Penultimate Crescendo, April 5, 2009

Isaiah 50
Mark 11:1-25
Of all the celebrations, of all the year, Palm Sunday is for humanity perhaps the strangest.
Oh, this is the celebration we love the best, the waving of the branches, the hope of Spring, the singing of “The Palms”, little children shouting “Hosanna”, but like the people in the time of Isaiah, and the people in the Temple that day, we no longer know what we are doing or why, save that this is ritual. From our earliest childhood, we have tickled one another's ears with the palms, and chanted every single syllable of the song. But it is hollow Religious Ritual that Isaiah & Jesus were each decrying. Our own SELF-DECEIT, that we are without sin, we are the Holy People, a Great Nation under God, we have it all together, and we can make our lives perfect - if everyone else would just get out of our way, this is the PENULTIMATE CRESCENDO of Palm Sunday. A DEAFENING CACOPHONY of Human Voices each defending themselves, each justifying their reason, seeking attention, seeking someone else to listen, all the while ignoring everyone else.

One of the forgotten practices of faith is A Pilgrimage.
We know to worship on Sunday mornings, to give to support mission and out of compassion to those in need, we know to bow our heads and fold our hands, we cherish the Sacraments as well as Weddings and Funerals as holy moments out of time. But as a people of faith part of our identity is also as having once been in a Promised Land and now dispersed throughout the world. Once in a lifetime, the Muslim people go to Mecca,
the Jewish to Jerusalem,
as Christians there were SEVEN Pilgrimages we were to take:
To Jerusalem,
to Rome,
to Lourdes in France,
to Compostela in Spain,
to Canterbury England,
to Loreto Italy,
to Fatima in Portugal.
And entering the Holy City, Religious Pilgrims were to pray out loud and sing GOD SAVE US in the ancient tongue: HOSANNA. Not only have we forgotten what Hosanna means, most of us are so self-deceived as to be uncertain what we need to be saved from. Do we still believe in SALVATION?

Imagine, if one voice began repeating over and over “Hosanna”, then a second and a third. The sound of a Religious People would build to a Crescendo greater than any symphony, and yet, because what the pilgrims were saying was “GOD SAVE US...”, there is an awaited reply.
As loud and tumultuous as the Crescendo that builds, the sound is only PEN-ULTIMATE without an ASSURANCE from God that we are Redeemed, Saved.

The people of Israel in the time of Isaiah, had each gone about their separate lives, imagining they were doing no harm to anyone else. The ECONOMY was out of control. The Nation attempted to pay for what had been deferred in earlier years, as they paid for wars and military, and government spending. Each individual claimed no accountability, they had done nothing to cause this, they only wanted more dividends from their portfolio, a greater return for their retirement. The HOUSING STOCK was falling apart, as every individual claimed My property was reassessed for three times what I had paid, so I put it on the market to sell it and claim what is mine. Their children and grandchildren witnessed the alcoholism and sexuality of their parents, and pushed the limits that much further.

As their nation and culture collapsed, the people claimed GOD had broken Covenant. They recalled similarity of the COVENANT to MARRIAGE and claimed God had DIVORCED their Mother and put her away. They recalled COVENANT being like ADOPTION, and claimed GOD had sold God's Children into SLAVERY. To which the Prophet challenges their complaint and self-deceit demanding “Where is the Bill of Divorce?” “Where is the Sales Receipt for You?” Instead of deceiving ourselves that God has done this, God Grew Tired of Us and has Failed us, the Prophet describes the Suffering of God for us.

How odd, that as a people of Faith, we believe God to be able to CREATE, to JUDGE and to PUNISH, but doubt whether GOD could REDEEM. The pain of REDEMPTION is not in reclaiming, but whether we are reclaimed as broken, damaged goods, or whether at that Pen-Ultimate Crescendo there is a demonstration of response from God that makes us whole, that ultimate truth that truly forgives and redeems, as precious and new? Isaiah describes that the reply from God is not louder, but after the Volcano erupts an ASH that covers all Creation. After the day, there is the blackness of the sky at night, that stretches on beyond our vision and understanding.

According to the Prophet ZEPHANIAH, the MESSIAH, the SAVIOR who would bring Salvation to God's People would enter the City of Jerusalem from The Mount of OLIVES. Jesus' ENTRY into Jerusalem was anticipated and expected. When he told his disciples to go into the Village and tell the owners of the COLT that “The Lord has need of it” this was not some magic premonition of planting the idea in their minds, but simply that if you name you are doing something for God, something Holy, and that it would be returned, who could resist? Jesus came into the City, with the crowd becoming louder and louder, singing and shouting in hope and expectation. YET, as Jesus came to the Temple, “HE REALIZED IT WAS ALREADY LATE” and said and did nothing.

The following day, hungry he found the tree full of leaves, showy and ornamental, but having no fruit at all, for which he cursed it. Going to the Temple, he found it showy and ornamental, with no fruit, and cursed it. This is not an invitation to ANTI-SEMITISM, but a challenge to anything that is about pretense and facade rather than doing work.

The disciples were amazed and appalled that the tree had withered and died, to which Jesus describes the power of PRAYER. Too often, people have taken this as invitation that if you only PRAYED HARDER, were MORE FAITHFUL you could have changed the world, moved mountains, healed cancer, kept it from SNOWING THIS WEEK, or stopped the man in Binghamton from killing a dozen who had taught him English.

What Jesus was saying is PRAYER WORKS MIRACLES, but the tragedy was that what this man had been taught was ENGLISH and not the development of supports. Our frustration that it snowed would not have been so great, if we had not a week ago seen the last of the ice disappear and crocuses begin to bloom. To we Begrudge bringing the Crocuses? Should we not have had those few days in the 50s with blue sky?

PALM SUNDAY is only the PEN-ULTIMATE, because the Ultimate has not yet been heard. What is dramatic, what is memorable, is not that the Savior offered a CRESCENDO Louder and More than our Pen-Ultimate Hosanna, but that as our crescendo escalated and reached its zenith, God responded with HUMILITY, with OBEDIENCE, with FORGIVENESS. But can we hear it? Are we so busy shouting HOSANNA, demanding God on our terms, demanding our dreams and deceiving ourselves that we fail to listen for God in all humility redeeming the world?