Palm Sunday's Launch into Holy Week

We almost always close our Palm Sunday service this way:

This time there will be no flight to Egypt.
The donkey has too much to carry, too far.
The shadows wait for me.  Around the table at Passover
Among those in high places, in the condemned cell,
On the hill outside.  Fear haunts my waking moments,
and I cannot sleep.  Why has God forsaken me?

People:
     The crowd today is with me.  But not for long.
      They are the powerless ones (the ones who matter).

The ones who count are counting.
Time is running out.  This time, there will be no flight to Egypt.


I think the above is from Cry of the Whole Congregation by Walter Wangerin.  We use the liturgy/chancel drama for Palm Sunday, so that's why I'm guessing at the author's identity.

I find it the most meaningful part of Passion Sunday.  It reminds us that Jesus has been on a collision course with the Roman empire since his birth--or since the Wise Men showed up to let Herod know that he had a rival.

And yes, I understand that these stories are not exactly true, in the way that we define true as factual. 

But in the other way that we define true, this final Palm Sunday passage reminds us about the totality of Christ's life.

Palm Sunday in Pictures

Some days, we are so full of praise that the car flows over with our palm fronds:

Some days the sun blazes as it comes over the horizon, and we feel that all of our hopes and dreams are about to be made manifest:

Some days, we wonder if our sun has set already:



Some days, we make art out of the wreckage:

Some days, it's all too much, our lives dried to twigs and shredded to ribbons:

But we resolve to go on, to rest in the promise that out of brokenness, beauty can come:

We follow the path where others have gone before us:

Writing Prompts: Justice and Holy Week

I sent this prompt to my Lenten Journaling Group, and I thought it was worth sharing more widely.

As I think of the week past and the week to come, two prompts come to mind. Feel free to use them as you like and/or as the Spirit moves you:

Writing Prompt 1:

We've had a great week of justice action in our church and larger community in South Florida. Last week I scribbled on a bulletin, and yesterday morning, I started to think about a poem. These ideas spurred my creativity:

We have built our house of justice in hurricane country.

We have made a home in the swamp of despair

In this abandoned waste dump, we have claimed a homestead.

If we then create some fill in the blanks, maybe we get some different options:

We have built ________ in hurricane country.

We have built our house of justice in ________.

We have made ______ in the swamp of despair.

In this _______, we have claimed a homestead.

In this abandoned waste dump, we have claimed __________.

If you want to tie your journaling back to Bible reading, return to the Psalms and notice how the Psalmist often uses similar language for striking effect--different metaphors, to be sure, but similar effect. Think of Psalm 137, with it's image of weeping by the rivers of Babylon and hanging harps in the poplars. I am guessing that the writer of that Psalm didn't really go to the river to weep and hang a harp in the tree--it's an image of deep sadness and abandonment, and it works beautifully.

The not-often-read book of Lamentations too. And many of the prophets. And Jesus himself was known for speaking/teaching in odd parables. It's a way to jolt our brains out of complacency.

Writing Option #2

Sunday is Palm Sunday and/or Passion Sunday--the beginning of Holy Week. We will be hearing stories that many of us have heard many times before. How can we hear them with fresh ears.

One year I was startled to realize how much I identified with Pontius Pilate as an administrator. That year, I saw the Good Friday story in a different light. One year I read Mary Oliver's "The Poet Thinks about the Donkey" (you can read it here: https://predmore.blogspot.com/2016/03/poem-poet-thinks-about-donkey-by-mary.html). I hadn't thought much about the donkey that carries Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and my perspective shifted.

Here are some ideas to get you thinking. Tell the story from the perspective of:

--the person who cleans up after the last supper

--the towels used by Jesus to wash the feet of the disciples

--the cross itself

--an indifferent observer on Palm Sunday

--the sibling of Jesus who had always seen this day (Good Friday? Palm Sunday?) coming

--the disciple we don't usually hear about

--the rooster that crows three times

Here's hoping for a creative week-end, in all the ways our creativity can manifest itself!

Peter Did Not Always Preach Like Peter: A Consolation for the Rest of Us

I have spent a chunk of this week thinking about how hard it is to live in community.  We had a justice event on Monday, and while I'm happy to be part of a group that works for justice, I sometimes grow weary that there is still so much justice work left to do.

Aren't we there yet?

My pastor asked me weeks ago if I'd preach the sermon on this past Sunday, and I said yes.  But on Sunday morning, I changed my sermon at the last minute.  I was feeling despair, the kind of despair when I want to get in the car and drive far away.  I was feeling overwhelmed by hurricane repairs (ongoing since 2017, yes still) and work stress.  I felt that others might be feeling that way too.

I talked about Jesus coming to show us how to live in community, and we often glorify that community that Jesus created, along with his ideals.  I talked about the BOLD Justice event and the NPR stories I'd been hearing about the Civil Rights workers, about their struggles and our current struggles.

I talked about how justice work was like living in hurricane country.  We rebuild and we fix and we make things better, even as we realize we might have to do it all again.  I want to believe that the arc of history bends towards justice, and that we can bend it that way--but there are days when I feel despair about that arc being very long.

I talked about Holy Week that will soon be upon us, about how I prefer the resurrection story, when everything has come together and a beautiful beauty is born.

But it's important to stay with the crucifixion a bit longer, to remember that Christian community isn't always perfect--far from it.  The crucifixion shows us a community in ruins:  people run away, people kill themselves because they can't believe that they can be forgiven, people have to witness the horror that happens at a state execution.  If you cannot preach like Peter, remember that Peter did not always preach like Peter.

I encouraged us to remember that God can still work glorious transformations out of ruins like the crucifixion.  Our sacred texts remind us of that promise over and over again.  I ended by reading the second verse of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," which was written in a dark time in the nation's history, when the rights of newly freed slaves were being rolled back and taken away.  It was to remind little children that a better day was coming, if we can just hold on to that vision.

Lenten Journaling Group: Collage

We began our evening with prayer, and then we went to a table of magazines I had laid out: gardening magazines, photography magazines, back issues of Oprah's magazine, and some spiritual magazines.

I invited everyone to choose a few magazines, and we returned to our seats.

Then I read Isaiah 43: 18-21:


Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
19 I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
20 The wild animals will honor me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
21 the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.


I read it again. Then we looked through magazines, ripping and cutting out anything that appealed to us, words, and/or images.

We turned to our journals/paper. Most of us pasted images to paper in a variety of ways:

I then read the Isaiah passage again, and we discussed what we had put together. Most of us assembled images that we liked. Perhaps they reminded us of our friends. Maybe we thought about places we had traveled. I assembled this image after several weeks of work stress, and it doesn't take a trained psychologist to analyze what it means.

We were intrigued by one approach of one of our group:

She found a solid chunk of text and cut it into strips. Then she wrote the lines from Isaiah in between.

I invited us to return to our images at some point later in the week. Perhaps we want to write more or sketch more deeply. Maybe we want to sit in quiet contemplation. God might use this process to speak to us.

We closed with prayer.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Palm Sunday, April 14, 2019:

Liturgy of the Palms (April 14, 2019)
Psalm
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Gospel
Luke 19:28-40

Liturgy of the Passion (April 14, 2019)
First reading
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm
Psalm 31:9-16
Second reading
Philippians 2:5-11
Gospel
Luke 22:14-23:56 or Luke 23:1-49

Those of us who have been going to church for awhile have heard these stories dozens of times.  If we go to many or all of the Holy Week services, we'll hear these stories again and again this week.  As we enter Holy Week, how can we hear them differently?

This year, what would happen if we imagined these stories from the perspective of a variety of characters?  I imagine that many of us hear these stories and imagine ourselves one of the disciples.  But what if we told the story through the view of the palms?  What if we thought about the donkey's perspective?  The poet Mary Oliver did just that in "The Poet Thinks About the Donkey," a poem that you can find here:  https://predmore.blogspot.com/2016/03/poem-poet-thinks-about-donkey-by-mary.html.

The journey that takes us from Palm Sunday to Good Friday offers us some serious reminders. If we put our faith in the world, we're doomed. If we get our glory from the acclaim of the secular world, we'll find ourselves rejected sooner, rather than later.

Right now, we live in a larger culture that prefers crucifixion to redemption. For some of us, we see a brutal world that embraces crucifixion: no second chances, perhaps no first chances.

The Palm/Passion Sunday readings remind us that the world has always been this way.  Jesus and the disciples lived in an empire far more brutal than the ones that Northern Hemisphere, western culture Christians inhabit.  We may find comfort in our smaller communities, but we are called to live in ways that will likely bring us into some sort of conflict with the larger culture.

We may not end up hanging on a cross, but we may be among those weeping at the foot of the cross.  We may have seen this ending coming, as we have watched our loved ones headed towards an ending that might have been avoidable.  We may find ourselves asking, weeping, lamenting:  "Is there no other way?"

We know that the story doesn't end on Good Friday.  We know that God will make a way when humans cannot see a way.  We know that God promises resurrection, even when we can only see ruin in the way.

We worship a God who has been working through time and outside of time to transform this human condition. We don't always see it, but Easter assures us that the process is in place and that resurrection will break through, even in the most unlikely circumstances.

BOLD Justice Nehemiah Action Tonight: Join Us

As Christians, we're called not just to do charity work, but also to do the justice work necessary so that our societies no longer need charity work.

In Broward county, in South Florida, BOLD Justice, an ecumenical group has been meeting for ten (!) years to demand justice from our local leaders. Some years we've worked on housing issues, some years dental issues, and so on. We make real changes.

This year, we continue to work on preventing senior abuse in nursing homes and helping keep those with mental illnesses out of the criminal justice system. Tonight's rally is where we have politicians join us, and we ask them to work for change. The more people who come, the more they might agree to working for change. 

It's at 7:30 p.m. at St. David Catholic Church, 3900 S. University Drive, Davie. Registration starts at 7. Our group is Trinity Lutheran Church--inside, you'll see the various signs.

All are welcome!