Palm Sunday
March 24, 2013
Pine Valley Christian Church
Rev. David Hansen
Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem as a bearer of God’s grace and an ambassador of God’s love. He knew that he was living on the outer edge of risk and possibility. But he was willing to go there for the sake of bringing his faith into the light—showing up so that others would have the opportunity to make a choice about how to live their life—as God gives each of us that choice.
When we assemble for worship as a community gathered in Jesus’ name, when we come to his table and eat this bread and drink this cup, we affirm that our lives are rooted in his story. We have made this choice. Our lives are guided and nourished by our memory of the gospel. The event that we celebrate on Palm Sunday is not only a memory of things past; it is also an embodied hope for the future. We declare ourselves to be bearers of God’s grace and ambassadors of God’s love, living on the edge of risk and possibility.
The other day (Saturday, March 23, 2013), I was at the Metroplex for a public forum sponsored by our state legislators. The Shoulder to Shoulder Band was there playing and singing great songs to welcome and inspire people as they entered the building to talk with their legislators. When the band was told by campus security that they were not allowed to play there and they had to leave, the band stayed and played on. Inside the building people spoke of their concerns to their legislators. There were some heated exchanges and moments when patience and civility were tested. Health care was one of the issues. Parents and care-givers told their stories of how the proposed changes in the law would put their loved ones at risk. Some, not all, but some, legislators were busy on their on their cell phones as people made their case and told their stories. As the meeting was drawing to a close one person came to the microphone and said that he had que-tips for members of the legislature so that they could clean out their ears and hear what people were saying because they were not listening. It was theater to be sure, but that is what the Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem was, too. It was street theater. Jesus was demonstrating a future in which people listen to each other and care for and about one another. And, he challenged his followers to become instruments of grace and ambassadors of love working together so that all people will know the limitless love of God.
I want to speak briefly about this love and about the sacrifice of Jesus and the meaning of the cross and the crown of thorns that we see on the table before us (in the center of the Great Hall). It was Anselm, the second Archbishop of Canterbury, who, in the twelfth century, developed a theology of atonement that we often hear preached today. His idea was that human sin has created a separation between God and creation and that God’s sense of justice required that someone had to pay the price for this, and that this is what Jesus did. To put it as simply as I can, Anselm taught that Jesus had to die in order to satisfy God’s demand for justice.
Fortunately, there is another way to understand the events of Holy Week. Jesus’ whole ministry was about creating community. His life was devoted to establishing a community in which all people are included—the clean and the unclean, the lepers, the demon-possessed, the marginalized and disenfranchised, those who live in the economic shadows of society and under the bridges, people who sleep in shelters and those of us who have homes to go to and food on our tables. Jesus devoted his life to creating a society in which everyone has a place at the table. In this view, his death is the fulfillment of his life. He did not die to appease God; he died to demonstrate the power of God’s love. He died to break down the dividing walls that separate the clean and the unclean, the pure and the impure, the have-gots and the have-nots. He died to bring to light what the Letter of James calls “the royal way” of love. He died believing that through his death, as in his life, he could create a more open and humane society.
Bill Coffin, who is one of my favorite preachers and authors, says that it is a distortion of the gospel to put the purity of dogma ahead of the integrity of love. We are not called to unlimited certainty and limited sympathy, but just the reverse; we are called to limited certainty and unlimited sympathy. What we can be certain of is God’s love for all of creation.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem he was not only confronting Herod and Pilate, he was confronting complacency. He was confronting people who are too comfortable with the way things are, and to willing to forget about the way things could be.
That is why he told his followers, “Take this bread, and eat. Take this cup, and drink.” Eat, drink and become a passionate and caring people willing to live on the outer edge of risk and possibility for the sake of love.
*The Palm Sunday worship service we cancelled because of a snow storm.