On Palm Sunday Eve

Laity, here is a secret many of you may not know: tomorrow morning is probably the Sunday your pastor most agonizes over: Is it Palm Sunday? Is it Passion Sunday? Is it Palm/Passion Sunday? Do we march around the church, around the block, through the neighborhood waving our palm branches in a holy parade of joy and keep the emotion of the service up and happy or will we sink into deep despair as we journey with Jesus from the betrayal of a last supper to judgement, walking with Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem as he carries a cross like a common criminal? Will we make the crowd squirm as the details of his execution are described, until there is nothing but silence as he is taken off the cross and sealed in a garden tomb?

The struggle is real.

The movement between Palm Sunday and Easter is filled with shocking twists. The King’s triumphant ride into Jerusalem quickly sours. There is a desire in so many of us to skip those pages in the Gospel story and run to—and then from—an empty tomb. Keep the joy alive!

But Holy Week calls us to not turn away but study what happened to Jesus, how those in political power were so threatened by his teachings that they bribed one of his own followers to entrap him for arrest, to be subject to mockery, disdain, shame, and death. 

Between the packed church tomorrow and then again throughout Easter morning, there will be other services, with smaller crowds. Like the women who refused to leave Jesus as he hung dying on the cross, they will come to listen to the story, to take their parts in the Passion play. They will mourn as they sing with trembling voices, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”

As a child, my mom had us save our palm branches until the next Palm Sunday. We would come home with those waxy palm fronds and sit at the kitchen table and turn them into crosses. They were nothing fancy, like some palm weavers I have encountered. We used kitchen scissors to make two slits through which a piece of the palm frond was threaded. The cross was placed above a little picture of Jesus that was hung above my bedroom light switch. 

I give thanks that at such an early age I was taught of the solemn connection between Palm Sunday and the cross of Good Friday. 

Enter into the joy of Palm Sunday. But don’t turn away from the events that followed. There are important lessons for us all to discover: that life can take unexpected turns; that betrayals happen; that the powers and principalities that be will forever be threatened by those who stand with those on the margins; that too often, death feels like it has the upper hand over love. 

But that’s not the end of it. God still has more in store for us. When all seems lost, when the story seems like it is over…

(to be continued…)

Palm Sunday 2012

You sat in the chair, but every muscle was tensed, ready to flee. You kept pulling your hair over your face, yet you watched every move we made. You were scared. Your hands, your whole body shuddered in fear.

You had come in seeking shelter, a sanctuary. Your story came out in the breath of a whisper. We had to lean close to hear, yet every time we leaned close, you pulled back, shrinking from our compassion. A drug-addicted mom who saw you, her daughter, as a way to afford her drug habit. Ten years old. Prostituted by your own mother.

That was seven years ago. Seven years of being used and abused. Your mother's addiction led her to an early grave, but you were not free. Instead, you became the property of a pimp.

He was cruel. Somehow, you escaped and found your way to us. There was blood on your face., yet we knew you had more wounds and scars than we could see.

We asked someone into the room to help us help you. But who did he remind you of? When you saw him, you looked like a trapped animal, and we saw your mind run through your options: fight or flight?

You kept sucking a lollipop and then, in the other hand, lit up a cigarette. As we watched you, we had to keep turning our faces away from you, so you wouldn't see our tears. How, in God's name, could adults have mistreated you in ways you only hinted at? Would you let us in enough to help you?

So many adults had not only let you down, but had been the source of abuse and pain. We wanted you to be safe, but you couldn't even trust us. Before we could get you the help you needed, you left us. I stood outside and watched you run down the street, running to what I could not even imagine. Your feet, hitting the pavement and lifting, as if they could lift you higher and higher, to a place where there is no pain, no fear, no abuse.

I could only say a prayer: May it be so.