Fools, Forsaking and Forgiven

Greetings, St. Bartholomew’s.  Thank you for inviting me back for Palm Sunday again.

Palm Sunday this year happens to fall on April 1^st – April Fool’s Day.  This is deliciously ironic in the sense that what we’re up is kinda foolish, no?  We’re re-enacting and remembering something outlandish that happened over two thousand years ago and supposing that it still has relevance to us today.

Too often, I fear, we half-heartedly process with palms (not quite sensing the celebration) and then proceed right into the powerful Passion narrative a bit numbed (not delving into despair of the story) – we’ve heard it all before and we’re just kinda going through the motions. 

As I said last year, after such powerful lectionary readings on this day, 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.   

This Palm Sunday morning, rather than offer a traditional homily, let’s engage in some conversation about what we’ve just heard and experienced.  Let’s bring the stories to life for ourselves in a way that invites us into the journey of Holy Week. This Palm Sunday morning, let’s get into the emotions a bit more and connect them to our current relationship with Jesus and the way of the cross. 

This is an opportunity to engage our imagination and see what the Spirit shows us.

GUIDING QUESTIONS
(distinguish between the procession experience and the Passion narrative)

1. Imagine that you were present (for the procession and then the Passion) – where were you, what perspective do you have on what’s happening, what do you see and hear going on

2. What is happening to you as you witness/experience these events?

3. How is this affecting your relationship with God?

4. This morning, what might the Spirit be calling you re-consider and do differently this Holy Week as we prepare for Easter?

SEEDS FOR DISCUSSION:

a)    How do you compare/contrast the different processions into Jerusalem that day? Which procession are more often attracted to / compelled to join? (toward crown or toward cross? pride, winning, and control vs. humility, service/sacrifice, and surrender)

b) What has this Jesus from Nazareth been doing that has everyone all stirred up? (the common folk as well as the establishment leaders)

c) In Mark’s telling, Jesus cries out, quoting the first line of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – who has abandoned/forsaken whom?

Examples from them that still apply to us:

• 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.

In Mark’s telling, Jesus cries out, quoting the first line of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”


Please turn to page 611 of your Book of Common Prayer and let’s read (antiphonally – alternating sides of the congregation by asterisks) the final third (verses 21-30) of the 22^nd Psalm that Jesus began to recite from the cross:

I will declare your Name to my brethren; * in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.

Praise the LORD, you that fear him; * stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel; all you of Jacob's line, give glory.

For he does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty; neither does he hide his face from them; * but when they cry to him he hears them.

My praise is of him in the great assembly; * I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.

The poor shall eat and be satisfied, and those who seek the LORD shall praise him: * "May your heart live for ever!"

All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, * and all the families of the nations bow before him.

For kingship belongs to the LORD; * he rules over the nations.

To him alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship; * all who go down to the dust fall before him.

My soul shall live for him; my descendants shall serve him; * they shall be known as the LORD'S for ever.

They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn * the saving deeds that he has done.

Despite our forsaking God, God has not forsaken us.  Despite our foolish abandon into our own self-concerns and ambitions, Christ does not abandon us.

Though we will remember this Holy Week how our Lord, even after doing so much good, was betrayed by one of his closest friends and made to suffer public humiliation and a painful death, we know that on the horizon in a week, there is redemption, hope, and new life through our risen Lord.  

AMEN.