Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
John 20:19-29
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
Fort Collins, CO

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." 28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe," to trust in resurrection.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." That would be us, folks! We are included in the generation that John was writing to and the 2000 years of generations since .... folks who had heard the story and yet not seen with their own eyes and are called to believe. Those who trust the story with their whole hearts and base their lives upon God’s resurrection power. In the New Testament belief is synonymous with trust.

As 21st century folks we resonate with poor old Thomas, don’t we?  Thomas had a hard time trusting. Doubting Thomas who has gotten a bad rap for doing something that those of us in the 21st century find natural. – wanting to see for himself, get the facts, the first hand experience. He is just trying to sort out false news from truth. And his brain was reacting like our brains still react under crisis and stress or shock and grief in the 21st century. We jump to the most manageable story. The most concrete....at least at the moment .... so we know whether we need to go into fight or flight...What is real? How can that be real? Won’t believe it till I see it!

Have you ever prayed, “God, just give me a sign SO obvious that I can’t miss it! Let me know what is real so I know what to do?” If so, you understand Thomas.

We resonate with Thomas and his desire to know for himself.

And, like Thomas, we forget what Jesus has just given the disciples in his appearance on that first Easter evening as he appeared to them even through doors locked in fear. He gave them the power to trust through the Holy Spirit and through community. He breathed on them the Holy Spirit just as the Creator God breathed on the unformed waters of creation in the Genesis creation story. This holy, transformational breath creates form out of void. Community out of randomness.

“Receive the Holy Spirit,” says Jesus. And then that odd statement. “if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Which has often in the history of Christendom has been interpreted to give authority to hierarchy to include or exclude. But I think the implications are much deeper for Christian community....I think Jesus’s statements reveal the true power of community. What I hear is that in community we as disciples have the power to be create a place of  compassion where forgiveness is freely given or a place of rigidity where hurts are retained and continue to damage the fabric of life together. Good community is a place where there are boundaries and consequences for hurtful actions....but these are based in compassion and forgiveness and transforming love rather than punitive retribution.

Forgiveness creates community among difference. We may be very different from one another and misunderstand one another and take offense even. But with forgiveness we stay in community....with the holy spirit of forgiveness we must listen across the differences and divides. We stay with the process of growth. When we reject forgiveness...when we retain the sins and withhold forgiveness, community is damaged if not destroyed. Could Jesus’ statement about retaining sins be a warning....this will not serve you as community? You have great power in community. Forgive or hold on, retain?

I find it insightful that the next scene after Jesus words is Thomas rejecting the testimony of the community. And what is their response to him? The implication is that he stays within the community despite his rejection of their testimony of good news. Which could have stirred up on conflict and ill feelings. Yet Thomas is still part of them....was there forgiveness of harsh words, understanding despite difference?

He is still with them and so has the opportunity to experience the transforming grace of Jesus’ presence. And to be transformed himself.

Perhaps Thomas’s mistake is not doubting the extraordinary and shocking news of the resurrection. But instead the misstep came in not trusting the witness of the Spirit-filled community that loved him. Doubting and questioning is not bad...in fact they can lead us to new understanding. And the community of the Body of Christ holds this transforming power. We need a community in which to ask the questions, to kick against the incomprehensible. A community steeped in the breath of God, filled with the Holy Spirit. A community of compassion and courage, of forgiveness and unconditional love, of strength and boldness and tenderness.

In such a community we can be in crisis and grief and express our doubts, our despair. And we can lean on the faith of the community when we feel we have no faith of our own. Not the doctrine, but the living faith of the community. We can trust the prayers, the songs, the sacraments, the words of testimony, both contemporary and in ancient scripture, when we can no longer trust our own reactions. And eventually we will find we are led to the presence of God that astounds and heals us. I believe this is what happens in the story of poor old, unjustly maligned Thomas...who was doing his best to be faithful. In God’s holy community, Jesus gave us all the grace of transformation  as we each  struggle with seeing for ourselves even as we learn to trust the power of the community who has not seen and yet has come to believe.

So I finish with questions for us in this Body of Christ. Are we, as the community of Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC, fully receiving the Holy Spirit into our midst and embracing God’s compassion, forgiveness, courage and love for us all? Are we fully receiving the Spirit into each of our individual lives so that we may offer these gifts of the Spirit to one another and to all who come through our doors and to all whom we meet? Will we hold the space of Spirit for each other and for the world in times of belief and dis-belief. Will we hold a space where utter despair can held along with utter joy as we trust the presence of the Risen Christ in God’s Holy community of faith?

Think on these things as you worship today and walk with the Risen Christ in the coming week.

Amen. And Amen.

Luke 24.1-12
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
Easter 2019
 
The images that are left in my mind following this week are different than they are most years during Holy Week. Normally, I would have images of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, the mock trial and beating at the hands of Pilate, the crucifixion by the forces of Empire.

And to be sure, those images were present with me as we walked from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday to Good Friday. But this year there were other images as well. Images of fire enveloping the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, flames licking the 19th century spire before it fell, spreading the fire along the roof covering the nave, and ultimately collapsing in on itself.

President Emmanuel Macron has promised that Notre Dame will be restored in the next five years, which is probably optimistic, though the moneyed families of France seem to be willing to part with millions to make it happen.

The fire at Notre Dame, apparently accidental, is manifestly different than the torching of African-American churches in Louisiana, which is being considered arson and a hate crime; and thankfully, money is flowing in there, too, to help rebuild.

So, in the course of this Holy Week, I was thinking about Notre Dame as an icon for Christianity as a whole. It made me wonder whether Christianity will go through its own version of Holy Week and Good Friday, dying back before it can emerge as a resurrected faith.

For 2,000 years the church universal has gone through repeated times of decline, retrenchment, and downfall, only to re-emerge in a new form. French Catholicism has been moribund for decades, and who knows whether the process of rebuilding Notre Dame will help the faith rise from the ashes…and not just the building. Certainly, stranger things have happened.

The church in our nation, too, is coming to a crossroads. The mainline church has been in decline throughout my lifetime, and though you wouldn’t know if from Plymouth’s experience, that regression has accelerated dramatically in recent years. And it isn’t just mainline Protestantism: Evangelical churches are also in decline, and the Roman Catholic church continues to be shaken to its foundations by the continuing revelation of clergy sexual-abuse scandals.

I wonder if American Christianity needs to experience a type of death in order to come into new life. That may be what is already happening nationally, and though you may not see it, we are not immune from this experience this in Fort Collins.

One thing I do know is that you can’t really understand the meaning of Easter Sunday resurrection without walking through the dark shadows of Holy Week and into the valley of the shadow of death on Good Friday. You can’t experience new life without first experiencing death. That may be where American Christianity finds itself today.

A favorite hymn in our church, “In the Midst of New Dimensions,” contains this line: “Should the threats of dire predictions cause us to withdraw in pain, may your blazing phoenix spirit resurrect the church again.” The Cathedral of Notre Dame, and the church itself, may indeed rise from the ashes.

But the cycle of death and new life isn’t just a sociological paradigm, it’s at play in each of our lives.
As we walk through life, we’ve all experienced the “small deaths.” When we are young, the first loss we experience may be that of a beloved pet or a dear grandparent. As teenagers, we may encounter a broken heart with the end of a first relationship. And then as we enter adulthood, we are introduced to a whole new range of losses: being fired from a job we love, the death of a parent, a divorce. And as we mature further, we are bound to encounter the hard diagnosis delivered by a physician, the death of friends and family, and the loss of physical and cerebral ability. Life doesn’t get easier as these losses begin to occur even more frequently. Ultimately, each of us will say goodbye to this world as we die into the next.

The Apostle Paul, who wrote earlier than any of the gospel writers, said that every day, we are dying and rising with Christ. “Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,” Paul writes to the church in Rome, “so we too might walk in newness of life.”[1] That newness of life is here and now…not just in the life beyond physical death.

In other words, death is never God’s final word with us. There is still more life to come.

Throughout our lives, there are forces around us that entomb us, not just through the little deaths I’ve described, but through the macro-events in the world. And those death-dealing forces, like greed, violence, self-centeredness, and fear can seal the tomb over us if we let them…and there are moments when that happens to each of us. But death is never God’s final word with us.

Somebody has to roll the stone away from the tomb with us, because none of us can budge those huge boulders on our own. The large stones of fear can keep us locked in a sepulcher of our own making. They can lead us into ways of thinking and of being that feel anything but life-giving. So, who will help us roll the stone away?

One of the essential functions of a church community is to be a group of stone-rollers. There are people in this congregation who not only have emerged from the valley of the shadow of death, but who are willing to lend a hand in rolling away the stone that is holding others in death’s dark bond. I see stones rolled away when a lesbian couple, turned away by others, finds a church home that loves them for who they are. I see stones rolled away when we open our building to 12-step meetings. I see stones rolled away when a grieving family is surrounded by the love and support of true intergenerational community. I see stones rolled away when a member’s fear dissipates because of a visit and a prayer before surgery. I see stones rolled away when our volunteers find ways to keep people from becoming homeless. There are countless ways that the people who form Plymouth help to roll the stone away, not just for people within our congregation, but in the community at large.

And so, this is an invitation to resurrection: I welcome you to become part of the movement that Jesus started and that continued after his crucifixion. I invite you to be part of this great sea wave of resurrection that sweeps people up together to become part of the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed. I invite you to find your place of resurrection here at Plymouth, where you can be part of a community of belonging, where you can deepen your own spiritual journey while helping to roll stones away for somebody else.

There isn’t much in the news these days about hope or new life or new beginnings. Our nation is in a shadowy time…but death is never God’s final word.

The Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who lived through “the Troubles,” which, ironically, were settled by an agreement called The Good Friday Accord, wrote these lines:

Human beings suffer.
They torture one another.
They get hurt and get hard.
History says, ‘Don’t hope on this side of the grave,’
but then, once in a lifetime,
the longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.
So, hope for a great sea-change on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a farther shore is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells.[2]

That’s a promise of new life as well. It can be ours as a nation and as a world. It can be ours as a community of hope and faith and love and new life. It can be yours as someone who is God’s beloved. Death is never God’s final word.

That word — God’s ultimate word — is love.

May it be so. Amen.
 
© 2019 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 
[1] Romans 6.4
[2] Seamus Heaney, from “The Cure at Troy.”

Poem Response
by Anne Thompson

Images we see --
black churches in hateful flames,
Notre Dame ablaze

dims the green spring grass.
Can we rise up from ashes?
Death experience

comes to all of us --
the common lot in all life.
Every day we die.

Death dealing forces
can seal the tomb over us.
Roll the stone away?

Unseal our grief tombs?
We can be the stone rollers,
be Resurrection.

Roll the stone away
for those who are ill and weak,
for those who need food.

Hope for a sea change
believing in miracles,
In love and new life.

What is it you seek?
Death is not the final word.
Love is ultimate.

Help us bring the spring
after the winter darkness
which nurtured new life.

The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Plymouth Congregational UCC,
Fort Collins, Colorado 

Seminary 101. The first rule of being a congregational minister is to never pick favorites! The second rule, sort of a derivative of the first rule, is if you do accidentally pick or end-up with a favorite… never ever say it out loud! 

Today, I am going to break both the first and the second Cardinal Rules of Ministry by telling you all that George Bryan was my favorite—and I imagine, by your presence here today, that he was one of your favorite human beings as well. 

It has been among the greatest honors, privileges, and blessings of my yet-young career to be in ministry with George Ward Bryan. He was indeed, perhaps, my favorite member of Plymouth. I would always say that I was in ministry with George rather than saying that I ministered to George. To be clergy for George was a journey, a lesson, a learning deeper than words can express. It wasn’t unidirectional but mutual blessing. 

To say the least, it has been a unique Holy Week, preparing for today’s Holy Saturday Memorial Service for of George! The presence of George Bryan, his care, his encouragement towards excellence and open-mindedness (his wisdom and questions) have engulfed my consciousness this entire week. Is George following any of you all around as well, or is it just me? His wisdom? His stories and jokes? That wonderful accent? 

I will never forget the first time, some four plus years ago, when I went over to visit with George and Nancy Bryan for the first time. I had been forewarned that this wouldn’t be an ordinary home visit, and indeed it was not. The first thing you learned upon meeting George was his sincere spirit of care. During that visit, and all subsequent visits over the last few years, I was astounded by George’s care for the world, his careful attention to the news around the globe (especially the subject of war/ peace), and his deep theological understanding of God through the lenses of stories and colors. George saw the world for more than how it is usually seen. George saw the universe for all of the potential it has for new colors and beauty and peace. The current situation wasn’t the limit for him of what is possible. 

Having both lived in Atlanta and both being alumni of Emory University in common certainly was a quick bond for me and George, but more than anything it was the questions he would ask about God that made me look forward to those visits. They were never questions with possible answers, but they were conversation prompts to help our conversation go deeper. 

At the end of my first visit with George and Nancy, I offered my customary parting prayer as clergy. When clergy offer to say a prayer, it is our way (just so you know) of saying that we are out of time and need to leave. We all held hands, and I offered my best effort at a prayer for this great man and family. As I went to let go of his hand, much to my surprise, George wasn’t letting go of my or Nancy’s hands. He simply opened his eyes, turned his head, smiled and said, “my turn!” He then proceeded to offer a prayer of blessing to me as a young minister. Never before and never since has anyone offered a prayer for me on the same level as that one—not even on my ordination day. 

There is a long line of clergy (including some Civil Rights leaders), from Central Presbyterian and All Saints in Atlanta, to me and Hal here at Plymouth, who had the unique privilege of ministering with (not to) George. I never wanted to be at this funeral—I sincerely hoped it would never happen—that George Bryan would just keep living. In many ways, while he is no longer physically with us, George does keep living both in the presence of God and the Saints of Light… but also in all of you, your hearts, the eyes of Nancy, the humor of the family, the care extended through friends, and the wisdom for a better world George left with all of us. 

Cor Prudentis Possidebit Scientiam: “The Wise Heart Seeks Knowledge” 

This is the motto of Emory University, George’s undergraduate and law school alma mater: The Wise Heart Seeks Knowledge.” If this motto is true, then George’s heart was the wisest of them all—for he always sought knowledge and greater and deeper understanding—especially of the Divine 

After retiring from law, George went to the Atlanta College of Art (now SCAD Atlanta), where he acquired a whole new thirst for knowledge. George often spoke with me about color, hues, paints, and spectrums. George once told me, when he was getting closer to hospice, that he saw God with deeper and deeper gratitude every day. “What an amazing God we must have,” George once exclaimed, “who has gifted us with lives so filled with endless possibilities of color and beauty all around us. God didn’t have to do that, you know?” He then glanced over at Nancy, his rainbow of inspiration before continuing, “Beauty is such a gift from the heart of the Creator.”  After George entered hospice and the end was in sight, his understanding of color also became a way to understand death and hope for new, never seen spectrums of colors, beyond death. While we don’t know what comes after death, George was pretty sure it is a realm of colors not yet imagined or seen.

Genesis 1:1-5 is the familiar story of the moment of Creation. It is a story told so often, repeated in monotone readings, misused by those who see it as a replacement for science, that we have lost the great spectacular color in its representation. It has become bland and black and while. George himself selected this passage for today’s service of celebration and hoped we might find in it a new hearing—Celebrating the understanding that even in death and in passing onto the next universe, there is endless potential for God’s Creative Spirit. Then God said, “Let there be light… let there be reds, and blues, and yellows, magenta, deep burgundy, and orange, and pink, and purple, and vibrant turquoise, green, and brown, and all of the colors in between… and there was light… and there were all the colors! And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from darkness.” 

"The Wise Heart Seeks Knowledge ."

I am so glad that we were able to get all of the Easter decorations up for tomorrow in time for this service of remembrance. The flowers and the colors could not be more fitting for today’s service for a man, a father, a grandfather, an activist, a people-leader, an influencer, an artist, a friend, a mentor, a community organizer, an advocate, an ally for peace, for hope, and for a world bursting, filled with endless possibilities for love yet unseen. 

We will all continue on in our ministries, our politics, our lives, and community now without George’s physical presence, but George’s anointing and reawakening of colorful hope for peace lives on. In every sunrise over the Eastern Plains, in every sunset over the mountains, in every indescribable blue color of a mountain lake, in every sign of springtime green life, I hope that you hear George’s laughter resonating and hear him say—"You know, God didn’t have to make life so beautiful? It didn’t have to have color. How can we be filled with anything other than profound gratitude when we live in such unimaginable beauty? There are endless possibilities for new colors we have never seen, and maybe…just maybe that is the heart of the Creator and the meaning of resurrection.” 

Goodbye, Wise Heart George Bryan, until we meet again in the Realm of God’s endless color and peace.

​Amen. 

The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
Will you pray with me? O God, today, as you call us on a new processional journey, I ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts will be good, pleasing, and humble in your sight. Amen.
 
Thinking back on my childhood, growing-up at an evangelical church across town, I don’t remember a distinction between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. If anything, perhaps if I think hard enough, Palm Sunday was when the adults filled the Easter Eggs, and it was Easter when we got to eat all the candy!
 
In any event, Palm Sunday was a lead-into Easter. It was a joyous parade, a jubilant celebration that all has already been accomplished for us in Christ. Palm Sunday always reminded me of the Greeley Stampede or the CSU Homecoming Parade. The idea was this: “There is no more work for us to do theologically but to welcome the victor, the hero, the triumphant one into our hearts.” Then we can sit back, enjoy life, get rich, and sing songs of praise for the rest of our days. Sound familiar?
 
Our Scripture passage today is known by many names and is observed by many customs—most of which reinforce this parade-like feeling. It isn’t just the Evangelical Church, but also many in the Mainline Church (and culture itself) that reinforce this notion that Christianity is a fait accompli—a done deal. This is especially true with how we experience Palm Sunday. Lament, ongoing journey, and care for the other… not really included.
 
The most well-known of these traditions is the joyous waving of palm fronds in churches around the world and the most common Biblical title for this passage, assigned to it by more recent editors is, “Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.” Triumphal means an event carried out to celebrate a great victory or achievement. Typically, triumph means a parade.
 
The neoclassical L’Arc de Triomphe in Paris is the center of L’Axe historique is at the center Paris and of French national pride. It is a triumphant gate, replicated and re-imagined by many states around the world, including Mexico and North Korea, as a symbol of war victory and military pride. It represents a colonial urge to control and conquer. In France, of course, it is also a symbol of pride in the national soccer team, “Les Bleus,” but that is another sermon! “Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem” typically is interpreted as a victory parade, an eternal win, and achievement. Fait accompli.
 
Now, understanding this Psalm Sunday story as a victory parade isn’t at all outside of a superficial reading of the passage. In fact, the authorship of the Gospel of Luke wants a triumphal parade to be your first impression. One scholar writes, “[Luke 19] incorporates phrases from Palm 118, [‘Blessed is the king, who comes in the name of the Lord,’] This scene depicts a royal entry, naming Jesus as king, a title that will be used in the charges against Jesus before Pilate in Luke 23:2.”[1]
 
On the surface, we have a great royal victory parade, the deed is done, all is accomplished, and it’s time to break out the Easter Ham (with or without pineapple), but we know there is more to the story. The Gospel of Luke is showing us that Jesus, even as he walks literally/ knowingly towards his death, is inverting the norm of the king, of what is royal, or what victory means. Luke is arguably the most literarily sophisticated of the Gospels and is also the one most rooted in Social Justice and community need.
 
Here are three important ways that this is not a normal triumphant parade (like what we imagine with Charles de Gaulle after WWII):

1. Jesus isn’t greeted with the garbs of royalty but with the cloaks, a very precious belonging in the ancient world, of the poor who line his path. The powers of this world, on the inside of the gates, are not present to welcome Jesus. Notice, importantly, that this celebration happens not under the arcs of triumph inside the city walls but still on the outside with the other on the road! Location matters in Biblical story telling. This story happens on the outside of the walls of authority.
   
   
2. Jesus doesn’t ride on a great horse of a Roman military victor, but he rides on a farmer’s colt or baby donkey. The scene, to the ears and eyes of the people of the time, would have been farcical or comical! What a scene of the absurd—a king riding on peasants’ cloaks and a young colt? A colt or donkey is also a working animal of peace used to till fields in peacetime rather than an animal of war. This is an ironic scene, to the ancient world intended to make us question everything we think we know about power and who wields it. Only in modern, perhaps numbed (we have heard it too many times), readings is it a celebratory parade.
   
   
3. Finally, we know that this isn’t the end of the story. This parade is the vehicle by which the crucifixion and the death happen. The language of king, borrowed from Psalm 118, spoken by this crowd is what is used to later secure a conviction of death. This victory seals his fate in a way. It is, in many ways, the opposite (au contraire) of a victory parade. It is a funeral processional march, but not one done in sadness or in vain.

 
The Gospel writers are intentionally offering a paradox. We act like this is the final scene in a fairy tale where Jesus enters the gates of the city and then lives happily ever after. In reality, it is anything but a Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty story once inside the gates. Especially with how we handle Palm Sunday, we absolve ourselves from further work. We have symbolically arrived at the gates. We abruptly stop the story at the gates of the city and declare: Happily, Ever After! How we handle Palm Sunday dictates how we handle and perceive our whole Christian lives. By saying that this is the victory parade, we miss that it isn’t a parade to be watched but a procession which we are called to join.  
 
This isn’t a parade at all, as it turns out, but it is a procession of life and transformation.
 
Tom Long was a professor at Emory when I was a student, and he wrote an amazing book on the Christian Funeral called, Accompany Them with Singing. In it he writes, “The key marks of a Christian funeral: simplicity, majesty, and the gathering of people…For Christians, Jesus is not the founder of some new religion or separate sect, but rather a revelation of what it means to live a fully human life, a life that truly embodies the image of God. To follow Jesus, then, is to walk the royal road intended for all humanity…One of the earliest descriptions of the Christian movement was ‘people of the way.’ For Christians, baptism is the starting point of this Way, a journey along a road Jesus himself traveled. Christians travel this road in faith, not knowing where it will lead and sometimes seeing only one step ahead. But they keep putting one foot in front of the other, traveling in faith to the end…”[2]
 
Friends, the word parade, as we often imagine the triumph of Palm Sunday, comes from an etymology meaning “a showing” or a “spectacle.” It means something to be observed and witnessed from the outside. It is neutral, it is passive, and it doesn’t call us to real lives of grace for each other.
 
On the other hand, what this story is really about is the word procession. A procession means “a moving forward” always and forever. We are called to be people of the way, walking with Christ into, not cheap grace, but deeply lived lives of Christian experience and hope for each other. Christianity is a processional moving forward—one foot in front of the other.
 
Christianity isn’t meant to be a triumphant spectacle, but it is meant to be lived in motion… a moving forward together.
 
We are lulled into thinking that we have an easy theological and ethical “out” here. We imagine that Jesus has done all the work already. Isn’t it time to open the Easter Eggs and eat all the peeps yet? All we need to do is accept the victor of war over evil into our lives and all is accomplished, right? Consciously or unconsciously, Evangelical or Mainline Progressive, that is what happens when we think of Palm Sunday as a victory parade. We miss that it is only the start of the journey and we are all called to the donkey, to the road, to the way.  
 
This isn’t a parade at all, as it turns out, but it is a procession of life.
 
“For Christians, baptism is the starting point of this Way, a journey along a road Jesus himself traveled. Christians travel this road in faith, not knowing where it will lead and sometimes seeing only one step ahead. But they keep putting one foot in front of the other, traveling in faith to the end…”[3]
 
I took last Sunday through Tuesday as vacation days to go on what I consider an annual Pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. to meet with Congress about housing affordability funding and policy. I always start by taking a moment to sit and pray on my own somewhere on the National Mall. This year, with the Cherry Blossoms and bright blue skies, I found myself inspired by democracy and what is possible in our country if we work together. In our National Mall, even today, the feeling isn’t of triumph over others, but it is a feeling of what is possible if we walk together. As a country, despite current rhetoric inside the buildings in D.C., the symbols we have chosen for our National Mall and capitol aren’t symbols and arcs of triumph over others, even our WWII memorial, but signs of togetherness and hope. We are not about triumph over but democracy with others.

I went into the meetings with a sense of confidence in my place in the Christian procession of justice, of diversity, of equity, and inclusion that Jesus starts with this procession story today. This isn’t easy, solo, selfish grace, but it is a grace to be shared through living lived on the path and way of transformation.

We are called to put the one step in front of the other way of Christ, to the path of hope, to the procession of transformation.
 
We are called into the procession of Christ to find shelter for those without housing.
We are called into the procession of Christ to help create new homes for those who are priced out of the market.
We are called into the procession of Christ to support those who believe themselves to not be living lives of worth or value.
We are called into the procession of Christ to stand-up for services that enable mental healthcare.
We are called into the procession of Christ to work for compassion and safety for the refugee.
We are called into the procession not the parade of Christ to seek peace in our world.
We are called into the procession of Christ to stop conversion therapies wherever it is still taking place.
We are called into the procession of Christ to fund scientific research and cures for diseases.
We are called into the procession of Christ to build affordable housing.
We are called into the procession of Christ, not as observers, but as activists for the ways of God in this world.
 
Procession isn’t a run. It is one step in front of the other, working for change, living in hope, experiencing grace. We may never see the results of our work, but we are in a long line, and we know that Jesus leads onward. Never stop walking and trying and remembering this calling.
 
Palm Sunday isn’t a parade. It is a farcical flipping over of our universe and a reminder of our calling to again become People of the Way. Come, friends, it is time to rejoin the procession of transformation. There is no time to lose.
 
Amen.

[1] Marion Lloyd Soards, “Luke,” in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: NRSV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 134NT.
[2] Tomas G. Long, Accompany Them With Singing: The Christian Funeral (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), xii-xiii.
[3] Tomas G. Long, Accompany Them With Singing: The Christian Funeral (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), xii-xiii.

by Anne Thompson

Parade-like feeling
with palm-waving "Hosannas"
through Arc de Triomphe.

A great victory!
Cloaks of peasants on the ground
outside city walls.

A farcical scene
on a working animal --
filled with irony.

The language of "King!"
seals the fate of coming death --
A Funeral March

Join the procession!
We should not be here to watch,
People of the Way!

This is not parade,
not a spectacle to see --
but moving forward.

Called to the donkey --
not knowing where it will lead --
with hope for justice.

Working for this change,
one foot before the other
in transformation.

Procession of love
Journeys of love and justice
Transformation path

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by Anne Thompson

Wiped feet with her hair --
Should not this be used to feed
the poor among us?

Extravagant life?
Learn the art of true living --
extravagant grace

We are called to share,
broken open for giving
in this house of love.

Washing dirty feet --
blessings in humility --
extravagant love.

What do these words mean?
"The poor are always with us."
Time for Jubilee!

What's the sound of love?
Take clay tablets out and drop
them into the dust.

Structured injustice,
founding visions fall apart.
What is Jubilee?

Equal pay for work
for women, especially
black, Latina, poor.

Time for equity,
for cleansing dirt from our hands.
Time for Jubilee.