Waving Palms Today
A Homily on Matthew 21:1-11 and Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
by Griff Martin
April 5, 2020
*This document comes from an oral manuscript.
What do you want to be remembered for…
the best thing you ever did or the worst thing you ever did?
We are entering Holy Week and we typically enter this week with 20/20 vision looking backwards. And as a result of that I think a lot of what the church typically does this week is a lot of blaming and judging, as if we know better; as if we would have done things differently.
And we look at people for the worst thing they did.
For instance we talk about the crowd this morning… And there are a lot of sermons out there that will be about this crowd that welcomes Jesus and then we so quickly turn to how quickly they turn on Jesus and they yell"crucify him."And then throughout the week we do the same with the disciples… In particular Judas and Peter… How Judas sold Jesus out, how Peter denies Jesus, how the disciples fall asleep in prayer, how all the disciples run in fear.
We get to this week, this week we know as Holy Week and we focus on the worst things most of these people ever did. Which makes me think about the Golden Rule, the standard of almost any and every religious teaching that claims truth… do unto others as we would have done unto us, to treat others like we want to be treated, love one another.
And I don’t know about you, but I would much rather be remembered for the best things I did and not the worst. And my hunch is that is exactly how God views our lives.
So what if we looked this week and focused not on the worst things, but on the best things…
For instance this crowd this day, maybe they deserve a second look because they might very well have something very important to teach us and to call us to this day.
It’s important to remember that there were two parades on Palm Sunday. We know about one and we forget the other one. The other parade happened on the other side of town, the West side and this parade welcomed Pontius Pilate (and welcomed might not be the best word there.) Pilate was all about fear and his parade was all about fear, he was not there to celebrate anything that day, he was there because the Empire was very anxious about the celebration of the Jewish festival of Passover. He was there to make sure things did not get out of control. He was there to remind people who was really in charge.
So the people did not exactly welcome him, they bowed down to him out of fear and his parade would have surely created fear. It was a display of military strength and power, a reminder of what would happen if anyone got any sort of crazy idea that there was any power in the world greater than the power of the Roman empire.
Pilate being in town created a weird atmosphere… Fear would have been palpable, regular routines would have been changed, there were places you would have avoided to avoid the powers of Rome. People were sensitive and scared of what was next. The enemy from afar, who could never be a vocally named enemy, was now present among them. Fear was everywhere.
The very passage you just heard read has a phrase that sticks out, that tells us all we need to know about the day Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, Matthew tells us- reports to us- that “the whole city was in turmoil.” Meaning troubled, shaken, trembled.
And we know what that is like.
And that is the context in which the other parade, the one we know better takes place. Which means that those who see Jesus entering town and grab a palm branch and shout out: Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Those who are doing that work are doing so in the face of fear, they are aware of the context in which they are shouting, they know it’s not only dangerous it’s also incredible foolish, however it’s what they believe right then and there.
And it’s the best thing they ever did. To stand in the face of fear, in face of turmoil, in troubled, shaken times of trembling… and to welcome Jesus and to praise Jesus and to claim their faith and trust in Jesus.
I think it was exactly what everyone in the story needed… from Jesus to Jerusalem to the disciples to the ones who were waving the palm branches…. This defiant act of faith was exactly what they needed to save their lives and to save the world that day.
To be reminded of a bigger truth. To participate in a bigger, truer story.
And maybe that is how we need to hear Palm Sunday this Palm Sunday. You know it alreadythis Sunday does not look anything like any Palm Sunday we have ever experienced before as a faith community. And this is certainly not the Palm Sunday that the pastoral staff has been talking about for the last few months.
The children’s choirs, the children’s parade, the joy of singing "All Glory, Laud and Honor "together, the pageantry of all this… It feels different in our quiet houses in quarantine in the midst of a global pandemic.
That is what turmoil does. Turmoil changes things. It’s an unpredictable wild dancing partner and you don’t get to lead.
But here is what I am claiming this morning: that if Jesus was willing to enter Jerusalem when the whole city was in turmoil….Then Jesus is once again willing to enter our world when the whole world is in turmoil.
And that means we have our part to play… We need to welcome Jesus, to claim our faith in words and in action.
Maybe that means that after worship you go and talk a walk and on that walk you pick up something from nature and maybe you wave it around and give a few hosannas to the sky, maybe you just stand there and look and be reminded that spring means Jesus is on the way, maybe you bring something home to remind you of hope this week. It’s doing something using the gift of creation to remind you to open your heart and your world so that you can welcome Jesus.
Maybe that means you need to sit today and spend, let’s say, 20 minutes--which, surely we all have today--and to list what you know is true about Jesus and faith. And your prayer this day is then to look out at the turmoil in our world and, in a beautiful faithful act of defiance, to name all the faith truth’s that you hold dear, that certainly seems like a welcome to Jesus to me.
Maybe it’s more public than that… maybe if you have kids or if you have sidewalk chalk, you get out and you spread the example of the crowd this day and you create a message of hope on your driveway or sidewalk… because that is what the crowd was doing, they were reminding each other in the face of fear around us, this is the greater, truer truth… so maybe you get out and finish worship by writing words of hope and peace all over your driveway… my kids keep creating big murals on our driveway with the words love wins, be kind.
Maybe it’s a phone call to someone who in this turmoil needs to be reminded of the truths we hold together… because we hold all these as a community and there are days that this means you hold that truth for someone else.
And here is why I know this work is so important: because I have been on the other end of this work. You all know the story of when Jude was a baby and he was so sick and we spent 2 weeks in hospital. Hospitals are hard and we knew that if we were not careful we were going to have a lot of visitors so we made it clear that we were very grateful for that, but Jude did not need a lot of visitors.
And these were hard, scary days for us… Days of turmoil.
And one day I heard the door open and I looked up to see a member of the church, a retired doctor, a giant of a man in stature and faith and wisdom, a walking saint. And he looked at me and laughed and said, “You thought saying no visitors was going to keep me away, to keep me from coming to hold that boy and to hold you if you needed it.”
And he took Jude in his big old hands and he sat in the hospital chair rocking him and it was quiet for quiet a while and then he said, “Griff you know it’s going to be okay right? That is what our faith is all about, but I don’t need to tell you that because you preach that every Sunday.”
I think he added that last part as pure grace so that I didn’t have to say anything because he knew that yes I preached that every Sunday, but that I needed it preached to me that day.
Because that is what our faith teaches us that in the end its all going to be more than okay, it’s all going to be love.
And when the world turns to turmoil, here is what we need… some brave saints that are willing to go out there in the midst of that turmoil and proclaim and enact a very bold, beautiful truth.
And our world is in turmoil and God needs us to be those brave saints.
Here is what I know: That in the face of turmoil, it’s our job to follow the brave and beautiful example of the saints who in the face of turmoil and fear and oppression, chose to bend down and to pick up palm branches and to yell out the truths of faith and to create a welcoming party and parade for Jesus.
And this year it might not happen with palms down the aisles of First Austin, but it is going to happen on the streets and sidewalks and screens and phone calls… and I think this year that is exactly how we welcome Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus, come.
*artwork: Entry of Christ Into Jerusalem by Wilhelm Morgner
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