Hosanna!

Scriptures: Isaiah 11:1-9, Matthew 21:1-11
 

 One week ago, I was at the Hands-off protest in the little town of Lihue, on Kauai. For a couple of blocks people lined the street on both sides, cheering and waving all manner of signs, while music blared over the loud speaker: I get knocked down, but I get up again… We didn’t start the fire, the music mingling with the rhythmic pounding of a group of hand drummers, voices shouting and horns honking. I teared up, of course, picturing us here, on this tiny island way out in the Pacific Ocean, hours after everyone else, sharing in this thing that was happening all over the country. The feeling of collective action and comradery was electric.  It felt like hope, like possibility, like anticipation, like we were part of something bigger, something coming.

 
And then I saw him. The man in the tan t-shirt and fishing hat, bouncing an actual tiny palm tree in the air.  And it stopped me short. Because of course, I thought of this moment.  
 
How different are we, really from those 2000 years ago who lined the streets on Palm Sunday shouting,Hosanna, which means Save us!, protesting an oppressive regime and anticipating deliverance by this one who would restore their rightful place, and take his place as king, and rule them like King David did 1000 years before? 
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
 
Those in Jerusalem that day wanted Jesus to save them from the Roman Empire, to make Israel great again, to bring back stability, and raise up the weak, and destroy the corrupt mighty.  And maybe they even had in their minds the idea that Jesus was the fulfillment of prophesy. Because while, for Holy Week, we’ve momentarily jumped forward 600 years to join this crowd and walk this week with Jesus, we get to hear these events with their ancestors in mind.  And certainly, it’s possible that, standing there on their spread-out cloaks with their own palms waving in the air, they were recollecting the same stories we are working our way through. If we think back to Lisa’s sermon last week,we will recall that the kingdom of David and Solomon had crumbled, their homeland was destroyed by the Babylonians, and the people are in exile, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Today’s prophetic message from Isaiah comes to them fifty years in, give or take, when they’ve pretty much settled into their lives in Babylon. Some families in ongoing despair and suffering, others are getting comfortable in the empire. Into that accommodation and apathy, that acquiescing to the status quo of exile, here comes the prophetic promise of a savior who will deliver them from captivity. 
 
And with a scripture we normally read at Christmas time, we hear of the One from the root of Jesse who shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and who is ushering in a kingdom of peace so counterintuitive to the natural order of things that fear is nonexistent – lambs and wolves hanging out, calves and cubs cuddling, children and snakes all safe together.  “No one will be hurt on God’s holy mountain” it promises. “Just as water fills the sea, the whole earth will be full of people who know and love the Lord.”
 
So maybe that day with their palms in hand they remembered the prophet’s promise to their ancestors 600 years before. And maybe, just like we do on Christmas, they’re declaring that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s salvation, and maybe, also like us, they’ve decided what that salvation looks like so they’re making Jesus into who they think Jesus should be for them. Whether we think Jesus should keep us safe and prevent bad things from happening, take away our pain, strong-arm our enemies, or make us into supernaturally good people, however our version of God’s plan goes or our view of salvation looks, they had their version too, and figured he would fulfill it.

And like his very first journey on a donkey in the womb of his young mother Mary, when the world had no idea know what was coming, once again, he will take the cosmos by surprise.  Because beyond everything we think salvation should be, God’s way of love flips things upside down and inside out, it is unrelenting and quiet, foolish and strange. Jesus wasn’t there to lead the revolution at all, he was there to die. The things the people projected onto him were not going to happen. And just a few days later this whole crowd will join in collective chanting again. This time, instead of ‘Hosanna!’ They’ll chant ‘Crucify Him!’ without even a bit of irony or self-awareness. 

But the prophetic beauty and power of this moment is that, even though they’ve got messed up motives and confused ideas and false assumptions, what they are saying is completely true, part of the fabric of all things most true. Jesus does save us. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the lord. 

So I return to that fellow in the bucket hat at the protest last week, bobbing his palm up and down in time to the music. He didn’t bring a sign that said one thing; he used his foliage to affirm everything, to say ‘here, here!’ to it all, a bouncing exclamation point to every the messages surrounding him on cardboard, to all the stop doing this, bring back that, cruel and mocking jokes, heartfelt pleas, clever slogans and desperate longings, held by people joining together and projecting our desires, despairs, and prognostications into the air alongside one another, all of us shouting all our various Hosannas and Save uses into the atmosphere. 
 
Who were we aiming them all at? I guess we were aiming them at each other, at the collective consciousness, the universe, the far away government on the other side of the ocean. Perhaps at all those people in all those other time zones who did this before us, like some kind of call and delayed response. 
But mainly, to be honest, we were aiming them at the passing cars. If they honked and gave us the hang-loose hand out their window, the cheering got louder. We got a response! They agree! They’re with us! It was like facebook “likes” and Instagram hearts in real life -the literal thumbs up right to our faces, a feel-good echo chamber of our shared discontentment and frustrations, elevated by peppy music and comforting companionship.  And that is not a bad thing – making our voices heard matters, and it felt good. And then it pittered out, and eventually we tossed our signs in the back seat of the car to be recycled later and wandered off to a noodle house for lunch.
 
But it made me realize that as heartening as that was, it only goes so far what I was really craving was thisrally. The one where the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee when God incarnate meanders on a donkey through the middle of people’s expectations and projections to bring us the salvation we need, and not the salvation we think we want.  
Because if our salvation is up to us, to shout it back and forth to each other, to cajole and persuade other selfish, broken human beings to do the right thing, we have no hope. Left to our own devices, we’ll just grasp onto stability enough, a sufficient status quo of empire apathy that lets us turn away from our human siblings, slowly destroy this beloved planet, and perpetuate cruel injustice and dismissive division with maybe a veneer of civility.
We’ll wave our Yes at whatever makes us feel heard and seen, and fear will keep being our driving force. We’ll keep hating our enemies, and flapping our competing signs and propping up our conflicting causes and getting a thrill from the responses we solicit and calling it progress. We’ll elect good people, and bad people, and good people again, and if we get our way, life will go on pretty much the same with a few tweaks, while the threat of death looms as large as it ever has.  We need something from outside ourselves to do the saving.
 
Palm Sunday can feel a bit weird and superfluous, like a mini-Easter. Hooray! Jesus is the coming King! But really, Palm Sunday the culmination of Lent. It's the false finale that draws out all our counterfeit redemptions.  We wave our palms and shout our hosannas and save uses, thinking This is it! It’s going to happen like we want it to! and take all our self-deception and salvation projections—all we think we want and need, who we think God should be for us and what we think God should do for us—and we aim it right at Christ. We load all our misguided intentions, our self-centered solutions, and our sureness of what will save us, onto his shoulders, while he rides by us, perched atop that little donkey.  And Jesus welcomes them into himself, absorbs all of them, and carries these sins to the cross. There our cries for salvation will be answered, just not how we think they should be. 

There God incarnate submits completely to the human experience of suffering and death, so that nothing can separate us from God’s love. God has come, God is here, God loves this world and everyone in it far more than any of us do, and despite us, God is redeeming it all. As Lisa and the prophets reminded us last week, “we live in hope, because we know that God will act. We don’t know the why, nor the how, nor the when. We cannot predict God’s miracles, but we live in the certainty of God’s redeeming power.”
 
However, our hosannas get shouted, or whatever our palm branches represent for us today: God is breaking in, that God has come to share this life with you and me, and something irreversible is about to take place.  
Salvation is what God does and will keep on doing until it is complete. We don’t compel it, and we can’t thwart it. God is saving the world. So, bring your needs and longings and ask away. The Holy Spirit will translate our prayers, and God will bring the saving that we need. 
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest.
Amen.
 

Palm Sunday Parade

Palm Sunday, by Kai Althoff

The Lenten stories of Nicodemus, the Woman at the Well, and Lazarus, revisited

by Lisa Larges & Kara K Root

Matthew 21:1-11, John 3:1-17, John 4:1-42, John 11:1-44

The hallway is decorated for a parade, streamers are across the ceiling, confetti is on the floor. Palm shrubs line the walls, and branches are scattered around.  The congregation walks through the hall to reach the sanctuary, where they gather for worship.

Partway through the worship service, loud, raucous crowd sounds are heard coming from the hallway, cow bells, shouting, cheering.  The sounds of Mardi Gras are seeping through the cracks in the door. (A recording is playing in the hallway).

The door opens, and Nicodemus slips into the sanctuary.  He is dressed in a professional suit, with an official-looking badge clipped to the front.  In his arms, he holds a sleeping baby.

 Nicodemus

 Oh!

I didn’t realize anyone else was in here.

I had to get away!

I couldn’t bear it any longer.

I’m still one of them, after all, so what can I do?

There was that one time when I tried to speak up for him, I said, “Shouldn’t we at least give him a hearing? “ [John 7:50]

Now I worry, was that too much?

I think to myself, It’s too dangerous to try to defend him. I can just be quiet and say nothing.

So there I am with them, watching as he comes in to town. Seeing the joy on the faces. Seeing him there, calm, dignified.

Is this what he meant when he said, “The wind will blow where it will?”

But I can’t show joy.

I’m with them.

They’re all busy scanning the crowd, taking down the names of people they recognize. And as always, the talk turns to, what charges can we bring against him, in order to, as they say, “dispose of the problem.”

And, suspicion is everywhere.

It’s wormed its way in to me.

The longer I say nothing, the more I imagine they must be suspicious of me too.

“Why are you so quiet?”

Nicodemus, are you one of them too?”

But, I’m sure no one knows that I had talked to him.

At least, I think I’m sure. I went out at night.

The whole house was asleep. I made sure no one was following me.

And it was just him and me, there in the middle of the night – the soft evening wind tossing the branches of the trees. I kept looking around to see if anyone was there, but it was just the wind.

“The wind blows where it will,” he said, “You don’t know where it comes from, or where it will go.”

True enough, I thought to myself.

He said that the Spirit of God was like that too.

I don’t know what that means.

But what troubles me even more, the words that stay with me, what I keep thinking about when they’re talking about his death, is what he said about being born.

You must be born again,” he said.

And it was funny too, because just days before, my daughter had given birth to my first grandchild.

This is the one. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?

I know, I know, a man holding a baby … but, I’ve been doing a lot of things that are beneath my station.

The whole family rejoiced when she was born. Not a son, no, but still we rejoiced. And, I think it was then that the dark mood came over me.

Maybe I was just more painfully aware of it – my own despair was so much more evident to me against the foil of the joy in our house.

“What kind of a world is this to bring a baby in to?”

The thought raced and raced around inside my head.

“What are we doing, bringing these babies in to this world?”

I mean, what will there be for her? 

Roman soldiers all around; and if it isn’t the oppression of Rome, then there are the busy-bodies like me, “laying on the people burdens too heavy to bear.” That’s something else he said.

I used to believe that it was necessary.

If we were only righteous enough, pure enough, then ….

Then what?

Then God would smile on us?

Then we would believe that we were not like the Romans, and believe it so strongly that we would overthrow them?

I used to believe this. Something like this. Do I still believe it now?

I mean, look at her. So small and beautiful, and so very vulnerable. So very vulnerable that it fills my heart with terror. If only I could shield her from any suffering, for the pain that will lie ahead for her. If only I could shield her from worry and want. If only I could tell her that if she followed all the rules – followed them strictly enough – followed them to the very letter – that she could wall herself off from loss and sorrow.

But, the hard thing is that I no longer believe it.

And that makes me afraid.

It’s the same fear I felt standing out there with my compatriots, the rulers of the Synagogue, as we watched him and made our plans. Surely he must know.

And I want to believe him. But I’m not sure I can.

If it happens, and I know it will – if we have our way and we stone him, or, as some are suggesting, we get Herod or Pilate to crucify him, then my heart will break open all over again.

Looking at him there, and hearing the talk around me, he seems just as vulnerable as this baby here in my arms.

Is that what he meant?

Is that the Messiah?

Am I to be as vulnerable as this one?

Am I to be as vulnerable as he is on his way to a certain death?

Is that what God, the Holy one, the Ruler of the universe is calling me too?

Am I, are you, to be as vulnerable in the world as this one?

How can we be born again?

Nicodemus turns, shushing and bouncing the baby, and exits the sanctuary.  We hear the crowd sounds loudly as the door opens and closes again.

 Suddenly, the door slams open.  A woman dressed in “tour guide” clothes with binoculars around her neck, a sun hat, a fanny pack and sensible shoes, carrying a clipboard, erupts into the room.

Samaritan Woman from the Well

(Bursts in, out of breath)

Oh!

Hi!

You haven’t seen a couple of boys run through here, have you?  I’m sure they’re around here somewhere, but their mama’s gotten a little worried and I thought I’d rustle them up for her and put her mind at ease.

Besides, he is coming soon, and they won’t want to miss him!

Whew! (bends over and catches her breath. Stands back up and continues, smiling)

I knew it would be a little tricky, bringing a whole group and all, but I couldn’t have held them back if I’d tried, and I wasn’t about to miss this either. 

So what, there are a few stares and whispered comments!  I suppose a big old vanload of Samaritans doesn’t roll into Jerusalem every day. It’s not like Judeans are taking pre-paid pilgrimages to our Mt. Gerizim to worship!  Ha!

But, really, how could we miss this?

Besides, we’re under strict orders to bring back every detail; the rest of the town is waiting with bated breath, and they sent along notes and homemade goodies to pass on to him.  So here we are then, in this place packed with Judeans! 

And Wow! are they ever hyped for this parade!

(Pauses) Only, I wonder a little bit if they all know what they’re getting into.  (giggles)

(whispers conspiratorially)

It seems like, from what I am hearing out there, that people still think this is about their temple.  Their idea of Messiah, their version of truth, and worship, and God.  The Jesus they’re all whispering about up and down that street doesn’t sound like much the one I know.  It’s like some of them think he’s going to fit right into their script, and if that’s what they think, then WOW, are they in for a shock!

We mountain-worshipers understood the way God had meant for it to be, and we never wavered, for centuries, same as these temple-worshipers here.  But that day he came to my town, to Jacob’s well, and asked me for a drink… that day changed everything for us.

God is Spirit. he said, and true worshipers worship in spirit and truth.

I wonder how many people out there think they’ve got it figured out. How many think they know what God wants from them – even if they can’t or wont do it, they’ve got some idea of what it is.  I wonder how many are looking around at the others and thinking what they’ve got wrong.  A good number are thinking that about us anyway.  

What if they knew he stayed a couple nights with us? Ate at our tables? Taught in our holy place? Those boys that ran through here a minute ago, he played soccer with them till the sun went down. What if they knew that he prayed with us? Hugged us goodbye when he left?

What would they all think of him if they could have seen him then?

The world gives us simple choices- you are either right or wrong. Good or bad. Period.  You can’t be both, and you can’t all be right and good.  So we draw our lines in the sand and glare at each other across them and nobody budges.

But he cut through all of that.  He dances his careless footprints all over our lines in the sand. It wont even matter how you worship or where you worship, he said. What matters is who you worship. And I am right here. With you.

Right here, with you.

In the heat of the afternoon, in traveler’s clothes, in need of a drink, how many of those folks out there would give him a second look? That’s not Messiah material, my friends.  And yet, there he sat, like any ordinary person, like a person in need, the savior of the world, asking me for a drink.

I had never imagined in all my life I would meet the Messiah. I had never thought God would come near enough, (to any of us, let alone someone like me) to make any kind of difference. We put our head down and do what we can to make it through this life, don’t we?  We stay on our side of the lines, and hope at the end of it that God isn’t disappointed with us.   That’s pretty much how it works, right?

I never mattered to anyone. Nobody’s fault, really, I just never seemed to be worth much and that was just that.  But I know how to hang on and take care of myself. All those husbands, the ones who cared, and the ones who didn’t, and the ones who felt they had to prove that they couldn’t care less.  And I outlived and outlasted them all.  But make no mistake, I knew my life wasn’t meant to amount to much, especially when it turned out I couldn’t bear children.  And I had accepted my fate.  Like a cockroach. You could beat me down but you couldn’t kill me.  I’m quick and I keep to the shadows.  And besides, you can’t kill what isn’t really alive to begin with anyway, right?

But now look at me! Holy Bagumba!  Talk about alive!  I am responsible for this whole tour. I am their leader, friends, and on this little soiree, the buck stops with me.

He changed my life that day.  He changed our whole town.  We all came alive.  And He is going to change everything.  And nothing, nothing will turn out like you think it will. Like they think it will.  Just you watch and see.

So Go ahead and celebrate! Celebrate and let go of your expectations!  It’s all far more wonderful than we can imagine!

Because, guess what?  Suddenly it’s not even about right and wrong and good and bad at all, it’s about life, and it’s for everybody, and nobody is exempt, and nobody misses out, and we don’t get to decide who’s worthy to receive because not a single one us of is, after all, and that doesn’t slow him down in the least from bringing it to us anyway.

Listen to me: God is going to overthrow the whole lot of us, and we’re better off for it!

So sit back and watch the show!

Better yet, jump in the van with us! We’ve got room, some extra sandwiches, and a spot reserved right at the top of the road by the temple! 

(Turns to leave)

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest! Wahoo!!!! WAHOO!!!

(Turns back)

Oh!, And if you see those boys, you tell them their tour leader is looking for them; and if they’re still planning on giving him that soccer ball,  they’d better skedaddle back.  Because they DO NOT want to miss him.

(Leaves in a joyful explosion)

The door opens again – again we hear the crowd sounds from the hallway, and a man slinks in, hat pulled low over his face, hiding a big fake mustache and dark glasses.

Lazarus

(pauses and peeks back out into the hall and then turns around and sees congregation)

Pardon me. I came in here to get away from that crowd. I worry that someone is going to recognize me.

[Takes off dark glasses]

Just promise me you won’t tell anyone that you saw me, or where I am.

[Takes off hat and mustache, as he continues to talk]

It’s impossible to go out any more without wearing a disguise.

You won’t believe what’s happened to me since that day. You wouldn’t believe the nerve of some people.

They’re sure there’s some kind of trick somewhere. And you can’t really blame them. I guess I would have believed the same.

Some people confine themselves to just staring at me, but some of them don’t even lower their voices when they talk about me. “He’s the dead guy. You heard about him, right?

Dead three days, and then that Galilean Jesus called him out of the tomb.”

I think they think I can’t hear them.

Like lots of people they think maybe somehow I’m still dead. See this scratch here? That’s where a stranger came up and cut me with a knife. Wanted to see if I would bleed, I guess.

I’m not kidding you.

If I went out there and people knew it was me, you’d see. People stick me with pins. They pinch me. They poke at me. They get up close to me and stare in my face to see if I’m really someone else. They tear at my clothes– I guess they think they’ll find a skeleton underneath.

And you know, maybe I could get used to it, or learn to put up with it. I think it would subside in time. But what really makes it hard is the questions, and I don’t know that they will ever stop.

One of the first was a father.  “ Please,” he said to me, tears running down his face, “My son, dead now 4 years, and every day I want to know that he is in a better place. Tell me what it’s like on the other side.” He’s squeezing my arm hard, “Tell me he’s at peace!”

It’s not the speculation that gets to me – the scribes and Pharisees arguing with each other about the afterlife. It’s the others. The ones who carry their grief so strong in them. They just want to know. And they come asking me, because I’ve been to the other side, and I’m back again.

The terrible part is that I have nothing to tell them. I have nothing to tell them, because I don’t remember.

I don’t remember death.

I don’t remember anything about those three days.

I can just barely remember that pull I felt when he called me.

I can’t remember how I got myself up, but I vaguely remember stumbling forward, and the hands all over me, and the relief as the cloth was pulled away, and the faces of my beloved sisters swimming in front of me.

All of that is like a dream to me now, blurry and indistinct.

I can’t tell you anything about death.

But I can tell you about dying.

I can tell you what it was for me, anyway, because dying I remember.

I remember the pain.

Pain so strong it took away everything. Pain that made the whole world recede. Pain that consumed my whole mind. But through the whirlwind of pain, I knew they were there. I could feel their hands, like small islands of peace in a horrible storm.

I can feel them there, one on each side of me.

I can hear their voices above the din of the pain.

“I wish he would come.”

“Don’t worry; he’s going to get here soon.”

And then one of them is speaking to me,

“Hold on dear brother, he’s going to be here very soon, and it will be better then. Please, hang on, he’s coming.”

And then there are silences.

And then, it’s Martha, reciting the Psalms to me.

I think of her.

I think of how she’s learned to stop trying to manage everything.

Now she just sits with me.

I remember feeling something warm on my skin, and I know it is one of them.

Is it Mary? Crying? Her tears falling on to me?

I feel myself going further and further away from them.

And, I know this, if my sisters, Mary and Martha, hadn’t been there with me, it would have been pure terror. But, I drew my strength from them. They were my comfort; they helped me pass through my dying in to death.

(Pauses)

I can’t help thinking about him out there in the crowd.

I know that death can’t be far away for him now.

Yes, I know. The crowds, the Hosannas.

But the crowd could turn at any moment.

And the leaders are after him. It’s because of me, and what happened back there.

I’ve talked about it with Mary and Martha.

They agree, I can’t feel guilty about it.

Mary says that whatever happens will be for the glory of God.

Martha says that there would have been something else they would have gone after him for.

But I know what lies ahead for him.

I wonder, Who will hold his hands?

Who will wipe the sweat from his forehead?

Who will be there with him?

But this is what I hold onto now.

Whenever I think about death, his, or the one that will finally come for me, I think about the table in our house. I think of us there, Mary, quiet and thoughtful, Martha, alert to every need, and me, their brother. It’s the three of us, and he is with us for an evening. And for a while, life is pure sweetness.

It is sacred, it is …. Yes, I would say it is holy.

It’s not the crowd outside, with their volatile hosannas. 

It’s not his calling me back from death, or any of the other signs he performed. 

And it’s not his teachings, wise and true and often inscrutable to me. 

It’s those moments around the table, when I knew, knew with a certainty, that he is the Messiah.

(Puts costume pieces back on. Takes a deep breath, and leaves)

After Lazarus leaves, the crowd noises grow louder. Then we hear the soundtrack from the hallway:

Hosanna! Hosanna in the Highest! Blessed is the One who comes in the Name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the Highest Heaven!

Crowd noise recedes.  There is silence for 10-15 seconds.

 Suddenly we hear pounding on the door and a gruff loud voice: “Is he in there? Where is He? Where is this ‘King of the Jews?’”

The service ends with song and benediction.

When congregation leaves the sanctuary, the hallway is filled with post-parade debris: wrappers, crushed palm branches, crumpled newspapers, crushed soda cans, etc.