What kind of day is Palm Sunday?

by Rev. Paul A. Whitlock

It’s the observance of a tragedy. It’s not a day of simple optimism. We know all about optimism; we’ve tried to be optimistic while the various countries of the world, including our own, position for war. We’ve tried to be optimistic while our government is falling apart and lacks the moral leadership to dig us out of this hole.
Palm Sunday is the observance of a tragedy, but not a day of despair.

Palm Sunday is one bright and glorious moment in human history when we proclaim the courage and the integrity of God in Christ. Palm Sunday isn’t a day when we throw up our hands because Jesus was killed. It’s not a day of pessimism when we condemn the people of the first century, the crowds which later became ugly. It’s not a day when we get morose over the money changers in the temple and declare that nothing ever turns out well.

Palm Sunday, rather, is a day when knowing…

  • People are fickle and get tired of parades and go home
  • Religious leaders like things neat and tidy and kill reformers
  • The humble truth teller is walked upon
  • People will sell their souls for a handful of silver
  • Even good friends will sleep while we suffer

Knowing all of this, Jesus still came riding into town.

Palm Sunday is a bright and glorious day when love turned into courage and integrity and became a small parade headed for the gallows. It’s the day that Jesus the Christ, knowing the facts of life – the truth about our person, and the truth of what we do when we get together – knowing all this Jesus loving does what he is called to do, and does it without bitter and ill feeling towards us. It’s so tragic that it had to come to this. It’s so tragic that God had to do that for us.

Palm Sunday is a tragedy, but a tragedy worth celebrating.  

photo credit: Rev. Paul A. Whitlock, Church of the Palms UCC

The Unexpected Parade

by Rev. Lynne Hinton

In an essay entitled “In Today, Already Walks Tomorrow,” Joseph Hankins recalls a Peanuts cartoon from years ago. In the first panel Charlie Brown says to Linus, “I learned something in school today. I signed up for folk guitar, computer programming, art, and a music appreciation class.” He continues, “I got spelling, history, arithmetic, and two study periods.” “So, what did you learn?” Linus asks. And Charlie Brown replies, “I learned that what you sign up for and what you get are two different things.” (Vital Speeches of the Day, October, 1997.)

If you’ve lived long enough, you totally understand what Charlie Brown is saying. One author wrote, “If you want to hear God laugh, go ahead and tell your plans.” Life rarely turns out like we expect. And perhaps no event teaches us this lesson more clearly than the event of Palm Sunday.

From the gospels we learn that Jesus and his followers come into Jerusalem and there is quite a show. For all reasonable purposes, it certainly seems like a parade and it seems like a political parade because of the waving of palms, the symbol of Jewish independence, waved for national heroes and because of what they say, at least in Mark’s version. They shout Hosanna, the nearest translation in English being, “God save the king!” The people participating in this parade, people marching and singing and shouting and waving palms, have a certain expectation of what this event means. Jesus is the new king of Israel and the days of oppression under Rome are coming to an end. Jesus is taking them to a revolution, to freedom from occupation. Jesus is finally setting them free. That’s what they expect. The parade people, maybe the disciples, maybe everyone, expect that Jesus is getting ready to change everything. And on that mark, they are right, but their expectations of how Jesus was going to do that were however, completely off the mark.

There is a lot about life that turns out that way, don’t you think? There are a lot of things we begin with that turn out to be completely different in the end. We get married and expect that we will always be in love with that person. We expect that we will be together until death do us part. And then, well, marriage isn’t quite what we expected and we find ourselves separated and then divorced. We have children, raise them up expecting them to share our values, want the same things in life that we do, and then we discover that our children are nothing like we expected. We go to college, pick a major, and expect that we will find careers that suit us, that fit who we are, and that we will stay in the same place with the same company forever. And well, all of us know how that turns out. We put our money in 401K’s. We invest in secure places. We expect that we can retire and live without too much discomfort and oh, haven’t we discovered that our expectations didn’t work out quite as we had thought? We expect that we will be ready for the deaths of loved ones and we aren’t. We expect that our health will hold up and it doesn’t. We expect that our church will always be there and we expect that nations will be moral. So often, none of these things are true. But the important part of this story is that Jesus shows up. Even when he must understand the peoples’ presence, his disciples’ expectations and friends’ dreams are not in line with what is about to happen. Still he shows up, with humility and wisdom. And love.

John Vannorsdall wrote: “Palm Sunday is not a day when we throw up our hands because Jesus was killed. It’s not a day of pessimism when we condemn the people who went home to supper, the crowds which later became ugly. It’s not a day when we get morose over the money changers in the temple and declare that nothing ever turns out well, that even God’s small parade was a fiasco. Palm Sunday, rather, is a day when we say, knowing all of this, knowing that people are fickle, get tired of parades and go home, knowing that religious leaders like things neat and tidy and kill reformers, knowing that the humble truth teller is walked upon, knowing that people will sell their souls for a handful of silver, knowing that even good friends will sleep when we suffer, it’s a day when knowing all this, Jesus came riding.”

The truth in Palm Sunday is that the event that started in a parade to celebrate Jesus, ended in a mob gathering to kill Jesus. And the lesson to be learned is that nothing ever really turns out as we expected. That doesn’t, however, mean that we have been forsaken by God. It doesn’t mean we are being punished or abandoned. It means that even when the parade doesn’t take you where you want to go, there is still the opportunity to grow in your faith, and share in the work of grace you have been called to do. Even as our expectations are not fulfilled, God is still present, active, and involved in our lives.

The Words that Shape Us: From “Hosanna” to “Crucify”

by Talitha Arnold

Palm Sunday, 2016

It was a mob scene that first Palm Sunday. People lined the road into Jerusalem, shouting, waving branches, throwing their cloaks on the ground, reaching out to touch the man on the donkey, everyone chanting “Hosanna! Hosanna!”

And it was a mob scene five days later, when some of those same people squeezed into the courtyard of the Roman garrison to shout “Crucify! Crucify!” Same man. Same crowd. Different words.

Mobs are like that. They can turn on a dime. One day everyone is shouting happy Hosannas and life is great.\ The next thing you know, it’s all cries of “Crucify” and death.

Throughout Lent, we’ve explored “the words that shape us” as Christians. The story of the first Palm Sunday and the week that followed remind us of the power of such. words. So does our own time, 2000 years later. “Christian values,” “Biblical principles,” and the name of Jesus are much in our news these days. Not because it’s Holy Week, but because we’re in a presidential campaign season, and there are a lot religious words bandied about. Indeed, in some political circles, candidates must claim their Christian credentials in order to garner votes.

At the same time and sometimes in the same breath, there’s talk of banning Muslims and building walls, labeling immigrants as rapists and murderers, and encouraging violence against one’s opponents. As a Christian minister, I find such hatred and fear-mongering the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ both preached and practiced. As we who are Christian head into our holiest of weeks, it might be good to remember what he actually did say and do.

For Jesus, his teachings of “turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, love your enemies” weren’t just feel-good phrases. They shaped his life. Throughout that life, Jesus showed the power of love to overcome fear. He reached out with love to embrace people who were afflicted with leprosy or mental illness who were banished from the community. He crossed the divisions of race and religion, telling stories of Good Samaritans, welcoming people of all backgrounds, and eating with “outcasts.” He respected women, honoring those who wished to learn (Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus) and those called to lead (Mary Magdalene–”Apostle to the Apostles”).

Jesus also knew first-hand how hard it is to choose the way of love and non-violence. There were times when his own anger or exhaustion got the best of him. He got cranky with a woman who wanted him to heal her daughter. The day after Palm Sunday, he zapped a fig tree and overturned the tables of the money-changers. The Gospels record how often Jesus went to a “lonely place” to pray. I think it shows how much he needed, in the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., God’s “strength to love.” We do, too.

Overcoming fear with love “is not for the timid or weak,” affirmed Cesar Chavez, leader of the Farmworker Movement. “Non-violence is hard work.” Jesus knew that, all the way to the cross. At the Last Supper, he knelt to wash the feet of all the disciples, including Peter who would deny him and Judas who betrayed him. Later when the religious leaders came with their band of thugs to arrest him, one of the disciples cut off the ear of a servant named Malchus. “No more of this!” Jesus commanded. “Put down your sword.” Then he healed the man who helped arrest him.

At any point that night or through the next day, Jesus could have called his followers to arms. He didn’t. Moreover, as clearly demonstrated in the fate of a fig tree, Jesus had the power to zap Pilate, Herod, and all the legions of Rome if he’d chosen. He didn’t. Instead he chose the power of love. “Father, forgive.”

The journey of this Holy Week that begins with tomorrow with Palm Sunday reminds all who would claim the name of “Christian” that to follow the way of Jesus Christ is to follow the way of the one who chose the way of life and love. To accept the call of “Christian” is trust the power of love to overcome fear and hatred. And it is to commit one’s self and one’s life to that hard work of love.

The story of Holy Week that we begin tomorrow shows us–and our world–how to express real Christian values. Saying “no” to violence and hatred is a good place to start.

It’s where he did.