Candy, Anger, and Sleep

A sermon shared at the Suttons Bay Congregational Church, September 25, 2016

Scripture: 1 Timothy 6:6-19

Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra said lots of things that make no logical sense and yet somehow hint at a deep philosophical truth. For example, these days many of us might see some wisdom in his observation that “The future ain’t what it used to be.” And I suppose that every sermon ever delivered—including this one—could be summarized by Yogi’s observation that “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”

Even in resisting the notion that he had made many of these quotable statements, Yogi could not help sounding like Yogi. He once remarked with a wisp of merry defiance: “I never said most of the things I said.” And maybe he didn’t.

 

When it comes to never saying most of the things attributed to you, however, the Hall of Fame champion must be the Holy Bible. Surely, no text in the history of the world has so often been misquoted, selectively quoted, quoted out of context, or quoted to advance decidedly unbiblical agendas. In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Anotonio declares that “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,” and we know that Shakespeare is right (as usual) because we see this happen with unsettling regularity.

This passage from Paul’s first letter to Timothy is one that is often misquoted and commonly misunderstood, particularly the verse within it that is frequently rendered as: “Money is the root of all evil.” This morning, I want to fix the misquotation and put the phrase back into context. I do not want to do this as a nitpicky and lawyerly exercise in getting language right. Rather, I want to do this because I believe that a correct understanding of this passage forces us to confront one of the most daunting and persistent challenges of human existence.

Let’s start with two relatively minor fixes. First, this scripture does not condemn money in and of itself. If it did, then the passage taken as a whole would not make any sense. After all, it urges us to be “generous and ready to share,” which presumably includes the giving of our financial resources. At the risk of sounding like Yogi Berra, if you have nothing to give then it’s harder to give it.

No, the scripture is worried about our relationship with money. It is not money but the love of money that causes the trouble. The scripture warns that loving money and the stuff it can buy leads us into all kinds of traps and temptations that have nothing to do with the life to which Jesus calls us. And the love of money can work against the generosity of spirit and sharing of resources that the passage tells us we need to foster and pursue.

Second, properly translated this passage does not claim that the love of money is the sole root of all evil but rather that it is a cause of many kinds of evil. I doubt that Paul intended to claim that money holds a monopoly on malfeasance. No, we can get there many other ways, including through hatred, wrath, anger, bias, prejudice, jealousy, fear—fear does a lot of work here, doesn’t it?—and a thousand other weaknesses we are heir to.

Beyond these minor fixes, however, I want to suggest to you that neither money nor the love of it is actually the central concern of this text. I think the passage is actually worried about two much bigger things. The first is that—our spiritual aspirations notwithstanding—we experience life as physical beings. Indeed, that’s precisely why money is problematic: it helps us scratch our physical itches and we can fall in love with its capacity to do so.

The second is that our attachment to this physicality accounts for much of our unhappiness. Our selfishness, our grief, our despair, and our (sometimes paralyzing) anxiety often have a lot to do with our clutching at our physical life and at physical things. This is understandable: our physical being is what we know with the greatest immediacy.

I think it was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who wisely declared: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” At some level of abstraction we understand that this is so. But let’s be honest: our day-to-day existence inundates us with evidence to the contrary.

Say we are spiritual beings if you like, but the reality is that tomorrow we will experience life physically. We will feel the power in our muscles or the aches in our joints; we will know the pangs of hunger or the taste of good food; we will grapple with the discomforts of illness or enjoy the pleasures of good health; we will look around and find no one beside us or we will delight in the touch of a loved one.

The poet Delmore Schwartz described these bodies of ours as “the heavy bear who goes with [us] … in love with candy, anger, and sleep.” The good news is that we will not go through tomorrow alone: God will be with us. The less good news is: so will the bear.

Now, this scriptural passage does not tell us to ignore our physicality. To the contrary, it recognizes the reality that we need “food and clothing.” And nothing in this passage denies that we may find comfort in physical things. Nothing here denies that some physical experiences can even help usher us toward a more spiritual place: witnessing one of our gorgeous Leelanau peninsula sunsets; watching the shimmering water of the bay on a warm afternoon; listening to the spring birdsong in the woods; laughing with beloved friends over food and a little wine, “for our stomach’s sake,” as that first letter to Timothy says elsewhere. Done in the right spirit there is holiness in the breaking of bread, no less than in the praying over it.

In a poem written toward the end of his life, Jim Harrison—who knew a fair amount about this dear peninsula said: “My work piles up, / I falter with disease / Time rushes toward me-- / it has no brakes. Still, / the radishes are good this year. / Run them through butter, / add a little salt.” I can find no evidence anywhere in the Bible that God begrudges us the pleasure of a salted radish. To the contrary, the radish is one of God’s lovely little flirtations in the grandeur of the divine creation.

The problem, of course, is that the bear has much bigger appetites—that can prove hard to control. And the scripture worries that when we chase the gratification of those impulses we will spend our time in pursuit of the wrong things. It is not just that this will have grave consequences for our fellow human beings, because we will have less to share with them. It is that it will have grave consequences for each of us, because we cannot possibly find peace, contentment, and meaning in the temporary possession of things that we know we are going to lose. “It ain’t over til it’s over,” Yogi Berra said; and when it’s over “we can take nothing out of [the world],” the scripture reminds us.

In this respect, the first letter to Timothy stands in a line of thought that we find across cultures, philosophies, and religions. One of the central tenets of Buddhism is that our anxiety and suffering come from our grasping at and clinging to things that are finally impermanent. And the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote: “For no one is worthy of a god unless he has paid no heed to riches. I am not, mind you, against your possessing them, but I want to ensure that you posses them without tremors; and you will only achieve this in one way, by convincing yourself that you can live a happy life even without them, and by always regarding them as being on the point of vanishing.” Because they are.

This scripture therefore presents us with one of the fundamental puzzles of human existence, a riddle with which our species has struggled for, oh, only about a few thousand years. Yes, we know that our physical existence is fragile, temporal, and short. But it is also our most present reality. Given that, how can we reach for that ultimate and greater reality that a deeply spiritual existence offers?

This scripture provides an answer to this question, although in our preoccupation with its uncomfortable admonitions about money we may miss it. It tells us that the way out of the dilemma—the way out of our very human fixation on our own physicality—lies in our service to others. “Be rich in good works,” the scripture tells us. “That you may take hold of the life that really is life.”

In his famous book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl recounts his experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. He describes, in painful detail, how he and his fellow prisoners lost everything that had defined their lives and descended into a place of unspeakable grief and suffering. It was a trauma from which many of the prisoners could not recover, and they withered and perished in their despair.

And, yet, Frankl observed that some of the prisoners endured these horrific experiences in a way that gave their existence continued meaning. Those prisoners found something to do, some work to keep them occupied. And that work was often not for their own benefit, but for that of other prisoners.

Frankl writes: “For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. That truth is that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

Love, this scripture tells us, is the greatest thing, the only thing that finally matters. It has been so since before the hidden foundations of the world. It is infinite and endless. And yet, paradoxically, it is possible for us to waste it on the wrong things.

God wastes none of it, even while dispensing it with wild abandon. God showers it upon us in an extravagant and unmerited—almost seemingly reckless—show of delight and forgiveness and peace and grace. God spends love as though it were an inexhaustible resource—because it is.

“Go and do likewise,” a voice says to us, sometimes coming as a still soft voice, sometimes as a thunderous declaration and shaking of us by the lapels. “Go and do likewise. And, if you do, you will dwell within the light of the world. You will spread the light of the world. You will be the light of the world. And you will be so now, and forever and ever and ever.” 

Amen. And amen.

Redemption Song: Reflections After Orlando

On Sunday morning at 2:02 a.m. I was restlessly reading in bed. I knew why I was having trouble sleeping. Lisa was away, which I always find disorienting. And J.J. and I had stayed up late to watch television and eat bowlfuls of ice cream with fresh strawberries—not exactly a prescription for sound and settled rest. I read my book and listened through the window to the sounds of the frogs and birds calling to each other on our little lake. As I did so, one of the worst massacres in American history was occurring at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

*

The days that followed have brought many words but little understanding. Events like this confuse and confound us, and our language multiplies correspondingly. In the face of the irrational, we are inundated with reasons; in the face of the inexplicable, we are inundated with explanations; in the face of loss and despair, we are inundated with the voices of the aspiring and opportunistic. The cacophonous clamor of our words overwhelms real communication and true communion. A cynic might say: on the eighth day man invented language, and no one—no one save God—has heard anything since.

We cannot even agree on the subject matter of the conversation. Should we be talking about gun control, or law enforcement, or terrorism, or mental health resources, or radicalized religious movements, or our long and ugly history of violence against the LGBT community, or our long and ugly history of violence—period?  Should we be focused on the shooter, trying to understand his motives and methods in our efforts to keep this from happening again? Or should we direct our attention toward the victims, trying to ensure that the magnitude of this tragedy does not reduce them to statistics? Should we talk about the numbers? Or should we talk about the victims as individuals, learn their stories, and say their names?

  As a community of faith, we do what we are doing tonight and have done for two thousand years. We gather; we mourn; we reflect; we comfort each other; we pray. But this response, too, has become a subject of debate. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, a number of political leaders and celebrities publicly expressed their prayers for the victims and their families and friends. This elicited a bitter response from some people: “stop talking about your prayers and do something,” they said. And how do we answer that challenge? How do we think about what we are doing tonight, right here, right now? Do we view our prayers as an end—an exercise in healing, a confession of our own violent natures, and a plea for guidance from the only One who finally has any to offer? Or do we view our prayers as a beginning—an exercise in recommitment, a promise to work tirelessly in opposition to violence and hatred, and a declaration that we will strive courageously to bring God’s kingdom of peace into this world and to all of our brothers and sisters—every last one, everyone in, nobody out?

And—if we cannot figure out how to talk and think about these things—then how can we help our children and grandchildren do so? Years ago, the brilliant essayist and physician Lewis Thomas wrote an article called “Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.” The thrust of the essay was that Thomas had lost his ability to listen with the same pleasure to a piece of music that had previously brought him hope and consolation. The threat of nuclear annihilation—estimates of eighty million dead—had made the music feel irrelevant, disconnected from the current state of things. He wrote:

If I were sixteen or seventeen years old and had to listen to [those descriptions of nuclear war,] or read things like that, I would begin thinking up new kinds of sounds, different from any music heard before, and I would be twisting and turning to rid myself of human language.

The challenges posed to our youth now seem even greater. Talk of nuclear annihilation can feel comfortingly abstract—I remember drills in elementary school where we would be ordered to squat under our desks in preparation for a hydrogen bomb, an exercise that struck us as hilariously detached from anything like reality. But today our children hear stories of people murdered in cold blood as they sit in a classroom, or at a movie theater, or in a Bible study meeting at church. The victims at the club in Orlando did not initially realize what was going on because they were so caught up in the joy, the dancing, and the music. 

So we struggle with the limitations of our words and our language. But struggle we must, because the end of all goodness in the world lies in a quiet acquiescence to violence. If the crucifixion of Jesus Christ teaches us nothing else, surely it teaches us that much. As I have previously observed in this very sanctuary: I do not know many things; but I know that evil has a muscular co-conspirator in silence.

So we go to language—including the language of music—because we must. We can do nothing until we can navigate the language of grief, the language of despair, the language of outrage, the language of justice, the language of inclusion, the language of compassion. “In the beginning,” we are told, “was the word. And the word was with God. And the word was God.”

*

The book I was reading on Sunday morning at 2:02 a.m. is called Letters to Yesenin, by the late author Jim Harrison. In the nineteen-seventies, Harrison found himself in a profoundly depressed state: living in poverty, working on a hardscrabble farm, filled with despair, and contemplating suicide. In an oddly therapeutic exercise, he wrote a series of short letters ostensibly addressed to a Russian poet named Sergei Yesenin, who had hanged himself in 1925. The book is a compilation of those letters.

The book is hard reading: brutally candid; explicit; tortured; and confused. You can perhaps understand why it was not helping much in my effort to get to sleep. But, at the same time, the book is a kind of redemption song. Harrison finds his way out through a combination of language, image, and memory. I suspect that if we are to find our way out, then our path must look much the same.

Let me describe to you two passages in the book that I think may be particularly helpful tonight. In one, Harrison describes a “cold autumn evening” when the impulse toward self-destruction became particularly strong. But then he saw something that brought the compulsion to a full and immediate halt. He writes: “My year-old daughter’s red robe hangs from the doorknob shouting Stop.”

In a second passage, he acknowledges the abundant challenges of the world but also finds a reason to live through a small and isolated act of kindness and caregiving. “To be frank,” he writes at the end of the book, “I’d rather live to feed my dogs, knowing the world says no in ten thousand ways and yes in only a few.” You do not need to agree with Harrison’s math to agree with the point: if we have any chance at all, it is in the yes of love; it is the only hope we have now; it is the only hope we have ever had.

When two or more are gathered in His name then He is there. So we gather tonight in the name and in the presence of the most powerful force in the universe, the One who knows your name, the One who knows the names of each and every victim in Orlando, the one who became a victim of human violence that we might know that He suffers with us, beside us, for us.

We gather to cry: “yes.”

We gather to shout: “stop.”

And the people said: Amen.

Leonard and Dean's Wedding Ceremony

The Marriage of Leonard Poisson and Dean Sanchez

May 28, 2016

Cobblestone Farms

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Good evening everyone and welcome to our celebration of the marriage of Leonard Poisson and Dean Sanchez.

The Vietnamese Buddhist, author, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh said: “The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” This evening, in this present moment, you will not be able to miss it.

Indeed, “joy and happiness” seem like inadequate words. This evening strikes me as bigger than that, as an occasion for dancing in the streets or under the stars or on the tables—well, perhaps when we were all a little younger. After all, tonight we do not just honor a love, but a great love—a love that has endured; a love that has overcome; a love that has prevailed.

Talking about Leonard and Dean poses its challenges because there are so many interesting things to say about such interesting people. Oscar Wilde wrote: “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” And I suspect that none of us knows any two people who are more completely themselves than Leonard and Dean. So someone charged with making the introductory remarks before these two exchange vows has lots of good material to work with. How to choose?

Well, let me tell you a story. I was honored when Leonard and Dean asked if I would assist with this ceremony. And I was delighted when they invited Lisa and me to dinner to think out loud about the kind of ceremony they wanted it to be. So we went to their stylish condominium and had delicious food and talked.

Knowing Dean and Leonard as you do, I am sure you will all understand what I mean when I say it was a non-linear conversation. We talked about everything imaginable and in no particular order: home renovation; decorating; dogs; cats; antiques; food; physical ailments and injuries; religion; philosophy; death; some of the times that made our hearts strong; some of the times that broke them. Imagine one of the more abstract Jackson Pollack splatter paintings and think of it as a visual representation of our conversation.

Yet, somehow, in the course of all this chatter three absolutely clear themes emerged. I hope that you will agree with me that they play a leading role in defining Dean and Leonard both as individuals and as a couple. And I hope that you will see why these themes matter as we gather today to celebrate their union.

The first theme is: Tend your flock. Tend your flock.

As I am sure you have noticed, Dean and Leonard gather people around them—a flock of sorts. And then they tend to them, love them, support them, cheer for them, listen to them, make them laugh, preen them, feed them, take them in, nurse them, even see them from this world to the next.

Once you are in their flock it is tough to get out. Their care for you is neither fragile nor fickle. Like their love for each other, it endures, overcomes, and prevails.

So Dean and Leonard are sorry for the absence today of some people they wish could be with us. And they have asked me to call their names as a way of remembering them and bringing them into our presence:

Leonard’s mom and dad, Marion and Lewis

Dean’s grandma and grandpa, Rose and Joe

Morton, Leonard’s dear, dear friend

Karen, a member of Dean’s family

Leonard’s brother Loren

Dean’s good friends Ross and Mo

Leonard’s sister Lisa

Russ, Dean’s cousin who they recently lost

Dean’s uncle Chuck

To paraphrase a famous passage, when two or more are gathered in the name of Love, then Love is there—and so are those we love. So welcome Marion, Lewis, Rose, Joe, Morton, Karen, Loren, Ross, Mo, Lisa, Russ, and Chuck. Pull up a chair. We’re just getting started.

         And, because Dean and Leonard care so much for their flock, it matters a great deal to them that all of you are here this evening. I suspect that everyone here could tell a story about being tended to by these men—how one or both of them helped you out, or brought you in, or nurtured you, or lifted you up when you were down, or fed you, or listened to you, or danced with you, or gossiped with you, or cried with you, or made you laugh so hard you spat out your martini. My, but aren’t we all the lucky ones?

So Dean and Leonard are well versed in the sacred arts of compassion. Think of how wonderfully they have cared for all of you: yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. And now imagine how wonderfully they will care for each other: tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

The second of my themes is: Gather treasures around you. Gather treasures around you.

As you all know, these men follow a creed that has a mecca all its own. And that sacred temple is called Treasure Mart.

If you have had the pleasure of touring Dean and Leonard’s elegant condominium then you know that they can recite for you the history and pedigree of each table, chair, artifact, and vase that has found its way into their collection. Everything is, of course, gorgeous and in spectacular taste. And much of it comes from Treasure Mart, where I believe Leonard and Dean direct deposit their checks.

As we walked around their rooms I was struck by how good their eyes are—how easily and perfectly they can see the beauty in things that have been around the block, that may have some visible nicks, that other people—indeed, most people—would pass by. In my view, this special sight they have is a gift more rare than mathematical genius—and far more valuable.

This gift matters, of course, not because of the stunning leather chair or the dazzling glassware or the handsome china cabinet—although that is all lovely stuff that I shamelessly envy. It matters because they also apply that special sight to their fellow human beings. They see the beauty in those of us that have been around the block—and that the block has treated poorly; those of us that have deep scars in our grain—some of which we carefully keep out of sight; those of us that the world has passed over—without so much as a glance backward.

Leonard and Dean do not just gather people into their flock—they gather all kinds of people into it. And they do so because they see the beauty in all of us—even those of us that are gathering dust in some obscure and untraveled corner. Dean and Leonard would say, with Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” And they would add: “And when you are yourself we will love you for it.”

I have it on good authority that—like the rest of us—Dean and Leonard are not perfect. They have creaky joints and nicks and dust of their own. So how wonderful that they can continue to bring their special sight into this relationship, always seeing the abundant beauty in each other, no matter what.

You might wonder how these two gained the capacity to tend their unruly flock and the special sight necessary to recognize the treasures in their lives. Or, to put it more bluntly, you might wonder how somewhere along the line these two men became wise. I am afraid that the answer is as true as it is hard.

And it brings me to my third theme: Through our struggles, we have found our way. Through our struggles, we have found our way.

Dean and Leonard have faced serious challenges during their years together: illness; injury; the loss of loved ones; and, let’s be candid, a society too backward and boorish to allow them to do what they are doing right now. The same experiences that might have made other people bitter, hateful, and timid have made these two joyful, embracing, and, well, let’s just say “not timid” and leave it at that.

 When we gather to celebrate the marriage of young people, it is conventional for them to promise that they will stay beside each other despite the slings and arrows that will come along. It is pretty to hear. But I think we cannot help but notice that we are getting brave testimonials from the unwounded.

These two, in contrast, have walked through the fire. They do not just know what they are made of—they know what they are made of. I am sure that they would happily have gone without some of the struggles that have come along the way—they might ask, with Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, would it “spoil some vast, eternal plan” if there had been a little less of that?

But it is those experiences that have brought them here today. And it is those experiences that will allow them to keep what they are making here today. When new challenges come along they will be able to say: “It is all right. We know what we are doing. We have done it before. Many times, in fact.”

In a moment, I am going to pass the ceremony to Supa, who will administer the Buddhist marriage vows to Leonard and Dean. But, before I do, I would like to close with a brief story and a quotation that I think is particularly apt for this ceremony and for these men.

Lisa and I have a favorite movie called Babbette’s Feast. I’m sure many of you know it. In a sense, the film is about fine food and the special magic that takes place between human beings when they gather over it and talk. Our dinner with Leonard and Dean had more than a little of that magic to it.

The film is also, indeed mostly, about love. One of the central characters is an aging general who has been torturing himself with questions about his decision to pursue a glamorous military career rather than remaining with the woman he adored—and still adores. He sees the woman again—after decades have passed—and his initial reaction is one of deep regret.

But then he realizes that, in the end, their love has endured, overcome, prevailed. It is still there—as real and palpable as if they had never been apart. And, at the end of the film, he says this to her:

“I’ve been with you every day of my life. Tell me that you know that. And I shall be with you every day from now on. For tonight I have learned that, in this beautiful world of ours, all things are possible.”

Welcome Dean and Leonard, into this beautiful night, into this beautiful new life, in which all things are possible. Thanks for inviting us along.We will stand by you in your struggles. We know what treasures you are. You are in our flocks, too.

Taking Easter Personally

Scripture: "But the angel said to women, 'Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised ..." Matthew 28:5

From the beginning, the world tried to corner Him. To trap Him. To destroy Him.

When He was still an infant, Herod sent spies looking for Him to murder Him. When that didn't work, the tyrant tried to co-opt the three wise men in their search for Him. When that failed, too, Herod slaughtered all of the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and younger.

Not long after He entered his ministry, the religious and political authorities went after Him. They tried to trap Him with tricky questions about doctrine. They tried to corner Him with words of scripture. They tried to provoke Him into denying the power of Rome.

The truth He spoke inspired his followers. But it also made people angry. So sometimes hostile crowds tried to corner Him, to trap Him, to confront Him. But, somehow, He always slipped away.

And then a ridiculous cornering: a betrayal in the night, taking Him as though He had been hiding from the world. We can almost imagine a wry smile on Jesus's face when He points out to them that it is not as though they have trapped Him. He was just there--standing, waiting, knowing.

Then a terrible time of reckoning. Mocked. Tortured. Crucified. Killed. And everyone thought: well, there is no escaping this time. It seemed finally finished, even to some of the disciples.

But when that stone was rolled away, an unthinkable and unimaginable Truth was made known. Even in death He was not cornered, trapped, destroyed. Even death itself failed to capture Him.

Easter brings with it many lessons. I would never presume to tell you how you should experience it. That is something to be worked out in a quiet conversation between you and God.

But I will offer this, for what it is worth. It may be that for you the most important lesson of Easter is that, if you will have faith, then you are never cornered, never trapped, never destroyed.

Perhaps this is hard for you to believe. Maybe some part of your life has you feeling as if there is no exit. An illness. Economic struggles. Bad choices. An abusive relationship. A deep sadness from loss. Loneliness. Depression.

But when the sun came up today, Easter morning had this to say to you:

You are not cornered.

You are not trapped.

You are not destroyed.

The most powerful force in the universe knows your name, knows where you are, knows what you need, and knows your way forward.

Open yourself to it. Listen for it. Experience it. Embrace it. It is the Truth that He promised would set you free.

Good morning, you blessed Easter people.

He is risen.

He is risen, indeed.

And so, by the power and grace of God,

are you.

Amen.

Look Up, Show Up, Speak Up

Scripture: Matthew 21:6-9
We all understand the historical and theological significance of Palm Sunday. A prophecy had declared that a king would come to the people of Israel humbly, borne by a donkey and a colt. Jesus fulfills the prophecy by entering Jerusalem in just this way to the cheers of the crowd. Once inside the city, he strides into the temple and turns over the tables of the moneychangers and the merchants.

These events fuel the escalating tensions between Jesus and the temple authorities and firm up their resolve to deal with the troublemaker from Nazareth. In this sense, Palm Sunday is the beginning of the end, the opening scene in the penultimate act of the unfolding drama that draws us toward Good Friday. Holy Week starts here and we find ourselves looking toward its culmination in the two days next weekend that are so central to our faith: the day on which Love was crucified and the world went dark; and the day on which Love rose and the world was astonished.

As a result of this forward pull, we may not give Palm Sunday its due. We may reduce it to a useful reminder that Easter is closer than we thought. Or, if we engage with it more seriously, we may focus on what Palm Sunday meant to the people gathered around Jesus then, missing the opportunity to consider what it might mean to us now.

So I ask: What does the story of Palm Sunday have to say to us—about who we are and how we should live? Do the events of that day convey any lessons? Is there anything we can learn by looking closely at these events, being careful not to look past them?

I want to suggest that Palm Sunday provides us with a critical insight into what a life of faith looks like. Indeed, I think it offers us something like a “job description” of our role as followers and celebrants of Jesus. And I believe that the Palm Sunday story tells us that this job brings with it three central responsibilities, which I will describe this way: look up; show up; and speak up.

I. “Look Up”

Put yourself in the position of a member of the crowd that materialized to celebrate Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. I think we can safely assume that—like the rest of us—those people had other stuff to do. They could go to the market, clean the house, count their money, pay their taxes—in other words take care of the business of everyday life.

They could even choose—like we sometimes do—to spend their time less productively, complaining about a family member, gossiping about a neighbor, plotting revenge for some perceived offense, wallowing in self-pity, and so on. In other words, those people could have chosen to spend the day looking down. They could have fully occupied themselves with looking down into the ministerial chores of existence; down into their own egos and interests; down into the smallest and crustiest chambers of their hearts.

We, too, can choose to look down. Indeed, I fear that the temptations to do so have multiplied exponentially over the millennia. A plethora of forces now combine to draw our attention in that direction. A culture of selfishness and celebrity seems intent on miring us in trash and trivia. We spend much more time looking at screens—television screens, computer screens, cell phone screens—than we do looking into the eyes of other human beings.

We are so overwhelmed with things we do not need to know that we have no capacity left for the things that we do. We have become masters of the impermanent and ultimately irrelevant, denizens of a society where it seems likely that for every person who can name any of the disciples there are fifty people who can name all of the Kardashians. The great poet T.S. Eliot offered this haunting prophecy: “And the wind shall say, these were a decent, godless people, their only monument the asphalt road and a thousand lost golf balls.”

Contrast this with the people in the crowd that gathered on Palm Sunday. These were people who had chosen to look up. They were watching for signs of God’s presence in their lives. They were waiting in hope and expectation. They understood that we cannot find anything that matters without looking for it and that we cannot look for anything that matters if we are looking down.

This is not to say that the people in the crowd were perfect—or even better than us. To the contrary, I think that part of the power of the message here comes from the fact that we know this is not true. After all, in the week to come this crowd around Jerusalem would prove themselves inconstant, fickle, and prone to distraction and confusion—just like we are. They would stand by while bad things happened and would turn their backs on Love—just like we do.

But the message of this day—this day—is that each of us, every last one of us, has the capacity to choose to look up instead. And, if we will do so, we have our best chance, maybe our only chance, of seeing what we have been looking for.

II. “Show Up”

Of course, the people in the crowd did not just look up—they showed up. They dropped what they were doing and came to watch and to participate and to cheer. The gospels are full of signal moments like this, when some go and others stay behind. Consider, for example, the moment when Jesus calls the fishermen to follow him and they immediately put down their nets and do so—everyone except Zebedee, who takes a pass so he can work on the boats and mend the nets.

I feel badly for poor old Zebedee—famous only for his decision to opt out of following the Son of God. And, unfortunately, I see a lot of myself in him. So it is without judgment that I say that I sometimes think I should start every morning drinking from a coffee cup emblazoned with the simple motto: “Today, try not to be Zebedee.”

With respect to this business of showing up I think the Palm Sunday story tells us something very important—both by what it says and what it does not say. It says that the people who gathered threw things in Jesus’s path. Some were fortunate enough to have a cloak to spare, so they spread those before Him. But those who were less fortunate cut palms from the surrounding trees and placed those in his way. So notice: the story tells us that everyone could take part; everyone could join the celebration; everyone was allowed in.

In this same spirit, the story does not say that anyone was turned away, spurned, rejected. No one was judged—which seems like a pretty good idea since the man they were honoring had unequivocally told them not to do that. Nobody was barred; nobody was excluded; nobody was shut out. In short: everybody in; nobody out.

We need to practice showing up often because there is some art to it. We need to practice the faith it requires—in ourselves, in others, in God. Showing up is the ongoing experiment in which we bring our hands and somehow—perhaps even out of palm leaves—God gives us tools.

III. “Speak Up”

 In the coming week, we will be reminded of a fundamental truth about the persecution and crucifixion of Jesus. In the end, he was not crucified for what he did. He was crucified for what he said. It may be that in the history of the world no one has ever spoken such powerful and challenging words—words that have the potential to inspire us, to change us, to save us and resurrect us from the darkness and death that would otherwise consume us.

Those people who showed up two thousand years ago had a lesson for us here, too. They did not have grand and eloquent speeches to give, parables to share, poetry to recite. But they did bring a word—“Hosanna”—that speaks volumes. Its roots lie in a plea for deliverance: “please save us.” But it came to be used as an expression of great joy and celebration, in some ways like we presently think of the word “Hallelujah.”

Shouting that word in that context was not without its risks. By doing so, those in the crowd aligned themselves with Jesus. They connected themselves to a man who threatened to bring down every structural authority and source of oppression around him.

I do not know much. But I know that evil has a muscular co-conspirator in silence. And on that day, two thousand years ago, the people did not remain silent. Neither can we.

Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and author, said: “ We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere … Whenever men and women are persecuted … that place must—at that moment—become the center of [our] universe.”

IV. An Analogy

Over the years, I have sat through countless Palm Sunday sermons where the preacher compared this procession to our experience of a parade. I’ve done it myself, in a sermon in this very church a few years back. Exploring such analogies is another way to try to connect the events of Palm Sunday with our own experience.

“That will preach,” as the saying goes. And it goes particularly well here in Chelsea, where our expertise in parades runs long and deep. For today, though, I’d like to draw a different comparison, perhaps a bit more whimsical, but I hope useful in our thinking about our job description.

The fad seems largely to have passed, but a while ago there was a popular phenomenon called a “flash mob.” It worked this way. A group of people got together and made a secret plan. Then they would show up unexpectedly in a public space and do Shakespeare or break into an elaborate song and dance routine or recite poetry.

A lot of the magic of it depended on this: there, in the middle of an ordinary day, or maybe even a very troubled time in your life, an inspired interruption occurred. Someone you did not even know had looked up, and shown up, and spoken up. Flash mobs, at their best, were a grand and clandestine conspiracy in the service of extravagant compassion and joy.

My friends, we are the most inspired flash mob in the history of humanity. We are followers of Jesus Christ. We meet in His name to try to figure out how to help people we don’t even know. We make plans, sometimes under the radar. Our job description is to look up, to show up, and to speak up.

And by those things—and through the grace of God—we teach our brothers and sisters to sing Love.

And the people said Hosanna.

And the people said Hallelujah.

And the people said Amen.