Palm and Passion Sunday
Service Date:
28 March, 2010
Were we there?
Were you there when they crucified our Lord?
Well of course not. We're none of us that old. We didn't come along till two thousand years later. We rely on the story handed down through the centuries by those who have followed Jesus before us.
Year by year, with the help of a different Gospeller each year, we look at different parts of the tradition handed down to us, and retell the story of what Jesus said and did in the last week of his life. This year we have Luke's story, told for a group of Christians who weren't Jewish, told to reassure the Romans that Christians were nice people.
But just hearing the story doesn't necessarily help us enter into it. We know this story so well, we could probably tell it to one another instead of hearing it read from the Bible. Maybe some future year we'll do just that. But that's not the same as actually being there, feeling the dust under our weary feet, smelling the blood from the Temple sacrifices, hearing the shout of the crowd and the hosannas of children, seeing palm branches and clothing littering the street as Jesus passes by. Because, let's face it, even those of us who have been to the Holy Land in modern Palestine weren't there when they crucified our Lord.
This year the Oberammergau Passion Play will be put on again. In 1633, gripped by war, poverty and plague, the villagers of Oberammergau in Bavaria vowed to put on a 'passion play' every ten years. They survived, and performed the first Oberammergau Passion Play in 1634. Ever since, their descendants have carried out that pledge. Only villagers are allowed to take part as they devote a year of their lives to re-enacting Christ's life, death and resurrection.
All performers in Oberammergau are ordinary people with ordinary jobs. In real life, for instance, this year's Jesus is a psychologist and Mary Magdalene works as a flight attendant (not, fortunately for her, for BA). By taking on their roles in the Passion Play, they are fulfilling the promise to God made by their ancestors, celebrating their faith and sharing it with the world...
So this year, rather than my focussing on a few characters to tell the story for us from their point of view, I've decided to go back to old tradition, to read the Gospel story right through. You may be disappointed or relieved to hear that we're not going to stage this as a drama. And though on Friday we'll be wondering how the drama of Jesus' death might play out on a Sheffield stage, this morning we will be sticking strictly to Luke's words.
Some of us will have a major role to play in the story. Others will only have the opportunity to stand up, say a line and sit down again. But this morning none of us are uninvolved spectators. For at certain points we all have words to say. Sometimes we will be disciples of Jesus, unsure what's going on. Sometimes soldiers: doing our job, guarding an enemy of Rome. Sometimes the crowds, asked whether they will set Jesus free or condemn him to death.
Were you there? As we retell this story, the key story of our faith, I think you may find that through our God-given imagination we were there, after all.
So let the story begin...
Were you there when they crucified our Lord?
Well of course not. We're none of us that old. We didn't come along till two thousand years later. We rely on the story handed down through the centuries by those who have followed Jesus before us.
Year by year, with the help of a different Gospeller each year, we look at different parts of the tradition handed down to us, and retell the story of what Jesus said and did in the last week of his life. This year we have Luke's story, told for a group of Christians who weren't Jewish, told to reassure the Romans that Christians were nice people.
But just hearing the story doesn't necessarily help us enter into it. We know this story so well, we could probably tell it to one another instead of hearing it read from the Bible. Maybe some future year we'll do just that. But that's not the same as actually being there, feeling the dust under our weary feet, smelling the blood from the Temple sacrifices, hearing the shout of the crowd and the hosannas of children, seeing palm branches and clothing littering the street as Jesus passes by. Because, let's face it, even those of us who have been to the Holy Land in modern Palestine weren't there when they crucified our Lord.
This year the Oberammergau Passion Play will be put on again. In 1633, gripped by war, poverty and plague, the villagers of Oberammergau in Bavaria vowed to put on a 'passion play' every ten years. They survived, and performed the first Oberammergau Passion Play in 1634. Ever since, their descendants have carried out that pledge. Only villagers are allowed to take part as they devote a year of their lives to re-enacting Christ's life, death and resurrection.
All performers in Oberammergau are ordinary people with ordinary jobs. In real life, for instance, this year's Jesus is a psychologist and Mary Magdalene works as a flight attendant (not, fortunately for her, for BA). By taking on their roles in the Passion Play, they are fulfilling the promise to God made by their ancestors, celebrating their faith and sharing it with the world...
So this year, rather than my focussing on a few characters to tell the story for us from their point of view, I've decided to go back to old tradition, to read the Gospel story right through. You may be disappointed or relieved to hear that we're not going to stage this as a drama. And though on Friday we'll be wondering how the drama of Jesus' death might play out on a Sheffield stage, this morning we will be sticking strictly to Luke's words.
Some of us will have a major role to play in the story. Others will only have the opportunity to stand up, say a line and sit down again. But this morning none of us are uninvolved spectators. For at certain points we all have words to say. Sometimes we will be disciples of Jesus, unsure what's going on. Sometimes soldiers: doing our job, guarding an enemy of Rome. Sometimes the crowds, asked whether they will set Jesus free or condemn him to death.
Were you there? As we retell this story, the key story of our faith, I think you may find that through our God-given imagination we were there, after all.
So let the story begin...
Hymns:
R&S 209: Ride on! ride on in majesty
Hymn (tune: R&S 227)
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? (new verses)
Were you there when the crowds came out to cheer?
Were you there when the crowds came out to cheer?
Oh - sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble;
Were you there when the crowds came out to cheer?
Palm Sunday reading Luke 19:29-40
Comment: Were we there?
Hymn Were you there when he shared the bread and wine?
Passion reading Luke 22:14-38 The Last Supper
Hymn Were you there when his friendships let him down?
Passion reading Luke 22:39-62 Betrayal
Hymn Were you there when they sentenced him to death?
Passion reading Luke 22:63-23:25 Condemnation
Hymn Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Passion reading Luke 23:26-56 Death
R&S 207: My song is love unknown
Sermon:
Where were we in the story?I wonder how you experienced that story. I have to admit that just preparing the script for this service almost moved me to tears; the horrid inevitability of the death of someone I love. Yet Jesus' death wasn't inevitable. Had his friends not forsaken him, had the Jewish authorities not handed him over to Rome, had the crowds not changed their tune, had the soldiers refused to do their job... at every point, had things gone otherwise, he might not have died.
That conclusion reminds me of all too many recent enquiries into the deaths of children or vulnerable adults. Had social workers insisted on seeing and speaking to children rather than listening to the reassurances of those who should have cared for them; had there been a bed available in the specialist unit or a voice at the other end of the support phone-line; had different agencies better communicated with one another... that tragedy might not have occurred. In such circumstances, our next inevitable question is: so who's to blame? Whose head will roll so we can feel that at least this deadly pitfall will be avoided in future situations? Who will become the scapegoat, the example to make others in similar positions take note and amend their ways?
That question has been asked of Jesus' death, too. For centuries, the whole Jewish nation was blamed for his crucifixion. Yet accounts like that of Luke, wanting to present the Christianity of his time as a positive religion which in no way threatened the Roman Empire, actually spun the events of history; for in the time of Jesus only the Romans had the power to crucify their enemies. And such spinning led, however unintentionally, to horrifying persecution of Jews through subsequent centuries culminating in the Holocaust; and, even further, to persecution by the Israeli state of Palestinians today.
Blaming other people tends to land us in that sort of ethical mess. It might be more worthwhile for us to ask ourselves: if I had been in that situation, how much better or worse might I have fared? What decisions might I have taken?
* Am I prone, as one of Jesus' friends, to admitting to knowledge of him only when other Christians are around?
* Am I defensive about my own tradition, and likely to give short shrift to any brash youngster who sees things differently and says so?
* Am I just doing my job, keeping my head down, and not asking too many questions about whether what I'm told to do is right?
* If things go wrong for me, am I liable to turn around and blame others for the predicament I'm in?
* Am I one of the crowd: following the lead of whoever spoke last, happy to go along with whatever as long as I keep my friends?
Or am I someone who tells the truth, even if what I see goes against my expectations? * Am I someone who'll offer my resources with great generosity even if it puts me in danger? * Am I someone who won't be put off supporting a friend however bad things get?
If you get a quiet moment during this holy week, I invite you to consider: where do I find myself in the Passion story? And I invite you, whether in thanksgiving or in confession, to share those thoughts with God.
