A Poem/Prayer for Hosanna Monday

 

Yesterday, we welcomed Christ with the prayerful plea of, "Hosanna" ~ which means save us, because we cannot always save ourselves. Hosanna is both liberation from oppression and liberation toward God's grace embodied in us. I long to be saved from anxiety, anger, brokenness...save toward God authoring my life in new ways. Here is a poem/prayer to keep singing and praying our Hosannas on this Monday of Holy Week:

When the loud cries & prayers of “Hosannas” start to fade,

We put down the palm branches, they no longer sway,

We notice the creeping return of cynicism and jade,

Our minds shift from grace to whether others make the grade.

I long to stay with Hosannas, stand on the road where palms lay.

I linger amid the clutter of leaf blades and hasty Hosannas prayed.

What was yesterday, I wonder, was it just some rehearsed play?

Do the Hosannas still linger in people’s hearts or offer any aid?

Was this just some thing we did like a concocted charade?

Or was there something more intimate in your Hosanna that has stayed?

Is there place or person or moment where God’s grace might wade?

Or do we just start looking toward Easter, avoiding where we’re afraid?

This week unfolds with Jesus being deserted, alone, and even betrayed.

This week whispers grace as Christ is arrested, dismayed, and degraded.

This week asks you to fling open your heart for God’s love to persuade.

On Monday, the Hosannas may start to evaporate or even sound cliché.

But to pause and hold the holy prayer for God to enter in and stay.

May your soul feel it’s full worth and ride on with Jesus into the Way.

Preparing for Holy Week

 

On Sunday we begin our holiest week of the year.  We enter a narrative that is a story as old as time and a song as old as rhyme.  From moments of joyful prayers of “Hosanna”, to intimate breaking of bread and sharing a cup, to kneeling beneath the cross, to the silence of Saturday, and to an Easter morning where hope and love leap forth from a tomb.  This story is our story.  Moments of welcoming God into my life joyfully like on Palm Sunday.  Moments when I gather with those I love the most at a meal and feel connected like on Maundy Thursday.  Moments of heartbreak and soul ache, especially when I realize my own brokenness and mistakes and missteps at the cross ~ nor does violence save us either.  To moments of stillness when hope is not even on the horizon.  To the serendipitous ways of the Sacred that beautifully baffles me like on Easter Sunday.  This is your story too.

Where has your heart been filled with joy recently?

When has a meal connected you to someone in a new way?

When have you felt the grief of loss and the weariness of the world?

When have you been speechless?

When have you felt your Spirit leap with Easter love?

 

Your experiences and encounters of living Holy Week are a prayer to God.  Bring your prayers and whole life to worship this Sunday as we welcome the One who rides on, rides on in majesty in our hearts and shows us the way of life in such a time as this.  Hosanna.  Amen. 

Thursday Pause

 

Today we push pause together.  We sit holding our lives lightly with each other.  I invite you to take a deep breath.

Breathe in God’s surprising ways of Palm Sunday parades, broken bread and juice, vulnerability on the cross and new life on Easter…breathe out scripts in our life that want us to demand and defend and double down concerned only with our own individual happiness.

Breathe in the good news of the slow ripening of our souls…breathe out the microwaving and McDonaldization of our world.

Breathe in the word, “Hosanna”…breathe out the narrative that it is all up to you.

Breathe in slowly and deeply…breathe out letting your exhale be even longer.

Breathe in trusting in God…breathe out all the voices that want to fix or save or solve your problems.

Breathe in….breathe out.

Be still in this moment and feel God’s love.  Amen. 

Preparing for Palm Sunday ~ Part three

 

“...new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.” ― Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark

 

New life in a tomb, that is where we are heading on Easter Sunday.  Just like at Christmas where God enters the world in the form of a vulnerable infant, born in a barn and laid in a manger; God still surprises Earth with Heaven on Easter Sunday by rolling away a stone and springing forth from the very place thought to have no life at all.

 

God of mystery and marvel.

God who cannot be contained or controlled or ever fully comprehended.

God who is still creating amid the midnight moments in our lives.

God who hears our, “Hosannas”.

 

Often, we turn God into a vending machine or a combination of a Superhero with Black Panther’s power and Storm’s ability to control the weather. (Apologies to any non-comic book fans out there).  We want God to swoop in and save the day.  Yet, God’s time has never been according to human time.  In story after story in Scripture, suffering was never eliminated instantaneously or immediately. 

Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years before Isaac is born.

God sent Moses with liberating love who must return to Pharoah time and time again.

The people wandered for 40 years in the wilderness before tasting the sweet honey and thirst-quenching milk.

The people were exile for 70 years before Isaiah’s vision of mountains brought low and rough places smoothed out to return to Jerusalem.

 

We are so caught up in fast-food, always on the go, keep up with us God mentality, that the slow ripening of the Spirit, we don’t have time for.  Hurry up, Holy One, we shout with our “Hosannas”. 

 

New life starts in the dark where a seed can take several weeks or months before a fragile green offering springs forth from the ground.  A baby spends nine months before entering this world…then another 18 years before moving out of the house ~ talk about time.  Jesus spent three years breaking open his life with liberating love before he entered Jerusalem for that last week.

 

Two years after COVID upended the church as we knew it, I still don’t claim to know what the future will be or bring.  I don’t know what new growth, new life, resurrection moments will happen from the midnight moments of the last few years. 

As we continue to prepare for Palm Sunday, what from the past is growing inside you?  Know that not all growth brings good fruit.  There are things growing in me, like frustration and fear, that still want to feed and fuel my life.  There are things growing in the soil of my soul that don’t nourish me, which is why a few weeks ago we handed the clippers of control to God to tend our garden within us and around us.

 

I invite you to continue to pray your, “Hosannas” today, letting that word sink and settle into the soil of your life meeting you in the holy darkness with a promise of new life.  Amen.

Preparing for Palm Sunday Part Two

 

When we last left Jesus, he was drenched and dripping with perfume.  This always makes me think of walking through a cosmetic department where the air is thick with competing smells.  Perfume can linger and leave a lasting aroma.

 

The very next day, when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey to the shouts of “Hosanna”, I wonder if he still smelled like Chanel No. 5?  I wonder if he could still smell the perfume in his hair or on his clothes?  When he rode past did the chants and cries of the crowd turn to a few coughs like I do when I walk through Dillard’s or Macy’s?  Jesus is anointed, just as a king would be anointed before ascending to the throne.  Jesus rides a humble donkey, just as David did in the Old Testament and Zechariah predicted would be a sign of God’s hope to the people. 

 

Remember, Jesus is arriving at the holiest city in his faith, Jerusalem, at one of the holiest times of year, the Passover.  The people are retelling the narrative of how God’s liberating love set free their ancestors who were oppressed in Egypt.  The people retell the story about how Moses came persisting and insisting that Pharoah, “Let God’s people go!”  This wasn’t just a trip down memory lane.  For our Jewish brothers and sisters God’s love is still liberating us today.  It didn’t take calling in Sherlock Holmes to see how the story of Moses’s day was still the story of Jesus’ day.  People in Jesus day knew well how Caesar oppressed people, just as Pharoah did.  This is why Rome would send extra soldiers, authorities would be on high alert, and why the religious leaders disapproved of Jesus’ political theater bringing more unwanted attention from Rome.  In the book, “The Last Week,” Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan say that as Jesus was coming in the back gate from Bethany, Roman authorities were coming in the front gate to Jerusalem with their own parade of power.  Roman officials on their stallions saying essentially to the people, “Remember who is in charge here.  Have your nice festival, but don’t get any ideas about rising up wanting liberation or freedom, because we know what to do with people who don’t stay in their lane.”

 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

On Sunday, we will pray, sing, and cry, “Hosanna” (which means, “Save us.”), because we still long for God’s liberating love to unbind us and set us free.  See the connection to Lazarus?  Hosanna, save us from that which hurts and harms us.  Save us from ways we hurt and harm others – family or friends or strangers.  Save us from the ways we hurt and harm ourselves.  Save us from a world that clings to might makes right and redemptive violence and revenge.  Save us leaders who “other” people to score points with their base.  Save us from believing too much in our own biases and points of view (rather than accepting we all have a view from a point).

 

Hosanna, Save us, is not just a prayer for Palm Sunday, but every day.  Where does that word we will shout and sing on Sunday connect with you today?  I invite you to take a piece of paper, crayons, and write the word, “Hosanna” in large letters right in the middle of the page.  Use all the colors of the crayon box!  Then around the word, write what you need saving from.  Perhaps something that is causing you stress and strain ~ physically or emotionally or relationally or spiritually.  The troubles in the world that sits heavy on your heart ~ Ukraine, homelessness, prejudice, and polarization.  Perhaps there is an abiding anger that simmers to a slow boil in your heart that causes you to have outburst of yelling or anxiety or fear caught in your throat. 

Whisper the word with me, “Hosanna.”

Say the word to your soul, “Hosanna”

Say the word to your family and friends, “Hosanna”

Say the word to Sarasota and Bradenton and our community, “Hosanna”!

Say the word to a world that still needs a Savior, “Hosanna”.

May you and I continue to prepare our hearts for Sunday when we begin our holiest week.  Amen.

Preparing for Palm Sunday

 

During the season of Lent, we’ve opened our hearts and whole lives to the narrative of Lazarus.  We witnessed the fierce faithfulness of Martha and Mary who loved Jesus enough to look him in the eyes to tell him how much it hurt that Jesus didn’t come to hold the hand of Lazarus before Lazarus died.  We celebrated how such heartfelt honesty is a both a prayer and invitation for us.  We stood as Jesus wept outside the tomb as a wave of grief at his friend’s death washed over him.  We have watched the stone be rolled back, even as some in the crowd said, “But the stench!?”  Because when we do hard, holy things, when we come to the tombs of life today that try to confine people, the aromas of suffering and struggle are never pleasant.  We pondered what was it like for Lazarus and what it is like for you to feel bound up by others comments and your own editorial board chattering in your mind? 

 

If you keep reading after the resurrection of Lazarus, you will see that the authorities begin to plot and plan to kill Jesus.  When someone has power over life and death, it will always frighten those who cling to human power and prestige and privilege.  If Jesus could conquer death, there would be no stopping him. 

 

In chapter 12 we read, “Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.  But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said,  “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”  (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)”

 

Mary anoints Jesus and perhaps this moment inspired Jesus to wash the disciples’ feet in the next chapter.  Judas protests.  Judas who will be contracted and convinced by the powers that be to betray Jesus.  To be sure, Judas has a point that if the perfume was sold, the money could have done a world of good.  At the same time, John’s parenthetical comments make it clear that Judas did not speak from a place of compassion or care but rather just to be a contrarian.  Or perhaps he wants to blame and shame Mary.  Or maybe he wanted a point on some imaginary scoreboard in his soul.  We are not sure of his motivation. 

 

This week, we are preparing for Palm Sunday by asking, who might you offer your care for in your life?  Can you channel your inner-Mary and reach out with extravagant embrace?  This could be a handwritten note to someone in our church you have not seen in over two years.  This could be calling someone you know who will be spending Easter alone to invite the person to a meal.  This could be reaching out to someone who is grieving to listen without trying to rationalize the pain.  Let these suggestions inspire your imagination as you find ways to share God’s love in a tactile and tangible efforts.  As you prepare for Palm Sunday, may your heart be open to the One who rides on, rides on in majesty upon a humble colt into our lives in six days.

Friday Prayer

 

Week four of living with Lazarus’s story is set free into the world.  This week we asked ourselves, “Where am I most alive?”  “Where do I long to go?”  And, “who will go with me?”  I pray that you listened to your life AND let God get a word in edgewise.  I hope God’s wisdom surprised you and showed you a way to be alive or courage to head in a new direction or person who could travel with you.  I pray God rolled away a stone in your life that was blocking or showed you a new pathway.  I pray for our church that we would be honest about the ways we hurt and harm others in the past and present.  I pray our church would find new ways to honor one another as created in God’s image.  I realize and recognize my humanity.  I confess that sometimes I stay silent because of fear, hypocrisy, and hatred.  That economics can too often convince me to do or not do something.  Lent is a time to be honest.  Lent is a time to weep just as Jesus wept.  Lent is a time for God’s liberating love to move in new ways for you and me.  Tonight we will welcome two scholars who have studied Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman to help us understand his wisdom for today.  May our church not only study, but embrace and embody the story of Lazarus’s resurrection as a way toward life and liberation and love in this world today.  Amen.