“A Mixed Bag”

“A Mixed Bag”

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Mark 11:1-11, Isaiah 50:4-9a, Mark 15:1-39

Year B, Passion-Palm Sunday, March 24, 2024

Pastor Andy Kennaly, Sandpoint, Idaho

Why are you here? What is it that inspired you to participate today? A desire to worship God? Part of following Jesus? An obligation to uphold tradition? Expectations of relationships? To affirm assumptions, or to seek transformation? Maybe the answers to “Why are you here?” involve a mixed bag. Perhaps one answer isn’t enough to capture motives that may even be hidden to ourselves.

If you’re here to validate patriarchy, then you could quote the psalmist, “O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever.” The English translations use male pronouns to talk about God, which in this case is Yahweh, the four Hebrew letters that are so holy as to be unspeakable. They are more correctly translated by simply breathing in and out (Yah-weh), yet here we are inheriting a tradition that came into fashion right as Patriarchy was getting established over the earlier structure of Matriarchy. Those earlier words to describe Spirit are feminine, highlighting creativity and relationship.

Or maybe you’re here to be inspired as a missionary. Like in Mark’s gospel as disciples hear Jesus tell them what to do, they follow directions, and in the meantime “some of the bystanders” notice and ask them questions about what and why they are doing what they do. The disciples tell the bystanders about Jesus. The bystanders then allow the disciples to continue with their work. Sounds like a formula for missionaries as disciples are sent into the world to teach and baptize and tell people about Jesus so they can respond and follow, or at least support the mission at work. That certainly fits the Bible story this morning.

Maybe it’s the palms, the tradition of waving green branches in the air at the start of Holy Week and Jesus’ triumphal entry that celebrates how blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Palm branches are part of this tradition, and we even save some, dry them out, and burn them into ashes to start the season of Lent next year. Maybe you’re here to continue this tradition, to get your palm branch, bring it home, and feel accomplished toward religious devotion.

Maybe our motivations are more of a mixed bag than we would admit.

The traditional approach is fine, yet in some ways it has fallen flat, lost the intensity of cultural meanings. To some of the people in and around Jerusalem that day Jesus shows up, there’s plenty of intensity as they build on the traditional assumption of a political savior.

Perhaps we know that mission is a central part of what the church is called to do and be. We are a people sent. Missionary movements can be rather influential in peoples’ lives. History is filled with them, for better or worse, kind of a mixed bag. There’s a fine line between sincerity and sinfulness; of sharing the love of God, or simply expanding the Empire to benefit those empowered by position and prestige while others are manipulated, controlled, and subdued. The history of missions is a mixed bag.

Religious tradition has its markers, like waving palm branches today. Symbolism can be very powerful to reach beyond thought and affect people at emotional and spiritual levels. Tradition can provide comfort and satisfaction, a sense of doing something like it’s supposed to be done, because that’s how you do it, it’s tradition. Tradition triggers memory and honors the past even while laying out a course for the future.

But that assumed course can get rutted, stuck in its own limitations, misperceptions, and narrowed perspectives. Interpretations and inner experience may change over time, and traditions that become institutionalized can become rigid. The next step is to defend them rather than change. Many people hold on to tradition even though institutional religion only gets one so far along in terms of spiritual growth, faith development, and authentic inner transformation. Tradition is a mixed bag.

Life is a mixed bag, and this week, which we often call Holy Week, is a mixed bag, from triumph to tragedy, from praise to pain, from rejoicing to rejection, from faithful following to fearful flight. Even the name for this very Sunday tips us off that there is an unsettled dynamic at work. Here we are on Passion-Palm Sunday: the celebration of triumphal entry directly connected with death on a cross.

That life, faith, and religion are a mixed bag of experience and possibility is nothing new, it’s old news. But it’s also connected to good news, that God meets us in this mix, that Jesus comes to us, and love prevails, as if there was any doubt.

You’ve maybe seen that phrase, Love Wins. Love wins assumes there is an opponent, an enemy, which involves a dualism, a dialectic, and the possibility that love might lose. Love wins is intended as a phrase of encouragement. Yet there has never been the possibility that love would lose, and even Jesus tells us to love our enemies for in doing so we discover our deeper humanity that involves connection, humility, and unity.

Maybe that’s enough for today. A recognition that this week shows us that life is complicated, and simple, all of it held in God’s larger love that is always operative, engaged, and at work in God’s purpose of celebrating life, even life abundant. This week is a mixed bag, yet one that invites an openness, honesty, and honoring of the author and perfector of our faith, Jesus, the Christ, who offers forgiveness and healing.

This helps us get past one of the limitations in the very first question. I started out by asking, Why are you here? We would be more honest if we responded by seeking clarification, which YOU are your referring to? Are you referring to the YOU that keeps score, gets offended, holds on to grudges or past hurts? Is it the YOU that somewhere along life’s journey thought Love and acceptance had to earned or proven worthy, rather than shared as part of life’s Essence? Holy Week takes us on a journey with Jesus and we watch him shed the externals all the way to the cross, into the dark grave, and out from the now empty tomb. Jesus teaches us to let go of everything in life that is too limited to define who we truly are, in Christ.

Thanks be to God for helping us let go of unessential things so we can be open to let Love shine. And may God be glorified, now, and always. Amen.