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So always a bit of a question what to do with this Sunday. Long ago, it used to be simply Palm Sunday – focusing on Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and palms and baptisms. (Back then the fifth Sunday of Lent was “Passion Sunday” when we focused on the crucifixion.) So the question is, if we just do Palm Sunday, and then Easter Sunday, do people tune in for the Holy Week story of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and Holy Saturday or do they just jump from triumphal entry to resurrection. (Granted, resurrection implies crucifixion, but doesn’t really emphasdize it.) So, in recent years – the last 30-40 – as it seemed like fewer and fewer people were showing up for Holy Week services, the lectionary has identified this Sunday as Palm/Passion Sunday, or Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion, starting off with The Liturgy of the Palms and then shifting to the Liturgy of the Passion with a reading of part or all of the Passion story from the gospel of the year – this year it’s Mark.
Some thoughts on some of this Sunday’s lessons -
Liturgy of the Palms
Ps 118.1-2, 19-29
+ with all of these lessons, we try to hear them without reference to Jesus, and then with.
+ starts and ends with “give thanks”, “the Lord is good”, “the steadfast love of God endures forever.” In between kind of a list of familiar verses.
+ one writer presents it as a verse by verse description of the king coming triumphantly to the temple -
vs 19 – the victorious king requests entry - Open the gates...
vs 20 – priests and others respond to the request - Here is the gate, the righteous may enter
vs 21-22 – king offers thanksgiving addressed to God - I praise the Lord...
vs 23-24 – worshipers proclaim celebration as consequence of God’s intervention - The Lord has done this; this is the day of the Lord...
vs 25 – worshipers offer a prayer to God - We’ll ask the Lord to save us...
vs 26-27 – the king is blessed as he enters the precincts of the temple, with reference to some of the festal celebration - God bless the one who comes,... God has given us light…, Start the celebration,...March with palms to the altar...
vs 28 – king offers thanksgiving - The Lord is my God; I will praise him...
vs 29 - an invitation for all to give thanks - Tell the Lord how thankful you are…..
+ even in this celebratory scene there is a hint of foreboding – “the stone which the builders rejected”.
+ so the psalm is not just about Jesus, but about all those lowly ones whom God has supported and brought through. Whom the builders have rejected. Is there an event in your life, a time of difficulty or despair, that this could be about?
Mark 11.1-11
+ narrative context – with this story, Jesus leaves his wandering from town to town and the rest of the gospel will take place in or near Jerusalem. Note that Jesus is with a crowd near the Mt of Olives. This section of the gospel comes to a close in ch 13 with a “discourse about future things” which Jesus gives privately to Peter, John, James, and Andrew “sitting on the Mt of Olives”. And of course they head for the Mt of Olives after the Last Supper. So again even in this festive event there is a certain foreboding.
+ note that the celebration is near the city, but Jesus actually enters the city alone in vs 11. Jerusalem is still the place of confrontation, hostility, and death, and already the crowd is slipping away.
+ the crowd welcomes “the coming of the kingdom of our ancestor David”, but do not call Jesus “Son of David”. In Mk 10, Blind Bartimaeus had recognized Jesus as the Son of David. In 12.35-37 Jesus apparently rejects the vision of the Davidic kingdom.
+ in vs 11 Jesus goes to the temple, “looks around at everything” and “it was late”. Again, just a touch of foreboding.
+ another line from Fred Craddock – “For Mark, the coming of Jesus means the end of the temple and the beginning of a new time and place for meeting God.” How do we hear that in our time? Where do you meet God most meaningfully?
+ the colt – what is that about? Here’s one idea, that finally Jesus casts aside the “messianic secret” (warning people and demons not to tell who he is) and enters the public arena, using messianic images. What messianic images do you associate with Jesus?
+ what “Palm Sunday” hymns do you remember – Tell me the stories of Jesus…, Hosanna Loud Hosanna...My most favorite contemporary one is “Mantles and Branches”. Here’s the best video I could find of it. It really should swing a bit more than that! But the kids are cute. And so is the minister!
Liturgy of the Passion
Is 50.4-9a
+ possible narrative context – we suspect this comes from the end of the Babylonian Exile. The people have been in Babylon for 50-60 years and frankly have gotten comfortable there. Now this prophet suggests there may be another option, that they might even get back to Jerusalem. Perhaps not everyone wants to go?
+ to have the tongue of a teacher requires having the ear of a listener, and not just listening to human wisdom but God’s.
+ Hearing and speaking can lead to suffering, but because God helps, there is no disgrace.
+ Four “Lord Gods” –
1) the Lord God gives a tongue so the prophet can strengthen the weary; Who in your experience has been especially good at strengthening the weary? Who have you been strengthened by?
2) the Lord God opens the prophet’s ears and the prophet is totally committed to God’s perspective on reality; How is God’s perspective on reality maybe different from mine? Yours?
3) the prophet has suffered because of what he/she has said. “It is the sort of outcome that occurs whenever a submissive population is instructed in the ”Lord God”.” Have you ever had that experience? The Lord God helps the prophet.
4) the Lord God will prove the prophet innocent, and thus the accusers guilty.
+ reflecting on 3) are there ways the word of God is troublesome to us, to our culture?
+ A quote from Thomas Dozeman -
The striking thing about this suffering servant song, which must be emphasized in preaching, is how easily it moves between the images of student and suffering activist, between knowing the content of salvation in the classroom and doing the work of salvation. Neither theory nor praxis is allowed a special role over the other in the servant’s soliloquy on discipleship. The servant is able to endure suffering because he/she knows that God is savior. Here doing is knowing and knowing is doing. End of quote – how does that impact your life journey?
Phil 2.5-11
+ We get this lesson only on the Feast of the Holy Name after Christmas and on this Sunday each year.
+ Jesus was God, but did not take advantage of being God. Who are we, what do we have, and do we take advantage of that to the detriment of others? It’s a little like where are we in the rush to get vaccinated and what do we do about it? Where are we in the resource allotment list and what do we do because of it?
+ being humble and obedient – is not self-deprecation or false modesty. Jesus humbled himself by resisting temptation to follow an easier, but inauthentic, calling. How does that resonate with your life?
+ Another chance to plug CAMBERWELL, my favorite setting for the hymn At the Name of Jesus. Well, I’d do it a little faster than these folks, maybe. The guy who played the organ at our seminary made it sound like circus calliope!
+ “taking the form of a slave” – how does that resonate? Do we wish Paul had used a different word?
+ are we being encouraged to imitate Christ (not possible) or allow the mind of Christ into our lives to shape our minds? What would that look like?
+ note in vs 6-8 Christ descends, this is Jesus’ work; in vs 9-11 Christ is exalted, this is God’s work.
+ not all knees are bending, not all tongues confessing. How do we think about that today?
Mk 14.1-15.47 Skimming through….
+ the anointing at Bethany, and “you will always have the poor with you.” Do we use this as an excuse to do palliative programs for the poor instead of changing our culture, which would maybe require giving up some of our advantages?
+ getting ready for the Supper, looking for a guy with a jar of water. What’s that about? Kind of like getting the colt for Palm Sunday.
+ “From now on I will not drink any wine until the wine of God’s kingdom”. Would Jesus take communion with us today?
+ Peter’s promise – this is not going to end well, is it?
+ Jesus prays, three times – humbly, obediently – “not what I want but what you want.” The disciples sleep through it. What have you slept through?
+ Jesus arrested. Some people think the young man who ran away naked in vs 52 is really Mark in a cameo appearance.
+ Jesus questioned by the council – “Are you the Messiah, the Son of God?” and Jesus says “I am” – the messianic secret really out in the open. One writer says Mark’s gospel is an effort to define “Son of God”. Jesus defines it by saying it is the “Son of Man/Woman”.
(pause to reflect on the term “Son of Man”. Would like it to be more inclusive, but “Son of Humanity” doesn’t really do it for me. Suggestions?)
+ Peter’s denial – hey, we’ve all done it, we all do it.
+ Pilate, Barabbas – I remember one meditation about how nobody really wants Barabbas, nobody really likes him, but when you choose “Not Jesus” he’s what you get, and he is lurking out there somewhere tonight.
+ Jesus dies, the centurion says “This was (is?) the Son of God”.
+ the women were there through it all.
+ and finally a few reflections –
1) Mark tells us what happened, what was done to Jesus, rather than what Jesus did. Meaningful to the human experience of “not being in control”. It’s different from the way John tells the story. Both ways are significant.
2) Jesus is progressively abandoned by his support system – the crowd, the twelve, Peter. Although “all of them” drank the wine, “all of them” repeated Peter’s promise. Who do you identify with today – the 12 who forsook, or Jesus who was forsaken?
3) One of my favorite presentations of the Passion is The Cotton Patch Gospel with music by Harry Chapin. Have you seen it?
4) Mark shows a certain restraint. This is not Mel Gibson’s Passion. Again from Fred Craddock – “It was not the author’s aim to use gory details to milk melancholy from the story, to create sympathetic sadness, and to draw tears from the readers. Feeling bad about it all is hardly faith, and manipulating emotions is hardly preaching. According to Jesus’ own statement, he would suffer many things, be rejected and killed. The suffering and rejection are a major part of the story…” What resonates most with your experience?
Here’s a prayer for the week off the Lectionary website – I’ll try to come up with one or two more through the week.
Crucified and Risen One,
by your passion
you sustain us when we fall
knee-bent into the radical emptiness
of bone-wasting sorry and despair.
Teach us to sustain the weary
and awaken us to attend to those who suffer. Amen.
(I like that – the radical emptiness of bone-wasting sorry and despair!)
That’s what I got for now….
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