The Tension of Holy Week

We began our celebration of Palm Sunday this morning with the blessing of palm branches and a procession around the Church and into this magnificent setting for worship and devotion to God through his Son Jesus Christ.  It is a glorious reenactment of the procession of Jesus and his followers into the city of Jerusalem on a beautiful spring day in the year 30.  The choir then followed with an introit from Handel’s Messiah.

Prior to beginning our procession we read from Luke’s Gospel that two of the disciples brought a colt to Jesus; “and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.  As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

‘Blessed is the king

who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven,

and glory in the highest heaven!’”

Then, “some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, "’I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’”

What we are not told in this portion of Luke’s gospel is why the Pharisees wanted the procession to stop, why they wanted silence.

The text goes on to tell us that Jesus, upon entering the city, wept over it.  He said, “If you…had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!... The days will come… when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children, … because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

In our Palm Sunday observance we resonate to the pomp and circumstance of the procession and triumphal entry into the Holy City, but we miss the tension that is the hallmark of Holy Week.  It is a tension between celebration and suffering, between sharing a Passover meal together and the agony and death that follows.

In their book, “The Last Week,” Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan discuss not one but two processions that happened on Palm Sunday.  “One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession.  From the east, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered by his followers…. On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea, and Samaria, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers.  Jesus’ procession proclaimed the kingdom of God; Pilate’s proclaimed the power of empire.”

Consider the contrasting processions.  As the writers of “The Last Week” put it, “A visual panoply of imperial power cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold.  Sounds: the marching of feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the beating of drums.  The swirling of dust.  The eyes of silent onlookers, some curious, some awed, some resentful.”

Here is the contrast: “Jesus rides the colt down the Mount of Olives to the city surrounded by a crowd of enthusiastic followers and sympathizers, who spread their cloaks, strew leafy branches on the road and shout, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!  Hosanna in the highest heaven!’”

Can you imagine the contrast?  Can you feel the tension between these two processions?  Borg and Crossan write, “Jesus’s procession deliberately countered what was happening on the other side of the city.  Pilate’s procession embodied power, glory, and violence of the empire that ruled the world.  Jesus’s procession embodied an alternative vision, the kingdom of God.  This contrast – between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar – is central not only to the gospel… but to the story of Jesus and early Christianity.

“The confrontation between these two kingdoms continues through the last week of Jesus’s life.  As we all know, the week ends with Jesus’s execution by the powers who ruled his world.  Holy Week is the story of this confrontation.”

The story of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem is just the beginning of all that will happen during this week.  We are invited to enter into the tension between these two realms: God’s kingdom of peace and compassion, and Pilate’s kingdom of imperial power and violence.  We shall come together on Thursday to celebrate the Last Supper and clear everything away for the suffering and death of Good Friday.  It is only through living through these realities of our common life that we can come with joy to the celebration of new and resurrected life on Easter morning.

A prayer by Walter Brueggemann is titled, “Loss is indeed our gain:”

The pushing and shoving of the world is endless.

   We are pushed and shoved.

   And we do our fair share of pushing and shoving

in our great anxiety.

   And in the middle of that

            you have set down your beloved suffering son

            who was like a sheep led to slaughter

            who opened not his mouth.

   We seem not able,

   so we ask you to create the spaces in our life

   where we may ponder his suffering

   and your summons for us to suffer with him,

   suspecting that suffering is the only way to come to

         newness.

So we pray for your church in these Lenten days,

   when we are driven to denial –

not to notice the suffering,

not to engage it,

not to acknowledge it.

So be that way of truth among us

that we should not deceive ourselves.

That we shall see that loss is indeed our gain,

We give you thanks for that mystery from which we live. Amen.

The Bread that Gives Life

Our Collect this morning asks God, whose Son Jesus Christ came to be the true bread that gives life to the world, to give us this bread so that Christ may live in us and we in him.  Our readings are about the bread of life, a bread that is a metaphor for experiencing the joy of God’s love.

Following their exile in Egypt, the Israelites journeyed to the promised land of Canaan.  The Book of Joshua doesn’t dwell on much that happened as the tribes of Israel journeyed from Egypt through the wilderness to Canaan.  But once they arrived they no longer had a need for manna.  Instead, they kept the Passover while they were camped in Gilgal, and then on the next day they “ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain…. They ate the crops of the land of Canaan.”

It must have been quite a celebration to enjoy the fresh produce following whatever happened in the wilderness along the journey from Egypt to Canaan.  After any lengthy journey, isn’t it good to be home and share in a celebration?  Think about those in military service who come home to the United States after a tour of duty in another country, in Iraq or Afghanistan; or someone who has lived abroad for a year or more and then returns.

The historical account in Joshua is in sharp contrast to the narrative in Luke’s gospel.  Leaving home to go on an adventure is the opposite of coming home.  The story of the Prodigal or lost son is a case in point.  Jesus told a parable to the Pharisees and scribes who criticized him for welcoming sinners and sharing a meal with them.  It is a familiar story, but sometimes I think we miss its true meaning.

Many years ago one of my seminary professors wrote a book titled “The Jesus of the Parables.”  Charles W. F. Smith has a lot to tell us about the Prodigal son in his book.  When the man with the two boys divided his property between them it was understood that the recipients, “while owning the title [to the property], were required to keep it intact so that its income could be used by the father as long as he lived.”  The share received by the prodigal did not release him from his obligation to be a good steward of his inheritance or to use it for his father’s support.  It was a “heavy duty” to honor and support one’s parents.

We know what the young son did.  He took his inherited wealth and went on a trip where he “squandered his property in dissolute living.”  Imagine today having a son who travels to a foreign country, enjoys an unlimited lifestyle, stays there until a severe disaster happens like a drought or hurricane, and charges everything on his parent’s credit card, so much so that half the parent’s wealth is depleted. 

The Prodigal son was like that.  Then, in order to survive, he had to find a job working in the fields and feeding the pigs.    It was a far different lifestyle than the one he had left back home.  Eventually, awakening to the reality of his situation, he decided to repent and go home. He knew the servants back home were well fed and were secure.  They had “bread enough and to spare.”  How much better than working in the hot fields, feeding pigs, and “dying of hunger.”  He decided to admit his fault and plead to his father to take him in, not as a worthy son, but as one of the hired hands.

The story then shifts to the perspective of the father.  Here is the real meaning of the story.  As Professor Smith points out, “The father’s preparedness which is implied in [the statement ‘while he was still far off’ he ‘saw him and was filled with compassion’,] is summed up and far exceeded by his instructions to the servants.”

This means that “the returned wanderer is not only treated as an honored guest but reinstated into the family circle, a son still; though once lost, found; though once dead to the family, now a living part of it.”  It was the father’s immediate purpose to restore his son, a parent’s enduring love and compassion.

When the son arrived back home it was time to celebrate.  Bring in all the extended family; kill the fatted calf, eat and dance for joy.  The one who was lost has now been found.  What a relief!

But wait.  There is another element to consider.  For some reason the elder brother was out in the field when the party began.  He had not been part of the planning for the celebration.  So, as he approached the house he heard the singing and dancing as asked what was going on.  Naturally, when told that his younger brother had returned and everyone was rejoicing, “he became angry and refused to go in.”

The father then came out to meet the elder son and with the same display of compassion and concern he had shown to his younger son, he responded to the elder son’s anger. “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”

It is important for us to understand that the father in the parable is not to be identified with God.  The question posed by Jesus in telling this story to the critical Pharisees and scribes is, “What do you think?”  As Professor Smith states, “The parallel attitudes, [those of the father to each of his sons] are to be looked for in what Jesus clearly taught to be the attitude of God, required of all who would follow him…. [These are attitudes of] solicitude, expectation, compassion, and restoration with abounding joy.  These are the elements of God’s attitude toward the lost…. The elements of the opposed attitude are calculation of merit, demand for reward, unfavorable comparison, and unrelenting exclusiveness.  These Jesus felt must be condemned and opposed, not because he felt them unworthy or unkind, but because they misunderstood or denied the true nature of God.”

The true nature of God is the attitude of compassion and unconditional love.  Whenever we wander away from home, or move away from our relationship with God, God will welcome us back home regardless of our condition or the circumstances of our lives.

“Gracious Father, whose blessed son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us and we in him.”  Amen.

Engagement with I AM

This morning we are celebrating the baptism of a new member into the household of God.  Because of this we are using the service of Holy Baptism in place of our usual Lenten service that begins with the Penitential Order.  Baptism is the full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body, the Church.

However, before we come to the presentation of the candidate for Baptism it is fitting that we explore the mystery of God as we are led through our Lenten journey. 

In our reading from the Book of Exodus, we are told that God said to Moses, "I AM Who I AM."  He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.' The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.”

God sent Moses to lead the people out of Egypt through the wilderness and to the promised land, “a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”  God said, “I have seen how the Egyptians oppress the Israelites, so I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

In his book, The Winter Name of God, James Carroll writes, “In an age when we are invited by so much that we experience to say “I AM NOT,” the response we most require from God is God’s name for all time: I AM.  The slavery which humiliates us, turning us into nobodies, is more subtle than Pharaoh’s, but nearly as dangerous.  It is the slavery of the all too easy embrace of death…. The work of Evil in our age, as in the Egypt-age of Israel, is the promulgation of I AM NOT.”

Carroll points to several examples of the work of Evil, including personal alienation from God, and the massive scale of genocide wherever it occurs.  It is also the promulgation of fear wherever it occurs.  I can only think about the surge in gun sales following the killings in Newtown, Connecticut.  The work of evil is everywhere that discrimination, bigotry, and disrespect for human dignity occurs.  We need to end the social climate that promotes violence and evil.  One important way of doing that is to reintroduce ourselves and others to God.

What is needed is our knowing that “the act of engagement is I AM.”  God’s name is the ultimate act of resistance against Evil and human degradation.  “The I AM of God is a name with which every human being…has some capacity to identify.  When we recognize the I AM in our midst, whether from ourselves or another, there immediately emerge possibilities for freedom and meaning that we did not see when overwhelmed with the I AM NOT.  Every enslaved community and every oppressed people has its tales about men and women who defied horror and spoke the affirming word, thereby enabling others to do so.”

(pp. 99-100)

Moses and the Israelites of the Exodus are journey models for us.  They are outward signs of the inward grace of our personal journey toward God, toward our acceptance of engagement with I AM.  Few if any of us will be confronted by the radiance of the burning bush and the direct revelation of God’s Name, but all of us must come to see the real vision of God’s presence in our lives.  The revelation of God came to Moses while Moses was in the midst of his daily activities.  In the midst of our daily activities we are called to liberate from oppression and bondage all the things we take for granted.

Our journey through Lent leads us deeper and deeper into the mystery of God.  God who is encountered in the burning bush that defies the natural order of things, and God who is patient and long suffering in waiting for his people to live according to his will.  We are held accountable for our acts of freeing people from bondage and oppression, in liberating the whole creation from all that prevents it from engagement with the Creator God who is I AM.  “I will be what I will be” and I wait for the world to be united in my love. 

This morning we are baptizing Avant Micat Kamara into the fellowship of Christ’s Church.  All of us, along with his parents and Godparents, vow to help our new Christian grow in the knowledge and love of God and to become a responsible member of his Church.  Our prayer is that Avant will live a life of grace and compassion, be sustained by the Holy Spirit, have a discerning heart, and embrace the gift of joy and wonder in all the works of God.  Amen.