Friday, March 30, 2012

Passion Sunday Year B - Conclusion

On Sunday we will enter the story of the passion by waving palms and singing “All Glory Laud and Honor” while making our way to pews we occupy most Sundays with less fanfare. We’ll hear the horrible, beautiful story read and sing the familiar hymns; Go to Dark Gethsemane, O Sacred Head Now Wounded, Ah Holy Jesus. At the end of the service (at least at Calvary) Michaelann Berry will bless us by singing Via Dolorosa and the beauty of her voice and the images invoked by the lyrics will make the ancient story of sorrow and suffering more real for us. But even if the end of the service is the beginning of Holy Week the Texas Rangers opening day will still happen on Good Friday. We might lament such a thing, especially those of us in the clergy class who will be working a different “home plate” on Friday but truth is most folks will treat the week we call holy as any other; although for Sunday they might buy a basket for the kids and pop a marshmallow peep as a guilty pleasure. Does it matter? I might have thought so in the past but more and more I’m thinking Jesus would want every week to be a holy week where the sacred abandons the position of power (Hosanna in the Highest) to be crucified for the sake of the secular so that in surprising ways we “Father forgive” those in our everyday while engaging them in a “Jesus remember me” relationship. It is a mistake for the pious faithful to act like Scribes and Pharisees when the Christ we follow ate and drank with people who would choose Opening Day over Stations of the Cross.

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