Palm Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons

April 10th 2022

Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion

Three things leap out at me from our Scriptures this Palm Sunday!

The first is Humility: that gentle, bittersweet image of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the back of the unridden colt.

'He (Jesus) said, "Go into the village opposite you, and as you enter it you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. And if anyone should ask you, 'Why are you untying it?' you will answer, 'The Master has need of it.'"(Lk 19: 30,31)

The second is Honesty; the real anguish we discern in our first reading and responsorial psalm 22:

'All who see me mock me;
they curl their lips and jeer;
they shake their heads at me:
"He relied on the LORD-let him deliver him;
if he loves him, let him rescue him." (Ps 22: 8,9)

And the third is Hope. found in that ancient Christian hymn redone by Paul as that lyrical poem-passage in Philippians 2, on Christ's kenosis:

'he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name.' (Phil 2:8,9)

All three words have had a powerful impact on my own prayer and thought this week, and now as we enter first the Western Holy Week, then a week later that of our Eastern Christian sisters and brothers, they have a deeper resonance with the catastrophe of our world in dire straits.

Let me try and unpack!

First of all, I have Covid, and that has altered my whole mood somewhat, it's a struggle, in the exhausted tiredness, the coughing and battles to clear lungs, to even think of doing anything else. But I am glad I have it this Holy Week because it removes from me any false pretence of joy, and sticks me right in the middle of turmoil, so that in a proper manner I can start being far more empathetic to our sick, ill, dying, those in prison or trapped in loneliness, and those terrible scenes in Ukraine. For all those above, this week is far from HOLY, and the joy of Pascha will not be easy to find.

Reflecting on that recommitment to ministry those ordained remake sometime this week, I have noticed a self indulgent tendency of us clergy on Twitter to moan about our lives, all the work we do, how hard it is to juggle this and that, how Holy Week is tough. I have no patience with this, when we were ordained it was not for our status, grandeur, position, pleasure or convenience, it was as servants of that One Servant, to go on giving without counting the cost.

And my goodness! How much more of an unselfless example are those who, not being clergy, really go out of their way to help, sustain, nurture and love, not only others but whole communities and our living world in danger! It makes me ashamed to see such idle chatter.

One antidote is to challenge anyone who puts up such stuff, point out those who get on with things, or the suffering ones, such as those in Ukraine who even now are hiding in bomb shelters, not knowing if the world cares much. Against a bigger picture our self regard is vain and sinful stuff. It needs calling out!

So, to my three points. I wonder if this Holy Week we could really take our faith in Jesus by the metaphorical scruff of the neck and shake it, spring-cleaning it like that done at Passover, get rid of all the old leaven. I also wonder if we could halt our over the top demonstrations of `Easter/Paschal joy and remind ourselves that even the resurrection did not at first bring hope and joy, those present needed to face things head on, needed to assimilate into themselves the peculiar gift Christ is, but also that he does not magic away death.

He alongside all of us goes right into its negation. The first point about the colt is one about recognition. The prophecy Jesus is fulfilling tells us that humility and lack of proper legal/civil/religious reception is key to the `Messiah's coming. This little beast, often portrayed with its mother, symbolises so much of our battered, raped, misused world. That little animal stands for all non-human life we callously exploit, harm, and destroy. Yet the Saviour of the World loves it, rides it, makes it part of salvation's story, and with this animal, the children and women, the ignored ones welcome him. So must we, but also do something about their plight. They represent Christ in humility.

The second is that desolation and terror of being without faith as the psalm shows, without the consolation of religion.

This is hugely significant in a world where we both push out the Holy One, and then do not help others find the real-raw-loving-God. It is no good feeding people piety and stock religious phrases that is not true faith.

Honesty is required here, an honesty that can even say; 'yes, I too hate God, I find no sense of presence, I cannot see how we can square mercy with what is going on!' I heard an interview yesterday with one of the parents of the children bombed out of existence in the Ukrainian Railway Station at Kramatorsk.

And these words stuck in my mind: 'We will NEVER forgive them'.

And they are right, sometimes we can't, for it is only God who forgives ! That raw desolation is a psalm for our century and time. Worse still is the way one Religious Leader has ignored calls to plead for an end to the conflict and instead used religious faith as a call to arms. Shocked, you really should be. 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?' is far from an empty cry, and we need to face that sort of attitude and learn just how we ought to respond.

The third, that is the 'Hope' in that humility of Christ. Hope in a God made human who casts his lot in Christ with us and gets the worst we can offer, rejection, spite, malice, cruelty and injustice. I think we clergy need to just shut up going on about the sufferings of Jesus and instead let those who have suffered speak instead, or let their words speak instead of ours. What do you make of this kind of comment in a church notice: 'Join us in Holy Week for going every step of the way with Jesus is a joy! ' Really? Is that what Holy Week is? A series of joy-filled encounters?

I think not. Palm Sunday is an antidote to this, for we move from a kind of battered and wounded triumph, to a time of malice, sin, desolation, then to betrayal and death. And it is only then, at the end of all things, do we like the Humble One who calls us to give all egos up then find the answers in that word Hope.

Lectio

Prayer for Holy Week

Fr Robert Gibbons

Holy One beyond any of our understanding:
Give us the humility of Christ Jesus,
To strip from ourselves the ego centeredness of our lives,
The false piety we offer as solace to those who do not need it,
The fake superiority of religious people who think they have all the answers.

Instead give us the raw honesty of Christ in Gethsemane,
Of our Christ on the cross,
Seemingly abandoned and rejected by You,
As so many seem to have been down the centuries
Even to those bombed, murdered raped, tortured by war in our time.

Make us look at Your face in their sufferings;
Make Your love be drawn out of us by their plight.

And give us Hope, that whatever may befall, we might endure to the end.

St Maria of Paris

'The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. That is all I shall be asked. About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Saviour says 'I': 'I was hungry and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.' To think that he puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need. . . . I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe'.