Passion Community
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 22:14 - 23:56
Every week is holy week.
Nothing could be more trite than that observation. After all, the earth is the Lord’s and all that is therein, so all time and space, all of creation is hallowed. Every week is holy week.
Every week has its moments of celebration – hosannas shouted to the highest heaven. Every week has its passion – people suffer and die each and every day whether or not we are aware.
And every week is witness to resurrection – to new life arising in often unexpected places in startling moments.
Every week is holy week.
But we who are supposed to be witnesses to the living Christ in our midst: how are we to live such that our lives reflect the holiness of Christ? Every day of every week?
Each year the season of Lent provides an opportunity for each of us to answer that question for ourselves once again. To be sure, we cannot answer it completely, but many of us commit to discovering one small part of the answer during these 40 days.
So, how has Lent been for you? Have you learned anything about yourself, about the faith you proclaim, about the Jesus whom we try to follow?
Reading the texts from this morning as I reflected on the journey of Lent I was reminded that the faith we proclaim is, first of all, brutally honest about the human condition. We know that there is no easy walk to the promised land – however we construe it and no matter when we undertake the journey.
As Walter Brueggemann observed, Christian life moves according to “the pattern and sequence of Jesus’ own life, an embrace of suffering that comes with obedience, which comes inevitably when our lives are at odds with dominant social values.”
We are a suffering community. We are a passion community.
This is not suffering for the sake of suffering, or martyrdom sought for the sake of pain. It is simply the suffering that comes when the shape of the community, its warp and woof, rubs so much against the grain of the broader culture in which it exists.
Consider, for example, our community. Lord knows we’re far from perfect as individuals or as a collective, but we do try to live out the love and justice of the gospel and we understand that to mean that everyone is welcome here. And, again, Lord knows that is simply not the case in so much of the rest of the world – whether we are talking about a global church that has more sex hang-ups than a Woody Allen flick or those large parts of the world in which it still seems ago to leaders to make a capital crime – literally – out of certain people’s sex lives. When we rub against that grain sometimes we get splinters.
But it’s not the splinters that matter. It’s how we respond to one another in the midst of the suffering that marks the measure of a true passion community. Do we bear one another’s burdens? Do we bind one another up? Do we love one another always?
When I tell people about my church – about you – I answer those questions in the affirmative. Yes, we do.
Oh, to be sure, we don’t do any of that perfectly, and we always have work to do. But, yes, we do, bear one another’s burdens, bind one another up, and love one another; and insofar as we do, we are a community of passion.
But why should this way of living cause offense to anyone anywhere?
You’d think it would be celebrated. You’d think its leaders would be greeted everywhere by shouts of “hosanna!” You’d think people would throw us a parade!
But Palm Sunday slips so quickly into the drama of passion.
If we look carefully and honestly at the story itself it’s actually not that hard to see how and why it happened then, and, perhaps, how and why it happens today.
To begin with, Jesus set out to rub against the grain on that first Palm Sunday. Riding into town on a donkey was a bit of Biblically based political street theater designed to inspire his supporters and deride his detractors. Kings and conquering heroes rode into town to great fanfare, often borne on the shoulders of their soldiers, to be met and celebrated by the well-connected and the powerful. They did not ride in on humble donkeys, surrounded by a rabble of the poor.
What Mary predicted before Jesus’ birth, “he will bring down the rulers from their thrones and exalt the humble,” is fulfilled in this joyous, ridiculous parade.
Don’t lose sight of the ridiculousness of the scene. Jesus almost always gets portrayed as serious, even somber. I included the “clown Jesus” from Godspell in the bulletin this morning as a reminder that Jesus understood the power of the jester as well. The entire Palm Sunday story is great jest – and the butt of the joke is the empire and those who collude with it. That is to say, the butt of the joke and the targets of Jesus’ anger and his call to transformation are precisely the ones who see power in the most traditional and violent terms, and who side always with the unjust status quo that gives them their status.
Or, as John Crossan says, “It was a protest from the legal and prophetic heart of Judaism against Jewish religious cooperation with Roman imperial control.”
Jesus’ target is twofold: Roman imperial violence, which was the context of everyday life for the Jews of Jesus’ time, and the cooperation with Rome by Jewish religious leaders.
What is the message in this for us? First, let’s note with clarity what the message is not. This is not about Judaism, and the short distance from palms to passion is not to be covered by way of the ancient hatreds of anti-Semitism. Indeed, such ancient hatred, and the violence that institutionalizes it are precisely what Jesus calls into question and condemns.
If nothing else comes from the low comedy of Palm Sunday and the high drama of Good Friday, it should be clear that Jesus here condemns violence. The pivot point of all of this comes over the shared meal of Thursday evening and the solitude of the garden afterward.
At table, where Jesus can so often be found, he articulates the Great Commandment: love one another as I have loved you. By this they shall know that you are my followers, that you love one another.
And then, in the garden, when Peter draws the sword to protect his master Jesus says simply, once and for all, “no more of this.”
The sword is the way of the empire. It is the way of all empires. It is the way of our empire.
The story of Palm and Passion Sunday demands a choice of the passion community. For what will we suffer? To whom do we owe our ultimate allegiance? Shall we follow the way of the sword … or the way of the cross? Choose this day whom you shall serve, as it says elsewhere in scripture.
As for me and my household, we shall serve the Lord of love, the prince of peace: Jesus, the Christ.
How are we, who would be followers of the crucified One, supposed to lead lives that reflect the holiness of Christ? By this they shall know us: that we love one another – no matter what the cost.
Amen.
A prayer on the 30th anniversary of Romero's martyrdom It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.
(Prayer written by Bishop Ken Untener,
Every week is holy week.
Nothing could be more trite than that observation. After all, the earth is the Lord’s and all that is therein, so all time and space, all of creation is hallowed. Every week is holy week.
Every week has its moments of celebration – hosannas shouted to the highest heaven. Every week has its passion – people suffer and die each and every day whether or not we are aware.
And every week is witness to resurrection – to new life arising in often unexpected places in startling moments.
Every week is holy week.
But we who are supposed to be witnesses to the living Christ in our midst: how are we to live such that our lives reflect the holiness of Christ? Every day of every week?
Each year the season of Lent provides an opportunity for each of us to answer that question for ourselves once again. To be sure, we cannot answer it completely, but many of us commit to discovering one small part of the answer during these 40 days.
So, how has Lent been for you? Have you learned anything about yourself, about the faith you proclaim, about the Jesus whom we try to follow?
Reading the texts from this morning as I reflected on the journey of Lent I was reminded that the faith we proclaim is, first of all, brutally honest about the human condition. We know that there is no easy walk to the promised land – however we construe it and no matter when we undertake the journey.
As Walter Brueggemann observed, Christian life moves according to “the pattern and sequence of Jesus’ own life, an embrace of suffering that comes with obedience, which comes inevitably when our lives are at odds with dominant social values.”
We are a suffering community. We are a passion community.
This is not suffering for the sake of suffering, or martyrdom sought for the sake of pain. It is simply the suffering that comes when the shape of the community, its warp and woof, rubs so much against the grain of the broader culture in which it exists.
Consider, for example, our community. Lord knows we’re far from perfect as individuals or as a collective, but we do try to live out the love and justice of the gospel and we understand that to mean that everyone is welcome here. And, again, Lord knows that is simply not the case in so much of the rest of the world – whether we are talking about a global church that has more sex hang-ups than a Woody Allen flick or those large parts of the world in which it still seems ago to leaders to make a capital crime – literally – out of certain people’s sex lives. When we rub against that grain sometimes we get splinters.
But it’s not the splinters that matter. It’s how we respond to one another in the midst of the suffering that marks the measure of a true passion community. Do we bear one another’s burdens? Do we bind one another up? Do we love one another always?
When I tell people about my church – about you – I answer those questions in the affirmative. Yes, we do.
Oh, to be sure, we don’t do any of that perfectly, and we always have work to do. But, yes, we do, bear one another’s burdens, bind one another up, and love one another; and insofar as we do, we are a community of passion.
But why should this way of living cause offense to anyone anywhere?
You’d think it would be celebrated. You’d think its leaders would be greeted everywhere by shouts of “hosanna!” You’d think people would throw us a parade!
But Palm Sunday slips so quickly into the drama of passion.
If we look carefully and honestly at the story itself it’s actually not that hard to see how and why it happened then, and, perhaps, how and why it happens today.
To begin with, Jesus set out to rub against the grain on that first Palm Sunday. Riding into town on a donkey was a bit of Biblically based political street theater designed to inspire his supporters and deride his detractors. Kings and conquering heroes rode into town to great fanfare, often borne on the shoulders of their soldiers, to be met and celebrated by the well-connected and the powerful. They did not ride in on humble donkeys, surrounded by a rabble of the poor.
What Mary predicted before Jesus’ birth, “he will bring down the rulers from their thrones and exalt the humble,” is fulfilled in this joyous, ridiculous parade.
Don’t lose sight of the ridiculousness of the scene. Jesus almost always gets portrayed as serious, even somber. I included the “clown Jesus” from Godspell in the bulletin this morning as a reminder that Jesus understood the power of the jester as well. The entire Palm Sunday story is great jest – and the butt of the joke is the empire and those who collude with it. That is to say, the butt of the joke and the targets of Jesus’ anger and his call to transformation are precisely the ones who see power in the most traditional and violent terms, and who side always with the unjust status quo that gives them their status.
Or, as John Crossan says, “It was a protest from the legal and prophetic heart of Judaism against Jewish religious cooperation with Roman imperial control.”
Jesus’ target is twofold: Roman imperial violence, which was the context of everyday life for the Jews of Jesus’ time, and the cooperation with Rome by Jewish religious leaders.
What is the message in this for us? First, let’s note with clarity what the message is not. This is not about Judaism, and the short distance from palms to passion is not to be covered by way of the ancient hatreds of anti-Semitism. Indeed, such ancient hatred, and the violence that institutionalizes it are precisely what Jesus calls into question and condemns.
If nothing else comes from the low comedy of Palm Sunday and the high drama of Good Friday, it should be clear that Jesus here condemns violence. The pivot point of all of this comes over the shared meal of Thursday evening and the solitude of the garden afterward.
At table, where Jesus can so often be found, he articulates the Great Commandment: love one another as I have loved you. By this they shall know that you are my followers, that you love one another.
And then, in the garden, when Peter draws the sword to protect his master Jesus says simply, once and for all, “no more of this.”
The sword is the way of the empire. It is the way of all empires. It is the way of our empire.
The story of Palm and Passion Sunday demands a choice of the passion community. For what will we suffer? To whom do we owe our ultimate allegiance? Shall we follow the way of the sword … or the way of the cross? Choose this day whom you shall serve, as it says elsewhere in scripture.
As for me and my household, we shall serve the Lord of love, the prince of peace: Jesus, the Christ.
How are we, who would be followers of the crucified One, supposed to lead lives that reflect the holiness of Christ? By this they shall know us: that we love one another – no matter what the cost.
Amen.
A prayer on the 30th anniversary of Romero's martyrdom It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.
(Prayer written by Bishop Ken Untener,
posted by David Ensign at
8:59 AM
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