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April 9, 2006 - Palm Sunday, Year B

Palm Sunday. Once again
we process around the church, once again
we celebrate
the dramatic, triumphant celebrations
that accompanied Jesus' arrival into Jerusalem
so many years ago.

Imagine the excitement. The crowds are building; the great festival of the Passover is near. From the Bethany-Jerusalem road
you can see the tents clustered around the city walls,
pilgrims come to worship at this most holy of times.
And here, before they even reached the city,
was the teacher;
they had heard stories about him,
a man born blind
healed just down the road in Jericho;
a local, Lazarus, buried four days and brought alive from the tomb.
There would have been a stream of pious pilgrims anyway,
winding their way into the holy city,
but with this man among them
the stream became a river,
flowing along a bed of cloaks and branches,
a two mile long procession of a king and his court
come
to take possession
of the city,
singing psalms and shouting praise:
‘Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven! '

*****

A couple of months ago, I went on a walk up in the Litchfield Hills in northwest Connecticut. I began walking along a small road. It winds around a while, following the Housatonic River, wide and shallow, rushing over rocks and submerged branches. After half a mile or so, there was a path, running up the side of the hill into the trees. It began paved, but after a couple hundred feet, the paving crumbled into gravel and rotting leaves. Then buildings appeared through the trees, an abandoned campground, with silvery wood siding and porches with sagging roofs. Past that, the path became narrower, just a faint dirt trail through the woods. I followed it a bit further, listening carefully for the sounds of the bears and moose
that had been seen in the area.

And suddenly, through the trees, I began to hear something else, the rushing of water. And then I cam across it, a small stream, clear with the same small ripples and distortions you see in old glass, reflecting the light blue on its surface. It slid across pebbles and sand, rushing past stones, catching up pine needles and the occasional piece of moss pulled from a fallen branch.

I'd seen the same stream spilling into the river, wider there — there was a small bridge to cross it, and I dropped sticks in on the upstream side fo the bridge and watched them float out the other side and join the much larger force
of the Housatonic.

But up here it was purer, clearer, and somehow
more compelling. If it had been warmer, I might have taken off my boots and let it rush across my toes.

And it was this mountain stream that I thought of
as I read the opening verses of the psalm that we said today
as we processed
with our palms.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; *
his mercy endures for ever.
Let Israel now proclaim, *
"His mercy endures for ever."
It goes on for another couple of verses — we skipped them today — repeating that refrain, "his mercy endures forever"
It's one of those phrases
that keeps coming back, time and time again in the Old Testament,
after wars, in the middle of worship, at times of national celebration. In Psalm 136, it's the refrain for every verse, twenty six times
"God's mercy endures for ever."
Time and time and time again it is repeated,
relentlessly wearing itself
into the minds and hearts
of the people.

And it reminds me of that stream, flowing quietly, cleanly
but equally relentlessly
through the woods.

You see, we often tend to think of God's mercy
as something
that's essentially
a one-off deal.
We ask God for help, and assume that
if God's in a good mood, then God is merciful
and does what we want.
Other days,
the mercy switch is off,
and we are ignored.

But no, that's not how it works. There is no on/off switch.
No matter what happens
God's mercy is always on hand; God's mercy
endures for ever.
That's what the first couple of verses of Psalm 118, and all those other places in the Bible
want to celebrate.

And so the psalm goes on to talk
about all the times and places
where God has been merciful.
In times of trouble, in times of fear
God has been merciful.
Sometimes
God's mercy comes in the form of rescue;
sometimes
it's in the form of strength,
sometimes
it's the fact that we survive, we endure,
when even that
seems beyond us.
God's mercy comes, though sometimes
it doesn't come
in the way we expect it.
God's mercy
endures
forever.

And so the psalmist celebrates
with the words we hear
in our gospel for Palm Sunday,
"Hosanna, Lord, hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord;
we bless you from the house of the Lord."

But it doesn't end there. Because there's a shift, a turning point. After the celebration, after the great recital of all the things God has done, something changes. The psalmist stops talking about God
and begins to talk to God.

"You are my God, and I will thank you; *
you are my God, and I will exalt you."

It's one thing
to talk about God's mercy,
to stay at a safe distance;
it's another thing
to put yourself
in the hands of God's mercy,
to throw yourself in
with all your heart and mind and soul and strength.
"You are my God, and I will exalt you."

What I missed in my mountain stream
was the experience of the water itself. I could see it and hear it,
but unless I got right in there
the fact that it was water
was fairly theoretical.
But if I had stepped in, if I'd let it rush over my feet and wash them clean,
if I'd bent down and scooped up a handful to drink,
if I'd been able
to float down it like a stick or a leaf, down to the rushing water of the Housatonic
and eventually the massive force of the ocean,
I would have been part of something so much bigger, so much more wonderful, so much more life-giving
than I suspect I could ever dreamed of.

*****

Back at Palm Sunday
the pious pilgrims
get caught up in the stream of celebration,
and pour towards Jerusalem, shouting with loud voices,
‘Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven! '
They throw their cloaks on the road, they tear branches from trees, they lead this new king
right into the heart of Jerusalem, into the holy place,
the temple.
And then they stop.
Jesus looks around, and heads back out to Bethany
with only the twelve for company.
The crowds melt away.
And the next time we see them,
they are baying for his blood.
"Crucify him, crucify him!"
They couldn't go
the whole way with the psalm.
Hosanna, yes.
It's easy to celebrate
at a distance.
But "you are my God"? No.
That requires risk
and commitment.
But if only, if only
they had stayed.

It wouldn't
have been easy. To stay with a man
that they thought would be their savior
as he was betrayed, tried, whipped, crucified.
It would perhaps have been
the hardest thing
they could ever do.
But if they had, if they had stayed with him
all the way to the cross,
and stayed with him
all the way to the tomb,
they would have seen
what God's mercy
is really like. Seen it,
and experienced it for themselves.
The mercy of God
that led Christ
to die
for our sake.

Today
we have joined the crowds
following Jesus
to Jerusalem.
We have hailed him
as the king,
and celebrated his triumphant entry into the heart
of the holy city.
It's been easy, so far.

But now, now as we continue with our service,
as we meet with Christ
through his body and blood,
we need to decide
will we stay with him. Will we stay with him
these long hours of holy week,
will we stay with him
as he is betrayed
as he is tried
as he is whipped
as he is crucified.
Will we stay with him to the tomb?
And will we be found there, waiting
early on Easter morning,
waiting
for the mercy of God
endures for ever?

 

Sermon ©Raewynne J. Whiteley 2006