Both here and in all your churches
throughout the whole world. We adore you, O Christ and we bless you. Because by
your [+] holy cross you have redeemed the world. AMEN.
[Traditional Franciscan prayer upon
entering or leaving a church]
The readings for Palm Sunday provide
some of the most difficult texts any preacher has to work with at any time
during the church year. The brutal murder of Jesus and the events that lead up
to it are hard to hear, much less think about. Holy Week takes us from the
elation of the Palm Sunday procession to the absolute despair of Jesus’ last
breath. Our readings this morning offer little of comfort to us. And we are
particularly aware of such despair in times like our own.
In years past it may have been
difficult for some of us to fully enter into the events of Holy Week. They
seemed so distant from our daily lives. The idea of crucifixion alone was so
foreign to most of our experiences that while we may have felt sympathy for
Jesus and his followers, we really couldn’t relate to their experience.
This year, all of that has changed. Last
December, a tiny virus which has proven highly contagious and quite deadly
began to sweep our planet. As a result, the house of cards that we call modern
civilization began to fall apart. Health care systems have been overwhelmed,
our economy has tanked, and we find ourselves confined to our homes for the
duration, however long that might be. Several weeks into this contagion, I
think we are all beginning to understand what crucifixion really means.
This year there are many points in
the story line of Holy Week to which we can relate. We know that elation of
Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem, driven by hope of a messiah who would save his
countrymen and women from their worst fears. We have watched a stream of would-be
messiahs come across our televisions and monitors the past few weeks from the
fields of medicine, politics and religion.
All of them offered us hope, if only
fleeting, that we might yet avoid a seemingly inevitable date with the cross,
that things might return to normal and we could go on with our daily lives, the
virus a mere blip on the radar of history.
Each time, in our heart of hearts,
we have felt a glimmer of hope – Hurray! We are saved! And yet, like the
people of Jesus’ Judea, we have not been delivered from our distress. Our
trajectory toward crucifixion remains on course.
We know the feeling of betrayal by
holders of power. Perhaps we have a better sense of the realization that Jesus
must have had as he stood before Pilate, knowing that Pilate knew Jesus had
done nothing to merit punishment, much less death. And yet he also knew that
Pilate was more concerned with his own political future than doing the right
thing. And so Pilate decided to play to the basest elements of those he
governed and sacrifice an innocent man. And he exacerbated that wrongdoing by
dissembling about it: “I am innocent of this man’s blood.”
We live in a time when many of us
fear we cannot rely on those who hold power in our land to do the right thing
or to be honest about that. We live in a time when concerns for political
careers and economic profitability supersede responsibilities to people.
We see
it in the scapegoating of other nations for causing this virus resulting in
ethnic minorities who are our fellow citizens becoming targets for xenophobic
abuse. We see it in the playing of states against one another to obtain desperately
needed medical supplies. And we see it in when power holders, confronted with
the harm their decisions have caused, respond like Pilate: “I’m not
responsible for that.”
We also know the feeling of betrayal
by those people immediately around us. Jesus was betrayed first by a disciple
who collaborated with the Temple cult to hand him over to the Romans and later
by virtually all of his disciples who would abandon Jesus once trouble began.
It has always fascinated me that for all the bravado we hear among Jesus’ male
disciples, it is almost exclusively the women disciples who were present at his
procession to Golgotha, who stood at the foot of the cross as he died and who
returned as quickly as the law allowed to attend to his battered body. The rest
of the disciples are all scattered, hiding, protecting their own hides.
Many of us who went to the stores over the last couple of weeks looking for basic necessities from toilet paper to eggs, milk and bread experienced firsthand the feeling of betrayal by our fellow citizens. Feelings of fear in time of crisis are somewhat predictable.
But egocentric, irrational panic
buying and hoarding of necessities potentially endangers all of us. Worse yet, price
gauging among those who would provide goods that could mean the difference
between life and death for many engenders fear and loathing precisely at a
point when we most need to be able to trust one another and work together if we
are to survive.
At the end of Holy Week on Holy
Saturday, the shattered body of Jesus will lie in a tomb, alone. His followers will
be in hiding, fearful of discovery by the Roman authorities. No doubt they,
like us who hide from a killer virus in our homes, had little idea of how to
relate to a world that had changed so dramatically that they felt it was
literally coming to an end. And no doubt
they, like us found themselves wondering “What is going to happen to us?”
Truth be told, there can never be much
good news in weeks that end in crucifixion. The words of our Evening Prayer
rite spring to mind as we experience the darkness of the tomb: O God, make
speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us.
But I would like to offer three bits
of good news before we embark on this journey of Holy Week in a time of
pandemic.
First, we need to remember that
however painful our current suffering may be, it is not forever. When I was a naïve
younger man out trying to slay dragons and save the world, I encountered an
awful lot of disappointments. When I found myself most distressed by the events
of my own life and the world around me, my Dad would say to me: “This, too,
shall pass, Son.” I find myself repeating that mantra these past weeks of
watching the world familiar to me falling apart. I believe these words contain a
wisdom that is trustworthy: This, too, shall indeed pass. And history
tells us that is true.
Second, I find myself comforted by
the recognition that even in the most agonizing final moments of Jesus’ life,
the G_d he called Abba, Daddy, was still with him, even when it seemed that was
not the case. The writers of Matthew’s Gospel place the words of Psalm 22 on
the lips of Jesus: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I think
all of us can relate to this feeling of abandonment as our world crumbles
around us. Even so, G-d remained present with Jesus. As Paul tells us in his
letter to the Philippians, G-d will highly exalt this Jesus who willingly
endured the process of crucifixion to the bitter end. Jesus will not be
abandoned to the pit. And neither shall we.
There are many ways in which G-d’s
presence in our lives can become known during this time of crucifixion. This
ministry of making our liturgical services available online to those who must
remain in their homes is one of them. Our own willingness to remain in our
homes to prevent the spread of this virus is another.
Some of us see the presence of the
divine more clearly than ever in the faces of our grandchildren on FaceTime whom
we cannot visit in person. We see it in the heroism of the grocery store clerks
and the folks who pick up our trash and deliver our mail, in our law
enforcement agents, the nurses, and doctors. We see it in the social worker
reaching out to the homeless to warn them of the danger and teachers caravanning
past their students’ homes to remind them they are not forgotten. We see it in
the neighbors who stand on their porches and balconies to sing and play musical
instruments for us to join in on. We see it down the street when another
neighbor leaves a casserole on the stoop of an EMT who's been working long
overtime shifts because so many of her colleagues have been quarantined for
exposure.*
We, too, become agents of the divine
presence when we express our appreciation for workers in essential businesses
which remain open and our admiration for the public servants who are risking
their own lives in protecting us. If G-d’s saving presence is to be known in a
world undergoing crucifixion by a simple but powerful virus, it will be because
the people of G_d – and that would be all of us - have chosen to make that
presence known.
Here’s the third bit of good news.
Please note, this is a spoiler alert: At
the end of this ironically named Holy Week with the setting of the sun on Holy
Saturday, the day in which we commemorate Jesus’ lying in his tomb, the church will
begin a new liturgical season. Easter, the Feast of the Resurrection, celebrates
the reality that death does not have the last word with Jesus. And the good
news is that the crucifixion we are currently enduring will not have the last
word with us, either. At the end of
crucifixion lies resurrection.
To those of you who are watching
this day, whether parishioners here at St. Richards or those who have come to
our Facebook site on your own, know that you are loved and remembered by this
parish this day. Do not lose sight of the reality that this time of crucifixion,
too, shall pass. And have courage, knowing that G-d is with us always, even in
the valley of the shadow of death.
Blessings to all of us this Holy
Week as together we make our journey down the Via Dolorosa, this final passage
of the Way of the Cross.
Almighty and ever living
God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus
Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving
us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the
way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ
our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, [+] one God, for
ever and ever. Amen. [Collect appointed for Palm Sunday]
[A sermon offered on Palm Sunday, 2020
at St. Richard’s Parish, Winter Park, Fl]
* with
gratitude to the Franciscan Action Network for the examples used in this
section
A video
recording of the live delivery of this sermon is available at the St. Richard’s
Facebook site beginning at 23:30 into the recording:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If the unexamined life is not worth
living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is
not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.
For what does G-d require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?
(Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures)
Do not be daunted by the enormity
of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are
not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami
Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)
© Harry Coverston, 2020
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