Palm Sunday B 2006 Mark 14:32-15:47

Palm Sunday is the one time of the year when the whole congregation processes in with the choir, acolytes, and clergy. At least we do if the weather permits. Processions are like symbolic journeys. And any journeys can be nerve-wracking. There's all the packing to do. If we have children, they must be amused. Maps have to be consulted, arrangements made to stay in motels and the bank account raided. And then the travel itself – never easy these days. A journey is a major event. Our family journeys carry us westward to farther Kentucky and then South to Georgia, back through the Carolinas and then home. We stay exhausted for days afterward.

We might call Palm Sunday, "Journey Sunday." The lessons we read and hear take us from a field near Bethany to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, from there back to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to Golgotha. Finally there's the journey from Calvary to the tomb. Each one of these journeys is a major event in itself. Each new path taken seems to draw us deeper into the darkness of trial, crucifixion and that most horrible death on the Cross. Death and burial beckon us. Our Holy Week worship and observances only reinforce this reality. Perhaps that's why some of us avoid Holy Week – and many would like simply to get on to the Easter Parade. We like happy endings. We would prefer to skip the pain and get on with the joy!

One of the most neglected characters in the Palm Sunday story is the donkey. Donkeys are conservative folk. They like doing things the same old way. "Adventure" and "donkey" just don't go together.

The Palm Sunday story begins with a colt or donkey in a field. The donkey is obviously and Episcopalian because it loves tradition. It lives in the same field, treads the same path, and eats at the same hour-day-by-day, year-by-year. It might even prefer Morning Prayer to the Lord’s Supper – but, like Episcopalians every where, eating is a sacrament, too. Then one day, strangers enter the field, put a halter around the donkey and pull it away. Most donkeys would resist any change, however slight. Donkeys can be very stubborn. It is one thing to be called to do something within the context of the life we enjoy. Journeys of faith are something else.!

The donkey was taken to Jesus and clothes were put on its back. Jesus sat on the donkey. It had never been ridden before. Leave that to horses. The donkey might have done what donkeys do, reared, kicked, and thrown this person off. Carrying Jesus is for enthusiasts, religious fanatics, but surely not for us. What would our friends think?

Then the journey into Jerusalem began and the crowds cheered and gave Jesus a ticker tape reception. The donkey might have mistaken the cheers to be in honor and praise of donkeys! After all being a Jesus-carrying donkey was an extraordinary achievement. "A unique donkey am I," this animal might have thought. If it had attempted to acknowledge the crowds, Jesus might have been tossed aside. Instead the donkey plodded on to the place where Jesus would begin to complete his great work of redemption.

All through Holy Week we find people drawn to Jesus, who then almost immediately resist him, or try to change the story, avoid the consequences or denounce him. The crowds that had cheered him later cried "Crucify him!" Religious folk plotted his death. Most of the disciples ran away rather than face facing suffering and death. They feared the way the story was working out. They feared reality.

St. Peter denied him. After all Peter was important. He couldn't risk arrest. He was soon to be in charge. Jesus had told him so. In the end only Simon of Cyrene was prepared to be a faithful donkey and carry the cross, only the faithful and brave women and St. John, stood and watched the reality of a barbaric execution. Only Joseph of Arimathea was brave enough to offer a tomb and take Jesus’ body down from the Cross.

Each of these journeys draws us into a world that we fear – a world of darkness, betrayal, naked power, cowardice and death. Those of us who love a brave new world, inevitable progress, a comfortable pew, joy, peace, and love; who fear illness, separation, betrayal, darkness and death, may well be discomfited by this day and the days that lie ahead. Our faith is not an escape from reality. It draws us into the reality of this world as Jesus, who is one of us, and Jesus who is true God, confronts and submits to the worst human beings do in order to give us the grace to be the best human beings can be. Jesus dies. H e really dies an agonizing and dreadful death. In that agony, Jesus dies to all the acts of betrayal, false ambition, power, authority, evil and corruption that lie within the human race and within each of us.

For a few hours, when the last journey is over, we will be left with Jesus -- dead -- in a cold and dark tomb. There's no Easter in the lessons today. Nor will there be all week. Unless we can walk these paths, leaving our comfort zone, our self-satisfaction, daring to walk beyond safety into the darkness of evil and death, carrying Jesus to the tomb, we can not even begin to grasp the power of the Resurrection. We can only understand the Resurrection fully if we understand – fully – the meaning of the Crucifixion.

AMEN

Adapted from a Palm Sunday Sermon for 9 April 2006 by The Rev. Anthony F.M. Clavier, Selected Sermons, Worship that Works, dfms.org

Wicomico Parish Church
PO Box 70
Wicomico Church, Virginia 22579