025)