Interactive Palm Sunday Homily for Children and Adults

Homily for Palm Sunday

“On the Road with Jesus”

Interactive message for children and adults.  Children were sitting in the front of the sanctuary, by the baptismal font.

Items I used:  pitcher with water, palm branch, cup with oil, some bread.

I also practiced the response before I began:

            Dear friends in Christ, grace to you and peace from God our creator, and from our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN

            Here we are – disciples – and we have been on the road with Jesus.  We are here today with our palm branches and our praises – and our hopes.  Some of us have been with Jesus for just a little while.  Some of us have been following Jesus for a long time.  When did you begin following Jesus?  Think back.  Think back….

           

            Maybe you were there when he was baptized by John in the river Jordan.  Maybe you were there to get baptized too, and you saw something happen then, and you remembered, and ever since then you have been on the road with Jesus.  (pour water in font.  use the palm branch to spray some people.) Maybe you heard John argue with him, “I need to be baptized by you”.  Maybe you saw a dove or heard something from the heavens, something like “You are my beloved son….”  And then you followed Jesus….

            Or, it could have been a little later than that.  Perhaps you were one of the fisherman, standing by the edge of the sea, and you were throwing your nets into the sea when you heard him calling out, “Simon!  James!  John!  (I ad libbed other names and the children starting shouting out their own names.)  Drop your nets and follow me!  I will make you fish for people!”  Maybe you heard him call your name and you just couldn’t help it.  You felt like, for the first time you were important.  You belonged somewhere.  You belonged to someone.  You knew, just knew, that he was going places, and that he was going to do great things, and that you – YOU were going to be a part of it.  From then on you followed him – and you did get to see – and do – great things.  Sure you failed sometimes, but – one of you got to walk on water once!  Who has ever had that happen to them?

            Maybe you were there when everyone was on the mountain listening to him teach.  And afterwards, your stomachs were growling.  But, instead of sending you all away, he told you all to sit down.  You saw that the disciples had just this small amount of bread – 5 loaves – and two fishes – and you saw him lift those loaves and that bread up to heaven and pray.  (Give a few people a taste of bread.)  Maybe you can still taste the bread that he gave you that day.  There were 5,000 people, they said, and that was not counting women and children… and he fed you all.  Since then, you have been following him.

            Or this:  he held out his hand, and he spoke a word, and he healed you.  He healed you, or he healed someone close to you.  Maybe he took mud and put it on your eyes, or maybe he told you to get up and walk, or maybe he opened your ears so now you can hear.  (Walk around an anoint a few children with oil.)  You were a leper, an outcast, and he made you clean, so that you can be with other people again.  Or, he raised you from the dead.  You – or your daughter or your son – they are alive today because of Jesus.  And so, here you are, on the road, following.

            Or, he forgave you.  Did Jesus forgive you?  (the children shouted, "Yes!")  All of the things that held you back, he let go of.  All of the things you are afraid of – he promised to go with you.  All of the things you regret – he said – they don’t matter any more.  He said, “God forgives you all of your sins.”  So you got up and you followed him.

            Or maybe you just saw him now, recently, as he was entering Jerusalem.  He was seated on a donkey.  You had heard stories about him, and you saw all the other people following him, and you started following too, because of the things you heard and the people you saw.  And you thought, “Is this the One?  Is this the King God was telling us would come?”  Because you had heard from the prophets that the King, the one who would save Israel, would come HUMBLY, on a donkey!  And besides, the crowd was getting bigger and bigger and everything was getting louder and more exciting and people were waving branches and they were putting their cloaks on the ground. 

            Some of the people were shouting “Hosanna!”  (have one side of sanctuary shout “Hosanna!”)

            Some of the people were shouting “Blessed are you, King Jesus!”  (have other side shout)

            They were shouting at the same time!  (have both sides shout at the same time)

            This was it!  This is everything you have been waiting for.

            And you follow Jesus as he enters Jerusalem.

           

            HOSANNA!  BLESSED ARE YOU KING JESUS!

            And you know there are people who don’t like what he is doing.  There are people who are angry at Jesus, who are afraid of Jesus, but he just keeps on riding into Jerusalem.

            HOSANNA!  BLESSED ARE YOU KING JESUS!

            And we are on the road – we are following Jesus.  It is so exciting today to hear the shouts and to see the crowds.

            HOSANNA!  BLESSED ARE YOU KING JESUS!

            But he doesn’t stop here.  Does he?  He keeps going. 

            He keeps going into Jerusalem, and he doesn’t stop…..

            Until he gets to the cross.

            We are on the road with Jesus this week.

            Following the one who has fed, forgiven, taught and healed us, raised us to life, who has called us his own.

            And he won’t stop until he gets to the cross.

            For the lonely.  The outcast.  The poor.

            For you.  For me.  For the whole world.

            What will it mean for you to follow Jesus this week?

            AMEN

           

            

What Love Will Do

"He could have been anything he wanted.  But he chose to stay here."

It has been many years now since the funeral of the elderly bachelor farmer.  He died at 88, well-beloved by the people of the small rural community where he made his home.  I particularly remember how he used to visit his sister, who was an invalid.  Her face would light up whenever he came into the room. 

Between the funeral and the cemetery, a man came up to me and introduced himself.  One of the nephews, I think.  I don't remember that.  But I remember what he said: 

"He could have been anything he wanted.  But he chose to stay here."

Perhaps he looked at me, a city girl transplanted to the country, and thought:  She doesn't really know him.  There's so much she doesn't know about him.  He might have thought that when I looked at this elderly gentleman, I only saw the surface, and I made assumptions.  I saw a man who had lived a small life, in a small community, who never married.  I saw a stoic Norwegian, a man of simple habits and few words.  But he wanted me to know things that I couldn't see, or at least that I couldn't see with my eyes.  He wanted me to know that this man didn't have to stay here.  He had choices.  He could have been an engineer.  He could have been a lawyer.  He could have moved away to the big city.  He could have done anything he wanted, been anything he wanted.  But he chose to stay.  Why?

It's not the success story that we usually hear, that we have grown familiar with:  the story about getting to the top, the story about leaving behind the small life and making it in the big city.  It's not a rags to riches story, not a story about how intelligence, creativity and drive won the day.  But the words still haunt me, "He could have been anything he wanted.  He chose to stay here."

He chose to stay here.  That is the point the apostle Paul is trying to make, in the reading we heard from Philippians.  Here is Jesus, the eternal Son of God, familiar with glory, and power and honor, and yet.... he came here.  He came here, and he stayed here, with us.  He opened his hands and healed people.  He opened his hands and fed people.  He taught and forgive and loved.  He wept with those who wept.  He raised the dead.  He rejoiced.  He walked around.  He felt pain.  He died. 

It came to that. 

It goes in the opposite direction of the success stories that we usually hear.  First, he gave up his power, his glory, to come here.  He came here, and he stayed here.  He stayed so that people could feel his touch, could hear his voice, could be healed, and fed.  He stayed even when sky became dark, and everyone turned away.  He stayed when all that were left were taunters, saying, "He saved others.  He cannot save himself."

It came to that. 

We looked at him but didn't see.  On Palm Sunday it seemed so clear.  He was on his way up, and that was the way it was supposed to be.  But, in reality, he was on his way down, further down, all the way down, all the way down to the depths of human sin, and misery and injustice.  He was on his way down, for the sake of the children and the Pharisees, for the sake of the beautiful and the ugly, for the sake of the successful and the failures.   And no one wanted to go there with him, but he went there with us. 

Because that's what love will do. 

A Different Drummer

Today was Passion Sunday, otherwise known as "Palm Sunday". It's always a big day in my congregation, because one of our traditions is a live donkey, who leads the processional from the fellowship hall into the sanctuary. We have huge banners in purple and scarlet as well. At 10:30 the children (all the children, not just the children's choir) lead the processional, all dressed up as if they were living in Jerusalem in Jesus' time.

This year, though, we had our annual Mardi Gras brunch on Palm Sunday. I realize this means it is no longer a Mardi Gras brunch. But we're not quite sure what to call it yet. (We're also not quite sure if this is a new tradition, a blip on the radar screen, or a paradigm shift.) But because of the brunch we couldn't process from the fellowship hall.

So instead we had a dramatic presentation of the Passion Story. It's called "The Cry of the Whole Congregation"; it was published in Walter Wangerin's book Ragman and Other Cries of Faith. It features four narrators, a children's choir, a soloist, a drummer and a liturgical dancer. I organized the readers and rehearsed them.

Today, I didn't have a major part in the worship service.

Except that I played the drum.

The drum beat begins when the crowd cries, "blasphemy!" It continues, varying the speed and intensity until Jesus dies.

In the past, when I didn't play the drums, I thought of it as a heart beat.

I'm not sure if it was exactly that. There's a relentlessness to the beat. Sometimes it feels inexorable, like the "it is necessary" clause in the scriptures: "It is necessary for the son of man to suffer...." Sometimes it feels like the beat of the anger and fear of desperate people trying to preserve the status quo. It's the beat of something set in motion.

I found it a very different experience for me as a pastor. Instead of standing in the spotlight, I was behind the scenes. The gifted people who had rehearsed with me were standing in the spotlight, telling the story with words and music and movements. I was in the back, worrying a little, but keeping the beat.

It's a different image of leadership, at least much different than the ones I have been taught to strive for and embrace.

But I'm convinced that choosing and rehearsing and then standing in the background beating the drum: this is an image of a real leader, too.

Today the dancer moved with the grace of Christ, and the readers spoke with the passion of Christ, and the musicians sang and played with the beauty of Christ.

The drummer kept the tempo.