Palm Sunday 2020 "Thimble Sermon"

Palm Sunday 2020

"Thimble Sermon"

5 April 2020

Rev. Douglas Olds 

Today is Palm Sunday, a day of joyous possibility for the  marginalized as Jesus entered Jerusalem, hailed as a political savior.

Yet this year's is also Pandemic Sunday, and a fitting text may be the conclusion to Psalm 88:

18You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me;

my companions are in darkness.

I preached last summer on the opening to the Book of Lamentations which comes back to me today:

1How lonely sits the city

that once was full of people!

How like a widow she has become,

she that was great among the nations!

She that was a princess among the provinces

has become a vassal.

2She weeps bitterly in the night,

with tears on her cheeks;

As our urban areas have emptied and its citizens struggle with isolation, it seems to me telling that our frustration, loneliness, and incomprehension at our situation are the hallmarks of this year's Lenten season--a season of Lament that might, in the numbers of infections, explode into this week's Good Friday.

God also laments as we suffer, but also when we turn away from His Son.

Because humans are made as God's imagers, and because the Word of God formalizes lament in scripture (especially in Christ's use of Psalms of Lament), it follows that lament is existentially warranted for humanity and is a specific call for disciples to model it for the collective-- a praxis for the building of the healthy Kingdom of God. 

As we weep in our own lament, do we also weep at His tomb as the representative of all tombs? Might we understand lament as the precursor of release from the tomb? May our lament for our struggling companions in life's journey find a resource of hope in the Spiritual oscillations of Holy Week, and may our word, prayers, and safe practices be a blessing to these companions.

 Stay safe.

Keep others safe.

Don’t let the pandemic rob you of joy.

AMEN.