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20th
March 2016 - Revd. Preb Maureen Hobbs |
Sermon for Palm Sunday evening
Isaiah
5. 1-77
Luke 20. 9-19
Now is come our Lord into his city! Now is come the victor to
his throne! Crowds adore with waving palms and branches Stones
sing out and children cry Hosanna! Patient ass draws near and
sparks our pity For he bears a King, but soon to be alone. Palm
Sunday comes rich with so many images and helps us to feel the
excitement of the crowd, the impetus to join in withthe cheering
– welcoming our Saviour – the one who will free us
from all of our burdens! And everyone knows that the people sang
Hosanna! – Hosanna to the son of David! For many people
it comes as something of a surprise, that although our hymns
and worship songs are peppered with Hosannas – the word
itself occurs only in the events attributed to Palm Sunday and
in one of the Psalms (although only in the original Hebrew.
So in English you only find it used when Jesus makes his entry
to Jerusalem – the King, riding on a donkey colt –
riding in peace, not in war. The son and heir coming to the vineyard
that promised such a rich harvest, but which has given only sour
grapes so far... Soured by the attitude of the tenants who are
refusing to give to the landowner – to God –the proper
rent due – a share of the produce to enjoy.
The word Hosanna was particularly associated with the Feast of
Tabernacles – Sukkot – when devout Jews would take
themselves either camping into their fields or out onto their
flat roofs to sleep in hastily constructed ‘ booths’
sheltered by palm and other branches, arranged so that the sleeper
could still glimpse the night sky beyond and marvel at God’
s hand in Creation. Now, I don’ t know about you, but whenever
I look up into a starry night sky, it makes me acutely aware
of how small I am in God’ s great Universe and how wonderful
is the Universe around me... But on Palm Sunday the emphasis
is not on the otherness, the cosmic significance of Jesus, but
on the closeness of God –riding into town on the back of
a poor donkey. And the word Hosanna means literally “Save
now”– it is a cry of supplication that God might hear
his people and save them. But its use in the Gospels suggests
that it had ceased to be a prayer of supplication and become
more like a confident statement of fact – indeed we tend
to think of it as a cry of praise –alongside and pretty
much interchangeable with Alleluia. And this story is intended
to bring home to us – to force us to recognise – who
precisely this Jesus person is. This is the time for us to begin
to make up our minds. Are we on the side of the angels –
or the crowd? Do we acknowledge truly in our hearts that Jesus
is the Son and heir. Do we actually give him that honour –
or are we inclined to think a bit like the bad tenants, Oh, if
we get rid of him, then life will be better all round.
We will be able to eat, drink and be merry without a thought
for the consequences of our actions! Then again we all know that
human attention span is very limited. Often today we blame our
addiction to technology for making this worse – but even
over 2000 years ago, when there were no screens to distract,
the mere task of arriving in Jerusalem, finding somewhere to
stay and to eat amid all the hubbub of a major festival, seems
to have been enough to pull people away from Jesus and the dawning
realisation that the one they had accompanied into Jerusalem,
waving palms and shouting Hosanna, might just have been the one
for whom they had waited for so long... So if the crowds could
not even linger in Jerusalem with Jesus for a day or two after
shouting ‘ Hosanna’ is it any wonder that we too struggle
to stay with and live out our recognition of who Jesus really
is when we meet him in our lives. Tonight’ s reading leaves
us with the conclusion that – like the tenants of the vineyard,
the Temple – or more particularly, those who had care and
charge of the Temple – the religious authorities, were not
doing what they were supposed to. TheTemple should have been
the gateway to heaven. The place where God would be supremely
present on earth. It should be the place where God’ s son,
the longed-for king-figure like David, was recognized, welcomed
and blessed. But not only did the priests not bless Jesus on
his way into Jerusalem, but theywere conspiring to have him killed.
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