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Palm Sunday
9.4.2017
At the Mass — Reading 1 Is 50:4-7
The Lord GOD has given me a well-trained tongue,
that I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.
Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled, have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.
The Lord GOD is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
R. (2a) My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
All who see me scoff at me;
they mock me with parted lips, they wag their heads:
"He relied on the LORD; let him deliver him,
let him rescue him, if he loves him."
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Indeed, many dogs surround me,
a pack of evildoers closes in upon me;
They have pierced my hands and my feet;
I can count all my bones.
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
They divide my garments among them,
and for my vesture they cast lots.
But you, O LORD, be not far from me;
O my help, hasten to aid me.
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
I will proclaim your name to my brethren;
in the midst of the assembly I will praise you:
"You who fear the LORD, praise him;
all you descendants of Jacob, give glory to him;
revere him, all you descendants of Israel!"
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Reading 2 Phil 2:6-11
Modern New Testament scholars are widely agreed that this hymn was composed prior to Paul’s time. It is often called Carmen Christi, from Pliny’s description of Christian worship. There is much dispute about its proper division into stanzas, but the following reconstrucion has much to commend it. (R. H. Fuller LINK) http://liturgy.slu.edu/PassionA040917/theword_indepth.html
Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God a thing to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death—
[even death on a cross: added by Paul]
Therefore God has highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend [in heaven and on earth
and under the earth: may be a later,
though pre-Pauline, addition]
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
[to the glory of God the Father
Verse Before the Gospel Phil 2:8-9
Christ became obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name which is above every name.
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/040917.cfm
Palm Sunday: How explain that 'Jesus saves'?
The royal note is struck by the triumphal entry and is strongly underlined in the trial scene between Pilate and Jesus (Mt 27:11-26), in the scene of the mocking by the Roman soldiers (Mt 27:27-31), in the title on the cross (Mt 27:37), and in the mockery by the bystanders. (Mt 27:42)
On the other hand, the humiliation of Jesus is most emphasized by the cry from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46)
Of all the words attributed to Jesus on the cross in all four Gospels, this has the highest claim to authenticity. It is preserved in the oldest tradition (Mark-Matthew)...
Mark’s Gospel gives the cry in Aramaic: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?
The cry certainly expresses the meaning of the Cross more profoundly than anything else in the passion narrative...
The word from the cross gives Jesus’ death its theological meaning. His death is not just the ordinary dying of any person, a biological event—it is Jesus, not against God but for God, enduring the most bitter consequences of sin. Only by this identification does Jesus liberate from sin and death, both understood, as here, in their theological sense.
The cry is not only one of the words from the cross—it is the word of the cross, the interpretive word that gives the cross its whole meaning as redemptive event. Read the complete comment: http://liturgy.slu.edu/PassionA040917/theword_indepth.html
Reginald Fuller
That is a long piece to read from Reginald Fuller, on top of the long gospel itself. But, as he says, this Sunday is really about the passion, with the palm procession a colourful entree, so it is an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of Jeshua's life and death.
The way he died is familiar, but what he thought about it in the weeks leading up to that last trip to Jerusalem as confrontation became more and more inevitable, and the attitude he maintained throughout could be explored at another level. His own intention is what makes his death significant. Why did he keep going towards that dreadful ending when he had plenty of opportunities to withdraw, as the disciples told him more than once?
Since the theory of atonement sacrifice* is losing favour, it is important for each of us that we try to work out an understanding of the passion, death and resurrection of Jeshua that makes sense to us. It must of course be grounded in the witness of the early communities as we have it in their gospels and letters. What reasons did they find that might explain his thinking at the time?
Rather than taking every reference he made to his coming passover and every word he spoke as events unfolded, perhaps we can discover something from his overall attitude. For what it's worth, this is the way I'm thinking of this mystery at this time:
'I always do the will of my Father'
The word most commonly used in the gospels and by Paul to identify Jeshua's attitude is 'obedience'. For example, that crisis in the garden ends up with: "Not my will, but yours be done." John's gospel makes a feature of it.
As we have often discussed in this place 'obedience' is a tricky word. It has many meanings and each one has many different applications according to circumstances.
* The first and most obvious is obedience to authority, to an order or command by a superior who has authority over us. And the ultimate example of this is military obedience where you do what you're ordered to do without question. This is also the least human form of obedience. It has other meanings that do not dehumanise as military obedience tends to do.
* Let's take the obedience of the pupil, be it in the classroom. learning to play a musical instrument, on the sports field or the apprentice learning a trade or profession. This is characterised by careful listening to the instructions, and following them with attention to details. We 'listen well' [ob-audire] and we absorb the wisdom of the teacher and make it our own. By this obedience we grow in competence, and personally.
* Finally there is obedience to circumstances, to the order of things and to our own conscience which tells us what is the right way to act in this real situation. This obedience develops when we listen deeply, especially when we are still, and open to the silence in meditation, for then the truth that is often blocked by urgent needs or false ambitions may be perceived in itself. Once we see the truth we respond willingly. This, I believe, is the obedience Jeshua was referring to when he said he was always obedient to the Father.
Jn 8:25-30 “Who are you?” they asked. “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied. "I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.” They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” Even as he spoke, many believed in him.
It is nonsense to imagine the Father giving instructions to Jeshua minute by minute, directing him in what to say or do, like they do for security guards in the movies. Being fully human and entirely like us, the only access he had to guidance was within, where he listened attentively to his own self, and then followed his conscience - as everyone does.
Going the whole way
After three exhausting years, forming a small team of disciples and gathering a substantial following around him, Jeshua must have seen that, in the end, there would have to be a confrontation with the people in power. It's one thing to raise awareness at the individual level, inviting and teaching people to live their lives fully by going beyond the limits and constraints of law to give oneself with love. But because by our nature we live socially and are governed by the ways and standards of society, there must be a challenge to society itself, to the governing bodies and to the people who hold power. One who teaches renewal and offers new dimensions of freedom has to put his teaching in its social context if he is to avoid being dismissed as a romantic dreamer. His followers will eventually want to know if he had the conviction to live his own teachings to their final outcome in practice.
So Jeshua openly challenged the accepted customs and standards of his time, and did not hesitate to accuse the leaders of deceiving the people, of lying and corruption, of greed for money and power.
He had already met with the usual treatment dished up to anyone who speaks out. There were attempts to silence him, to discredit him, slanders and venomous personal attacks. Under this pressure there comes a time when you know you must either back off and retire from the field, beaten and destroyed, or you must force the issue by confronting the authorities directly and in person. You must stand by your own truth before their judgement. There is no other choice, as thousands have experienced throughout history.
With a difference
The outcome is predictable. But in the case of Jeshua two things are different. One is that they could not get the better of him in their legal proceedings. To the Sanhedrin he said: I have spoken openly. If I have said or done any wrong, where is the proof. And they fabricated some testimony and tried to use that. In the end they asked him about his own personal conviction about himself and his mission: Are you the Anointed One, the son of the Blessed One? and he said: I am.
They condemned him for that, because religion always condemns one who speaks about God in his own terms, from his own personal conviction. It is breaking the cardinal rule that 'we' are the keepers of God's truth and you must use our language and think in our categories. They would not even have wondered how he could be so bold or what he might have meant. Enough that he had said it.
So he went forward as his conscience said he must, never wavering, never giving in to the pressure of intimidation, never entertaining the option to make concessions and find a way to compromise and survive. He bent under the whip but did not break. And then, at the last, there is an emptiness that is all too familiar to those who go the whole way as Jeshua did. In the extreme of pain, exhaustion and despair there is no comfort from the God you trusted. Fuller says this cry: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? is not only the deepest moment of the whole experience, it is the key to it. Jeshua made himself like us. He made himself sin, Paul says. He experienced the darkness of no God, no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel. And he died that way, "enduring the most bitter consequences of sin," writes Fuller, and he adds: "Only by this identification does Jesus liberate from sin and death."
'Liberate from sin': how does this work?
Many images of 'salvation ' are basic and even crude. The prototype of passing through the Red Sea from slavery to the freedom of the desert – where they really learned what trust in Yahweh means – is a primitive tale embellised with some weird and wonderful elements. The idea of buying the freedom of captives with the payment of a ransom is a practice we are too familiar with in modern times, but if we apply that to the work of Jeshua we have the insurmountable problem of a cruel god demanding an awful price. Is there another approach?
I think it might be through an act of simple solidarity that he saves us from the bind of 'sin'. If we stop thinking of sin in juridical or economic terms – guilt or debt, we will see the human plight as we experience it, in psychological terms, as discouragement, low self-esteem, depression, despair. How do you help someone who is down? When things are at their worst and there is no relief in sight, what helps the most? All you can do is sit with them. It is an act of solidarity. It tells them they are not alone, not entirely abandoned. Some hope remains, to live another hour, another day perhaps.
Is this how Jeshua saves us from the ultimate self-destroying hopelessness that seeps into the soul from our pervasive sense of being guilty? At this present time not only our much-loved modern world but even our ancient church seem to be collapsing. The blame game is in full swing everywhere and we are in danger of being overcome by guilt. The next and dangerous phase is unbridled anger that will rip apart the fabric of our societies. What does 'salvation' mean in this situation? Is it enough that there should be one who stands by us in God's name? In him we have a pledge that God himself is with us in our worst experiences, not to save us from them but to take us through them to something greater and better. Is that enough? Well, without hope there is only hell.
*****
Hope?
This brings us to the other different factor, and this one is unique: buried in a sealed and guarded tomb, by the third day he is alive - again, or still, or newly, who knows. But alive! He did not suffer defeat even in death. He won! Or perhaps we should say, the truth won after all - the truth that we are not to blame for evolution's agonies, that God is good, and that life itself is destined to reach a fullness that will not be blocked. There is no need to compromise, or take shortcuts, or cowtow to the intimidating powers who think they run the world. Life is greater than all this, even than our own failures. For death itself is not the end after all.
Is this what we mean when we say Jesus saves us? Is this enough? There's not a word about hell or damnation, no presumptuous talk about a life of bliss in heaven. In fact we know nothing of these things. 'Sin' is a word for the common weakness we all feel as part of life, from murderous envy and greed right down to the small stupidities I indulge in in my old age. But when the dark does come down, to have someone there beside us who 'knows' it will work out: we need that, so that hope is possible and there is a future. The black hole of annihilation gives me the blues.
God is incarnate in every one of us. We are God's creation. We are god in this world, as Jesus was, and we live on as he does. Following him we are commissioned to insert into this world a creative truth and integrity that is fully conscious and deliberately chosen. Evolution's blind survival of the ones more fitting has reached its fullness in human beings who are conscious, aware of themselves, and of causes and consequences. We have the capacity to choose the direction life takes from here on. We have been given the freedom, but as Jesus shows in the way he lived and died, we have to live with love that does not deceive by lies and falsehood, for selfish purposes. We have to give all, to be true in life and in the face of death. Millions have lived and died this way. Jesus is the stand-out because, anointed with the Spirit, what he said and did sets a benchmark, more than others, and God has put his seal upon this Jeshua in raising him up even after he'd been killed. To paraphrase again that very early poem/hymn that Paul quotes (see Second Reading):
Though he was in the form of god and equal to god
he gave up everything and made himself like a servant,
and went lower yet, following his conscience right into death
for the cause of truth.
On which account God has raised him up
and with him and in him
God raises up all humankind and the whole wonderful Cosmos.
It is most important, in these days of remembering the passover of Jeshua, that we remember it is the raising up that counts more than everything else. He went up to Jerusalem in the face of certain death because his conscience gave him no other choice. He had to do it, or be another would-be teacher on an ego trip . The big revelation, the wonder of it, was that the disciples discovered he was still with them, that in fact he did live on. It was like a rising from the dead, but in fact it shows that physical death is merely a passing over to new life. God confirms this in the Anointed One.
* Note: This reflection has more theological speculation than usual, but I feel that some theology is necessary for everyone - "faith seeking understanding" - for while our personal relationship with Jeshua is vital, it is also important to try to understand him, his purpose in living as he did, and protesting so vigorously against the corruption of his time till they nailed him for it. It's too easy to have some kind of blind faith in a slogan like 'Jesus saves'. He calls us to follow him along the path he mapped out: for that we need to understand him.