by Griff Martin
A Sermon for the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith On Mark 11:1-11
For Palm Sunday (March 28, 2021)
Now Incarnate and Present God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing reality we can all together experience. Make us attended to your presence here in this space and in these words God for if we are aware of your being here then nothing else will matter, but if we are not aware of your being here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.
I wish we had more of the behind the scenes conversations in the Gospels, particularly what the disciples said to one another when Jesus was not around (it’s very telling what we say when we think Jesus is not listening), because here is my guess of what was said around the campfire when Jesus was not present: I am tired, my mind and soul are struggling to catch up, I kinda miss the old normal, can’t anything stay the same?
I mean just imagine it for them... these are young men who were raised in fairly traditional Jewish families in a traditional religious setting to live a typical life back then as fishermen and fathers. For them life is normal, expected, traditional, routine. They get up, they fish all day so they can fed the family and they go to bed each night real tired, once a week they go to Temple where they know fairly well the theology they were going to hear, they probably did the same spring break trip every year and they had a schedule of how they celebrated the holidays with which side of the family and they probably went to the same coffee shop each week before Temple where they complained about the same politics their fathers had complained about and so on and so forth. Routine, tradition, normalcy.
And then they meet Jesus.
And then Jesus called them and they followed.
And then everything changed. Suddenly they were hanging out with people that were never included in the pre-Temple morning coffee... tax collectors, lepers and sex workers. Suddenly they were seeing things they had never before seen... the injustice that had seemed commonplace suddenly hurt a lot more, they noticed who was left out, they saw how poorly the power structures of the day really were. Suddenly they were following someone who was saying things they had never heard said before... about love, God, power, money, justice.
Suddenly this Jesus they were following... something about this felt religious and true, but it was nothing like what they expected and they were having to live their way into a new way of thinking.
Their ideas about religion were changing. Their ideas about politics were changing. Their ideas about well, everything were changing.
So one evening sitting around the campfire, Jesus begins to talk more about going into Jerusalem for the High Holy Days and finally something seems and feels normal. They almost relax into it, almost you can never fully relax when Jesus is driving. And despite knowing better, they even begin to have some expectations, again a very dangerous thing in Jesus following.
This is finally the moment Jesus is going to really Jesus things up. They know what happens in Jerusalem for the High Holy Days. It begins with a big parade about a week before and it’s quite a show, this is when Pilate enters the city and his power is on full display.... And now Jesus is beginning to tell them about going the same day and so they add that up with some of his recent statements and raising Lazarus from the dead and it all clicks, this is Jesus’ big moment, to announce who he is and to show the world the truth. Things are adding up.
And the big day finally arrives, bags are packed and they are ready to head to Jerusalem. They know the roads and they know the way. Off they go and then it happens, Jesus takes a road that is not the road they anticipated, this is not the main road to the city, this is out of the way and is going to have them enter the city from the East and not the West and the Western entrance is the big one, the main one, the one Pilate is going to enter from...
It was probably Peter who was brave enough to mutter it somewhat under his breath, “oh this is different too... another new way...”
And yet, they kept on walking and following because when they could not really know anything they knew that the best idea they had was to keep following Jesus further into this revolution of love that changed everything.
Can you relate to any of that this year? Any chance that in the past year you have said anything remotely like that, I am tired, my mind and soul are struggling to catch up, I kinda miss the old normal, can’t anything stay the same?
And here we are and there is some light at the end of the tunnel, Jesus has not announced that we are going back to Jerusalem for the High Holy Days but we have heard rumors of normal life returning and our bags are packed and we are ready to get on the road.
So here is my caution to us this Palm Sunday.... Be careful what road you follow.
You see us human beings are oh so difficult. Despite everything we have been saying for the past year about knowing that there is no going back to normal and that things are going to be different and new now, the tendency is going to be to go right back to how things were as soon as we can because we love routines and we love what is known, which all relates to our little addiction to control and our love for the known.
If we are not careful in a few months, we will look up and without even deciding to we will be entering Jerusalem from the West Gate and looking around wondering where Jesus went, all because we knew that road.
Be careful what road you follow right now.
There are things we have learned and experienced together in the last year that should create new roads. We have seen systems that were so broken and finally we noticed them. We have seen inequalities that we were too long too blind to notice and we can’t afford to not see them anymore. We have had to sit in the quiet and our souls have brought some things to the surface that we finally need to deal with. We saw all that was broken in our world and now it’s time to change our roads so that we can restore, revive and change... and if those verbs don’t call you right now, well you did not quarantine correctly (I don’t know that there was a right way to do it, but I know there was a wrong way if it did not end with those verbs).... Restore, revive, change. Those are our verbs of hope right now.
Following those verbs is going to take intention and awareness and prayer.
I think for a long time we will figure out what the last year meant, but one thing that is clear to me is paradoxically we have been more connected to one another as human beings than we have in my lifetime and as things return we have to hold onto that because our former ways of being were harming a lot of people and our world.
We have now seen things we can’t unsee. We have felt things and feared things that will change us. Our routines have been disrupted. Our normal has washed away. Right now it seems like everything has changed, but since we are humans just like the disciples the minute we hear something that sounds even somewhat normal.... Returning to work and regular schedules, going back to Jerusalem for the High Holy Days... we know that road we think.
But do we?
Dear God I hoped we learned over the last year that the roads we had taken were not getting us anywhere close to where we want to be and nowhere close to where Jesus wants us to be.
So we have to change direction now that we can get out again. In her newest book Anne Lamott has saved an old word for me, repent. She defines it like this, “to change direction so that you don’t end up where you are heading.”
We are disciples this morning and for the first time in a long time, something kinda familiar is on the horizon, we just have to know that we are not going to get there using the same roads we used last time, at least not if we follow Jesus this time.
So we do what they did, we keep on walking and following because when we don’t really know anything well at least we know this: the best idea is to keep following Jesus further into this revolution of love that will revive, restore and change everything for the greater good of Love.
The road to revolution begins now. Amen and Amen.
(Exercise... using the provided palm, what changes for you now.... Write that down, what does the new road look like to you.... A few minutes to silently work on that, then when Jared plays we invite you to come give your palms to Jesus this day)
*artwork: Palm Sunday, painting by Jen Norton
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