A Meditation for Palm Sunday, April 9, 2006

I usually don't read other people's writings in full from the pulpit (although I do quote other folks in sermons). In fact, on Palm Sunday I usually don't preach at all. But this Palm Sunday, April 9, 2006, I'm going to do both. I am going to offer the following meditation entitled "Good Friday" from Flesh and Bones: Sermons by the Rev. Dr. A. K. M. Adam (Page 82; copyright A. K. M. Adam 2001; printed by Wipf and Stock Publishers)

The book has been published on line at the website of Seabury-Western Theological Serminary, where AKMA is a professor. It can be found at:

http://www.seabury.edu/faculty/akma/FleshBones.pdf

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Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

In the Name of God Almighty, the Blessed Trinity on High— Amen.

I know a whole lot. I know the sweet kiss of a drowsy child, the scintillating misty hush of a summer sunrise. I know uses of the Greek participle, I know the forlorn plaints from the trampled heart of a student, a friend, a lonely visitor to my office. I know the psalms, I know the working of a well-practiced basketball team, I know contents of the heaps of paper on my desktop. I know fear and doubt, I know pain and desperation, I know joy and pride and satisfaction. In the age of expertise, I am an expert; in the age of “just do it,” I’ve been there and I’ve done that. I know what I am doing.

I know that we gather here this afternoon to recollect the trial of God, the day we put our Savior on trial — and executed him. Our trial of God is not in any way a presumption on our part; though we may want to demur, Jesus demands that we participate. Jesus came to Jerusalem, came here to the center of the world, and looked us in the eyes; and he asks, “Are my claims on you, on your life, on your whole being — are my claims on you just?” Today’s trial comes at Jesus’ own initiative, according to God’s own will; however much we’d rather recuse ourselves, we may not. Oyez, oyez, oyez.

The accused is charged with bringing God’s uncompromising word into human life. He stands before us, alone at the defense table, under indictment for making us feel awkward, for asking too much of us, for calling us to a way of life that puts us out of step with our more comfortable neighbors. He confesses as much; he offers no resistance to this trial. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you to pronounce sentence: this disturbing deity must be put out of our way. For our own sake, he must be crucified.

In the book of the Wisdom of Solomon, it is written that the people said,

“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s child, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, so that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.” Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hoped for the wages of holiness, nor discerned the prize for blameless souls.

This is what the Book of Wisdom says of people who find discipleship too inconvenient, of people who don’t want God butting into their lives with unrealistic expectations or awkward obligations, who are embarrassed to be seen with a God who keeps company with a lower class of people. Now, in so fair and reverent a church as Trinity Parish, we should feel aggrieved that the Book of Wisdom moves so rapidly from being inconvenienced by the Righteous One to plotting his torture and murder. We are well-intentioned people who would never have such a person executed, even if he did make our lives more complicated and more awkward. Wisdom rushes us along too far, too fast. We’re not that bad.

But it seems as though we don’t have that intermediate choice. All we want is some peace in which to do our daily work, to enjoy ourselves on weekends; all we want is some time when we don’t have to think about whether what we’re doing is right. But this inconvenient Righteous One keeps walking to his cross, because our God asks us not just for an hour on Sundays, not just to avoid high-handed felony, but this God asks of us our every breath, our every thought. Our God is a zealous God, who desires our all, and who does not willingly settle for the bits and pieces that we grudgingly concede. Certainly we don’t want to crucify Jesus; but if we will not invite this Righteous One into every moment of our lives, then we take our part among his judges who put him out of the way once and for all.

Can we bring ourselves to admit that when we ask for a God who permits us a little self-indulgence on the weekend that we do not know what we are asking for? Can we acknowledge that when we ask for a God who will not judge us at all, that we are rejecting the God who longs to forgive us? Can I, a modern person, a capable person, a person who knows what he’s doing, confess that perhaps I don’t know so much after all?

We still have time to throw ourselves on the mercy of the court, and admit we choose the sumptuous wages of exploitation instead of the wages of holiness; we grasp for the glorious prizes of our savoir-faire rather than the prize for blameless souls; we did not know the secret purposes of God.

Almighty God, maker of all, judge of us all: remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who did not hold our waywardness against us, but prayed for us: “Forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.” Amen.