Sermon

So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood …’ (Matt 27:24)

I was looking at the paper the other day. A young man in handcuffs was on the front page. He was being taken into court in Hillsborough; charged with the first-degree murder of Eve Carson.

Below there was another picture. Governor Spitzer. Mr. Clean – the guy I voted for in the hopes that he would lead New York into a new era. Wife by his side, he announced his resignation after revelations that he had been “Client No. 9.”

A Dallas woman hurled her two young children and herself from an overpass into on-coming traffic. A kidnapped Chaldean Bishop found buried in Iraq. Bishop Paul Moore – the deceased 13^th Bishop of New York, a champion of social justice, labeled by The New York Times as one of the most influential Americans of twentieth century and one of my personal heroes – is exposed as an abuser of power for having improper relationships with those who vulnerably came to him for pastoral care and guidance.

My God, what is it about the world in which we live? I know this is all pretty extreme, but still …

Just consider the realities of our lives and experiences – the stress, the fear, the lies, the mistakes, the regrets, the temptations, feelings of being trapped, our flaws, our weakness and the sheer overwhelming reality of it all.

What will become of us? Will we be a victim? Will we lose ourselves and all we hold dear, our dreams and hopes, to the world’s pressures and problems? Worse, will we get jaded and lose our faith? Will the world make us give up on love?

I got to tell you – and maybe you’ve had this feeling too – sometimes it’s enough to want to make me be a Pontius Pilate and wash my hands of it all. You know, just distance myself from everything troubling and hard. Give thanks to God that my life is still pretty much intact and just run away. I mean, is there any getting ahead of it all?

On Palm Sunday 2003, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams preached a sermon at the Church of St. George the Martyr in Jerusalem. In his sermon, he preached to those living in one of the darkest parts of the world, a place where, as he said,

trying to live by faith, hope and love leaves … [one] looking pretty helpless.[i]

He asked his audience to find hope by going back 2,000 years to join Christ on that first celebration of palms as he stood before the gates of their city, Jerusalem. And he asked them to look in with Christ through those gates to weigh the precarious nature of all therein. For within those gates lay intrigue, power struggles, violence, corruption, denial, betrayal, forsakenness, and death.

To stand before these city gates is to stand before the very place we least want to go. A place we are afraid of because, as Williams preached,

we know that once we have entered we shall be swept up in events that we cannot control and that will bring us to the very edge of what we can bear.[ii]

To stand with Christ before the gates of Jerusalem, to be joined with him on this day, is to stand firmly before the realities of our lives and the world within which we live to consider the costly nature of it all.

Jesus does not steer us away from the gates and send us back to the… peace of the countryside. He keeps us close to him as we stand at the gates… and he tells us these are also the gates of heaven.[iii]

For within these gates lies not only Golgotha, but “the garden of resurrection.”[iv]

There, and only there, in the midst of that soiled reality, Jesus wants us to know exists the garden of new life.

And so the question before us all, the question put forth in this drama heard today is this:

Will we enter in? Will we enter in through the gates of our lives knowing that at times we may find ourselves like Peter who denied, or Judas who betrayed, or the High Priest who sought condemnation, or Christ who suffered? Or will we be as Pilate, washing our hands and playing at being above it all?

As you think about this, let me give you an image. One Christmas a girl was asked by her Sunday School teacher to draw a picture depicting a Christmas scene. Her teacher was shocked to see it when she finished. There were three people riding in what looked like a 747.

“What’s that?” The teacher asked. “That’s the Holy Family.” The girl replied. “Well, why are they in a plane?” “That’s their flight into Egypt.” She instructed her teacher. “Alright, but who’s that fourth person in the front?” “Why,” the girl responded. “That’s Pontius Pilate.”

It’s cute. But here’s the thing. If there was ever any plane Pilate wanted to fly without him it was this one, and yet there he’s been for 2,000 years. There are only three names in the Nicene Creed – Jesus, Mary and Pontius Pilate. Mary the humble servant, Pilate the pompous evader and Jesus the reconciler and redeemer – all three together forever.

You see, my friends, the choice is not a choice at all. There is no escape. This world is our world. These lives are our lives. And this story, this passion play, is our story, indeed, the story.

Yesterday, Bill Townsend and I visited with the inmates of Pod 5A over at the jail here in town. As each one sat down opposite me, a thick layer of glass between us, I wondered, what did they do? What can I do? And with each one I awaited the dark place I feared we would inevitably go.

Yet as hands against glass met palm-to-palm, as tears were shed, prayers were offered and laughs were shared – Bill can really get them going, and one even asked to be baptized – a pathway opened up before us. It was not one of fear, forsakenness, sin and death, but hope, love, and rebirth.

And so my friends, Christ is waiting for us this day. Standing at the gates, as in the days of old, he beckons, come thou follow me. And as Albert Schweitzer once said,

To those who obey, whether they be wise or simple, righteous or sinful, rich or poor… [his garden of resurrection] will be revealed in the toils, the conflicts and the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship.[v]

[i] Archbishop Rowan Williams, Palm Sunday Sermon, April 13, 2003 – the Church of St. George the Martyr.

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Ibid

[v] Schweitzer, Albert, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, third edition, Adam & Charles Black, London: 1956, page 401. Although I am primarily quoting Albert Schwietzer here, the context with which I am using it is not Schweitzer’s. Schweitzer was speaking about Jesus’ identity. Here, I use it in reference to Williams’ idea about the Garden of Resurrection.

Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

March 16, 2008 - Palm Sunday

The Rev. M. Jonah Kendall