Rev. Paul Tellström                                                               Irvine United Congregational Church

Palm Sunday, Year C                                                                                                      April 1, 2007

Hebrew Testament: Psalm 118:19-29

Gospel Reading: Luke 19:28-40                                                                                  word count: 1,699

Some years ago, a book came out called, “When the Cheering Stopped.”  It was the story of President Woodrow Wilson and the events leading up to and following WWI.  When that war was over Wilson was an international hero.  There was a great spirit of optimism abroad, and people actually believed that the last war had been fought.

On his first visit to Paris after the war, Wilson was greeted by cheering mobs.  He was more popular than their own heroes were.  The same thing was true in England and Italy.  In a Vienna hospital, a Red Cross worker had to tell the children that there would be no Christmas presents because of the war and the hard times.  The children didn’t believe her.  They said that President Wilson was coming and they knew that everything would be all right. 

The cheering lasted about a year.  Then it gradually began to stop.  Perhaps the leaders in Europe were more concerned with their own agendas than they were a lasting peace.  At home, Woodrow Wilson ran into opposition in the United States Senate and his League of Nations was not ratified.  Under the strain of it all, the President’s health began to break.

In the next election, his party was defeated.  So it was that Woodrow Wilson, a man who barely a year or two earlier had been heralded as the new world Messiah, came to the end of his days a broken and defeated man.

It is a sad story, but one that is not altogether unfamiliar.  The ultimate reward for someone who tries to translate ideals into reality is apt to be frustration and defeat.  There are exceptions, of course, but not many.

It happened that way to Jesus.  First, he began to talk more and more about commitment.  Second, he dared to suggest that all people are worth loving, and finally, he began to talk more and more about a way that lead to taking up a cross.

            Today is the day when Jesus acted through the words of Zechariah; “Your king is coming sitting on a donkey’s colt.”  This was the beginning of the last journey in to the acknowledged center of faith; the temple at Jerusalem.  The crowds who cheered were the poor and the outcast, the people Jesus championed, the ones he has taught us cannot be left behind.

            In a short while, the cheering would stop.  The journey would not.  Jesus had entered the labyrinth; the last series of meaningful moments in a life that would, upon completing his walk, change the world.

            For now, the palms were raised and then laid down in front of him on his path into the journey.  For now, he was welcomed as a king.  When the signs were removed that the world makes to indicate what a first-place person looks like, one who has attained true success, then the cheering stopped.  Jesus died with only a small handful of those who loved him nearby less than a week after such a cheering reception.

During the Special Olympics several years ago, nine children lined up for the 100-yard dash.  The gun sounded and the race was off.  Only a few yards into the race, one of the children fell and began to cry.  For some reason these challenged children did not understand the world's concept of competition and getting ahead and taking advantage when a competitor was down.  The other eight children stopped running and came back to the fallen child.  A young girl with Down's Syndrome kissed him and brushed him off.  The children lifted him up together, and arm in arm, they all ran over the finish line.  The audience rose to their feet in applause.  There was not one winner, there were nine winners.  For a fleeting moment, these children showed us the realm of God.  They challenged the world's concept that first place is everything.  They exemplified what Jesus came to show us, and acted as Jesus would act.  All are worth loving.  All are worth taking with us into the journey.

We inhabit a world many think is in danger of dying.  Governments are notoriously shortsighted, often dominated by interest groups that see only their own needs and vision, and not that of the whole.  As it was then, so it is now.  The same priests and powers and principalities are waiting along the path today as they waited for Jesus to enter into Jerusalem.

On Palm Sunday, and then again in the upper room, and then again on the cross, he challenged the world's concept of power.

Finally, the cheering stopped because Jesus began to talk more and more about taking up the cross, and less about the parables and stories that pointed to the realm of God.  These, they wanted to hear about, especially since they misunderstood this realm to be a restoration of Israel to the days of King David’s glory.  But, increasingly, Jesus began to describe the journey of life that we are on as being one of sacrifice—even giving up your life.

We are the only creatures who do what I heard someone once describe as “deathtalk.”  We are the only beings who live our lives with an awareness that we will someday die.  Part of the function of religion is to celebrate life in the midst of this awareness, and we are doing that today in all the joy of the new life that is represented here in the presence of our new members.  

Part of the function of religion is to come together to make spiritual sense out of the fact that our lives are part of a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.  All of us enter into a long, winding path that eventually leads to Jerusalem.  Like Jesus, we believe that the path leads back out again.  We sometimes forget that our journeys are not entitlements to “first place”, but a path of servanthood that call us to return from our own race through life to assist those who have fallen on the path and to lay branches before them on their own trip to Jerusalem.

I mentioned Jesus’ last journey as if it were a trip into the labyrinth.  A labyrinth is a spiritual tool.  It is a walk on a sacred path.  The path is in a large circle.  It would fit comfortably into this sanctuary in terms of size.  I brought a finger labyrinth with me today to show you.  It contains a perfect pattern in a perfect circle.  It has a path that runs in a circuit into a center, and then back out again.

This is an ancient tool of meditation and spirituality.  In the past, Christians had given up these spiritual tools and have been told to believe through a lens of intellect only.  Yet today, we are starting to recognize that the intellect must work in tandem with other human faculties, including our senses, emotions, and intuitions.  Not to the exclusion of intellect, but as to make us a more fully fleshed out organ of experience and knowledge.

The labyrinth is an archetype of transformation.  The journey is in three stages.  The first is called purgation.  The walk from the entrance into the center is purgation.  Like Jesus on his ride into Jerusalem, the path is the place where there are distractions along the way—the cheering crowds, the palms on his path, his gaze into the faces that soon would not be there to support him.  The journey from the edge into the center is where we purge and shed that which distracts us.  It is the part of the spiritual journey we take when we focus on what specifically is stopping us from having a closer connection to God. 

The second stage of the journey is called illumination.  This is the experience of the Garden of Gethsemane—the place we go to alone.  Since the path is so windy, we are surprised when we get there.  This is the place to quiet the mind from the journey and to reflect on it so far.  This is the centering place to ask for and to receive illumination—what is it that we are to do, what clarity can be found, what meditation and prayer will strengthen us for the resolve to go on with the journey.

The third stage is called union.  Union begins when we get up and move away from the center and back onto the path that will carry us out again.  People who feel grounded or have an important experience in the center will feel empowered in their walk outward.  A walk of union occurs when we realize that God is with us, in fact is a part of us that has always been there and always will be.  It means communion with the Holy.   

Today, it is what many people call “spirituality”—an experiential union with the Divine within.  Jesus’ Holy Week experience was one of purgation, illumination, and Union.

This Thursday we will have our Maundy Thursday service in Plumer Hall, and it will be experiential.  On Saturday, a labyrinth will be set up for you to walk, also in Plumer Hall.  If you do experience it with us, let everything in—the noise, the faces, the thoughts—let it all in.

We are on our own journeys into Jerusalem, on our search for illumination, and our desire for union with something greater.  At different times in our lives, the journey is joyful; we are greeted by friends and helpers along the way.  At times, it is lonely, difficult, and even painful, but we are still on the journey, called to walk the walk.  We may not succeed in the way the world expects success.  We may stop and go back to pick up someone who has fallen.  Nevertheless, we are all on the journey in to Jerusalem.  We are moving this week toward the illumination in the Garden of Gethsemane.  And we are certainly moving towards Union, to being a part of the great cosmic universe and sharing in it by being the agents of transformation that God calls to us from that great center to be.  AMEN. 

Sermon Resources:

Brett Blair, Sermon Illustrations (Woodrow Wilson, Special Olympics)

Dr. Lauren Artress, Walking the Sacred Path, Riverbed Books: New York, 1995

Scripture for Sunday, April 1, 2007

Palm Sunday, Year C

Psalm 118:19-29

19 Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. 20 This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. 21 I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. 22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. 23 This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. 24 This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. 25 Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, give us success! 26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.  We bless you from the house of the Lord. 27 The Lord is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar.  28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you. 29 O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Luke 19:28-40

28 After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?’ just say this, “The Lord needs it.’”

32 So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They said, “The Lord needs it.” 35 Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” 39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”