Palm Sunday in a Pandemic (4.5.20)

Palm Sunday in a Pandemic
Matthew 21:1-11
April 5, 2020
Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott
St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church

Whenever I attempt to be anything but completely honest and telling some truth about my life, I know my words fall flat and echo of insincerity because my words are too distant from my heart. So here’s the truth on this Palm Sunday: I’m really sad. I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning and do this. I don’t want to pretend that I’m ok an really holding it all together. I’m sad that we’re on week four of gathering for worship by zoom and will easily go another 4 weeks and possibly longer than that. I’m sad that I’m laying out communion elements on my dining room table and trying with all of my might to make this feel normal. I’m sad that we won’t go through Holy Week in person together. And I’m heart-broken to think of Easter morning without singing our Alleluias together in our sanctuary.

I want to lay that out on the table alongside the bread and the wine because I know I am not the only one with this grief in my heart, waking me up in the night, lulling me to sleep in the afternoon, nagging at me that we have lost something. 

I’m also angry. I’m angry about the lack of leadership on the national, federal level in our country. I’m angry that the national priorities of this current administration favor a few and not the whole, favor the select and not the vulnerable. My anger is on the table right beside my sadness.

Maybe this is the first year in my life that waving a palm branch and saying, “Hosanna! Save us!” has actually meant something to me that was anything close to what it may have meant to the folks following Jesus that day. Maybe my grief and yours will guide us into a Holy Week in which we feel the isolation, the fear, the despair, and also the promise of resurrection.

Now I’ve gone and thrown down a political gauntlet right in the middle of a pandemic and our Palm Sunday worship. And rather than edit my words so that I stay safely in the place of pastoral empathy and affection, I invite us to tap into some of that indignation and anger as we think about the crowds gathering in Jerusalem around Jesus. 

A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

What was happening in this scene? I return again and again to the story from Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan when I come to this entrance into Jerusalem and into Holy Week because the imagery and imagination are so essential in my understanding of this story.

“Two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30. It was the beginning of the week of Passover, the most sacred week of the Jewish year... One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession. From the east, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered by his followers. Jesus was from the peasant village of Nazareth, his message was about the kingdom of God, and his followers came from the peasant class... On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea, and Samaria, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. Jesus's procession proclaimed the kingdom of God; Pilate's proclaimed the power of empire... Pilate's military procession was a demonstration of both Roman imperial power and Roman imperial theology.” They believed the blessing of God sat firmly and singularly on the head of the empire.

If you are feeling grief, anger, panic, or even just deeply unsettled by the moment we are in, imagine yourself in that crowd with all of those very same feelings. Imagine being in the peasant class, working class people who are perpetually overlooked unless it’s time to raid their income for more taxes to the Caesar. This was not the happy gathering I envisioned for almost all of my life when we shouted “Hosanna” in church.  

In the gospel story this morning, there is a man riding into town with the power of Rome behind him. An authoritarian. A man as lacking in compassion as he was in integrity. Imagine this is the man riding in on one side of town with the crowds that inevitably gather to cheer for that certain kind of man. And while this man rides in with great influence and power, Jesus grabs a donkey and starts his own procession. Yes, Jesus is riding toward certain death. And he is also showing everyone who is watching that the way of God is a different way than the way of Rome, than the way of demagoguery, than the way of ego driving power. 

When the theological must become political, we are talking about embodying the radical love of God. We’re talking about how we gather ourselves together and then enter our communities with a shared purpose and priority for the common good.

Grab your palm branches. Imagine the scene. Consider the faces of the people lining the path. “What is often overlooked in this text is how palm branches serve as a symbol of resistance to foreign rule. In an article by John Hart entitled ‘Judaea and Rome the Official Commentary,’ [Hart] states, ‘From time of the Maccabees, palms or palm branches had been a national symbol. Palm branches figured in the procession which celebrated the rededication of the temple in 164 BC and again when the winning of full political independence was celebrated under Simon in 141BC. Later, palms appeared as a national symbol on the coins struck by the Judean insurgents during the first and second revolt against Rome.’ 

For Jesus to enter Jerusalem amidst shouts of affirmation and waving palm branches should be seen as an act of defiance against Roman rule. But this procession is not an act of war against the empire or positioning Jesus as a political challenger to the Caesar. Jesus rides in on a donkey and not a warrior’s horse to clearly show that God’s plan of deliverance would not come by fear and violence but through humility and love. It is hope, humility and love standing strong in the face of danger and abusive power that shows us God’s ways and how we are called to embody them. 

Palm Sunday,” writes Pastor Ricky Woods, “is more than another day of celebration by the Christian Church as it awaits Easter. It is also a day of reflection on how the presence of believers in dangerous places can transform them into places of hope. Palm Sunday is God’s reminder to us of what can be done when courage, humility, love and hope coalesce and enter places of danger and what can happen when those filled with these character traits engage in [bold, brave, and even] dangerous activity—this all leads to salvation.” 

The kingdom of God must be born, created, welcomed, invited into being through our lives. The kingdom of God will not come to be simply because we ask for it to be. The kingdom of God will come to be because we walk the steps that Jesus walked, we love the way that Jesus loved, we lay down our hopes of salvation (Hosanna! Save us!) to pave the path of love.  

The love of God can transform the world. We believe this. That is what we profess in this Holy Week. With our fear, our panic, our anger, our sadness, our numbness. Bring all of that to our experience of the days ahead. Hosanna! Save us! These are the branches we have laid down beneath our worship. These are the branches that pave the way before us this week. Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Amen.