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April 1, 2007
Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday
St. Edmund’s, San Marino
The Rev. Rob FisherText: Luke 22:39-23:49
May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer Amen.
One of the beauties of the Episcopal Church is that we hold on to ancient forms of worship that have grounded Christians for centuries. We retain ancient symbols, forms of worship, and seasons.
Somebody once said, if Lutherans are saved by faith, and Catholics are saved by works—Episcopalians are saved by the Church calendar.
Today is Palm Sunday, also known as Passion Sunday, and today we encounter a powerful passage from the Gospel of Luke. In fact, this whole service which began with celebration and then lead to the Passion reading is a challenge and a shock to the system. It takes us on a journey from light to darkness.
Jesus enters Jerusalem and is hailed as king and Messiah. Then he passes through a series of trials. He suffers physical trials as he is captured and tormented, and then killed by painful crucifixion. But he also goes through the painful social trials of being betrayed by his friends. For instance, he knows that Peter, the most loyal of all the disciples, will deny him three times. Peter rejects the notion. Then, of course, Peter does in fact deny him three times. Jesus knew this would happen, and I imagine that such knowledge made it sting all the more.
The final lines of the passage we heard this morning speak of those who had followed him loyally, but who now stand only at a distance, “watching these things” take place.
Surely, they watched in horror, but from a distance.
It would appear that this is a very strange story for us to celebrate, and to revisit as we kick of the most important week of the entire Church Year!
Yet this story is not a merely human story. Jesus was fully human, but not merely human.
One way of thinking about this difficult concept is that his life stood on the crossroads of the human and the divine. His essence was the ultimate meeting of the two. I wonder if it is just a coincidence that the form of the cross, our most important symbol, is the same form as an intersection, a crossroads, which is a place where encounter takes place. Jesus was the crossroads himself. Fully human, and fully divine.
As a human, like us, he was vulnerable to real suffering.
But his oneness with God the Father—his faith—gave him something much more powerful than the physical and social power that was being wielded against him.
We use the word faith all the time, but it is a word that deserves some attention. It has multiple layers of meaning.
The word faith has become interchangeable with belief much of the time. As if it is the same thing to say either: I have faith in God, or I believe in God.
But doing so shortchanges the word faith.
Marcus Borg illuminates this point, saying that belief is something of the mind, but faith is something of the heart—a much deeper thing.
Belief is based on facts and evidence. It lasts while the evidence holds true, and then ends when the evidence is contradicted. It is a product of Enlightenment thinking, and it is in the years since the Enlightenment that Christians have come to focus on literal readings, versus other ways—deeper ways—of reading the biblical texts. A religion built on belief, for example, is threatened by the theory of evolution.
Faith is more than merely belief. Faith is built on relationship.
Belief is of the mind, but faith is of the heart.
Jesus is sustained through all of these great trials because of his faith. He knows the Father in ways that none around him can comprehend. He has a trust that none around him can grasp.
And it is relationship with God, rather than mere belief, that is where we find our salvation, too. When we grow in our faith, we do not become more certain, but we become more knowing. And knowing God, our lives become more grounded in God.
Rather than growth in certitude, growth in compassion is a sign that you are finding your way as a Christian.
Today and throughout this week, we will experience moments of great darkness.
But we cannot have light without darkness.
If we never had to endure darkness, we would never have to stop and acknowledge our need for faith. And this week we have that opportunity. During these days especially, we may plant seeds through prayer and meditation that will sprout and grow into Life-giving faith. Amen.
© St. Edmund's Church