Palm Sunday

Posted on March 25, 2018 by jamiebrame

For the pastor leading worship today, a paradox: the joy and triumph of Jesus’ entering Jerusalem AND the beginning of the worst week of Jesus’ life.

Yeah, I know, there’s Easter in sight: for us. For Jesus and the disciples and hangers-on and friends and family, there’s just these moments. The last week. Whatever happened on Palm Sunday rapidly fades into a week of intrigue. It makes a great movie. Maybe even a miniseries:  You can just hear the TV announcer saying, “Tonight, on The Last Seven Days of Jesus, see the Sanhedrin meet in secret and bring Judas into the plot to kill the Savior.” You could run it all week. If you use the St. Matthew account, the Good Friday episode would make for some great TV special effects.

The truth may be less thrilling than the TV show. Jesus had a following, that’s for sure: you don’t get yourself killed by the Romans (NOT the Jews, although the Jewish leaders certainly didn’t mind arranging things so that they did not have to break the letter of their law) for having twelve or so following you around in the woods. You have to wonder, though, what didn’t make it into the Gospels: are there things that Jesus said to make the Romans think he was planning a real coup? What don’t we know? What can we see by reading between the lines of the Gospel? If we were Jewish rabbis, what would be our Midrash, our story-behind-the-story, to explain why the Romans didn’t mind killing him (no matter how good Pilate has been dressed up so he doesn’t have to take the blame)?

We Christians are oh-so-careful not to add or subtract from the story, but our Jewish ancestors didn’t shy away from that approach to understanding scripture – and life! Midrash is telling “the rest of the story,” and it doesn’t have to be factual, it just has to explain “maybe” why something happened.

Maybe the Romans perked up some when this itinerant preacher comes riding up on a donkey with a noisy crowd, made up of passersby who were whipped into a frenzy by Jesus’ followers yelling “Hosanna,” joined in the screaming. Maybe the Gospel writers, writing at a time when perecution of the new sect was gaining intensity, thought it better to blame the Jews for Jesus’ death rather than the Romans, thus taking a little heat off themselves.  Yeah, that’s it: when you tell the story, find a scapegoat; don’t blame the real perpetrators of the Crucifixion (a Roman, not a Jewish, form of torture to death)!

Palm Sunday has a kind of strange celebration that changes midstream: in many churches, a processional meant to reenact the “Triumphal Entry” of Jesus into Jerusalem, with some kind of palm blade or branch, is held at the beginning of the service, but in the liturgical season of Lent, while we can shyly and half-heartedly shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” we cannot say the real praise word, “Alleluia!” That’s just the liturgical law, sorry. At some point, halfway through the service, it’s time to get back to reality. The parade was nice, thank you all for coming, but this guy Jesus might not be all he’s cracked up to be. And so the trouble starts.

The work of the pastor includes ministering to those folks who show up on Sunday but won’t be back during the week for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and whatever vigil might be held on Saturday. She’s got to move everyone through the week and end up with a dead guy. We go from joy to mourning. It’s not easy; the liturgical gymnastics it takes to do this means being really flexible spiritually; AND you’ve got to not spoil everything for the people who WILL take the time to be involved in the special Holy Week observances.

Damn! The preacher really DOES have to work hard sometimes, right?

Palm Sunday: appreciate what’s happening, if you choose to be in church that day. And let your pastor rest after it’s all over: this is deserved!

Unknown's avatar

About jamiebrame

Greetings, fellow earthlings. I'm the retired Program Director at Christmount, the national retreat, camp, and conference center of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), in Black Mountain, NC. From September 2019 through October, 2020, I served Timberlake Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Lynchburg, VA, as interim minister. After taking more than a year off, First Christian Church (DoC), Wilson, NC, offered me the position of Interim Minister, beginning May 10, 2022. Originally from Eden, NC, I graduated from John Motley Morehead High School, earned a BA in Religion and Philosophy at Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College), and eked out a Master of Divinity from the Divinity School at Duke University. I served, in various positions, churches (part time and full time) in North Carolina and Georgia, and have lived in Black Mountain, NC, since 1989. I married Renae in 1992 (she refers to these years as "looooooooooong" years. I've spent the past 50 years or so trying to practice Christian contemplative prayer with some touches of Zen meditation to help the journey along. Married to a wife who is much holier than I am, I am fortunate to learn from her daily about how to do this thing called spirituality. Being an ordained minister doesn't make me holy (but occasionally, as you'll read, a little sanctimonious, so forgive me in advance!); but I hope that I put my education to good use. I'd love to be considered a spiritual teacher, but I know myself too well to claim that. While I do a bit of teaching, I think the best teaching we do is when we remain silent (the old desert abba said something like, "if you won't learn from my silence, you won't learn from my talking"). But silence shouldn't turn into quietism, and we do have to speak out and act for justice and fairness and equality for all. I frequently ask myself the question, "Does it matter?" about the major - and minor - issues of the day. What I think matters: love for God, equality, fairness, loving our neighbor, feeding hungry people, housing homeless ones, clothing naked ones, and especially caring for children; basically, caring for those who have some trouble caring for themselves. AND our relationship with God. What doesn't matter: what you think of me. I'm not very Christ-like. You won't hear me talking about all the things I do for others, or all the things I do for God - I was taught that It's not about me, and using good works to get attention for myself isn't what Christian faith is about - look up "narcissism" on Google. I'm not sure Jesus thinks it matters much that I am like him or not, but I do. The old story from the rabbis is probably apropo: when I am hauled up before God at the end of time, God isn't going to ask me why I wasn't more like someone else: I will be asked why I wasn't more like me. The rabbis tell the story better. I'm still a work in progress, as Renae will attest to. Finally, I just hope that something you read here will make you think. Use what you can, ignore the rest. Go read some of the desert saints. Read the classics. Take care of people, never point to yourself, and don't follow me: I'm just hoping to be one more signpost to God. And as one friend reminded me the week before I left Christmount, "It matters." Oh, and my favorite color is probably blue, and I love cats, and I love my wife's music. I don't like beets.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a comment