Palm Sunday is coming!

A sermon I wrote in 2003 ... still appropriate.

What can be said about Palm Sunday? It is the Sunday immediately before Easter. It is a day when we gather as we always do; only this time we bring these silly palm branches with us. We do this as a way of re-creating in our worship space what happened with Jesus on that day that he entered Jerusalem.

It is right for us to gather up palm branches and to wave them, but as we do, we are in danger of forgetting what happens between today and Easter; we are in danger of completely missing Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We are in danger of falling into the same trap that the disciples did on the first Palm Sunday.

They celebrated a king they thought they knew. They celebrated a king that within a week would die brutally and in humiliation. Now the question for us is, “Can we celebrate this kind of king ourselves?” Or do we wave our palm branches and sing our songs of victory only for the kind of king that we want instead of the kind of king that Jesus actually is?

So here is Palm Sunday and here we sit in our worship space and we wave our palm branches and we sing our songs of victory and we throw around words like “triumphal” and I wonder to myself if we really do know anything about this day at all. I don’t think that we do. The Bible tells us that only after this moment; long after this moment had passed, in fact, did the disciples understand it at all. We definitely have the same problem.

The tradition of this day is to wave palm branches and to shout Hosanna! But I think the tradition should be changed. As we wave our palm branches, we should be required to also read once again the stories of Jesus’ betrayal and death. Only after we do this will we truly understand this day! Only after we see this day through the lens of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday will we truly know our king!

In my mind’s eye, I can see Jesus riding into Jerusalem on that donkey, but I like to focus my attention on the disciples that day. There they are; walking through the streets with Jesus—heads held high, proudly drinking in the noise and the acclaim. They are hearing the people shout “Hosanna in the Highest!” and they are thinking, “Yeah...I’m with him!”

But again, John, the author of our passage this morning and one of those disciples of which I speak, makes it clear that as they walk along with Jesus in this make-shift parade and as they drink it all in, the reality is that they have no understanding of what is happening. Only after...only after the parade is done; only after the acclaim has passed; only after their hero has died in humiliation; only after he rises from the dead and especially only after the Holy Spirit comes, will they see. Only after this day will it begin to make sense. Only after will they see and understand.

Palm Sunday is about the Lord of the Universe riding into town on the back of a donkey. It’s also about a bunch of people called disciples who think that they’ve got that sight all figured out when really, they don’t at all. It’s about the disciples and you and me thirsting for a king on our terms and then getting a king on God’s terms. We gather today and we celebrate the triumphal king of God coming into our lives, but will we still be celebrating and standing up on Maundy Thursday? Will we still be saying, “Yeah...I’m with him!” on Good Friday when Jesus hangs on that Cross in our place?

The disciples fully participate with Jesus but are clueless as to the big picture. They are active in their support, but they don’t know what it is they are standing for and they are at a loss as to what is going to happen next. Jesus’ betrayal and death are inconceivable to them. They are participating in Palm Sunday; they’re doing it right, just like we do every year, but because they can’t see what’s coming next, they don’t have a clue as to what kind of king this is that they are celebrating and claiming as their own.

Last Wednesday, I was in a little parade of my own. It was the parade that is known as one man’s attempt to cross a bridge into the land that we call Iowa, and it has become a very difficult journey of late. I was in a severe traffic jam on the Centennial Bridge and I was one with the people. I was angry and impatient and frustrated and I could have easily and quickly found a hundred others right there with me who were feeling and expressing with their horns and voices the exact same thing.

Just like the disciples on that first Palm Sunday I was in a slow moving parade; just like the disciples on that first Palm Sunday, I thought I knew what I was supposed to feel; just like the disciples on that first Palm Sunday, I figured I knew what that traffic jam was all about, but in reality, just like the disciples, I didn’t know anything at all.

I didn’t know anything about where I was until after something happened. It was only after something happened that I began to understand. It was only after something happened that I began to find peace and perspective. It was only after something profound happened, that I was able to hold that traffic jam in its proper light.

The traffic jam that was the first Palm Sunday only made sense to the disciples after the crucifixion and the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit and that traffic jam on that bridge on Wednesday only felt right to me after I turned on the radio. The disciples needed so much more to happen before they could understand the Triumphal Entry and before I could be right with that traffic jam, I was going to need to turn on the radio.

When I did, I was greeted by the sweet and classic soul sound of Earth Wind and Fire singing “Dancin’ in September”. On and on…dancing in September, never was cloudy day! I’m stuck on that bridge and I’m singing at the top of my lungs and I’m dancing in the best way that you can while sitting inside of an 88 Buick. I sat there for a moment, still singing, now living life in a complete state of joy in the midst of a terrible traffic jam and I’m thinking, there has just got to be a sermon illustration in here somewhere!

That song literally took me out of the traffic jam. I was stuck in traffic in the physical sense, but in the sense of the spirit, where perspective runs as pure as you can find it, I was free. That simple and wonderful song took me out of my confusion and anger and got me back in touch with the big picture.

Surely you see what I am getting at by now. Palm Sunday can be nothing more than a traffic jam to us. Palm Sunday can be a parade in which we celebrate victory as we define it. In fact, without the perspective of the whole story of Jesus; without the crucifixion and resurrection and the Holy Spirit; without the song that the whole story of Holy Week sings, this day is impossible for us to handle and impossible for us to understand.

Palm Sunday has a joyous feel to it. We like to come to church and feel good when we do. We like to sing songs with a joyful and triumphal sound to them and we like to leap from the triumphal sound of Palm Sunday all the way over to the joyous feel of Easter Sunday, but that is an enormous leap!

When we do, we are jumping over Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. When we do, we are skipping over everything that happens there and everything that those moments hold and we are celebrating the wrong kind of power, the wrong kind of victory, and the wrong kind of king. Palm Sunday can only be properly understood and worshipped only after we experience and understand everything else that Jesus is first.

It’s a wonderful thing to come to church. It is a wonderful choice to make. Yet without the perspective of the crucifixion; without the perspective of the resurrection; and especially without the perspective of the Holy Spirit, we are just a group of religious folks participating in the strange ritual of waving leaves in the air.

This passage from John is about Palm Sunday; it is about the Triumphal Entry, but more than anything else, it is about perspective and our propensity to miss what God is doing because of what we lack in that regard. And what we lack on this day, as much as anything, is exactly what the disciples lacked on that first Palm Sunday—the perspective that only the big picture can bring; the perspective that only the whole Jesus story can bring; the perspective that comes only after you accept not only what this Palm Sunday is about, but also ultimately to what it leads to in the end.

Yes! This is Palm Sunday, but it is also just a beginning. It is a beginning that we can’t understand without the Cross and the empty tomb, but it is also a beginning that leads the true followers of Jesus ultimately to the place of fulfillment, purpose and truth. But it all happens only after we shout “Hosanna!” with the true perspective of the entire Jesus story firm within our minds and our hearts.

In September 1985, a celebration at a New Orleans municipal pool was held. The party around the pool was held to celebrate a summer without a drowning at any New Orleans city pool. In honor of the occasion, two hundred people gathered, including one hundred certified lifeguards. As the party was breaking up and the four lifeguards on duty began to clear the pool, they found a fully dressed body in the deep end. They tried and tried to revive Jerome Moody, but it was too late. He had drowned surrounded by lifeguards who were celebrating their successful season.

What an awful legacy! What an awful final chapter to have—drowning in a swimming pool surrounded by lifeguards! This isn’t a fable; it really happened! It really happened in New Orleans and it really happens in churches on Palm Sunday every year.

We are celebrating, but do we have our eyes open? We are celebrating, but do we have perspective? We are celebrating; we are shouting, “Hosanna!” but do we know what it is all about? That man died in that swimming pool that day not because the people didn’t know what to do, but because they weren’t paying attention at all. It is tragic because it happened, but it is even more tragic because of why it happened.

Up until this point in the service, we have sung the right songs. We have sung “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.” We have sung “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna.” Our hymnals tell us that these are the songs that we are supposed to sing on this day. The songs and their familiar melodies tell us how we are supposed to feel. Now we are going to sing a song that we aren’t supposed to sing on this day.

It is an African Spiritual, which means that black slaves composed the words to this song even though they didn’t know how to read or write. It is a song that was sung by slaves in the midst of great sorrow. It is a song that is written in honor of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. It is a song of responsibility and one that calls each of us to take ownership of the true meaning of Easter and the true nature of the Kingdom of God.

This song is called “Were You There?” Were you there when they crucified the Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they pierced him in the side? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb? If you weren’t, and if you are not willing to go there today, it will be impossible for you to celebrate Jesus as you should. It will be impossible for you to know what kind of king Jesus really is. Only after we let Jesus wash our feet; only after we go to the Cross with Jesus; only after we see that empty tomb for ourselves, can we wave these old palm branches in the proper spirit and celebrate the coming of the King of Kings. Amen.

God is in the Details

The car door slammed on my legs, and locked so I couldn't open it. Little did I know just how lucky I was ... I merely screamed, tried to honk the horn, pounded on the window, after watching the black sedan squeal tires while leaving the scene.

It was 10:25 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012, and I was going to church. So I could make the door before the service started, I parked on the street. The sedan turned into the alley just across the street, and at first I thought he (or she) was going to church too, then the car started backing up, to turn around. Whether the driver saw my car, or me, is a mystery. At least to me. But I had opened the door and put my feet on the ground so I could hurry out as soon as the sedan cleared. The sedan slammed into my car hitting the door about six inches from the edge, the rest of the bumper damaged the quarter panel behind the driver's door.

My hands shook as I dialed 911, making several mistakes while trying to hit the right buttons. The operator was just as calm as they are on TV shows, and I mentally compared the several minutes I would have to wait to giving birth and decided I could do it. But I still screamed a bit, and pounded on the window, some of it from anger, most of it from pain.

A minute before the EMS ambulance pulled up with two hunky firefighter-paramedics, two women heard me and asked if they could help. "I can't open the door," I said. One of the women, who identified herself as a doctor later, opened the door from the outside. Such relief ... I can't begin to describe it. The EMS guys lifted me onto a stretcher and put me in the ambulance, and even though the hospital was less than a mile away, they checked my vitals, started an IV, and after some questions, offered me morphine. (First I called Art to have him find Marvin and bring him to the ER ... holding one finger up to the paramedic who was asking me questions! ...That's me, always trying to be in control!)

The legs were not broken and now, 17 days later, the swelling is mostly gone, although the color of my skin is darker and there are bruise scars that are likely not going away.

I relived the incident while trying to go to sleep for two or three nights. I thought of what could have happened. If I had been a few seconds earlier or later, no accident. If I had been standing outside the car, the sedan would have crushed my hips and upper legs ... perhaps killed me. If the sedan had hit the door in the middle, my legs would have been broken.

I'm not thinking about that at night anymore, but perhaps God was in the details of this accident, just like a near-death experience my friend Beth Elly Baumgartner posted on Facebook this morning:
OMG!! Driving to work this AM on I 75 a car came out of nowhere, did a 180 across 3 lanes of traffic right into my lane! Luckily I swerved to miss it during rush hour!! Lucky to be alive right now!!! Wow I'm still shaking!!"

Beth is a teacher in Cincinnati, OH, and a mom, wife and great human being. While it's bad theology to say God was responsible for saving my legs, or helping Beth avoid an accident, I do believe God might give a nudge now and then. God does have a plan for each of us, and if we're really paying attention, we might actually see it and follow that path! May God be your details as well. Happy Leap Year Day.

Home

"Home is where you hang your hat." While Marvin's been saying that for decades, I never thought he really meant it, because I thought I'd be in a wheelchair before we moved to town. Well, things are changing. As one gets older, little things are a nuisance to do, like driving to town all the time, and especially at night when my vision is not as good. When I gave up choir a couple of years ago, it nearly broke my heart. But not a tear was shed, at least not by me. A few choir members still ask me to come back, but they aren't crying!

Anyway, Marvin has finally come around to thinking somewhat like me ... his gardening days are shrinking. Most of it this year will be on the deck. The hard, backbreaking work he's always been able and willing to do is a lot more difficult than before. But he's not crying either. We both see it, at ages 71 and 73, as a part of life, getting older.

So sometime in the next year or so, we will probably be moving to Rock Island...when we find the right house with a big enough yard for a workshop for him, and hopefully an office for me. It won't be as remote as this unique home in which we live now ... out of sight from people ... but we're looking for at least a ravine where deer will travel by and where we can feed the birds. So my family can count on being asked to help us move!

We won't have the pond at our back door (pictured), or the 900 square-foot deck, the great view, the privacy so great we don't need curtains, or so many precious things that I couldn't list them all.

What about the cats, you say? Well, that's why we need a big enough house ... natch. Mama can live in the workshop, and Sam, Boxy, Oscar, Spook, Birdy, and ..... ta ta ta ... Jack can stay in the house. Just don't tell anyone we have that many cats, or we'll be like that poor woman in Geneseo with the 10 rescued dogs ... fighting with officials and neighbors.

But I will be back in choir ... and we can go out to eat at night without squinting. I can't wait!

Obstacles

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

I don't know who wrote this thought. I saved it as an idea for a blog entry even though I haven't felt this way for a long time. But I do own the idea that obstacles are our life and that we need to just get past worrying about it. My obstacles have been mostly self-imposed. First, I got married instead of going to college. But in my generation college was not as important. We were better educated in public school in that era. I had four years of Latin, learned to write and was a math wizard. Didn't realize how well those attributes would serve me in later life. Whatever I did, I knew I could do it and do it well.

Second, each new interest was an opportunity. I joined Junior Women's Club in Rossville and continued in that organization to become a state officer after we moved to Moline. Barely of age to drink, I led a county-wide discussion for the White House on the needs of children. I can't remember how that came to me, but it started me on the path toward working for children's causes all my life! I raised my three kids and became a great square dancer with Marvin. He was hot in a cowboy hat and boots!

Third, we loved our lives together but we moved from small rural town to the Quad-Cities in 1969. Marvin packed all our belongings and the family in a big truck. We stopped in Champaign with the cash for the new car that I then drove, with kids, the rest of the way to Moline.With work at the Bullock office, Marvin's new position as a mill manager, and new friends and lots of fun ... all was well. No obstacles, right?

I had left the church in Rossville, led by a conservative fundamentalist pastor that I could no longer tolerate. He kept trying to tell me about his marriage problems as a way to get close to me. From the pulpit I heard no answers, just rules. No guidance and lots of obstacles to serving God. A man named Carl Ericson removed the obstacles and we became Presbyterians after moving to the farm in 1972 and where I still live. There I led the charge to open a public library in Sherrard. One day a woman came in with an opportunity that would change my life. I became a correspondent, then reporter, then editor for The Dispatch. In 1990, I crossed the street to marketing at a local hospital and worked in that field until I retired in 2000. Since then I've helped found the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Mississippi Valley and Spring Forward Learning Center and still serve on those boards. I also have been active with the Presbytery of Great Rivers for many years, serving in various capacities.

By facing all obstacles that I encountered, whether they be personal relationships or professional challenges, I've made my life what it is with the help of God. Through each crisis, most not told herein, I've turned to God for support and guidances. There's been failures and successes. I believe that with the grace of God I'm still on a journey. And that's enough to keep me moving, obstacles or no!

In the Wildwood: Prayer and Ordination Standards

In the Wildwood: Prayer and Ordination Standards

Prayer and Ordination Standards

Prayer, eh? Ok, prayer is a conversation between me and God. I may pray while I'm driving or sitting at my kitchen table watching the birds and other creatures of God's creation. I may not be Scriptural about it, but God doesn't care as long as I recognize God's love and glory. I am in awe of God, so naturally that is there. I'm not big on formal prayer, and that's what Sunday morning would be without that list of names that the congregation shares in the morning prayer. A lot of people lift up their concerns about their loved ones or issues they care about most .... and have been praying for all week. They want me to pray for them too. A friend argues that it's not a proper way to pray and that people drowse off. If people are lulled into sleep that's not because of the list, it's because they're relaxed. I've done it, but usually not during prayer. Even if they aren't drowsy, the mind wanders. That has nothing to do with the list should be used or not. I would venture to say that for everyone there, the list ritual is one of the most important parts of worship. Too often we think what may seem "sloppy" forms of worship are wrong. Who are we to say? I once was impatient with people who are rigid in their lifestyles ... like the folk who wouldn't meet after church (in another congregation), because they had to have lunch at noon, on the dot. I have mellowed.

There is a big controversy in the Presbyterian Church USA because of a change in the ordination standards. I've voted for the change since it created because it was enforced only to try to shut out gays and lesbians from ordination. But the rules required chastity except in marriage, so an older couple living together because marriage would cost them too much in taxes, or a gay in a committed relationship, or any number of other possible situations would deny ordination of elders and ministers. But few, if any, of the non-gay situations were pursued in the church courts.

I love my conservative friends in the church, and talk regularly with as many as I can. I would really be saddened to only talk to people who agree with everything I say and believe. What a boring world that would be! My prayer today and every day is that we can concentrate on what we share in common as Christians, and agree to disagree about the rest. And all the children of God said, Amen.

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And what I CAN do and SHOULD do, by the grace of God I WILL do."

Pretty good way to live, I think. Sometimes doing something is difficult. Today I used tough love on a friend, and will do it again if I think she needs it. We all have faults, but what we can and should do, we must do. Amen ....

Why do I write this blog? I started with every intention of writing sort of a memoir, but so much of what I could write, I shouldn't write! It's too personal or too difficult, too painful or indescribable. Much of my life is spent alone, with only the cats to keep me company! I'm a pretty organized person, so I handle many tasks daily, communicating with or serving various causes I believe in; dropping a note on FaceBook in reaction to a friend, colleague or grandchild; planning for various things; making certain I keep up with family events. Is that enough in the big picture of life? It is what I can and should do, so maybe it is. I don't know how to change, or want to, so that's what I will continue to do.

Marvin told me last week that he didn't know what love meant until he met me. What an amazing thing to tell someone you've been married to for nearly 52 years! I think of all the pain we've shared in reaction to others and imposed upon each other. But through such events when many people would separate, we've always hung in there. It's comforting to be in the evening of your life and marriage with a person who says such things. I can only pray that all who read this blog can experience the same in their lives.

Well, this is pretty scattered today ... maybe next time I'll find a topic to stick to! Until then, I pray you, too, will do what you can and should do! Amen.