Carl sat daily asking for change at the intersection of Belmont Avenue and the ramp to the 680 South. He sat there across from a gas station with a cardboard sign and sometimes a black crate he would sit on. I never personally saw another driver give him any money other than the spare change I had in the console of my van, but I was amazed at how consistently he sat at that intersection. He sat there in January and February, even on the few days we had this year that were quite frigid. I never thought of Carl as a beggar, and I don’t even know if he was homeless. I never asked. I always thought of him as someone who was making his living watching us all go to wherever we were going, destinations at once predictable and forgetful. He would watch me drive by once, twice, sometimes three times a day. There was a kind of ritual to our interactions that I didn’t think about much.
Now I think about it. Carl is no longer waiting there at that spot. I hope he’s okay, but I don’t know. I have driven to that very spot a couple times in the last week, and I’ve been the only car at that intersection. There is a kind of grief for something that is hard to name. Maybe it was a sense of consistency, or even the easiness with which I exchanged money hand to hand with a stranger. All this to say small moments like this have become precious to me now.
I mention this because I’ve talked with a number of you who have expressed that you’re feeling grief. It is not always directly related to the weirdness of this time or loss of employment. Some have mentioned feeling more acutely the loss of a loved one from before this time, some have said there is a feeling of grief for something that can’t be named, though their lives don’t feel as impacted by the present moment. But I think our lives are always impacted by what we experience even if it doesn’t register.
I have never preached a Palm Sunday sermon, but I thought this was the year to do it. Palm Sunday traditionally is a day of jubilee, of the celebration of a king who brings a message of peace to the center of political and social power, symbolized in Jerusalem. I don’t think you need to be Christian to appreciate this, and I’ll tell you why. I prefer Luke’s telling because he brings up concerns that are all of our concerns regardless of who we are and what we believe. First there are no palms, there are cloaks or outer garments, jackets that are laid on the ground. There is a kind of stripping down, not to the point of nakedness, but just to the point that you can feel the sun on your arms and you can tell by the feel on your skin which way the wind is blowing. With the outer layer taken off, we are more vulnerable. We are not vulnerable to the point of painful discomfort, but just enough that we can feel what is going on in our life, and what has been going on even before we were aware of it. We can feel how much shade impacts our experience, and how wonderful it is to feel direct light when the clouds decide to part, all of which is not in our control.
Most people who celebrate Palm Sunday are aware of how the rest of the story goes. It marks the beginning of Holy Week less than a week before the crucifixion. Many of us are more in touch with our mortality at this moment. I think this is true for everyone. There is a sense of how precarious our life is. There is concern for the mortality of our loved ones, and those in our community. There is nothing like the concern of mortality to cut through our confusion of what really matters to us, and what we hope our life to be about. We just want everyone to be ok. We want to stay healthy, and we hope to stay alive. It doesn’t seem to haunt us perhaps what our life should be for and about. It is good enough to be alive, and feel and appreciate that we are alive. We can appreciate small gestures like taking off our coat, and allowing ourselves to feel what is going on. This is also the only gospel version when Jesus sees Jerusalem and weeps. Why does he weep?
Maybe a better question is, why wouldn’t he weep? In the moment we are in, we don’t need to find good reasons to weep. But I think the weeping goes far deeper than melancholy. It’s a weeping for what could’ve been, and what still may come. It’s looking at the center of power economically, socially, and politically, and seeing how vulnerable our body is. Our body politic is vulnerable and easily swayed. We too often seem to miss what is right in front of us, perhaps the only thing that really mattered. Our great desires can be so confusing. We can live lives that are so inundated with other people’s thoughts and worries, that they become inseparable from our own perception of what is worth thinking and worrying about.
Sometimes Palm Sunday is seen as a great big party when everyone is boisterous, loud and cheering. But I imagine it differently. When it says the multitude of disciples rejoiced, many of us know Jesus had a small number of disciples. I imagine a raucous few who excitedly realized what was happening: a new rule of government based on peace. But in my imagining, most people in Jerusalem were too busy to notice, and they missed it. It was as Tim Raridon mentioned to me: one of the most ingenious street protests in history, something we still recall, but I bet it was missed or largely ignored in its time.
It is eerie that we are in a moment when even the stones are crying out. The earth itself is calling out to find something to rejoice about. The stones seem to be calling us as witnesses rather than the other way around. There is an awaiting for peace, peace in the center of economic, political and social power. A peace that is finally front and center in our lives, a peace that guides our day to day living. A peace that was there all along perhaps, but has proven so elusive in the world we live in at present.
But the world has changed dramatically. Perhaps the historians and social scientists among us will come to the same conclusion as Jesus: that though we see great possibilities of transformation in our present moment, when we look ahead we will weep for all the promise that will go on to be unfulfilled. But I see it differently, or perhaps not as black and white as this. My favorite line of the text is the one following the weeping: ““If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” It’s a notable phrase: “If you, even you.” If you, even you recognized what is right in front of your face, the most obvious of obvious on this day, things could be different. If you, even you, someone irritable and easily distracted could see the joy of life that is entering your city at this moment. If you, even you. This means that we need to quit relying on our so-called leaders and experts to realize how precious being alive is, and how wonderful it is to live according to a law of peace and play rather than force and violence. Yes, you, even you. Don’t wait for someone wiser to come along. Don’t wait for a Messiah. Don’t wait for a leader you can respect. Don’t wait for the words of a health expert. Don’t wait. If you, even you, could see what opportunity is right in front of you, right here and now, we could weep tears of joy.
That’s why I like the cyclical nature of these holidays. We get another shot. We get another opportunity to see the procession that shows us we can live this day, truly live, not only in grief, but glad expectation. If you, only you, could see this.
I wanted to close by saying a few words about peace. Peace is not the absence of conflict. It is not the absence of problems. Peace is not the absence of grief. Peace is not the absence of power and triumph. Peace is not the absence of weeping. Peace is not a rare quality that needs to be managed diligently, like an old engine that is always threatening to die on us. Peace is not the absence of disease. Peace is not the absence of fear. Peace is not the absence of worry, stress, and obsession. Peace loves a song outside a window. Peace loves music, but it doesn’t rely on musicality. Peace does not care how wise or intelligent you are. Peace doesn’t care if you meditate or eat right, though those are both good things to do. Peace doesn’t care if you’re in a good mood. Peace doesn’t care if you’re feeling generous or stingy, brave or small minded. Peace doesn’t rely on ideal conditions or ideal people. If this was the case, peace would only be a fiction, not real or strong. Peace is pervasive. It’s everywhere, literally everywhere. Yes, you, even you, have peace. Peace is the capacity to live in wholeness – to weep for a fallen civilization, and live into the promise of resurrection even though you have a hard time truly seeing it.
Peace is the willingness to see what is always here but often overlooked. It sees what is inconvenient, what is troubling, what is hopeful. Peace has the ears to hear the stones crying out to rejoice a coming day, a day we are asked to be part of.
So like last week, I’d like to offer a couple questions to hopefully provoke some thought and discussion for at least 5-10 mins. The first question: What does peace mean to you? Second question: Can you see it or feel it in the moment we are in? If so, where do you see it or feel it?
