PALM SUNDAY 2008

Isaiah 50:4-7

Philippians 2:6-11

Matthew 26:14-27:66

What a journey we have been on today, my brothers and sisters. We began in the cool of the early morning light at St Clare's, meeting Jesus outside the city and bringing him to our own Jerusalem, this beautiful church, amid great pomp and celebration.

Hosanna! Filio David. Hosanna! Filio David.

Praise and glory, O Son of David. Praise and glory to you!

Then, all of a sudden, the mood changed. Our Hosannas became muted by Jesus' lament: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

We heard how the Lord's servant gave his back to those who beat him and his cheeks to those who plucked his beard. We saw the soldiers spit upon the sacred face of Jesus and crown him with a wreath of thorny branches. And we have just secured the tomb, sealed it and set a guard.

My brothers and sisters, this is not the way our joyful procession and waving of palm branches was supposed to have ended. The Son of David is our king. Victory is what we want. “Arise, O God, and let your enemies be scattered. Let those who hate you flee before you.” What kind of a king is this we have gotten instead? Nothing but a dead human being. No, no, no, we cry. Has it all been in vain, has our Lenten fast, our Lenten sacrifices been for naught?

My brothers and sisters, if we don't feel saddened at this turn of events, if we don't feel betrayed, if we don't feel angry at life, at God, at whatever, we are either saints or are living in a dream world.

So where do we go from here? How are we to deal with our anger and our feelings of betrayal? Perhaps we can look at our icon. Contemplate it closely. Pray over it. Jesus is not a warrior-king riding a stallion, brandishing a two-edged sword and striking down everything in his way. He comes to us riding a slow-footed beast of burden, meek and humble. He comes to us not “flying on the wings of the wind,” but plodding along at a mule's pace on the same earth we tread. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has become the Paschal Lamb of sacrifice – for our sake.

This is the mystery in which we are caught up. We live by dying. We gain by losing. We become great by being the least of all. We reign by serving.

“Though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not think equality with God was something to be grasped at, clung to, held tightly as his own possession, but he emptied himself…. Therefore….”

I suggest there is no better way to enter into Holy Week than by emptying ourselves in turn. Perhaps we can do this best by uniting ourselves with those with whom Jesus identified: the poor, the marginalized, the suffering, and the abused.

And where do we find them? Must we go to Iraq or Afghanistan, to Kenya or Uganda, to the inner ghettoes of our cities or the dirt roads and hovels of our countryside?

Certainly the news media can be used in this way to raise our consciousness of the sorrows and sufferings of our fellow humans. But look at the brother or sister next to you. Do we not have real suffering among us? Are any of us capable of casting the proverbial first stone? Let us embrace the sorrow of Vivian, the pains of our brothers in the senior wing, the frustrations all of us are confronted with on a daily basis. Not glorifying them, not taking them for more than they are, but going out of ourselves to the other, making their joy more important than our own.

If we do this, my brothers and sisters, than this year's celebration of the Lord's Paschal Mystery will be grace and blessing for us. For he emptied himself for our sake, that we in turn might learn from his example to do so for one another.

Let us embrace the poverty we find in our midst as gift beyond reckoning – and know it for what it truly is: the Presence of God calling us further in and further up.

Who is ready for this? We are so poor in ourselves. And so, my brothers and sisters, we gather around the altar to partake of Jesus' total gift of himself – the very emptying of which we have been speaking, his kenosis, and his Paschal gift. We eat his body and drink his blood and in the strength of that food we find the victory we celebrated in our procession. We can wave our palms high in gladness because we have learned through the Passion that it is truly more blessed to give than to receive. May we know this in our lives.

Amen.