Because Palm Sunday falls on a Communion Sunday this year, we hear
from Luke’s Gospel two very different, very powerful, and I
think ultimately radically connected ways by which we are to remember
Jesus. In the first reading, which we heard as part of the Processional
this morning, the story of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem,
we remember Jesus giving his life to take on all the powers of this
earth to usher in the kingdom of God. And in the second reading which
I just read, we remember Jesus giving his life to usher us into the
fullness of his love. In these two stories, we have the summation
of his ministry and of his life’s work. Taken together, they
offer the totality of what his kingdom is about—that is, the
transformation of our hearts for the transformation of the world.
To
remember Jesus is always to remember both these scenes, the one very
public and the one very private. The one very political, if you will,
and the one very personal. In remembering Jesus, we remember both,
for both are part and parcel of his ministry and his message. We hail
him as the one whose power saves the world by hope and we sup with
him, as the one whose love saves our lives by grace. In him, our hearts
are transformed for the transformation of the world.
But
at first glance, could there be a greater contrast between the great
story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the scene
which we know as the Last Supper? Let’s look at them both again.
The
triumphal entry. This was a large, public display of adulation and
affection. Finally, the messiah comes, and the people pour out into
the streets to show their joy and their hope, waving branches, shouting
hosanna, giving witness and voice to their deepest longing for the
whole world to be set right by this new king and all his deeds of
power. The triumphal entry is the most public act imaginable to show
the world that this new messiah means business. He is come to overthrow
all the powers and principalities, all the forces of darkness, every
yoke that would deny the fullness of life to God’s people. He
has come to usher in the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.
Hosanna!
Waving
our own palms this morning, that loud, joyful scene rings in our ears
and reaches in to touch something deep in our hearts, something way
down deep below the apathy and the cynicism and the accommodation,
beyond everything within us that says “nothing will ever really
change” so why bother about war and poverty and global warming
and AIDS and the fact that thousands and thousands of flooded homes
and churches and schools in the Gulf Coast have yet to be touched…today
the Messiah rides right into the deepest places of our hearts and
proclaims that God intends something different for this world. The
Messiah comes to usher in his kingdom for the transformation of this
world. And all the pageantry and the majesty of Palm Sunday are our
annual reminder that in him, all the kingdoms of this world are become
the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
Now,
that other scene at play in our hearts this morning could hardly be
more different. The Last Supper. It is a quiet and intimate and palpably
personal scene. Jesus is at table with his friends. No crowds now,
no shouting, no wild outbursts of acclamation and joy. Just the kind
of loving conversation shared when a friend or loved one is about
to depart. Memories shared, stories told and re-told. Good food, laughter,
tears around the table.
But
the reading begins with the words “when the hour had come.”
The time had come in Jesus’ life and ministry to move into the
next phase, to move God’s great work forward through him by
facing into what would surely be death and the great mystery of resurrection.
And
Jesus reaches over and takes the bread and he takes the cup and says:
I am giving my life for you, dear friends. Do this. Remember me. And
his love reaches deep into their hearts and they are transformed,
deep within, and they will never be the same. They are indeed his
disciples and though they will stumble and fall, though they will
sometimes turn away, though they may even at times deny him and betray
him as all disciples do, they will nevertheless be drawn back to this
table again and again to remember him and to re-center their lives
on him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. The kingdoms of their
hearts are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
It’s
hard to know what all this really means for our lives, isn’t
it? It’s almost easier to wonder things like: If I had been
there that day, on the road into Jerusalem, would I have gone out
to wave a branch and shout and lay my cloak down on the road for him
to pass over? Would I have been the brave and faithful one at the
table that last night or would I have been the one to turn away? But
our actual lives are hardly ever so grand as these grand scenes. We
deal with laundry and grocery shopping, with birthday parties and
soccer games, with school and music lessons, with doctors’ appointments
and errands and work, with relationships and lack thereof, with choir
rehearsals and meetings and never enough time, and still, Jesus says:
remember me. Remember me, he says, in all that you do and in all that
you are. Remember me in the choices you make, the things you value,
the priorities you set, the love you share. Remember me.
So
many of you who saw the wonderful movie, “Amazing Grace,”
said you were powerfully reminded of the way in which one person’s
actions can matter so much, and of the ways in which the decisions
we make day in and day out, big and small, can make a difference in
this world. Whether it was William Wilberforce’s lone speeches
in Parliament, or the slave-trader John Newton’s change of heart
through amazing grace, or Barbara Wilberforce’s personal decision
just to not drink the tea that had been harvested by slaves, or by
William Pitt’s courage to begin to say out loud: “this
is wrong”…all these choices and actions, big and small,
public and private, political and personal, were all taken in remembrance
of Jesus Christ, whose love saves our lives by grace and whose power
saves the world by hope.
We
may not see clearly just how God is yearning to act in and through
us this morning, or how God might make his love known through our
words and choices and actions. What is asked of us is simply that
we remember Christ Jesus, making ourselves available to something
much bigger than ourselves, that love might save us and heal us and
transform us and put us to work for the sake of the kingdom.
That
night so long ago, Jesus said….How I have longed to share this
meal with you but I will not do so until the kingdom of God comes.
The lure of that kingdom is tugging now on our hearts, drawing us
in, asking us to remember and to choose. As you prepare to come to
the table this morning, I invite you to be in prayer and to consider
the words of our contemporary sister in the faith, Kathleen Norris,
and pray in what surely was the manner of Jesus’ prayer that
night as with them he faced the end and the beginning: “Prayer
is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed
in ways you can’t imagine.”
“Prayer
is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed
in ways you can’t imagine.”
Amen.
©Patricia
Farris, 2007. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved.
First
United Methodist Church
1008 Eleventh Street
Santa Monica, CA 90403
www.santamonicaumc.org
(310) 393-8258
In
Remembrance of Me