A friend of mine who grew up in Louisiana once told me that New Orleans loves any excuse for a parade. Just about any major event requires one, not just Mardi Gras. There is something about the pageantry, the music, and the act of people moving together for the same purpose that stirs the heart. Very few times in our world are we so in tune with our fellow human beings that we would march in step with them down the middle of a public road, blocking traffic and disrupting life. We have to believe that something is worthwhile to do this. Sometimes it is merely for the joy of celebrating life. I don’t think anyone in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, for instance, is really there to celebrate the saintly life of Patrick. Instead, many of them are there to acknowledge that sometimes we need to simply be together to celebrate the joie de vivre of being a human that we often forget in our day to day lives.
Perhaps I’m giving the revelers too much credit, but I think even those who are just there for the green beer are acknowledging a subconscious need for the kind of togetherness we experience in parades and processions. This togetherness temporarily pushes away the feeling of loneliness that we all experience at one time or another, whether we like to acknowledge it or not. Whether it is a Thanksgiving parade, a Pride parade, or even a protest march, humans long to feel a sense of connection with other human beings. Yet these parades, and even protests, don’t always help our loneliness. In fact, there are times when we can feel just as lonely surrounded by people as when we are alone in our homes, because what we are longing for is not just the physical presence of other human beings, but true connection and companionship.
We might even experience this same kind of disconnect when we gather for our Palm Sunday processions. The whiplash we experience between the initial emotion of waving our palms in joy in our procession to welcome our Lord and the reading of the Passion narrative when we imagine ourselves as the mob processing to demand Jesus’ death can cause deep seated confusion within ourselves. How is it that the beauty of a procession of people marching forward for the same joyful purpose singing our “Hosannas” can turn so quickly into the procession of an angry mob demanding the murder of an innocent man? Even the chief priests acknowledge Jesus’ crowd of support, delaying their arrest because they don’t want the procession of people to turn on them. Yet mere days later, the same crowd is supporting the authorities in their campaign for murder.
If we consider our own participation in these events, as we are clearly meant to do on Palm Sunday, this betrayal might cause us to be suspicious of the people around us, and suspicious even of ourselves. Surely not I, Lord? I would never do that to you. Yet many of us, if we're honest, suspect ourselves and our fellow human beings to be traitors.
Suspicion is a particularly insidious emotion, and it’s different from doubt. Doubt is not an antidote to faith. There are many places of doubt in my own faith journey, where I’m content to live with mystery, or where I sometimes interrogate what I believe. This is particularly true when I consider the vast mysteries of the Passion. We might question or doubt Judas’ motivations. We might doubt whether this was really all a part of God’s master plan for salvation. These, I believe, are holy questions that invite us to go deeper with our faith.
But suspicion is different. It goes beyond doubt and questions, and leads to assumptions. I may question whether my fellow human beings walking in procession with me are all of the same mind, or wonder what they really believe about Jesus’ life and death. But when I start to be suspicious of them, things take a darker turn. Our faith can be halted by suspicion and mistrust, and suspicion can so easily turn into loneliness when we decide that it is easier to do things on our own rather than to trust one another.
To tell you the truth, the hardest questions for me during Palm Sunday and Holy Week don’t involve questions about my faith. Or rather, it’s not my faith in Jesus as the life-giving Son of God that’s at risk. It’s my faith in my fellow human beings, and in myself. How could we? How could I do this?
How easy it is for us as a group to turn something joyful into something horrific. Sometimes it is tempting to just give up. Hearing stories of modern-day cruelty - of children starving, of unending wars for power, of hateful rhetoric prevailing. It sometimes makes me want to push others away, to put up dividing walls. Maybe it’s better after all to skip the parades, skip the chance at togetherness, and just go it alone.
But, as is generally the case, what I have found to be helpful when I am disappointed in my own faith or that of others is to look to Jesus’ response.
Jesus doesn’t suspect the disciples will betray him or deny him. He knows they will and tells them so prior to the start of today’s Passion narrative. He tells them one will betray him, one will deny him, and that they will all desert him. I don’t know whether this is because of some divine omniscience, or perhaps simply because Jesus understands human nature better than we understand it ourselves.
He knows he will be betrayed, and yet he doesn’t put up barriers to separate himself from the disciples. He doesn’t shove them away. He does the exact opposite. He shares an intimate meal with them, spending his last precious hours of freedom still trying to reach them. Jesus continues to eat and drink with his disciples including his betrayer, and even includes him in the giving of his own body and blood. After Jesus predicts Peter’s denial, he does not shut Peter out. He brings Peter along with him to pray. He continues to ask the disciples to pray with him, to stay with him, even when they fall asleep multiple times.
His refusal to be suspicious, to get angry, and protect himself even when the stakes are high looks naive to the soldiers and the authorities. But Jesus’ refusal of suspicion is not from naivete. It is a choice he makes to show us that it is possible to love others, and to put our full trust in God, even when we know that we may be betrayed along the way. It is a choice to break down barriers by refusing to allow them in the first place – allowing himself to be entirely vulnerable.
This is not to say that appropriate boundaries aren’t a good and healthy thing for us - they most certainly are. But barriers of suspicion, mistrust of others, mistrust of ourselves, and the insistence that we must look out for ourselves because no one else will do it for us have to go. The Collect for today begs God to allow us to walk in the way of Jesus’ suffering – to follow in his footsteps, in other words, and let him take the lead. Putting Jesus in front of our processions, rather than trusting in ourselves to lead. It is following in the footsteps of Jesus that takes away the possibility of turning into lonely creatures who are easily enticed into the ghastly procession of the mob.
We can let down our guards and join in this Jesus-led procession because in the person of Jesus we see clearly that even when our human nature disappoints, as it always will, God does not disappoint. This trust in his heavenly father is what allows Jesus to walk willingly towards his suffering and death.
There will be times when we feel betrayed or abandoned, and times when we let ourselves down badly, and those times will feel very dark, just as the end of the Passion narrative feels dark. There will be times where it feels like there is not even the possibility of Easter. But friends, even in the darkness, Jesus is there waiting for us, and is constantly inviting us to pray with him, to eat with him, to take in his body and blood until we are transformed into his likeness.
We don’t need to fear the dark valleys of life because we will never walk through them alone. Jesus is going before us, just as he said, and will lead our procession into a journey of hope and healing. As a favorite African American spiritual says, “if Jesus himself shall be our leader, we shall walk through the valley in peace.” So come – Journey with Jesus and with us through the darkness this Holy Week. Allow yourself to be immersed in the dark valley of Tenebrae, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday. We will make it through the valley, but I promise that none of us will be the same. If Jesus himself shall be our leader, we will walk through even the darkest valley in peace.
Preached by Mtr. Meghan Mazur
24 March 2024, Palm Sunday
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia
