Psalm 118:19-21
Luke 19:28-40
Here is a cross from El Salvador. I’ve shown it once before in worship. The cross is decorated with scenes from a small village. What I love is seeing all of the people in a village who have been brought together in Jesus Christ, plowing the fields, feeding the chickens, raising babies, harvesting fruit, teaching the children, and praising God. The artisans who created this cross love being a community where everyone is included in the power of the resurrection. I’d love to visit that community to feel its welcome and joy. I’ll pass it around.
Not everyone feels included in this world. While there are many things we can be deprived of - food, water, and shelter - it may be that the worst thing to be without is a feeling of belonging … to a family, to a church, or to a caring community.
One day as I was sitting in my office in the church I served in Rochester a woman I didn’t know came into the church. She asked if she could pray for a few minutes in the sanctuary. “Sure”, I said. Soon I heard some of the loudest praying I’d ever heard, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name …”. And then the next prayer, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus ...”. And when she was done with that she went back and prayed them all over again, now mixing up the words a bit, until she ran out of breath. And then she came back into my office and asked me for money. I guess she thought that if she offered those prayers good and loud I would be more willing to give her money. Well, in that neighborhood, we never gave out money, not to anyone, because it would usually go right to drugs or alcohol. When I said no, she went to her trump card: she began to weep and wail like you’ve never heard. And I let her go as long as she wanted. When she ran out of breath I asked her name – “Norma”, and she was a long way from home. She was from Kahnawake, a Native American reservation near Montreal. For various reasons she had ended up in Rochester, with no job, no money, living in a run-down apartment with her alcoholic brother. Norma received public assistance, but her brother drank it all away every single month.
In the months that followed Norma would come over to my office frequently, to pray a lot, cry a lot, and ask me for money. She had nowhere else to go, no friends, no one to turn to for help, she was lost, left-out, and forgotten. I finally realized that the real problem she had was not lack of money or food, Norma had no community, no friends, and no one to turn to. She was left out and for her it was like living in hell.
The Palm Sunday parade on that day long ago in Jerusalem was the culmination of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. He had come to confront the principalities and powers of the day, but he looked … underwhelming. Not on a mighty steed leading a powerful cavalry with sharp spears thundering to the gates of the city demanding its surrender, but he was just riding a colt alone, with his followers shouting “Hosanna” and throwing their cloaks on the road to greet him. In Sunday School I was led to believe that the crowd of those cheering him on was huge, with thousands lining the road as he passed by. It is more likely that it was a small crowd, almost unnoticed by the powers and principalities that occupied that city.
But we mark Palm Sunday as an important day in our journey of faith because while it was underwhelming in conventional ways, we have learned something about its real power: that the lost, forgotten and left-out are welcomed by God and included in the hope and victory of the Cross.
I enjoyed reading this morning’s bulletin insert about One Great Hour of Sharing because it tells how refugees who escaped political and ethnic violence in Burma have found new homes in Michigan. But having a home wasn’t enough, they had lost that feeling of belonging to a caring community. Through One Great Hour of Sharing a community garden took form that generated a community that had been thought long-lost.
One day Norma got confused and actually walked into the church on a Sunday morning. People smiled and greeted her with friendly words, but she felt more scared than welcomed. The most courage she could muster was to sit in the chair at the back of the sanctuary, close to the door in case she needed to quickly escape. She wouldn’t come in any further.
It just so happened that the children’s message that day involved a big ball of string, and I was going to use it to demonstrate how Jesus gathers us together into one family of faith. I asked the children to lead the string around all of the people in the church. All of a sudden, Norma, who had been clinging to her chair for dear life, saw the children approaching her. But it was too late! She couldn’t escape, and shazzam! she was inside the circle! I thought she would run under the string and out the door in utter terror, but no, instead, Norma just sat there and smiled. If you can imagine Norma’s smile, then you understand the power of Palm Sunday, God in Jesus Christ doing everything possible to reach the left out! Those who greeted Jesus that day long ago in Jerusalem all had those smiles, the left-out, the forgotten, the friendless and the marginalized. And they began to say that word “hosanna” as they smiled, first as a whisper, barely able to believe that they could open their mouths to say anything, but then stronger. Hosanna!
So the cross from El Salvador reminds me of many things: Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, the arrest, the crucifixion, his death on the cross, as all of his friends and followers cried and cried and cried. But the cross also shows the power of God: in the empty tomb, in the resurrection, in healing and hope, and the creation of a caring community, where everyone is welcome and no one is left out. A community brought together in Jesus Christ, plowing the fields, feeding the chickens, raising babies, harvesting fruit, teaching the children, and praising God. This cross does not represent defeat; it represents life in Jesus Christ!
A postscript. That church where I met Norma finally closed its doors in 1990. I was grateful that the ministry did not die, for instead the presbytery hired a young seminary graduate, Fritz Longabaugh, to lead a street ministry in that low income neighborhood. Since Fritz had no building in which to conduct his ministry, he was ordained one afternoon outdoors in Jones Park. The invited guests were all there, and also people from the neighborhood at the edge, curious about what was going on. As the one invited to preach I decided to use the ball of string one more time for my main message, to emphasize how Fritz’ ministry would be all about making the circle wider and wider to include all of the people who felt left-out by the neighborhood, by the community, and even by God. So I handed Fritz the ball of string as his first lesson in community ministry and as he began to make that big circle, I spotted Norma on the fringe of the crowd. But this time she didn’t try to back away. And she was in the circle again! You see, Norma had learned that it feels good, real good, to be included! And, of course, she was smiling.
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