Palm Sunday 2022

I awakened knowing what day it was. Palm Sunday. I was outside a beloved city, and I decided to go to one of my favorite churches to celebrate the first day of Holy Week. Like the travelers long ago, I approached the city with a celebratory spirit. I had no palms, but I was full of hopes and expectations for the service ahead. The cathedral beckoned me from a hill above the city, and it was all I could do to keep my shoes on as I walked upon such holy ground.

Unfortunately, the planners of the service were equally excited by the day and included every liturgical trick in the book. Not only did the service cram the events of Holy Week in an hour and fifteen minutes, a Dixieland band played Just a closer walk with thee as the shivering participants stood outside waiting for the service to begin. Palms were blessed, incense lit, and someone instructed us on the “proper way” to wave our palms in the air. If we missed the day’s significance, the sound of the organ make it perfectly clear. 

Their intentions were good, I know, but something stood between me and the day’s focus. It was the service itself. Like an author who writes in such a way as to distract the reader from her message, all I could see was the service. The opulent liturgics shrouded the events of that Sunday long ago. It was impossible for me to see over the long procession of participants to the man on the donkey. 

It wasn’t until I was back in the taxi, thinking about the service, that I was able to hear the sermon intended for me. As one who has always had a flair for the dramatic, the service reminded me how often I, too, have pushed things over the top. Whether in the sermons I delivered, or the services I designed, too often my work stood in the way of the message I was trying to convey. The finger pointing, if you will, became more important than the one to which it is pointing. 

I reached over and took the palm in my hand. I didn’t worry about waving it in the proper way. I just held it. I let it take me back to the road outside Jerusalem where I could stand beside others. Closing my eyes, I added my imperfect welcome to theirs. I knew then, as if for the first time, that the day was not about me, nor was it about fancy buildings, ministers draped in robes, or impressive worship. 

Palm Sunday is about God coming into the city, facing the worst the world has to give, and offering a love the world cannot comprehend. 

Hosanna in the highest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSmI9PKiajg

Spring

In the early morning light, the dogwoods in bloom outside my window look like trees covered in snow. In time, it will be clear what time of year it is, but, for now, I’m enjoying the twist of appearance. I don’t wish for it to be winter, by any means, but thinking this way reminds me how deceiving things can be in the wrong light. It reminds me how much I prefer spring to winter.

It’s not a great leap for me to see how often I look out and think it’s winter when, in fact, it’s spring, how often I mistake a blossom for a storm. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but in dim light, or from a distance, looks can be deceiving, in faith as well as in life.

When I gave up drinking, I was certain I’d never be happy or have a good time again. I was wrong. I have found a new happiness.

When I left a job, I thought my usefulness was over. In that lighting, I couldn’t see that I would begin using my talents in different ways.

In a particularly dark time, I couldn’t see the light that was on its way. All I saw was winter. Then the blossoms arrived.

Faith is all about believing in spring. Winter comes to us all, but the good news is that winter is how seasons change. Spring would not be possible if leaves didn’t change color and fall to the ground, blossoms would not be possible without the water provided by winter’s storms. 

It doesn’t change the winter, or the storms, but it does give us an opportunity to trust God knows what he’s doing. As we approach Easter, this is important to keep in mind. As we head toward Jerusalem, there are dark clouds on the horizon. Tables will be turned, friends will run away, an arrest will be made, and death will happen. In the dim light of Holy Week, it’s sometimes confusing. We can think it’s winter, but there’s more to the story than all that. In fact, there’s a glorious spring ahead, on the other side of winter. 

Who is my neighbor

Who is my neighbor, I ask myself as I looked through my rolled-up window at the emaciated African-American woman standing at the traffic light. Her arms and legs were covered with marks, which I assume were the result of needles, and I was glad to be passing through this rough part of town. 

The next day, however, I sat in Sunday School looking at a painting of Jesus standing before the crowd after he was tortured and could only think about the woman on the street. Like her, Jesus’ arms and legs were covered with wounds. “Behold the man,” Pilate said, and I was filled with a profound sense of the world’s darkness and God’s grace colliding. Way back when and right this minute became entangled, and somehow I was being asked to make sense of it all.

I returned to my job on Monday morning where my class completed its poetry unit. I had my students read a wide range of poetry, from Mary Oliver to John Donne, and something told me, as if for the first time, that the key to my “one wild and precious life” was remembering that “no man (or woman) is an island.”

Life as it was intended to be, the kingdom of God as many call it, rests in our ability to see everyone, I mean everyone, as our neighbor.

The woman on the street and child in the seat beside me.

The people in Ukraine and the Russian solders being ordered to advance.

The people with bomb-ravaged homes and those whose homes have been ravaged by domestic abuse, addiction, and divorce.

The people out of work and those basking in significant success.

The man running through the neighborhood and the woman confined to a wheelchair.

The student with perfect SAT scores and the man who hasn’t recognized his wife in three years.

The crowd at the Greenpeace rally and those who stormed the capital.

No matter how hard we try to ignore it, no matter how quickly we roll up our windows, our neighbors are right in front of us. They may not look like us, behave like us, think, believe, or vote like us, but each is a beloved child of God. We may politely nod in the direction of such a truth on Sunday, maybe even give voice to it in prayer, but it’s back to business-as-usual on Monday. 

If God came and redeemed us, he came and redeem us all. I guess that’s why Christ looked so much like the woman on the street. In her scars, I need to see his scars. In her poverty, I need to see my abundance . . . and roll down the window.  Then, and only then, will the kingdom of God be at hand.