Palm/Passion Sunday – A

Palm/Passion Sunday – A

Years A
Palm Sunday
Matthew 21:1-11
Psalm 118:1-2,19-29
Passion Sunday
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 26:14 - 27:66

Ahh, the joy of choosing to walk a slow walk, even though many will not know how to slow down that long, and focus on Palm Sunday, or to take all of pre-Easter week in one big gulp and focus on the Passion.

Thanks to the wisdom of Robert Frost you are encouraged to take whichever path is least traveled by you and/or your community of faith.

Palms: There is still hospitality in the big city. Someone needs your donkey and colt, you lend it. That's the happy spin.

Less happy is the implication of an entitlement to have one's needs met. There is no reporting here of a question being asked when the disciples followed Jesus' command and took the animals. This is the moral equivalent of stealing. Just being Jesus doesn't get anyone off the hook of the commandment.

From there we are on to Hosanna and a recognized, but too easily passed over, understanding that Jesus is a Prophet. It would be clarifying to counterpose Palms and Prophets.

Passion: Where we usually look at the Passion of Christ and focus on his suffering, we might also look at the Passion against Christ and focus on what it is that drives people to participate with the principalities and powers.

In this vein we would investigate the commonalities between Judas, Chief Priests, (Peter, John, James and the other disciples who choose betrayal after a first betrayal), a crowd ready for violence with swords and clubs, false witnesses, Governor Pilate, a crowd still ready for violence with voice, military cohort, and guards. What passion sustained them, one to the next, until passion led to passion, in not a good way?

= = = = = = =

Thief Jesus dies alongside thieves
like calls to like

Messiah Jesus dies alongside thieves
like calls to like

do you like the call you're calling?
who are you living with?

do you like the call you're receiving?
who are you living with?

like still calls to like
like still lives with like

better like what you like
better like what you like