Breathe in God's Mercy: A Sermon for The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday
The Sunday of the Passion:Palm Sunday Sermon - April 5, 2020
by The Rev’dEmily Rose Proctor
The triumphal entry into Jerusalem has always been a challenge for me to get into emotionally – I think because I can never hear it without thinking about what is coming next—Jesus’ betrayal and crucifixion. The Hosannas just seem to fall a little flat.
I get the same feeling now looking back at Julian and Madeleine’s birthday pictures from three weeks ago. I think we were probably the last birthday party to be held in Santa Rosa Beach. The reality of the Corona virus hadn’t fully hit us yet. My mother was visiting from out of town, and we were more worried about finding enough babysitters to get us through spring break than anything else.
But already there were signs of what was to come. Richard’s parents decided at the last minute not to come because of advisory notices against air plane travel that were starting to come through their retirement village administration. My dad’s family decided to hold off too. Still, the grocery stores had toilet paper, spring breakers still covered the beaches, and we hadn’t yet heard that schools would be closed for the next six weeks. We had some hand sanitizer out, but we still played on the park equipment, opened presents, had cupcakes, and no one seemed that afraid. But now I look back and it just seems weird, all of us there together, blowing bubbles and singing Happy Birthday. We had no idea, really, what was coming.
In the reading from Matthew 21, the disciples obediently follow Jesus’ instructions about the donkey, and the crowds are ecstatic, waving palm branches and hailing Jesus as the Son of David, filling the air with echoes of Psalm 118, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest Heaven!”
But just a few chapters later, those same disciples are betraying, denying, falling asleep and abandoning Jesus at the lowest point of his life. The crowds’ Hosannas have changed to shouts of “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
And as much as I would like to distance myself from these events, these sinners… I find myself instead identifying with them. Even Judas, the betrayer.
I don’t know, maybe it was the kiss that did it. This pandemic has me hearing everything in the Bible differently. The other day I was out for a walk with the kids, and all of a sudden one of our neighbors came out of their house and started yelling at us for being too close to their car and mailbox. Someone in her household was in poor health and highly vulnerable, and she was scared that somehow our being at the top of her driveway was a threat. We have since smoothed things over, but it was a startling reminder how this virus has made potential Judas’s of all of us. Every kiss, every hand off, every hug, a potential harbinger of illness and death. Every person a potential carrier, even if we show no symptoms of illness.
A friend recently got an email from her bank notifying her that she was in the branch when one of their staff, who has since tested positive for Covid-19 was working and probably contagious. Everyone who got that email now has to look at themselves and wonder – have I been a carrier all this time? Who have I unwittingly betrayed with a kiss? Surely not I? we all say. And yet the numbers of those infected keep rising every day.
Then there are the sleepers, those who just don’t seem to be awake yet to the seriousness of the situation we are in. Every day we are open for assistance at Caring and Sharing, people come by wanting to shop in the thrift store, which is closed, or donate their used items.
And I go back and forth between being shocked at their lack of concern, and fighting the urge to sneak into the sorting room my own box of toys we are ready to get rid of. I mean, what better time to do some cleaning out right? Surely, I wouldn’t be infected, right?
Or some of us ARE aware of how serious this is—too aware, in fact—and we’re so overwhelmed by the magnitude of it that we just want to pull the covers over our head or watch Netflix movies all day so we don’t have to think about it.
Or we have children who demand our attention 24/7 or others we are caring for, and we are literally so exhausted that we CAN’T keep our eyes open for late night prayer vigils or blog posts or webinars or text message check ins with friends and family or all the other ten thousand things we can think of that we could be doing if only we didn’t have kids.
And then there’s Peter, so sure that he will do the right thing. “Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you.”
But when the moment of testing comes—when bearing witness to the truth will come at a high cost, what does Peter do? He acts out of fear and self-preservation. “I do not know the man.”
Jesus says, “You will all become deserters because of me this night.”
And I think there are probably a lot of people who feel deserted right about now. They may be new to their community or living alone. They may not have the resources to video chat. They may be incarcerated or in a nursing home unable to see their family.
They may have been let go from the jobs they depended on for their identity or their survival. Their loss of access to mental health services or recovery support may have left them doubly vulnerable.
Maybe, like Peter, we had a fantasy of being a hero in a time of crisis, but now that we’re in one, we find ourselves hunkering down and just trying to survive.
Or if we are honest, perhaps we can admit that there are a lot of people whom we abandoned and deserted long before this crisis. Now that their lives depend on us, we don’t even have their phone numbers or addresses. They may not be on our radar at all. Unlike Peter, when we say, “I do not know the man,” we are right, and yet it is no less shameful.
Both Peter and Judas have a lot of shame and regret about how they handled things. Peter weeps bitterly. And after Jesus is condemned, Judas goes back to the chief priests and elders and tries to give back his 30 pieces of silver. Either he changed his mind about who Jesus was or things didn’t go as he had planned.
It’s possible that Judas thought that once the Jesus was directly confronted with hostile Roman power, he would show his real power, fight back, lead the people in a revolution. Instead Jesus says, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Instead Jesus allows himself to be insulted, beaten, spat upon. He lives by the great commandments to love God and love your neighbor as yourself, even when that seems pointless or stupid, if not impossible.
If Jesus were walking among us today, might we not be tempted to put him in the middle of New York City, expecting him to work his magic and just heal everyone? Send the virus into a herd of pigs and let them run off a cliff into the Atlantic Ocean?
How shocked and scandalized and guilty we would feel if Jesus just got sick like everyone else and then died. Might we not think, “If he is the son of God, let him save himself and us!” Isn’t what we want? A miracle worker. A cure. Someone or something to stop or prevent our suffering and death?
Even those leaders who condemned Jesus to death may have thought they were doing the right thing, keeping the majority of the Jewish people safe from a Roman crackdown by condemning anyone who might stir people to rebellion.
It is possible that in our own efforts to do the right thing or, like Judas, to take action and do “something,” we will do more harm than good. Perhaps our social isolation will in some cases be a cure that is worse than the disease. Or perhaps our efforts to help someone in need or to meet our own legitimate needs will result in someone unnecessarily getting infected or even dying.
The good news is not that some of us may be able to do everything right during this difficult time and escape suffering or survive the hardship with clear consciences.
The good news is that Jesus knew that he would be betrayed, denied, abandoned, disappointed, condemned by all—including his disciples—he told them so himself. “You will all become deserters,” he said. And yet he took the bread, broke it and gave it to them, saying, “Take, eat, this is my body given for you.” He took the cup and said, “This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of sins.” His love, God’s love, isn’t dependent on anyone’s deserving it.
I feel so sorry for Judas because he gave into guilt and despair before the end of the story. He didn’t get to experience in the flesh, like Peter, the reality of that promised forgiveness for himself.
He didn’t get to look back on the darkness of Holy Week as a terrible but finite precursor to the dawn of Easter morning, with its infinite and eternal implications. Not that Jesus or anyone else was spared suffering or death, but that there was life on the other side.
Judas didn’t get to experience that in his earthly lifetime. But through the gift of Holy Scripture, we do. If our knowledge of Jesus’ pending crucifixion makes Palm Sunday’s Hosanna’s fall flat, then may our ancestors’ testimonies about Easter morning save us from despair in this present darkness. Not that we might deny or turn away from or minimize the darkness of sin and suffering and death.
But that we might be present with it in a compassion that wins out over fear. Compassion for ourselves and our inevitable mistakes and fumbling and betrayals. Compassion for one another.
When we are at a loss for the right words to pray at a time such as this, perhaps all that is necessary is that we remember to breathe. As scared as we may be of contagion, we have to breathe. So let us breathe in God’s mercy, that we may breathe out God’s mercy to others. Breathe in God’s mercy, that we may breathe out God’s mercy to others.[1]
When we feel overwhelmed with worry about the future or the burdens of caring for others, breathe in God’s mercy, and breathe out God’s mercy to others.
When we are searching for someone to blame—a leader, boss, company, family member, political party—even God himself, breathe in God’s mercy, and breathe out God’s mercy to others.
When we feel helpless to act or realize that we have been acting mostly to benefit our own egos, agendas, or careers, breathe in God’s mercy, and breathe out God’s mercy to others.
When we fear that we have said or done the wrong thing or are disgusted by someone who has, breathe in God’s mercy, and breathe out God’s mercy to others.
When our faith falters or we realize we have been using it as an opioid or a weapon, breathe in God’s mercy and breathe out God’s mercy to others.
Whatever comes, hang in there and keep breathing. Keep reaching out in love. None of us will do this perfectly. So, in the spirit of Christ our Savior, let’s covenant with one another to err on the side of compassion, trusting that Love is stronger than sin, than suffering, stronger even than death.
Hosanna in the highest Heaven!
[1] This breath prayer was taught to me by one of my seminary professors, Rodger Nishioka.