Palm Sunday Homily following the reading of the Passion

March 28, 2010

Dear friends, all over the world this morning, congregations are sitting under wood beams and plastered roofs, in creaky pews and cushioned chairs, staring at stained glass and pulled down screens.  People of every age, race, economic means, and culture are hearing the words we just heard.  People with names like John, Jose, Yosef, Amin, Kim Sung, Gohar and Abdul are standing at the front of their churches saying the lines we just said.  For a few moments, over 2 billion people, more than 1/3 of the planet was united and connected.

This morning, the morning we recall with specific detail, the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, we remember two critical truths.  First, we bring to the forefront of our minds that the only truly unique human being without peer or equal to walk this earth was the Son of God – Jesus Christ.  He came to do what no other entity could do and that was to take on all sins and brokenness of the human race; past, present and future.  He came to redeem and make fresh, to provide the means to a better reality. 

The second truth that folk across the globe understand this morning is that unlike unique and singular Jesus, we are all connected in our humanity.  We are all much more alike than different.  Each of us, made in the image of God, have the capacity for wisdom and compassion, mercy and kindness, strength and noble purpose.  Wired with choice, designed and engineered with free will, we each also come with the capacity for cruelty and selfishness, deceit and theft, weakness and fear.  Each of us, every human being, is connected to the other by our common heritage and by our common makeup.  We are the human family.  We share the same original lineage and the same dual nature.  We are related in that we are both noble and fallen.  On any given day, at any precise moment in time, every human being on the face of the earth can be responding from his higher or his fallen nature.  Every human being can be acting as if in the company of angels or as plagued by demons.  We make countless choices and we are capable of great goodness and embarrassing baseness.

And, the truth of our commonality and the truth of our warring essence is why people gather on this Sunday and read the passion aloud and in multiple voices.  Jesus was singular, but every other person alive and active in that historical event is more than a participating figure.  Every other character in that documented drama was a representative for all of us.  Each person present from Thursday evening until dawn on Sunday stands in for us and reminds us that despite the ideal we carry in our hearts, we all can be the betrayer, the denier, the accuser, the coward, or a person swept along by anger and mob mentality.  We can also be the mourner and the minister, the person who remains steadfast and loyal.  Every one of us can be, has been, will be again both noble and fallen.  And because of God’s grace and his son’s sacrifice, we have the option and opportunity to take on a better part the next time around.  This is the ultimate, prevailing, saving good news that emerges from the dark, tragic, troubling account we just endured.

On a given day, we who call ourselves Christian, who say I follow the lessons and ethos of Jesus Christ, will act in a way that misrepresents his teaching.  In those actions, we will be like Judas.  We will betray the legacy he left us and diminish his example.  On a given day, we will be anxious about being included as one of his followers.  We won’t want to be seen as one of “those kind of Christians,” loud and judgmental, and in those moments, we will be like Peter and we’ll deny our association.  We’ll put distance between ourselves and the one who gave everything for us.  On a given day, we will be like the servant girl who found the followers of Jesus odd and out of step with the common culture.  We will be dismissive of the one we say we follow.

Sometime, we might find ourselves more concerned with maintaining “the tradition,” than being open to new revelation.  Sometime we might feel threatened by a challenge in Christ’s call. In those hours, we might react exactly as the chief priests.  Maybe there will be days we will want to do the “right thing,” but the realities of the world, the need to be secure and expedient will dominate our thoughts as so we will react as the pragmatist Pilate.  I daresay there have been times when I and other folk I know have acted like the second criminal, the one hanging to the right of Jesus.  In times of stress and dismay, I’ve been known to be particularly solicitous of Jesus.  “Lord, please, please see me as one of your own.  Please, remember me and make everything turn out okay.  And I imagine we’ve all had moments when we’ve responded like the acquaintances and the women and Joseph of Arimathea. 

I imagine that as faithful followers, we have had singular incidents where we have been present and loyal, grounded and committed, where we’ve not denied nor run away from our attachment to God’s Son come to save us. 

Today, this week, as we recall and grapple with our Lord’s monumental sacrifice and expansive goodness, let us also process our full human nature and human connection.  We are Judas and Peter, Pilate and Joseph.  We are Mary and Barabas.  But, because he came among us – as one of us, and because pure and sinless, he died for us – we now have the option, the opportunity to pick the character we will be in the Resurrection. 

Dear ones, this is the week Christ walks to the cross for us. This is the week we decide who we’ll be on the road with him.