The Rev.
Jennifer Whipple
Congregational Church of Brookfield (UCC)
April 1, 2007
Palm Sunday
Sticks and Stones
Luke 19:28-40
Prayer:
“May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts and minds be
acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.”
My brother is four years older than I am, and we didn’t
get along all that well until I was about 12-years-old.
So I used to have to use some of those “kiddo cliché sayings” quite
a bit. At any given time on any
given day you could hear me exclaiming something like the following.
“I’m rubber, and you’re glue. Whatever
you say bounces off of me and sticks back on you.”
Or the one that we all know and love… “Sticks and stones may break my
bones, but names can never hurt me.” Yup…that
was me. And I wish I could say that
those words were true. Because although we didn’t get along so well I wanted
nothing more than for him to like me and include me in the things that he did.
I wanted nothing more than to be a part of the things that he was a part
of and for him to accept me. So when
those names did come out of his mouth, because I was the frustrating and, yes at
times even annoying little sister (I know it’s hard to believe…), those
names did hurt. Perhaps it was my
own insecurity or my own fear—a fear of
not being loved-- of not being
accepted, so instead of bouncing off they really hurt.
We have spoken a lot during this Lenten Season about fear
and how we should look to God to alleviate our fears, to keep us safe and
protected, to keep us from feeling those intense hurts as much as
possible…that we should be not afraid. Yet,
as I thought about this morning, about what to say that is new on this Palm
Sunday…after hearing or hearing about 28 years worth of Palm Sunday sermons
myself, I thought about the one main fear I have as we head into this Holy Week.
You see we have spent time celebrating with the crowd as Jesus rode into
Jerusalem
on the young colt. We have spent
time shouting “Hosanna” which means “Save us – we pray!” and parading
with palms. We have thought about
the one who came to make all things new, the one who came in the name of the
Lord to bring about a new way of life. All
of these things are wonderful, and yet we know what is to come in the next week.
I remember spending time when I was younger on the celebration piece of things
on Palm Sunday but not so much the looking forward into this week and its
events. Every year on Palm Sunday
growing up the entire congregation sang an anthem known as “The Palms.”
It spoke of the pomp and circumstance of Jesus entering
Jerusalem
, riding on a young donkey, as the people who had gathered to see him spread
their cloaks out before him and waved palm branches.
The words to the song proclaimed, “Hosanna!
Glory to God! Glory to him
who comes bringing salvation!” And
we join with that chorus again on this Palm Sunday.
We shout Hosanna to God! We
shout the good stuff…we so want to
be the people who accept Jesus and walk with Jesus throughout this coming Holy
Week. We so want to continue our shouts of praise even knowing what is
to come.
For we now know that Jesus will enter the
Temple
and cleanse it, overturning the tables and throwing the money collectors out
the door and that a woman named Mary will anoint him with expensive oil much to
the dismay of his disciples. We know
that he will spend time with his disciples and teach them more about service by
washing their feet. We know that
Judas will make a deal with the Sanhedrin to betray Jesus and turn him in for 30
silver coins. We know that Jesus
will be betrayed and deserted on the night he sat down to celebrate the Passover
Feast and his Last Supper with the people whom he not only called disciples but
also friends. We know that he will
be brought to trial, found guilty of being a phony king according to those who
would raise their voices to shout “Crucify Him!”
And we know that he will be told to carry his cross to
Calvary
where he will die crying out for God to forgive the people who nailed him to
that cross both with their words and actions.
Those are the stories we look toward this week.
And as morbid and difficult as they are to think about or imagine, we
must understand the intensity of them before
we can truly understand the amazing blessing of next Sunday’s Easter
celebration…a blessing the enormity of which is difficult to put into words.
A blessing that means our forgiveness.
So the fear that I spoke about earlier is a fear attached to one lingering
question…Who would I have been? Who
would any of us have been in that crowd so long ago?
Although I hope that I would be among those who celebrated upon Jesus’
triumphant entry into
Jerusalem
and then followed and walked with him through his last week and the amazing
journey to the tomb to find the stone rolled away, I must admit I am a people
pleaser and always have been. I have
tried my hardest throughout my life to steer as clear away from conflict as I
could and grew up going along with what others thought was best, trying to
fulfill others’ expectations. So
would my cheers and Hosannas, my palm-waving, have turned into jeers and curses?
Would I have walked faithfully with Jesus to
Calvary
or would I have succumbed to the pressure and the knowledge that Jesus was not
the kind of king that people awaited? Would
I have stood with the crowd as they called him the names – Son of God, Son of
Man, King of the Jews -- that during his trial were taunts that led to his death
sentence? Would I have followed
through on my faith or would I have been with the crowd screaming “Crucify
Him!”?
The idea of even imagining those things means to see this account from both
sides…to stand with the crowd who had been oppressed by the Roman Army, who
expected that this King, the one for whom they had cut and waved palm branches
and laid down cloaks as signs of his nobility and justice, would save them from
social & political oppression. That
Jesus would not bring about peace by riding on a donkey and telling
people how to live, but that he would bring about peace by force, which seemed
to be second nature not only then but also in our world today.
That Jesus would not save them by allowing them to humiliate him and die
for them, but by standing up for them and exacting revenge against those in
power.
On the other hand to stand with some of the people in the crowd that day
who had been oppressed by the Roman Army meant to watch Jesus ride into
Jerusalem on a young donkey instead of a horse or chariot like the mighty
warriors past and to see the differences between him and other powerful figures.
To cut down palm branches and wave them, because they realized that Jesus
was not noble and powerful as the world might define, but because he was of a
different more special breed. To
follow Jesus as he cleared out the Temple and taught those important lessons the
last week of his earthly life…to hear the words of the greatest commandment
– love God and others as you would be loved yourselves -- and to realize that
for Jesus loving others was the true way to peace.
To have realized that Jesus made the journey to
Jerusalem
to celebrate the Feast of the Passover – a festival of pilgrimage to a holy
place… a festival in which God’s saving acts and redemption were celebrated,
and in Jesus’ case the ultimate act of salvation was foreshadowed.
To have walked with him through the trial and to
Calvary
, to stand with him until the end.
No matter which side they would end up on people waved the sticks from the Palm
Trees, those branches, to celebrate the entrance of this new kind of king into
Jerusalem
. And after the disciples and others
continued to proclaim Jesus as their Lord and the religious leaders told them to
stop, Jesus said, “surely even if these were silent the stones would shout
out!” They all knew in some
way…in the depths of their being…that something was about to happen,
something that would change them and history forever, something that would go
beyond names – hurtful or not – and beyond sticks & stones…something
unimaginable and awful and miraculous and blessed.
So as we leave with our palms this day we are challenged to see them as a
reminder to stay aware of what is to happen this week…to leave today not only
in anticipation of grocery lists and family gatherings, of what will happen next
Sunday as Easter arrives-- but rather to reflect on the events of that last week
of Jesus’ earthly life in order to increase our awareness and appreciation of
the abundant blessing of Salvation we will celebrate.
As we leave with our palms today we begin this Holy Week with a new
awareness proclaiming, “Hosanna! Glory
to God! Glory to him who comes
bringing OUR salvation!” Amen.
