Palm Sunday: The start of Holy Week in Christian circles.
We went out through the redwood forest to the same church we were married in to hear my mom sing songs with the choir that I had heard since my head only reached her waistband.
The building is small, and unassuming.
There is no fog machine, or light display.
Just a vase of lillies, and a collection of every-day people you might not imagine together.
The stained glass windows to the church were all open, and, as we sang the opening songs, I noticed a woman carrying trash out for the restaurant next door stopping with a smile on her face to just pause and listen.
She stood for a minute under the eve;
Taking our chorus in for awhile,
and I wondered if she noticed I was looking and smiling back at her.
I wondered if she knew that I even saw her.
I thought about the visual of God using our collective voices to bring joy in some way to someone who is carrying something – whatever that something is – be it a physical, or emotional burden.
I’ve always felt that was what we were here for anyway : To join our voices and hands together to help one another.
I grieved at what so often feels like the widespread failure of the mission.
We waved our palm branches, and the crossbreeze came through, preceded by the sound of thousands of willow leaves rustling.
I felt transported, then, into the day’s story: To a dusty road thousands of years ago, where I was one in a crowd of people awaiting a King’s entry;
One of many who would then be surprised to see Him not appear in a triumphant way like we had expected, but to, instead, see him show up in the distance,
coming closer on the back of a dusty, borrowed donkey.
The pastor told the tale about how the people had gathered to honor this king,
but then in just a short few days they would go from praising him to crying for his crucifixion because he had called them to see the inside of their own hearts different.
I sat there having driven that road through the redwoods having contemplated the state we are in as a people, as every headline and news report tells of our crumbling, and I thought about how quickly we can all go from praises of something good to condemnation;
Just a turn of the crowd…
A whisper among us.
But, we expected power!
How could power come on the back of a creature so lowly?
We expected an Emporer,
not a foot-washer!
It bends our minds to consider that sometimes true strength lies in softness.
The pastor then spoke of Jesus entering the temple, only to find that the people, who were supposed to be using the space for giving and healing, had turned it into a marketplace for buying and selling.
What was meant to be an open door
and open table had been closed up, and overrun with rules and laws of how to get into Heaven.
We’ve just always loved our gatekeeping, haven’t we?
All about the money.
All about rules and restrictions.
Just at the crescendo of the pastor talking about this, one of the stained glass windows slammed shut on its own, jarring us all, and I saw on so many faces that it was forcing us to face the closing off of ourselves to others: An object lesson.
Jesus was angered at how wrong the people had gotten it all
– His temple, His purpose –
And, in his anger, he overturned all the money-changing tables.
I leaned to my teenage daughter with pursed lips at this point, and asked her if any of this seemed at all timely, or applicable: Greed so easily taking the spot of Giving.
The parallels were too strong to ignore.
She slowly nodded.
History just won’t stop repeating.
Not from those tables, or from Nazi Germany, or from the days of segregation.
Not from wars we already fought, or rights we said we stood for as a country.
But, not until we have actually learned the lesson will we be able to move on to the next one.
Our path in the dirt will form a big circle, and as we come back to the same spot over and over we will keep asking ourselves, “Hey….Haven’t we already been here?”
I brought a palm branch home today, clasped in my fingers, back through that redwood forest,
back through the places that are part of my own history,
and put it in a vase on my counter as a reminder of the Upside-Down Kingdom Palm Sunday was always meant to teach us;
Where donkeys can be royal carriages,
true riches have nothing to do with money,
Where, like that one woman doing janitorial duties just outside, the one carrying what has just been discarded is the focus,
and where gentleness, humility, and love for others are the real shows of greatness and power.
In Christian circles this week is known as Holy Week:
The week of betrayal, forgiveness, waiting, grieving, then – in the end – redemption;
A week to examine all forms of those things, and to contemplate the lesson in a people that,
for generations, have expected their rescue to come in the form of a glorified king,
but who chose, instead, to come with His face and hands dirty, riding into our midst on the back of what was viewed by many as the most lowly.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
