Of Palms and Passion; Who has forsaken whom?

Managua, Nicaragua (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

(originally delivered at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church - Wichita, KS)

We’re gathered this morning in a place named for St. Bartholomew.  Not much is known about Bartholomew from our canonical scriptures.  Tradition suggests that he was man of few words, but also a pious and plain spoken apostle.  It’s been suggested that he might be the same person called Nathanael bar (son of) Tolmai, who wondered out loud rather candidly in John 1:43-51, (paraphrasing) “You’re kidding right? Our messiah is from ‘that’ neighborhood over on that side of town?”  

Jesus doesn’t rebuke him for expressing his doubts so honestly; rather, he greets him as familiar and says of Nathanael/Bartholomew, (paraphrase) “Here’s a guy in whom we can trust – in him is not dishonesty.” Jesus surprises Nathanael by suggesting that he was knew him even before Philip had called him.  Nathanael’s/Bartholomew’s heart is opened and he called Jesus the Son of God / King of Israel.  Jesus replies, (paraphrasing)  “You think you’re moved now?  Just wait; you’re going to see greater things than this.”  

Indeed, this apostle would see greater things.  We can easily assume that he was there to see the procession of the palms as well as the trials of the Passion and, if we prudently assume that he was still hanging out with Peter and the others later, then he was with them when the risen Christ came back to greet them.  Tradition further tells us that Bartholomew would travel to the East proclaiming the good news of Christ consistently without fear or deceit – which eventually got him killed. 

So if Bartholomew were here with us this morning – what would he, in his plain speaking way, ask of us?  What would be, with the Spirit, help us hear?

After such powerful lessons today, it’s hard to know what to say.  Witnessing our adulation of our Lord and king with palms as he rides into Jerusalem in one moment, and only shortly thereafter hearing ourselves deny, condemn, mock, and shout to crucify him in the next… and then to imagine the suffering Jesus endured and to hear him cry out with a last breath to God, “Why have you forsaken (abandoned) me?” – the turn of events… the turn of heart… it turns my stomach, to say the least.   

We might find ourselves asking Bartholomew, “Doesn’t this trouble you too? What have we done?  What are we to do?”

Bartholomew, filled the Spirit, without missing a beat, might ask us, “Who has abandoned whom?”

Indeed, this is a humbling question to ask ourselves as we consider our lessons today and head into this holy week of remembrance.  Is it God who has left us, or is it us who often have turned away from God to take easier paths than what Christ calls us to?

Bartholomew might point out rather plainly that we had it right when we shouted Hosannah, which means “save us / help us.”  And, that God does just that, in fact, amid the pain and tragedy, even amid the horrible messes of our own making.

But are we ready to embrace that truth?  How often have do we deny or abandon this?

We might imagine that not long after the fervor of procession of the palms, some of us might have let a cynicism creep in.  Even today we might begin to suggest that Jesus’s entry on a donkey into Jerusalem at this volatile time of year was just a bit too contrived and provocative.  He’s just asking for the trouble he gets.


As Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan suggest in their book The Last Week: What the 

Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem, we can easily believe that Jesus staged his provocative procession rather intentionally, invoking the prophetic words of the prophet Zechariah (9:9-10) which say that the new king will come in humbly on a donkey; intentionally in contrast, in way that might even seem mocking toward the entry though another city gate of Pilate, who was also processing into the city with all the glitter and glamor and intimidation of a Roman governor in service to Caeser, who was at the time called lord and savior, and considered by some to be a son of God via birth from Apollo. 

As a colleague recently put in his own contemporary words, it’s as if at one end of town we see a royal or governmental motorcade coming in with all the military and police escorts, while other the other end of town we see a crazy guy riding in on an ass surrounded by rag tag groupies.  Which procession are we likely to take more seriously? 

But Bartholomew might say to us that is too benign a comparison.  Like Borg and Crossan, he might emphasize that Jesus’s humble procession was a powerful proclamation of about the kingdom of God based on charitable love, mercy, and peace, while Pilate’s procession proclaimed the power of an earthly empire, based on domination and exploitation.  And, let’s not forget, that this little guy on the donkey had already challenged the establishment by cleansing the temple, and had already stoked the hopes of the oppressed by raising someone from the dead proclaiming freedom to those previously held down by lack of sight or dignity.  Although humble in appearance, this little rabbi the donkey was stoking a potential uprising.

How often do we, in the face of dominant power and might, abandon our Christian convictions – e.g., that we don’t have to participate in a spiral of violence or exploitation in order to achieve peace or material security?  Bartholomew might ask us rather bluntly, “As much as we might have enjoyed participating in the procession of palms this morning, in our day-to-day lives, aren’t we more often joining in the other procession, marching under a banner and standard of gold rather than following a suffering servant on a donkey?”

It’s Passover, for God’s sake, a time the people are to remember liberation from oppressive empire… and, yet, the promise of liberation being proclaimed by the action of this charismatic rabbi on the donkey is just a little too hard to fully accept and put into action.  Some of us are stirred up, for sure – and it looks like there might be a little uprising in the streets.  But, all too quickly, rank and file begin to turn to squash the potential for real freedom and shared peace… out of fear of change… out of fear of retaliation from the oppressor… out of fear of the truth.

Bartholomew, ever honest, might point out that even the best of us, like him and the other apostles who knew Jesus personally and witnessed his miracles first-hand, suffer from failures of faith at times… and at times might even outright abandon our believes under pressure.

In the Passion readings, we all too clearly how we can turn away from the very face of God:

• We sleep rather than stay awake with Christ, choosing our needs rather than his.
• We are willing to betray our friends for the sake of short-term profit.
• We are quick to violence, even after Jesus has made it clear we are to ‘turn the other cheek’ and forgive.
• We are quick to condemn someone who speaks truth to power, for fear that we might be also seen as sympathetic to a counter cultural new vision of common good.
• When pressed by accusers in the popular crowd, we sometimes shy away from, or outright deny our true Christian identity and convictions.
• Sometimes we choose to kill ourselves, rather than humbly repentant and believe that new life if possible through forgiveness and grace.
• When caught up with the crowd, we’ll even choose known evils, things that we know are bad of us, rather than stick up for the innocent underdog, the marginalized, the outcast.
• While one of us might occasionally step forward to carry the load, how much more often to the rest of us stand on the sidelines quietly thanking God that we don’t have to carry the burdens of others… maybe even believing that their misery is their own fault.
• And, how quick we are sometimes to test God, boldly demanding that God demonstrate proof for our faith – losing faith because God doesn’t perform just as we want God to when we want God to, as if God is under our command.

Who should be on trial here?  Here, again, those words: “Why hast thou forsaken me?”  Who is forsaking whom? 

Indeed, I imagine that Bartholomew would invite us to consider some hard questions in/among ourselves this Holy Week.  Through the lessons we’ve heard to today, the Spirit might be asking us to wake up and realize the unflattering roles we sometimes play in the Passion.

As we continue to consider which procession we’re more often marching in, Bartholomew might remind us of what Jesus once told his disciples:

‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?’ (Matt 16:24-26)

And, even while beholding the agonizing words said about abandonment and forsakenness, the Spirit might call us to realize that God has not forsaken or abandoned us. 

In preparation for the reality of Easter, and the promise of redemption and resurrection every day of our moral lives, Bartholomew and the Spirit might recite together the promises of the concluding words of the Psalm that our Lord began to recite with his last breaths on the cross: 

I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it. (Psalm 22: 22-31)

Christ our King did proclaim a kingdom of peace in the face of an empire of domination when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey amid waving palms.  He stirred something up for sure.  And he was crucified for our sake. 

At the foot of his cross this week, let us bring AND LEAVE all of our guilt, shame, grief, and fear… anticipating the rest of our story of faith.

No matter how many times we’ve fallen short, there is good news worth living for:

There is redemption, hope, and new life through our risen Lord.  

God has not forsaken us.  Christ does not abandon us. 

AMEN.