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Tag Archives: Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday: Gleanings
Did they leave their cast-off garments for the poorto pick up and wear after the parade?Who kept watch for the Romans,and what was the signal to disperse in a hurry,and who knew and who was left to fend for herself?Did … Continue reading
Palm Sunday 2024
If we are still looking for a military ruler, or a magician, or a mighty Messiah, we had better look elsewhere. What Jesus offers us is merely the humility, servitude, self-sacrifice, self-abandonment of an all-encompassing, death-defeating love: the creative, life-giving, all-absorbing love of God that will not let us go, nor let us down, nor leave us alone. Continue reading
Posted in holy days, sermon
Tagged Alan E. Lewis, Incarnation, Jesus, Lazarus, Palm Sunday, passion, theology
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And what of the colt?
It knew, as animals do, more than the crowd, felt beneath its hooves the blood of the branches, stones slickened with sap, the vibrations of voices hungry for release; heard the heartbeat of the man astride its back, how it … Continue reading
Lazarus campaigns against the death penalty
This is a #preparingforSundaywithpoetry prologue post. At last evening’s Bible study, we noticed the “Lazarus framework“ to John’s Palm Sunday story (if you’re using Mark, another poem from the pov of the colt is coming). No wonder, we said, authorities … Continue reading
Hosanna – save us!
We are used to thinking of them as the same crowd, moving from one Sunday to the next, but what if they were more like us: divided among themselves, one crying one thing and one another, each with their own ideas of whom should be saved, and how? Continue reading
Posted in holy days
Tagged cross, gun violence, Holy Week, Jesus, Palm Sunday, Passion Gospel, school shootings
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Sleep, prayer, grief, and Jesus
Jesus knew that he would conquer death and sin – he had told them over and again that he would rise – but he was grieved and frightened and anguished at the capacity of his human captors for violence. There is no contradiction here: it was from ourselves that he came to save us. That is why he advises his disciples, “Pray that you may not be tested.” Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged gethsemane, Holy Week, Jesus, Palm Sunday, Passion Gospel, prayer, Ukraine
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Are we there yet?
There is nothing in Christ’s story that would justify our sacrifice of children, women, grocery shoppers, police officers, and passers by to defend our right to reserve weapons of violence to ourselves. On the contrary, the resurrection is God’s ultimate judgement on the violence that nailed Jesus to the cross. The resurrection is God’s utter negation and reversal of all that would kill the beloved. Continue reading
Pine
They strew palms before the hooves of a donkeylike candy beneath the wheels of a slowly-moving car. My God has laid before me a path of pine needles,and will I hesitate to cry Hosanna?
The stones would shout
If these walls could speak, they would sing of the sun’s light seeping into sandstone, warming the night when Love comes calling … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, poetry, prayer, sermon preparation
Tagged Palm Sunday
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Palm Sunday 2018: outsourcing peace
It is hard to keep up with the Prince of Peace, but I learned a valuable lesson years ago from a philosopher named Tony whose day job was selling burglar alarms. Continue reading
over the water 