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March 25, 2018

Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

Last week as I was entering Church for the Sunday morning Eucharist at Trinity Cathedral in Little Rock, I heard a little girl ask her mother, “Is it today that we get to sing the Palm Song?”  Her mother said, “No, that’s next week—that’s what we do on the Sunday of the Passion; that’s when we wave palms to honor King Jesus; that’s when we sing those beautiful hymns.”  I thought to myself how wonderful it is that we still have little children recalling the great Christian feasts and fasts; they haven’t all been swallowed up by a culture that may have forgotten.  “All Glory, Laud, and Honor, to thee, Redeemer King.  To whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.   Did you enjoy having an opportunity to sing it?  I love it.  That’s the hymn that led us into the church house a few moments ago to rehearse, one more time, the events of Jesus’ passion, death, crucifixion and resurrection—and to do so in as much detail as we can muster.  That’s the song that invites to remember, to re-assemble, and to hold on dearly the notion that the Way of the Cross just happens to be the Way of Life.  One of the obscure Christian saints of long ago once commented that “Forgetfulness is the root of all evil,” and I dare say that forgetting our redemption and the love that brought it about, would be a sad and tragic thing to do.

I say hold on dearly.  This train wreck of a world we’re enduring at this time in history will do everything in its power to suggest that passion, suffering, and death—even a headache for that matter—are to avoided like the bubonic plague.  You would think by now, we would all know that pain is the touchstone for spiritual growth; that suffering can have meaning and purpose seen through the lens of Jesus’ passion; that breakdown always and everywhere precedes breakthrough.  (Charles Lofy, A Grain of Wheat)  I have a priest friend in New England who is forever calling me for a sermon insight.  Stuart, I’ve got to preach tonight, and I need a kernel for a homily.  The lesson the day of his last call was a strong pre-cursor for Holy Week: “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a green of wheat.  But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.  In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life.  But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.”  In other words, unless this ego of ours is deflated, punctured, buried, the Christ within will never have a chance to come alive.  Do you know the acronym for EGO?  E G O -- Edging God Out”

If we happen to be Episcopalians, as many of us are, we began Lent this year with words from our Book of Common Prayer that strike similar notes. In the Ash Wednesday liturgy, we tell our people that Lent is a time to prepare for Baptism, and we so we provide catechetical instruction on the basics for those who wish to begin a journey of Faith.  We tell them that Lent is a time to pray and study and worship, and we provide ample opportunities to enhance these spiritual dimensions of the Christian life.  And most importantly, we say that that Lent is a time for coming home.  A whole season when the Welcome sign is turned on, and well lit, and prominently placed.  An extended moment explicitly deigned for those who feel a sense of separation, disconnection, alienation from God, from others, from self, from me and you.  Those who need a warm and sincere and generous embrace; those who could use a genuine experience of inclusion into what we call the “household of God.” 

It doesn’t escape my attention one second that the very first word on the inside of your service leaflet this morning is Welcome.  And it’s written in a 33 point font.  There it is again in the next paragraph, and there again in the next paragraph.  If you cannot read what is staring you in the face, there it is again three more times as you scan page one—lest we forget that we’re in the business of stretching out Jesus’ arms on the Cross, the arms of reconciliation to those on the outside who might be looking in.  Now with such a lofty mission of inclusivity and welcome, it befuddles me how we easily trivialize this time of year by our silly pieties.  I took Bus 66 yesterday to join Bishop Lee and thousands of others who attended the “March for our Lives” in Union Park. On the bus I overheard a fellow traveler say to her friend, “I gave up chocolate ice cream for Lent.”  The friend responded, “Well, what about vanilla and strawberry?”  The pietist said, “No, just chocolate.”  What a conversation on the verities on the Gospel!!  Reminded me of Little Jack Horner, who sat in the corner, eating his Christmas pie.  He put in his thumb, pulled out a plum, and said, “Oh, what a good boy am I.”  You’ll probably not find self-inflation on the menu this week.

What you will find are these invitations to come home, come back, come to our senses.  Maybe even sing, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy…” with its arresting phrase:  “There is welcome for the sinner / and more graces for the good.”  A few years, I saw the best sermon on Welcome for the sinner that I have ever seen in all my life.  Notice my verb here.  SEE  Seeing a sermon is always a 1000 times better than listening to one.  Our actions preach volumes.  It was Advent.  I was celebrating the 8 a.m. Eucharist at St Paul’s Chapel in New York City…Rite I, no music, said mass, with the same 13 persons who had congregated that service since the time of Moses…except for 2 adult newcomers, who had their small son with them.  The Gospel lesson was John the Baptist calling sinners to repentance, “Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,”

Hoping to add a little spice to the worship of that crowd, I walked into the congregation for the homily and invited a volunteer to assist me with breaking open the Word—knowing full well that no one would dare do such a thing.  I said that I wanted a sinner for the occasion.  And not just a sinner, but an honest-to-God notorious and evil liver.  A real reprobate.  Was that bemused, stoned-faced congregation every surprised—and I include myself in the bemusement—when that six-year-old “kid” raised his hand said, “I’ll do it!”  As you can imagine, no child in his right mind would have attended that service, and yet here he was—standing on the tiptoe of expectation and ready to go.  And wouldn’t you know, his name was Christian.  Oh my God!  It’s a Morality Play.  Everyman has graced us with his presence.  Here’s Christian to teach us the fundamental lessons of existence.  Nota Bene.  Listen up. 

I whispered stage directions to Christian.  “Now you be the sinner, and I’ll be John the Baptizer.  You be the one who behaves like a rapscallion.  And I will call you out on it.  Walk the nave aisle down the ‘primrose path’ that leads to destruction.  And when you get to the chapel doors that open the way that leads to Gotham, that is Sin City, that is New York, that is the Big Apple of Temptation, I’m going to rain down fire and brimstone.  I’ll insist that you make an about-face, amend your crooked ways, and stop erring and straying like a lost sheep, or ELSE.  Got it?”  Christian said, “got it.”  So that tiny, little notorious and evil liver began walking the Road to Perdition, and when he got to the doors that swing wide to the fleshpots of the urban jungle, I yelled like a screech owl—“Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

Christian stopped in his tracks; made an immediate 180 degree turn around; then paused momentarily to think through his next step.  He seemed to be a bit confused—in fact, I think he may have been conflating the story of the Prodigal Son with that of John the Baptist.  Rather than walk the main aisle as would a repentant sinner awaiting a sentence of Judgement, this little repentee took off in a blaze of glory.  Moving at supersonic speed, He ran the center aisle at St Paul’s Chapel; got to the fourth pew as he neared the front of the nave; leapt way up into the air; and landed on me with a bear hug the likes of which are rarely seen in a church.  Then he said for the world to hear, “I’m home…I’m home”  All of us—to a person—wept tears of gratitude that the prodigal had come to his senses; that he had recognized his wayward ways; that reconciliation had occurred; that everyman (and for that matter everywoman) had found a home in the everlasting arms of the Savior; and that angels and archangels were on their way rejoicing. 

Holy Week is just not be missed; it is a time to go home.  It is such a wonderful opportunity to remember and to reclaim the promise that we are welcomed, that we are saved through the precious blood that was shed; that we do find a place in the everlasting arms of the Savior; that nothing in all creation could ever separate us from the love of Jesus that flows from the Cross.  Speaking to the Church at Ephesus, an early Christian writer summed it up in saying that “Once we were far off, but now in union with Christ Jesus, we have been brought near through the shedding of Christ’s Blood” (Ephesians 2:13)  Or phrasing it in a more contemporary version: “Now, because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether, are now in on everything.”  (Eugene Pedersen, The Message).  And even more to the point here’s young Christian’s version: “I’m home, I’m home.”