Sleeping Seeds, Blooming Flowers

In the church’s calendar, today is commonly known as "Palm Sunday." On this Sunday at my former church, often the service would open with children coming down the center aisle. They would sing "Hosanna," and wave palm leaves. One of them would be riding a cardboard donkey down the aisle. Congregates and parents on both sides would smile broadly in anticipation of the service.

In most churches, Protestant and Catholic, the lectionary is the heartbeat of the Christian Calendar. It keeps time for the Christian year. When Palm Sunday roles around, selected scriptures recount how Jesus road into Jerusalem on a donkey. And how people, shouting "Hosanna," spread palm branches before his path.

This was a mock celebration, mocking Roman generals who, after victory in battle, rode into the capital city on a tall white horse, followed by captive prisoners. This was a "triumphant entry," which is the term adopted for our Palm Sunday event … the "Triumphant Entry." Jesus mocked this Roman celebration by riding a donkey, indeed, the colt of a donkey, instead of a big white horse. And followed not by defeated slaves, but led by people he called "sisters" and "brothers."

Another striking, significant difference: Roman conquerors celebrated their victory after their battle. Jesus declares his victory before his battle.

Palm Sunday is a dramatic display of the principle of faith Jesus talked about. It is a principle that informs us about how to pray. When we pray for something, or engage in something, with God’s assurance, we assume the positive outcome beforehand. And then we act boldly on that assumption.

Paul talked about "boldness" as a critical ingredient for "faith." It’s tough discerning the difference between pride and this necessary ingredient of boldness. But to do so is important for prayer.

Protestant churches, more and more, are changing "Palm Sunday" to "Passion Sunday." Methodist, Presbyterian, Disciples – Protestant churches are coming to a realization. While most liturgical churches have services through the week, sometimes every night of the week, most Protestant people do not attend such services.

Protestants attend Sundays and maybe one special service through Holy Week. This has a critical effect. Protestants only get pieces of the story – usually Palm Sunday, maybe Maundy Thursday or Good Friday (seldom both), and Easter Sunday.

By getting pieces of the story, people will either reduce them to vehicles for isolated lessons … or they will inflate one portion of the story, which, in my opinion, is what happened with Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion.

Services through the week tell the whole story of the Passion drama. To claim a sense of the whole story, Protestants have taken to calling "Palm Sunday," "Passion Sunday." And setting aside this time to tell the whole story of the Passion drama. While I applaud this – the essence of Christianity is in the whole story – too much of a gloss with rob us the opportunity to learn from the pieces.

Jesus’ demonstration of faith on Palm Sunday is an important piece of the story. It’s what puts the gasoline into the tank before the journey.

Yet the story as a whole is important. With a nonfiction book, sometimes you can read a single chapter and grasp a complete idea, apart from the rest of the book. Not so with a story. With a story, you need to have a feel for the whole– the set up, the build and the complications, the climax and how it is resolved.

You can take a scene from a movie, and identify certain things. Make certain points.

But no scene can carry the import of the story as a whole.

This last week, I watched one of my favorite movies … Lord Jim. The story is about courage and cowardice. And there is a line in the story … the difference between them is no greater than the thickness of a sheet of paper.

But it takes the whole story to make this point. A young sailor dreaming of heroics does a cowardly deed. And then he spends his life trying to come to terms with it.

The set up in the beginning, the build and complication, the climax and resolution– all come together to create a sense of a truth beyond what we can fully put in words.

In Christianity, Passion Week is a whole story. The Passion Story as a whole offers us a paradigm or model for understanding our own story. There’s a crossing point between these two stories; perhaps different for each person. And it is at the crossroads that bible becomes scripture. The question becomes less, "how do we interpret the text?" and more, "how does the text interpret us?"

The Triumphant Entry. Jesus declares the triumph before the challenge. And what a powerful principle that is for us; to be "triumphant," despite odds and appearances.

Throwing the money changers out of the Temple. This is the part of the story that gets overlooked. And yet it is critical to the story … Jesus built up enough trouble in Jerusalem, within the span of less than a week, to get him crucified. How did he do that?

Jesus confronted the hypocrisy in popular, institutionalized religion. This was not one religion against another. Jesus wanted Jews to be better Jews.

And what an invitation! … For us to challenge our own demons, to come face to face with our own pretenses, to take our stand for social justice.

Then there are those moments around the Passover table where Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper. This has been interpreted in many ways. But most would agree that the whole meaning of Christianity is summed up in this sacrament. So important is this that it has become the central, identifying feature of Christianity, the Mass, Eucharist, Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion.

Whether formal or informal, we all need ways to ritualize our commitments.

There are those moments in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus wrestles with his decision, doubts, and the tendency to go to sleep. We’ve all been there. The arrest, the trial, the crucifixion, the burial in the tomb.

The resolution comes with the resurrection. The bright sun coming up in the morning.

Flowers gracing springtime paths. The stone before our tomb is rolled back, and what is dead or destroyed is reborn, remade, recreated anew.

If people get preoccupied with history, or believability, or isolated events, they will lose the sense of the story. We lose too much if we lose a sense this as a story. Only as story can we grasp the overall paradigm that this holds for our lives.

Each religion in the world tells its stories. And in these stories hides the truths of each religion. Creeds, doctrines, ideas … can never capture it. Only in story.

And so with Christianity. The contribution Christianity makes to global religions is this special perspective on how God works with and through our own lives. When we face our dilemmas, disappointments, even our death …We have HOPE.

And special to the story is Palm Sunday. "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree."

This story is the bending of the twig, aiming it in the right direction, claiming its path.

It’s a story popular throughout the world. God commanded Abraham, "Lekh Lekha!" "Go you forth." Two, three words and Abraham pulled root and struck out over a desert, muttering something about a "Promised Land." That’s a Palm Sunday story.

Several people have shared with me their recent journeys to Death Valley. People are taking off work, setting aside time, just to make the pilgrimage. "It’s a ‘once in a lifetime’ show," one person said.

But to Death Valley? I picture that place as a sun-baked desert … cracks in the earth inches wide. Heat waves wobbling up in the distance, distorting the horizon.

Not so, now. With all the rains that have washed Southern California, rains which have cause floods and mud slides and have driven people from their homes. These rains have awakened seeds that have been in the ground for decades. Some perhaps for over a hundred years.

They say it's breathtakingly beautiful. Miles upon miles of wild flowers. Unusual flowers.

Blanketing the desert floor. People get out of their cars and wander through fields of flowers up to their waists, as far as the eye can see.

Carolyn, coming from what she calls the "flower-wealth of Berkeley," described the impact of her experience as pure "manna from heaven."

Can you imagine a seed in that baked desert clay? Year after year. Decade after decade.

And then, one day, being kissed by the rain.

It’s God’s law of life. And to reach the blooming part of the story, we have but to proclaim it against the heat of a scorching sun.