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Palm Sunday is one of those irregular services which in recent years has been somewhat usurped by including the Passion Story within it. The premise is that few Believers will attend services on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, and so the lessons about Jesus’ crucifixion are read the week before. This is too bad, since Palm Sunday is quite important: here we learn about Jesus as the Alternative King, the One who comes In the Name of the Lord (as opposed to many who’d like to come in the name of Microsoft or General Electric…)

The central scriptures of the day are but two: the Gospel account of the Triumphal (?) Entry–and this section of the Psalms, Psalm 118:19ff. This psalm seems to teach us that our whole lives are set in the context of HESED, God’s Faithfulness. Was the psalmist prophesying about the Messiah, from almost a thousand years before? Certainly this passage was familiar to the Jews of Jesus’ time, since they readily sang, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” From our preaching standpoint, we might say that the author is speaking about the Righteous Community as opposed to “the nations” or business as usual. Palm Sunday then is opportunity to celebrate the uniqueness of What God Does with the stones that were considered by some to be an ill-fit.

The Gospel this year is that of Mark, who is amazed that Jesus knew about the waiting “colt”! Then he describes the motley parade, a parody of that which a military hero would stage, in which the rabble themselves were the song: ”
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” The authorities were uncomfortable, knowing somehow that they were being tweaked. A Palm Sunday sermon/study needs to include this sense of the holy deflating the puffed-up. The arrogant persecution of Good Friday is thus set up as the battle lines were drawn. Charles L. Campbell says, “In his ‘triumphal entry’ Jesus lampoons the ‘powers-that-be’ and their pretentions to glory and dominion, and he enacts an alternative to their way of domination.

The One who comes in the name of the Lord comes to the navel of th spiritual world to confront the idolatry of pomp and circumstance. Participants in this liturgy need look beyond the merely historical to appreciate the radical difference being announced–and to become immersed in a difficult yet enduring arrangement of the Holy Life.

God Bless Us, Every One        Horace Brown King

Maybe it’s the weather.  Or maybe Lent.  Sometimes I weary of being “prophetic”, of trying to speak and live an ethic of Christian Discipleship.  My contributions to conversation are usually greeted with blank stares and crinkled brow; is there room for integrity and sharing and humility anywhere?  In my morning devotions I read from the First Letter of John, “…the [spirit] who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”  I hope so…yet I wonder.

Readings for this Fifth Sunday in Lent deal with the quest for God’s presence.  We begin with Jeremiah 31:31-34 — the announcement of a New Covenant written on the hearts of those of the faith community.  “I will be their God, and they shall be my people…I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”  Had the houses of Israel and Judah given up on this promise, in those six centuries until Jesus?  Through occupations by foreign armies and cultural multi-national infiltration, did they also pray, “Where, O Where?”

Later Hebrews hedged about the divine origin of Jesus, “who learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Hebrews 5:8-9)   ‘Way too adoptionist for me: I believe Jesus was the Christ at birth, not as a result of suffering/purification.  Yet the phrase “the source of eternal salvation” speaks to our craving for the tangency of both Temporal and Holy to be experienced daily.

John 12:20-33 is one of those passages needing study from any number of acrobatic positions.  For me, it’s better to take it one or two verses at a time, perhaps ignoring any sense of continuity.  Our purposes here would focus on the Gentile seekers (asking “Where, O Where?”) who came to Philip saying, “We wish to see Jesus.”  I suppose they wanted a one-on-one interview…yet there’s a longing there expressed by men and women of all ages who–at one point or another– realize that there must be Something More.

Paul McCartney’s song advises the world to “Live and Let Die”, a tragic surrender to the Devil of the Noon-Day Sun whose mantra is “Whatever”.  I won’t criticize, for I cannot.  Another song says, “The sun’ll come out tomorrow; betcher’ bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun.”  Where?  O Where?

God Help Us, Every One            Horace Brown King

Lucy The Cat stands half-way out the door with her head back and eyes slitted, sniffing the air  that’s much fresher than that of our winter-locked house.  She’s checking to see which of her friends–or not–have traversed her back porch, perhaps leaving messages there.  She’s much better than I or other humans at using this sense to evaluate the nearby environment.  This weekend’s scripture readings have a certain atmosphere about them:  is there something new in the air?

Numbers, a book rarely visited, tells about the complaints of the Exodus People struggling through the wilderness: “it was better in Egypt!”   They didn’t like the bitter water, so Yahweh showed Moses how to sweeten it.  They complained about no bread, so Yahweh sent manna.  Dying of thirst, Yahweh showed Moses where to strike the rock.  Complaining of a rigid diet, Yahweh sent them quails.  In the 21st chapter we read, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water,  and we detest this miserable food!” (v.5)  Then the Lord sent poisonous snakes… (“You wanna complain?  I’ll give you something to complain about!!”)   So Moses made a serpent of bronze, by Yahweh’s direction, and set it on a high pole.  “Whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.”  Look…up in the sky…it’s a serpent!

Paul didn’t like snakes any more than I do, which is minimal.  But he wrote to the Ephesians about the contrast in their lives between Then and Now.  “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air…” (2:1-2)  Like the aforementioned Lucy, he was remarking on the contrast in their lives, a Breath of Fresh Air in Christ.  Here again we welcome Grace, extended in kindness to save us from the wilderness.

John’s Gospel introduces Nicodemus as a leader of the Old Way, and Chapter Three clears the air about the person of Jesus.  We often fixate on verse 16 without landing on the preceding verses:  “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  As Jesus is lifted up on the cross AND lifted to heaven –a continuous process in this Gospel–those who see him (even though snake-bitten) will live.  Is there something new in the air, Nicodemus?

The season of Lent confronts us with the appreciation of a new atmosphere.  Although hope for Spring springs eternal in our feline’s heart, the time of renewal doesn’t lurk yet behind the door!  We have wintry days to live out, and still are nipped by frosty serpents.  BUT a richer air is gonna come, I believe it!

God Bless Us, Every One              Horace Brown King

John Wesley once said that Christians are a “peculiar people”.  Some of us are more peculiar than others!  From our inception as God’s People traveling through the Sinai wilderness, the folks who follow The Lord are advertized as marching to a different drummer, living an alternative life-style.  What ethic separates us from the Rest of the World?  What understanding creates a set-aside from the prevailing common sense?  This week’s Holy Readings remind us during Lent of Why We Act So Strange.

We begin in  the Twentieth Chapter of Exodus, the Ten Commandments, controversial four thousand years ago as they are today.  With only a passing nod to Hollywood, we skip the logistics of an extended mountain survival and the lack of written language to get to the meat of the message:  this is how we understand our God and God’s people to act.  Four of the Commandments explore how God deals with the People; the remaining six deal with how the People deal with themselves/the  “neighbor”.  The bottom line is the development of Respect and Loving Concern within the faith-community in order to survive and prosper.  This is really unique in a me-first, grab-what-you-can culture!

St. Paul pulls no punches in his first Letter to the Church at Corinth.  “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1:18)  He continues to say that our worship and discipleship of the crucified Christ is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks (Gentiles), Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  Community members who attempt to live in the ethic of self-giving and sublimation to the Greater Good will indeed be considered Strange by those who haven’t yet caught the Divine Vision.

The Gospel is John’s account of Jesus driving the purveyors of commerce from the Jerusalem Temple (2:13-22).  John places it near the beginning of the narrative to announce that from henceforthThe Lord is taking a violent stand against business-as-usual, is publicly adopting an alternative core value which contrasts to the prevailing ho-hum attitude.  Is this the same teacher who later allowed healing and eating on the Sabbath?  The bottom line here is: How secular can the Church afford to be without losing itself??   My generation of clergy has embraced the mission of giving the Church visibility within the MarketPlace:  have we gone too far?  Have we diluted Holiness?

No doubt about it, we ARE a peculiar people!  An ancient saint named Mathetes noted that we live within a greater culture, and yet “display [our] wonderful and confessedly striking method of life….They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives….they are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all…” (from “Epistle to Diogenetus”)  What is the central ethic driving our daily attitude and behavior?  May Lent be rich with new and expanded awareness!  They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love…..

God Bless Us, Every One                    Horace Brown King