Passion Sunday - A
Cathy Venkatesh
This Palm Sunday afternoon, I will be joining a festive Walk for Affordable Housing organized by a local nonprofit. It seems particularly appropriate to do this on Palm Sunday, a day of processions and celebrations at churches across the country, but also a day on which we encounter the stark story of Jesus' Passion and death. Joyful processions meet stark suffering and the march to Golgotha. Palm Sunday invites us to notice where we find ourselves in the story of Holy Week and to discern where in this story God calls us to be.
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Isaiah 50:4-9a
William H. Shepherd
Schuyler Rhodes
The choir director was aghast. "I just didn't realize," she said. "It was totally inappropriate. I chose the wrong anthem."
Her mistake was understandable. The service schedule said, "Palm Sunday," and the usual Palm Sunday choir anthem includes shouts of "Hosanna." The problem was the placement. In the Book of Common Prayer, the "Hosanna" part comes at the beginning of the service following a procession with singing and palm-waving, the congregation settles down to a much more grave matter: a participatory reading of one of the passion narratives from the synoptic gospels. The choir director's anthem, coming after this solemn reading, did seem a bit inappropriate.
Her mistake was understandable. The service schedule said, "Palm Sunday," and the usual Palm Sunday choir anthem includes shouts of "Hosanna." The problem was the placement. In the Book of Common Prayer, the "Hosanna" part comes at the beginning of the service following a procession with singing and palm-waving, the congregation settles down to a much more grave matter: a participatory reading of one of the passion narratives from the synoptic gospels. The choir director's anthem, coming after this solemn reading, did seem a bit inappropriate.
R. Craig Maccreary
I suspect that most preachers will not be looking for ways to dive headlong into
lifting up the passion as the centerpiece of their homiletical offering for this Sunday. No
doubt there are good reasons to avoid wandering off the usual beaten path of the Palm
Sunday parade: the palms, on order for a year, beckon to be taken home and folded into
family Bibles as bookmarks; the children wait to have the promise fulfilled that they will
be able to act up a bit in the parade of palms with a passion that is not usually permitted;
and the choir has practiced for months. The wise preachers will be somewhat circumspect
in their moves.
Last summer my family and I moved from the East Coast to the Midwest. Our only previous travel to our new home was by airplane, but this time we were driving two cars. In preparation for our journey and because we wanted to visit some friends along the way, I arranged to secure maps and driving directions from the AAA. Now normally I would have mapped our journey myself (or more likely just headed out in the general direction of our destination and allowed my instincts to get us there), but my wife insisted that we get professional help (travel help, that is).
Perhaps we lose the punch of the imagery of "servant" in the Bible when we in our day view on cable television a movie like Remains of the Day. Watching the ever meticulous and loyal Anthony Hopkins prepare a table for dinner in a British palatial estate enables us to see what the ideal servant should do, how he should dress and act and talk, and how he should close his ears to whatever conversation takes place between host and guest.
Yet the image of servant we glean from our three lessons is a far cry from such elegance and splendor. Following the progression of thought from the first lesson through the second and into the gospel will lead us to think of "slave" rather than "servant," and then to marvel that in the midst of such brutality to a slave we can see the hand...
Yet the image of servant we glean from our three lessons is a far cry from such elegance and splendor. Following the progression of thought from the first lesson through the second and into the gospel will lead us to think of "slave" rather than "servant," and then to marvel that in the midst of such brutality to a slave we can see the hand...
Passion Sunday. Try explaining that word to the teenagers in a congregation and they will understandably get the wrong idea. Or maybe the right idea, especially in a place where they have suffered 51 passionless Sundays.
Here and now passion refers to suffering. This is the classic theme of Christian faith. Historian Jacob Burckhardt in the nineteenth century said, "Christianity is suffering." Certainly it is an address to suffering, as is Buddhism in its context....
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