Palm Sunday sermon: "Palm Soundscape" (John 12:12-16), March 24th, 2024

Intro to Scripture: 

Palm Sunday is like a pendulum. Just as a pendulum swings to the highest point on the right, passing the midpoint at the end of it, there is a pause, a brief gap in the transition from the highest point to it swinging down again. Palm Sunday sketches that transition, just before Jesus moves into the final hours of his Passion, creating a brief break, a pause. And that’s where we are. With Jesus. In his moment, as our moment. 

 

Today, we remember the story where people welcome Jesus by waving palm leaves or laying them on the ground, as he quietly and slowly rides on a donkey into Jerusalem, the place filled with uncertainty for him and his disciples, amid people's Hosannas. (John 12:12-16)

Sermon: Palm Soundscape

Recently, I was walking to the church for a meeting. With earphones in and a bit late, I hurried along, moving quickly from one street to the next. My legs moved on their own, and my mind was abstracted, just my steps hastening down a familiar path. Then, suddenly, I was enveloped by a rich fragrance. Looking up, I realized I was walking under a canopy of blossoming cherry trees. The pink, the softness of each petal, forming one perfect tiny bouquet with others, and the fragrance were enough to awaken me. I asked myself: In this beautiful part of the world, in this small moment, could this be the loving-kindness Earth offers? Standing in the centre of this intimate small universe God has created and shared by all, I received the free, unconditional loving-kindness this land offers without expecting anything in return. 

What would be one of the ways, or even (if I can put it this way) what would be an ultimate loving-kindness we can give to ourselves? Especially if any of us is going through their own sacred times of Passion. It might be illness, grief, a loved one’s death, chronic pain, fear, an intense journey of self-discovery, identity, exhaustion, or deeply personal struggles you might only share with trusted friends. Exhaustion. Numbness. Burning heart, burning out. Our modern society is distinguished by its “separation”, “polarization” — this and that, as if these are bracketed against each other, like palm (celebration) on the one end of the pendulum and the passion (vulnerability) at the other end of the pendulum’s arc. But in real life, as our deepest selves know, we are moving between Palm and Passion, constantly. We live both ends of Palm and Passion to varying and changing degrees. This life invites us to be flexible, to ride the fluidity of changes, the beauty and terror of impermanence. Our body, our relationship, our work…  Almost everything that shapes our lives is changing, and we need to learn how we, then, must live with the beautifully, wonderfully, and fearfully impermanent nature of this world. 

Palm and Passion Pendulum

What is faith in all of these? How do we live moment by moment by moment with faith, in this pendulum journey of Palm and Passion? 

 

It would be a delight to find the cherry-blossom blessings in this life, an Easter moment in the Unknown, — not to just find ourselves constantly in the moving pieces of Palm and Passion, but in each moment, unexpected or intentionally created, to enjoy the loving-kindness you would allow to happen in your life, your day, and to comfort and encourage yourself. Jesus says, “Love your neighbour, just as you love yourself”, right? What loving-kindness would you allow to happen, and create to happen, for you, and because of the karma effect of lovingkindness, what generosity of loving-kindness would spread like the Easter grass through the world you inhabit? That loving kindness transforms the polarization of Palm and Passion into the mystery of Easter.

 

Now, I invite you take a deep breath, as we journey into today’s story again. I invite you to the “soundscape” of this story. What is a soundscape? I don’t know. It’s English. As far as I have learned, a soundscape is like a landscape. When I say “landscape” you can conjure up an image you like or are neutral about, but an image – the shapes of trees, the bend of a river, tall skyscraper canyons - can be pictured in your landscape imagination. A soundscape is like that; it’s created through the actual sounds our ears hear or that our mind can create by imagination. 

The soundscape from today's story can be heard as the sound of a donkey's hooves, carrying an adult on its back, moving slowly, without hurry. What's fascinating is that, as you imagine this, so many in the crowd shout "Hosanna," cheering and making noise, throwing and laying palm leaves on the ground, amidst the smell of sweat, the heat of summer, and a narrow path opened through the crowd split in two. How is it that this donkey does not panic or run away, as if it were a young disciple understanding Jesus's heart, possessing a trusting heart to move forward, steadfastly in the direction Jesus wants? What kind of soundscape might unfold in your heart as you listen to today's story? Among the children and adults, the youths and the crowds cheering and making noise, might we not also hear the murmurs of those who, although quieter than the cheers, create a dissonance with their rough and sharp criticisms, rebukes, doubts, and condemnations? Some cheer, while others ponder the traps they will set when Jesus enters Jerusalem. As Jesus crosses over the ground covered in palm leaves, relying on the slow, swaying body of the donkey, amidst a polarized crowd split like the Red Sea parted for Moses and the Israelites, what expression does he wear on his face?  Do his eyes, shining without fear, show an awareness that is fully awake, allowing and accepting what’s happening? Where exactly are his eyes looking, and whom do they see, with or without a smile on his face, in this timeless time that might last thirty minutes or even an hour? How does he navigate the split stream of cheering and grumbles, unsafe both physically and psychologically, through this momentarily suspended pendulum of time? Are his body and mind at ease? I love this expression Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Each step is peace.” But really, in the soundscape imbued with tension, could you or I make each step be peace; Jesus might, and if Jesus was able to make each step be peace, how? 

 

Could we still give loving-kindness, especially to ourselves, to allow the calm we need, for us to be able to embrace ourselves with courage and a trusting heart, like the donkey’s, when we are exhausted, when we are busy. There is loving kindness when we look up to find where the fragrance of cherry blossoms comes from. Give a little more loving-kindness to ourselves, each time, one more minute, one more hour, by pausing, by catching our breath and dwelling with our senses to smell the flower more deeply, spot it with more curiosity, and give our undivided attention to the senses and to the generosity of the Earth’s gift, “As if you haven’t seen this before, smelled this before, listened to this before”, with an open heart. 

 

Marcus Borg suggests, in his book, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering A Life of Faith, “Faith as Visio”. As the closest English word “vision” suggests, this is faith as a way of seeing (or sensing). This is faith as a way of seeing the whole, as a way of seeing “what is”, a way of seeing the world as ultimately life-giving and nourishing, as a way of seeing the world as profoundly gracious. Just like when Jesus exclaimed, “Look at the birds of the air. And Consider the lilies of the field.” God feeds them. God clothes them. Faith is a way of seeing and sensing the world, with a “trusting heart,” with the radical trust of the beauty and goodness in this intimate-relations-web-like universe God has created.

Faith is creating the space within our mind and heart, free of judging. Perhaps the best loving-kindness we can give ourselves is the gift of non-judging. In fact, our mind is constantly busy, thinking, feeling, reacting… what I like, what I don’t like; what is right, what is wrong, memories of the past, plans for the future. The first arrow, followed by the second arrow.

Instead, open your heart to the unknown. I was drawn to this quote a while ago: “The Unknown is what has not been looked for.” The Unknown is the name for the “more" than my boundary, the landscape beyond the limit of my experience. When we trust that this is the world God has created, hope glitters and glimmers even in the deep canyons of the unknown. Ultimately, the world, our life, death and life after death, is sustained by the mystery of Easter, that profoundly life-giving, transforming love. In faith, which I would submit to you in this sermon as the “ultimate loving-kindness”, a must-have for a journey through our cheering, grumbling, heart-pounding soundscape, we are invited to ride on a donkey, and keep going, in a world of uncertainty imbued with both beauty and terror. Faith invites us to journey, trusting self and trusting “I don’t know”. Trusting I don’t know everything, Trusting the Easter in the unknown.

So, back to Jesus in the soundscape of today’s story; Jesus’ faith is not a construction he makes to supply certainty. No. 

 

Faith is about trusting the profound nature within each moment, not directed by the need for finding certainty, but faith searches for the loving-kindness, for ourselves and others, moment by moment by moment to journey with the enlightened awareness of the gracious nature of life, the Easter in the unknown, the courage to walk in beauty even when the pendulum moves to the direction of fear, uncertainty and Passion. So, friends, let’s continue this incredible journey called life with faith, which is synonymous with the wholesome package of loving-kindness, the soft and quiet invitation of cherry blossom blessings, and even riding a donkey, in today’s intersection of Palm and Passion, in this, the midpoint of the Holy Week.