Sunday
April 13
Entrance
By Marsh Chapel
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Entrance
Luke 19: 28-40
Psalm 118: 19-end
Marsh Chapel
Palm Sunday
April 13, 2025
Opening
It is not so long ago that Jesus came to us wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. We murmured with the Shepherds and knelt with the Kings. We sang: “Christ the Savior is born.” We were innocent and young and happy at his birth. True: some noticed the straw in his hair and the stench of the manger, and worried about Rachel weeping for her children. Mostly, though, we happily received and reported glad tidings of great joy to all people. It is not so long ago that the trees and the greens, beautiful they were, came down.
It is not so long ago that Jesus stripped himself and knelt in the Jordan. Granted, we have been busy carving our hearts and arrows into the trees of life. Granted, we have been finding majors and friends and summer work and a little relaxation. True: some of us noticed the mud on Jesus’ face after his baptism, and wondered at the humility of such an act, God stooping to be covered in the icy, rolling, filthy waters of this world, of the world of the human. Mostly, though, we were happy to greet Jesus at his baptism, and day by day like us he grew. We went on to another month of paychecks and forechecks and last respects.
It is not so long ago that Satan tempted our Lord. Jesus stood tempted and we with Him: tempted to make of life a scramble to the top, no matter who gets hurt; tempted to make of religion a closed shop, no matter who is closed out, tempted to take up government without a government of the heart. Government without a heart is daily on display right now in Washington, D.C. Foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. The current President and his minions, his Trump Republican Party, are now fully the party of of predation, mendacity and cruelty. Leaving the many to die in the wilderness. Jesus knew the wilderness. You saw him last month, just up the hill from Jericho, stalking in the wilderness. True: some blanched at the forty days, and pondered the choice of God to lavish love on a twilight world like this one. Mostly, though, we thanked Jesus for his troubles and hoped not to succumb to the temptations he defeated. It was not so long ago.
It was not so long ago that Jesus preached and taught the mystery and mastery of Love. True: some noticed the somber tone in the verses about hardship to come. Mostly, though, we tilled our gardens. And not so long ago.
Is it only a few days ago that Jesus completed a life of servant love in the lake country beyond Jerusalem? Is it more than just a few hours from now when Patience and Humility and Wide Mercy will be nailed up to make way for the ‘god of this world’, whose violence has not yet been vanquished in fact as we trust it is in principle. A few—was it you?—spotted the hidden glory in such care. Mostly though we went to the market and to the bank, preparing for an earthly future we thought might be without end. It is not, without end. We lived, not just the young, but all, as if ‘temporarily immortal’. No, it is not so long ago that the Lamb of God met us in poverty, humility, struggle, teaching and sacrifice. At Christmas, in Baptism, in Temptation, in Preaching, today at Entrance, and, in a few hours, in Crucifixion.
Hear the Gospel: Christ the Lord is risen today: ours the cross, the grave, the skies. Love crucified is love raised. It is the same worn Jesus whom God calls ‘the future’. No wonder the disciples did not at first believe, and no wonder we have our doubts as well. The preacher leans against the cross in Holy Week, and leans against the resurrection on Sunday. For the cross is still with us, followed by but not replaced by the resurrection. Jesus is God’s future. His resurrection is our future. On the cross walk, resurrection is yours. On the way of the cross, come Palm Sunday, you walk in a proleptic newness of life. For this change of heart John Donne longs: I need thy thunder…I need thy thunder O My God, thy music will not serve me. God’s Palm Sunday thunder brings, first, the healing rainfall of personal faith and, second, the cleansing cloudburst, the windstorm and downpour of social involvement.
Personal Faith
You carry your palms today, as the children did of old. You hold your palms and are present in, to and with others, in divine worship. This hour, this hour of the sacred, this hour of the spiritual, this hour of the holy. You are here, and you hear, one way or another. Palm Sunday. Into the city I’d follow the children’s band, waving a branch of the palm tree, high in my hand, one of his heralds, yes, I would sing, loudest hosannas, ‘Jesus is King’, Here you are in a service of ordered worship, provided by those who greet, those who sing, those who print bulletins, those who speak, those who prepare the way. Sunday worship forms personal faith.
You offer in personal witness your devotions, here, day by, day, in Lent, through your worldwide Lenten devotionals, read by nearly a thousand people each morning. These words of faith, and the music along with them, bear witness to real faith. They are gifts of faith that give faith. They are uniquely, and keenly, at the heart and marrow of faith. For those morning by morning hoping for a little encouragement, a little kindness, a little grace, they bring encouragement and kindness and grace. They bear gracious, honest witness to personal faith. Daily devotion forms personal faith.
You go further, in faith. You pray for others whom you know are hurting. You think to send a note, or a card or a gift. But what is more, and more powerful, more lasting, is that you will, when it feels right, offer an invitation. I’m going to worship at Marsh Chapel this Sunday. I’d love to see you there. Here is pretty card that gives all the hours of Holy Week. Let me know if you need a ride. It is a forlorn but honest truth that the world gets better one caring invitation at a time. Weekly invitation forms and performs personal faith. You both receive and offer the healing spring rain of personal faith. Good for you
Social Involvement
Marsh Chapel, Marsh Chapel listeners and watchers and fellow travelers, and friends, you both receive and offer the cleansing cloudburst, the windstorm and downpour of social involvement.
Methodism, the womb of Marsh Chapel, is ever and always and only a combination of deep personal faith and active social involvement. Social involvement means to hold fast to what is good. And we shall need, each one of us, to find our entrance to the good, our faithful even sacrificial hold on the good. How that will be seen in this new season, this challenging year of our Lord 2025, we have yet to behold. Though the wind is starting to blow.
For example. You probably have not been to Sackets Harbor, NY. You may be more salt than fresh water fish, more ocean than lake. No worries. We need both. On the shoreline of a great freshwater lake, Lake Ontario, you will find a lovely little town, surrounded by valleys, rivers and dairy farms. (By the way, come Easter, how we miss, how we long for, our places of growth, the vistas and landscapes of home, the green, green grass of home.) You can picture the historic quiet, the simple peace, the modest homes and hollows of the little lakeshore town, where it still snows plenty in April. It is a place where in driving no one uses turn signals because everyone knows where everyone is going already anyway. No signals needed, in Sacket’s Harbor. This is a town which is the polar opposite of Washington DC today, our nation’s capital now captive to the Trump Republican party of predation, mendacity and cruelty. Sackets Harbor is a town of quiet peace. Not a town of televised shakedown of a beleaguered Ukrainian President Zelensky. Not a town of ICE attacks, of a Tufts young woman alone, after a long daily fast, going to pray and eat, but surrounded by thugs, Trump Thugs, a half dozen Trump Thugs, photographed whisking her away. Not a town of fraudulent tariff frauds. Not a town of will full stock market manipulation and disaster. Not a town of Cabinet Clowns. Not a town of withholding of funds for higher education. Not a town of false statements about 2020 lawsuits. Not a town set on attacking law firms, lawyers, or the legal profession. Not a town that would support the removal of a visa from a graduate student from China who came terrified to Marsh Chapel three days ago, this Thursday afternoon, just as this sermon, at this point, right at this point, at this point, right at this point, was being written. I tell you it is one thing to hear about people losing their visas, to hear about these things on TV, but utterly different to have a bright young person, now paralyzed in fear, afraid of being hounded by TrumpThugs, sitting in your office. No, Sackets Harbor is a town on the polar opposite of Washington, DC today. This is a beautiful, simple, quiet Upstate New York village, with the Dexter United Methodist Church nearby. Sackets Harbor. It is fresh water heaven. At least it usually is.
But.
Last week three young school children from Sackets Harbor, a place where also one of of the Trump Workers, the ICE Director, apparently owns a summer home, were wrongly rounded up last week and shipped off to Texas, with their mother. But lo and behold, and here is an example FOR US of local, daily, faithful social involvement, two women, the Governor of the Empire State, Kathy Hochul, and the Principal of the small 400 student Sackets Harbor school, Jaime Cook, worked together and brought the back, at least for now, over against the befouling machinations of Trumpdom. Governor Hochul and Principal Cook did not stop at personal faith, but went forward to social involvement, surely at some risk. Governor Hochul and Principal Cook did not stop at personal faith, but went forward to social involvement, surely at some risk. The principal wrote:
As the principal of these students, I need to speak plainly. Our three students who were taken by ICE were doing everything right. They had declared themselves to immigration judges, attended court on their assigned dates, and were following legal process. They are not criminals. They have no ties to any criminal activity. They are loved in their classrooms. Their family has worked at the neargy ‘Old McDonald’s’ petting zoo and dairy farm for 15 years. (Principal Jaime Cook).
Methodism, the womb of Marsh Chapel, is ever and always and only a combination of deep personal faith and active social involvement. Social involvement means to hold fast to what is good. And we shall need, each one of us, to find our entrance to the good, our faithful even sacrificial hold on the good.
You have homework to do to get ready. To prepare…Read Erich Fromm. To prepare…remember the Barmen Declaration. To prepare…recall the voice of Karl Barth, who wrote Barmen. To prepare, recall the self-imprecatory poem, 1946, of the German Lutheran Pastor Martin Neimoller:
First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
For God’s Palm Sunday thunder brings first the healing rainfall of personal faith and second the cleansing cloudburst, the windstorm and downpour of social involvement.
Coda
Now as he was approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”