Blogging toward Sunday

By Craig T. Kocher
Sunday, March 16
Mt. 21:1-11, Ps. 118:1-2 & 19-29, Is. 50:4-9a, Ps. 31:9-16, Php. 2:5-11, Mt. 26:14-27:66

Sunday Bloody Sunday

The church suffers from a bit of schizophrenia about Palm Sunday. Should the focus be on Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the “Hosannas!” of the shouting crowd? Or should the emphasis be placed on the cross and the “Crucify him! Crucify him!” chants of the people? Is this a service of exultation or a service of passion? Furthering the complexity, the lectionary offers five texts, two of which are lessons from the Gospel of Matthew, the latter being a nearly two-chapter scramble through the most significant moments of Jesus’ final days.

A common mistake in preaching is tackling too much in 20 minutes, leaving the congregation drowning in content without clear focus. Given the amount of material for this week, the preacher might do one of two things:

Preach a thematic sermon on the significance of this Sunday to the life of faith. One way to do this would be to place the events of Holy Week in the larger story of God’s activity in Jesus. Sam Wells has suggested that God does three things in Christ: 1) He comes to be with us. Notably he does this for 30 years in Nazareth as a son, a brother, a congregant, a friend, a carpenter taking his place in daily fabric of community life. 2) He comes to work with us. This is his three-year public ministry of gathering a community about him, preaching and healing, and embodying the reign of God. 3) He comes to work for us. This is Holy Week, when Jesus takes our aspirations and dreams, our loneliness, grief, sin and betrayal into himself, for us and for our salvation.

The second option is to focus on a few verses of scripture that draw out a particular element of the story—a character, moment, or element of the passion narrative. Here are a few suggestions:

• Answer the question “What happened?” Why do the crowds shouting Hosanna at the beginning of the service call for his death at the end? The temptation is to see the first crowd as “us” and the second crowd as “them.” The passion becomes more personal when the sins that send our Lord to his death are the sins that he redeems.

• Develop the image of the “face.” Jesus sets his “face towards Jerusalem.” Isaiah says “he did not hide his face” and “set his face like flint.” Jesus’ face is full of love and compassion at the last supper, contorted with desperate grief in the garden, and wracked with horrible pain on the cross. Where do we see the different faces of God in the world around us?

• Focus on the peaceable kingdom in the midst of a bloody world. While the blood and gore of Mel Gibson’s crucifixion scenes in The Passion of the Christ may be over the top, the movie highlights Jesus’ command to his disciples to “put away the sword.” Jesus Christ does not counter violence with violence and does not allow his followers to either.

• Take us to the moment of Peter’s triune denial at the hands of a little servant girl. How does the foundation of the church cave so easily? Who, or what, causes us to fall from our creed when the chips are on the line? If your Holy Thursday sermon will focus on the institution of the Lord’s Supper, this could be a creative way to draw out our connection with Peter the rock.

• Do a Good Friday “lite” sermon. In our day the cross has become domesticated. It has become a cultural tool or symbol, something we manipulate for our own purposes. Push the congregation to see the cross as something we receive rather than use, something we bear rather than hang on the wall. Preach the cross as the Jesus way of life and the pathway to reconciliation with God and one another.

Craig T. Kocher is associate dean of the chapel and director of religious life at Duke University.

Comments

[Ed Koffenberger]

How about making Jerusalem the image of the heart of each Christian? We each have aspects of our humanity that celebrate and wish to invite any source of hope and love. We each have aspects of our humanity that cry out to crucify what does not "measure up" to our own expectations.

[Matt Emery]

Now, I know that 'Blogging Toward Sunday' is supposed to be about preaching, but another option that hasn't been mentioned is simply to not have a sermon. If one follows the liturgical form recommended for this day in most of the liturgy books (Liturgy of Palms followed by Liturgy of Passion), a period of silence (perhaps as much as 3 to 5 minutes) following the passion reading may be just as 'effective' as any sermon. This would be especially good if the liturgy is then going into the Eucharist, but also even if not.

[Ed Koffenberger]

Matt, we are trying the Eucharist followed by the reading of the Passion ending with silence. (Silence is so under-rated in worship!)

[S. Teague]

In the Episcopal Prayer Book tradition, St. Paul's will have the Liturgy of the Palms - the Passion Story read by various readers from where they are seated - the silence - a very brief meditation - Eucharist - and then a silent retiring procession. I note attendance records - more are present for Palm/Passion Sunday and Easter than make the journey through Holy Week. Schizo - yes, but isn't life like that - and God is still with us in it.

[Anne-Marie Hislop]

I'm preaching about faith using the stories of Peter and Judas. Both stumble and deny/betray Jesus, but only Peter turns back to the community of faith for support and eventually re-encounters Jesus where real healing, forgiveness, and restoration can happen.

[Harry W Shipps]

Palm Sunday is really the Sunday of the Passion. The Palm & the Procession glean most popular attention but that is really just a prelude. Inasmuch as Sundays are the only days of 'required' attendance at public worship, this is the time for the reading of the Passion.

[Diedra Kriewald]

I stopped serious reading of Kocher's blog when I came to Sam Wells's masculine pronoun for God as: "He [God] comes to be with us...." etc. Not only is the masculine language for God problematic, but Wells and Kocher need to be careful about how closely the ultimate being of God is expressed as related to the actitivies of the historical Jesus.

[Cynthia J Hallas]

For the past several years in my parish (Episcopal), we have introduced the Liturgy of the Palms with a brief commentary on the nature of the day, including the duality of the "Hosanna!"-"Crucify Him" message that we are asked to participate in. There is no sermon, and we follow the gospel reading with a period of silence, then an appropriate musical offering.

[Bill Hennessy]

I can't help but be troubled by the practice of reading the passion narrative uncritically.
This has been such a potent source of anti-semitism in the West that allowing it to speak only for itself, I feel, is a dangerous thing. As far as the Palm/Passion dichotomy, it strikes me that the two can be pulled together as a way of contrasting God's power met in Jesus and the power of the world met in Rome. Crossan and Borg's book The Last Week is a helpful resource for that.

[cve]

I am always struck by the words the church places in our mouths and on our lips. "Hosanna" is certainly one of those words which demands explication. And so, my approach is to examine why we would be led to sing that word today. "Save us" from what? The oppressive imperialism of the age? "Save us" for what? To lay down our lives for the passion (suffering love) of God?

[Rev. Randy Murray]

Among those of you whose liturgies use a period of silence after the passion reading, do you feel the need to explain its value or purpose to the congregation in some way first? In my Anglican parish, we do have a short period of silence after each reading on Sunday (something that some are still trying/struggling to use fruitfully), but if I were to have a longer one after the passion reading, does it need an introduction? In places where this is a tradition, there would be no need obviously, but where it is new I am thinking there might be.

I should mention that I have preached on the value of silence before, so they do have an idea of where I am coming from on this.

Thanks for suggestions.

[Chris Erdman]

One way we're trying to tilt away from the Palm Sunday focus which eclipses the Passion, it to add "The Solemn Reproaches from the Cross" following the sermon as we approach the Eucharist. We anticipate gathering the two themes of the Entry and Jesus' occupation of the Temple Mount, and the move toward the Cross in the two halves of the liturgy. An unusual move for a West Coast Presbyterian congregation.

[Kate]

I just wanted to roll my eyes at Diedra's post. Intolerance takes many forms!