Scripture: Luke 19:28-48
I will not be very long this morning, but I do have a few words about the two occasions that come together for us here this morning, Palm Sunday and confirmation, and what I have to say relates to both Palm Sunday and confirmation. Let me begin with Palm Sunday though.
Palm Sunday has always been an occasion in the church year that I have had to wrestle some with, for several reasons. I know I am not alone in any of these thoughts, but I also don’t want to presume to speak for anyone other than myself. I guess for just about as long as I can remember, at least from the time that I became aware of the whole story of Holy Week, I found Palm Sunday a sort of a curious occasion, or at least I was curious about it. Why were all those people shouting and celebrating, like this was some big party or a parade? I wondered. Didn’t they know that in just a few more days Jesus was about to be tortured and executed?
The obvious answer is that no, they didn’t know what was about to happen and maybe they expected Jesus to be some kind of conquering hero or messianic figure who would miraculously take charge of the world. Honestly that didn’t seem likely to me, still doesn’t, that the people who made up Christ’s followers were really expecting him to be that kind of miraculous messianic figure. Maybe they did, or maybe they just didn’t want to face the likelihood of his death, which he had already spoken of. In either case, all of that just made the story seem very sad to me, not just the story of his death, but the idea that at the approach of his death he was surrounded by all these illusions and delusions and people who didn’t understand and didn’t have a clue as to what he was about. As I was suggesting a couple of weeks ago it made Jesus seem like a very lonely figure. And besides being a sad story for all these reasons, it was a story I couldn’t find my place in. Maybe the people along the road didn’t know what was coming, but I do and so I can’t really join in the cheering, as though I was cheering Jesus along to his death. That’s one level I’ve had some difficulty with the story, and though it began in childhood, I still feel the irony and the disconnects in the story and they still make it a bit hard for me to know how to relate to it.
Another level of difficulty came as I grew older and began to study theology and became aware that a great many people believed that Jesus suffered and died because God required that there be some kind of punishment for the sins of humanity and that God sent Jesus to receive that punishment as a substitute for what the rest of us deserved because of our sinfulness, so that the rest of humanity could be spared and forgiven, Jesus having suffering in our place. This is sometimes referred to as the idea of substitutionary atonement, but for me no matter what you call it or how you dress it up, it has always been offensive. That God is a punishing or vengeful God, that God requires blood sacrifice, that violence of any kind in any way is a means of bringing people to God, none of that line of thinking has ever made sense to me, and to the extent that Palm Sunday is wrapped up in that understanding of what was about to happen, that maybe people were cheering or that we maybe ought to cheer because of this heroic sacrificial act Jesus was about to engage in, all of that as well has made Palm Sunday hard for me to relate to.
Then there is still another way in which I have wrestled some with Palm Sunday and continue to do so. It is back on the image of people waving their palm branches at Jesus and treating him like a conquering hero, shouting out their praises and elevating him into some divine status, which maybe for some people is what Palm Sunday is supposed to be about. But not for me. And my issue here is a simple one, simpler than the other two things I have mentioned this morning. It is, simply, that in my heart of hearts I do not think that praising Jesus is what Jesus wants his followers to do. It’s not what being a disciple is about. It’s not what being a Christian is about. It’s not about making sure to praise him loudly or often, not about believing in his name, not about trying to elevate him to messiah status or savior status or the status of God. It is maybe about trying to walk a pathway that Christ has somehow opened up for us. It is maybe about having been touched in some way by Jesus and having been healed or liberated or strengthened or given new life or brought closer to God ourselves and then trying in some small way to be that kind of a presence ourselves. None of this is to say that there is some one right way to think about what it means to be a disciple or a follower of Jesus. It is to say that I believe Jesus calls us to ways of life that are loving, that are healing, that are liberating, that are many things but that are not ways of life primarily characterized by adulation, not even the adulation of Jesus.
Which brings me to the confirmation part of today because what Irving and Forest and Jamie are doing today is signing on to the Christian community, by their own decision, not as a matter of something they have inherited or have slid into but that they are choosing to be a part of. Now, not only does that not mean that they have answered every question or settled every issue about what it means to be a Christian. They are joining a specific Christian community which does not claim to have an answer to every question or to have settled every issue so far as what it means to be a Christian. We don’t have a check list of things that make for a true Christian. As Sojourners we’re trying to figure that out as we go along, trying to figure it out together. As Sojourners we also recognize that being a Christian may mean lots of different things to different people, that there are many ways people can honestly and legitimately try to be Christian. But I am suggesting this morning, to repeat, that one of the things that is not at the heart of the Christian life is simply praising Jesus. It would be convenient if that were the crux of it. It would surely be a lot easier if that’s all there was to it. But somehow I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind. Nor is it primarily what I believe we need to have in mind as we, each of us, takes up our own journey of faith, or as we bring our separate journeys together into a community.
Having said this, because none of us has this all figured out, and because we aren’t so great at this discipleship business, sometimes all we know to do is to offer our praise, to wave our palms and to sing our songs. And those are not such bad things to do after all, so long as we don’t mistake them for being the definition of discipleship. And because we aren’t so great at this discipleship business, because none of us has it all figured out, we need each other.
Because our ideas about what it means to be a Christian do not come to us ready made and unchangeable, we need each other. Because being Christian means joining together with each other in our various journeys of discovery, we need each other. And we are glad for the decisions of Irving and Forest and Jamie. They have each needed us to be their faith family, their community, their village. We have needed them too. Sojourners would not be Sojourners without Jamie Roddy and Irving Jones and Forest Lyon. They have helped to make us who we are. That they are confirming their relationship with us is a blessing and a joy. May God be with them and with us as we continue our journeys of faith. Amen.
Jim Bundy
April 1, 2007