There was a curious little book published anonymously in England in 1554, the second year of the short reign of the Catholic Queen Mary Tudor. The book is written by a Protestant who laments the return to Catholic doctrines and forms of worship after the death of the young Protestant King Edward VI. The short title of the book is A Dialogue or Familiar Talk. Rather wonderfully, the book purports to be a conversation, like a platonic dialogue but friendly and neighborly. The dialogue or friendly conversation takes place between a man named Oliver, who professes the Gospel, and a man named Nicholas, who is Catholic, out of habit more than conviction. The conversation consists, of course, of Nicholas saying egregiously un-Protestant things, and being taught the correct faith by the wise and biblical Oliver.
One of my favorite moments in the text occurs on the first page, when the wise Protestant Oliver notes that Catholic Nicholas had not seemed very eager to go to church during the Protestant regime of the previous monarch: “No,” responds Catholic Nicholas, “for when we came there [that is to Protestant services in the reign of Edward VI], there was nothing to do but to hear a priest babble.” Nicholas is like a child, seeking only to be entertained. Oliver represents the urgent Reformation task of hearing the word of God and obeying it.
Nicholas goes on to describe many of the aspects of Catholic liturgy that he approves of, only to be taught again and again by Oliver that such elaborate forms of worship are dangerously misleading practices set up by Catholic bishops, who are “the imps of Antichrist.” Among the practices discussed are some that might be familiar to us today, the liturgies of Palm Sunday. And as we hear Oliver inveigh against liturgy, we may begin to feel from our perspective that he too has some limitations as a churchgoer.
Oliver disapproves, for instance, of the reading or singing of the Gospel of the Passion in parts. “Lord,” says Protestant Oliver, “what Apes play [they made] of it in great Cathedral churches and abbeys.” Oliver may be deeply sincere, and he clearly represents the views of our anonymous 16th-century author, but I think you can agree with me that he is missing something. It’s actually painful to me to read Oliver’s words. He somehow can’t hear what we just heard: the exquisite faith and devotion, as well as the skill, that go into the singing of the Passion. What’s beautiful and godly to me is completely lost on him.
Notably, too, the use of palms offends Oliver, especially when crosses are made out of those palms and blessed, and taken away to be fastened on the doors of private homes, or worse, carried in the purses of superstitious women.
To be fair to the fictional Protestant Oliver, there do seem to have been some very elaborate liturgical practices in place on Palm Sundays in England before the Reformation. I’m not sure I would have approved of all of them, either. After the reading of the Gospel, for instance, which was of course in Latin, a boy, or sometimes an adult, would enter the sanctuary dressed in flowing robes like an Old Testament prophet and wearing a fake beard, to sing a verse based on the words of the actual biblical prophet Baruch. Palm Sunday services before the Reformation also seem to have included the tossing of flowers and cakes to the children of the parish, which as Oliver the Reformer says, made the boys of the parish “lie scrambling together by the ears ‘til all the parish falleth a laughing.” Poor misguided Nicholas remembers that laughter fondly, never thinking about the loss of intimacy with God that Oliver seeks in the scriptures and in reformed worship.
It is no accident that Nicholas and Oliver should spend some of their time talking about Palm Sunday. This is one of those days in the church’s year that almost begs us to think about worship, about how exactly God meets us in liturgy and about how we respond. There is an uneasiness in the joyful procession and the waving of the branches. Did the crowds in Jerusalem really know who Jesus was? Did they truly understand his response to empire and to the powers of this world? And if so, where were they all a week later? Is our devotion more than a momentary enthusiasm?
And the reading of the passion narrative should of course unsettle us right down to our souls. As Jesus is stripped and mocked we see him revealed for who he is in a way that glorious processions and triumph can’t fully embody. Infinite love, meeting us in powerlessness and abandonment. Pilate washes his hands and even the thieves who are dying with Jesus turn to him in scorn. Judas tells the truth. This is baffling. Jesus’s own words are used against him, as the soldiers taunt him: “Thou that destroyest the Temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself.” They turn Jesus’s words inside out, turn scripture inside out, really, turning Jesus’s prophecy about himself into painful mockery. We are watching religion itself, our religion and theirs, seem to crumble as Jesus is defeated.
We might even say that from our historical vantage point, as modern Christians, the words of the Gospel turn against us. In a moment of more than bitter irony, as Pilate denies responsibility for Jesus’s death, Matthew has the people utter what can only echo through the millennia as a curse upon Christians: “His blood be on us, and on our children.” Knowing the ghastly antisemitism that has sprung from these words—knowing that that ghastly antisemitism is no doubt springing up afresh this year, as it seems to do perennially—I think we can only shudder and pray for healing. And work for the protection of our Jewish neighbors and family members. You wouldn’t be alone if, hearing that terrible sentiment expressed in the scriptures, you were to wonder whether you could trust this assembly, trust this religion, trust Jesus, or trust what has been made of him by Christians.
Yes, these words should be heard in terms of the early church’s crisis of separation from Judaism. It’s crucial to understand that these words are likely referring not to some imagined blood curse, but to the historical event of the destruction of the Temple in the year 70, which hangs over the gospels like a great shadow. But don’t make peace with these words. Don’t let them be explained away. Stay awake to the failure of even the earliest Christians to love as Jesus loves. Stay alert to the indictment of us in this story.
The veil of the Temple is rent, religion totters, the earth shakes, the graves open. And we are here on the edge of a great chasm, on the edge of Holy Week, on the edge of death and resurrection and salvation. We are moving uneasily between a joyful ritual with palms and a fearful encounter with the living God. Our questions can’t be contained or answered with words like “Catholic,” or “Protestant,” or “Christian,” or “Jew.” The Gospel narrative itself, presented with great care and love and reverence, catches us up in mistrust and suspicion. The great unsettling controversies of the Reformation are only faint images of the bafflement and paradox in which we are being immersed.
This is Holy Week. This is the action of God in our liturgy and our scriptures and our assembled community. We are walking with Jesus through the sin of the world, that he might take it away. Pray, and walk through this week. Let the word of God dwell in us. Let Jesus do his shattering work in us, though the Church’s imperfect, holy, ministry.
Preached by Mother Nora Johnson
Palm Sunday 2023
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia