"Procession"

“Procession”

2011 Palm Sunday

During the years I was a seminary student at San Francisco Theological Seminary, I worshiped frequently at Saint Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church.  I’ll never forget my first Palm Sunday with that congregation.  At that time, the congregation was in lower Pacific Heights in downtown San Francisco.  The parade was complete with palm branches—large, fan-like branches, nearly as big as me, thuribles with billowing incense, drums, bells and  tall staffs with silver, Ethiopian crosses at the top of each long rod.  The clergy wore brightly dyed chasubles from African cloth and the congregation sang and marched as one around the large San Francisco city block.       
           

Author Sarah Miles, now a member of Saint Gregory’s, recently wrote  about another procession, a procession on Ash Wednesday.  Forty days earlier, she had walked with a dozen priests in black cassocks, around the busy, crowded Mission District, carrying little jars of ashes from the burned up palms of last year’s Palm Sunday.  They went into dollar stores, taquerias, alleys, bars and the parking lot where dealers sell dope, offering ashes to everyone they saw.  “Remember you’re dust, and to dust you shall return,” they said, in English and Spanish.
       

She told of touching hundreds and hundreds of faces: a guy stopped at a traffic light, a girl on a tricycle, an elderly woman getting her hair done.  A woman un-wrapped her tiny baby, a week and a half old, and held him up. Sarah crossed his forehead with ashes, and took a deep breath, and told the baby he was going to die. And then his mother, like every single person who leaned forward to receive ashes that day, said: thank you.
        

  I had a similar experience in our Ash Wednesday service, here.  My hands trembled a bit as I marked ashes on the foreheads of adults and even my own children, and reminded them they would return to dust.  They also said “thank you.”  Why would we say "thank you" when someone tells us we’re going to die?  Because it's real, and it’s the truth. And ashes on skin show that, despite all the ways we try to deny death, with the reminder of ashes, nothing is hidden, or pretend, or made-up anymore. 
           

Now today, forty days later, we (and most churches) process again,  to see once more if we can face the truth. This time Jesus is raising the stakes. Because it’s not just facing our own mortality — Palm Sunday means acknowledging how we try to kill our God.”
        A cheering, chanting, dizzy crowd
        Had stripped the green trees bare,
        And hailing Christ as king aloud,
        Waved branches in the air.
   

It’s strange, isn’t it?   How quickly this crowd in Jerusalem changed their mind about Jesus?   If we follow the liturgical sequence--it’s Jesus the victor on Palm Sunday and then Jesus the villain by Thursday night!  That is a serious drop in the ratings!  Charlie Sheen or Tiger Woods couldn’t  top that!   What could Jesus possibly have done in one week that so disillusioned his supporters that they turned on him, called for a criminal in his place, and were glad to see him killed?
           

Was it just an example of fickle crowds?   After all, we love winners.  Just follow professional sports:  when the team is winning-- the stadiums are full.  When the team hits a losing streak, the crowds thin out.  Political supporters, pop idol followers, or sports fans; crowds are at their best when they’re  cheering on a winner. 
           

What motivated those crowds?   What were they were seeking from Jesus?  Was it a case of disappointed expectations?  Did they believe that violence saves, and were therefore disappointed that Jesus was not a military messiah—and turned against him?
           

During this Lent, we’ve been asking “leading questions.”  On this last Sunday in Lent, here are some more:    What motivates us? What do we seek in Jesus?  Why do we pledge our allegiance to him on Sunday and yet too often turn our attention elsewhere the rest of the week?
           

Can we see ourselves in this fickle crowd?   Have we felt it in our own hearts?   Have we ever been so set in our own expectations that we turned away from the love and invitation of Jesus?  At these moments of challenge couldn’t we gladly do away with him?
           

The job we knew was just right—that went to another.  The person we  loved—who chose someone else.  The pregnancy that didn’t come to term.  The prayers we prayed for healing that didn’t bring about a cure.  In each of those disappointments—can’t we see in ourselves angry frustration that God is not who we expected—not who we hoped for!  At these moments, can’t we just do away with God?  Can we see ourselves in this crowd?
   

I love the New Yorker cartoon that shows a gathering of urbane friends sipping wine at a meal.  One man says to the others:  “I’m in the market for an easier religion.”
           

This procession from Palm Sunday, through the suffering of the cross, toward Easter, may make us feel that same way.  I’m in the market for something easier!  Something with less emphasis upon self-giving, and more on winning!  When I’m really honest, I realize:  most of the time, I have a pretty clear idea of what I want, and if God isn’t living up to those expectations—then I’ll just pay less attention to God!
   

What if  the ashes on our skin, the difficult road to the cross, the procession through Holy Week was about stopping our denial, about accepting what God does want for us:  simply:  compassion, forgiveness, non-violence, right-relationship with one another and our world?
           

It is at times like these, that I try hard to remember the words of Martin Luther King Jr.,  “The truth will set you free, as Jesus said.  But first it will make you very angry!”
     They laid their garments in the road
    And spread his path with palms
    And vows of lasting love bestowed
    With royal hymns and praise.
           

Roman “peace” was the “Pax Romana.”  But the peace of the Roman Empire was kept by force:  legions of troops and the enslavement of peoples the empire had conquered.  The Roman generals, who won battles, came home by triumphal procession.  Do you remember the scenes from the movie Ben Hur?  When Judah arrived by chariot with his adopted Roman father, triumphant from battle?   That scene did a great job of showing the pomp of the procession:  the powerful horses, the cheering crowds.  The Romans would shout “Io triumphe!”  Meaning “I’ve conquered.   Rome’s peace was not peaceful.
           

Jesus’ arrival to Jerusalem mimicked the Roman triumphal procession.  But it was remarkable in contrast.  Horses in the ancient world were used for war.  Jesus processed by donkey, not by horse.  Donkeys were pack animals and ridden by all classes of people.  The shout of the people was not “I’ve conquered!” but instead, they shouted "Hosanna" – hosha'na in Hebrew. "Save now!"  This procession looked more like a peace protest than anything like a Roman triumphal march.

From the very beginning of the book of Matthew, there is a resounding theme that Jesus is the descendant of King David.  The people were hungry for one who would free them from the oppression of Roman occupation. 

On that spring day in A.D. 30, the Sunday before Passover, there were many hoping for a messiah like David or Solomon to drive out the hated Romans and restore Israel to its glory days.  

Their hopes were high!  But Jesus wasn’t who they expected.

The passage preceding this one, one of the many times when Jesus is called the “son of David”, is where he is moved with compassion by the two blind men, sitting by the road.  He touches their eyes, and they regain their sight.  This is the ‘king’ we follow—a king of compassion, a prince of peace.
          
    When day dimmed down to deep’ning dark
    The crowd began to fade
    ‘til only trampled leaves and bark
    Were left from the parade.

            When have your hopes been dashed?  Have you ever been almost certain you know what God wanted for you, only to have it lost, or never realized?  Facing the beauty and sadness, and not turning away.  Being real.  Forgiving. Loving.  Caring enough to be involved.  Trusting, when it goes against our insecurities and fears,  trusting that we—and our longings-- are in God’s hands.
    Lest we be fooled because our hearts
    Have surged with passing praise,
    Remind us, God, as this week starts
    Where Christ has fixed his gaze.
     

Jesus willingly proceeds to Jerusalem.   He rides the donkey up to Jerusalem, is honored as a king, and then in short order is betrayed by his friends, tortured, and executed.  Jesus shows us that following him it all is about the willingness to face and absorb the hard truths of human violence and  pride and weakness — and to love and forgive and stay with us anyway, so that sin and death will have no more power. His passion is not sentimental, but fierce. It goes all the way.
      

Following Jesus on this path to new life means we have to stop pretending. The truth is that we will eventually die. That we can't always prevent the pain of our family or friends. That loved ones as well as strangers will betray us. And that we will hurt and fail others.
          

The walk to the cross, the procession through holy week:  it’s real.  It’s being human.  As we process outside our churches, may we see how much we have in common with all of Jesus’ beloved people: the neighbors at the coffee shop; the shoppers at the supermarket and the nonbelievers on MAX, and every random person who happens to be doing errands on Palm Sunday — each bearing her own cross. May we see how much we are like the crowd who hails Jesus with palm branches, then screams for his death. May we face the beauty and sadness of humanity — and not turn away.
   

And so we walk out of the ashes, out of Lent, out into Holy Week, out the doors of church, into the suffering world.   We walk toward Easter.  Could it be that every terrible thing we've done, every mistake, every hurt is redeemed?  And that and life, eternal, is all around us?
     

Instead if palms, a winding sheet
    Will have to be unrolled,
    A carpet much more fit to greet
    The king a cross will hold.
    —Thomas Troeger