Who doesn’t love Palm Sunday. I will never forget the experience of holding my child in my arms and processing around the church singing “All glory, laud and honor, To Thee, Redeemer, King, To Whom the lips of children Made sweet hosannas ring.” My son held the fragrant green and yellow palm in his hand with a look of wonderment and awe. Truly I felt as though the king of kings had entered the world and all would be well. And to make it more splendid, the palm cross I had fashioned would remain on the fireplace for the rest of the year, until the following Ash Wednesday.

Palm Sunday is a festive occasion, a chance to celebrate a little Easter before the darkness and sadness of Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified on the cross. Yet the palm procession and its accompanying readings are only lived out in the very first part of a church service. The majority of the service is taken up with the Passion of Christ. This refers to the suffering Jesus withstood in the week that follows, called Holy Week. In this week the Church commemorates the Last Supper and the first Eucharist on Maundy Thursday and finally Christ's death on Good Friday. The focus is on the betrayal, arrest, suffering and crucifixion of Jesus rather than on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In fact, "Palm" Sunday has been renamed Palm/Passion Sunday.

In the readings for that day we note that Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Why should the Messiah come on a donkey? It represents a countercultural and counter intuitive royalty. This is a kingship not of traditional power and glory but one of self-giving and suffering. The donkey, is seen as an animal of peace, versus the horse, which is the animal of war. Therefore, it was said that a king came riding upon a horse when he was bent on war and rode upon a donkey when he wanted to point out that he was coming in peace.

Palm/Passion Sunday is full of paradoxes, not unlike our own lives that are full of paradoxes and ambivalences. All of our lives have the palms (celebrations) and the passion (the suffering). When we learn to sit squarely in the midst of passion and palm, we too can be harbingers of peace.

The Gospels state that some remarkable things accompanied Jesus' baptism,
and something remarkable happens at ours too. We should not miss it. I believe that when we are baptized, for a brief moment the heavens open up, and God acknowledges us as a beloved child.

One summer I baptized the teenage son of some old friends, at the beach in Fire Island, NY. I informed the life guards, put on my white robe, and processed down to the beach. The family stood on the edge of the shore, solemnly intoning the service. At the moment when I poured the ocean water on Andrew, and pronounced him baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a huge wave came out of nowhere and knocked us down, engulfing and churning us over and over in the water.

Now that was an outward and visible sign of the POWER of baptism! Baptism engulfs us with the Holy Spirit – churns us up with Jesus – and tosses us out into the world - a new person.

Let us not water down the meaning of our baptism.

And this is the message of the Christmas story... We need Gods caring provision.

There is a theological term for all of this. It is called the prevenient grace of God. Prevenient grace is present even before we have the ability to care for ourselves; even before we are born.

Prevenient grace is divine grace that exists without reference to anything human beings can do. It is Grace at work from the beginning of time, when God created the world and said it was good. We can say it is the inherent goodness of the world. Prevenient grace keeps us from falling to the depths of what humans could be, and it attempts to transform us even before we ourselves seek to be transformed.

Transforming and perfecting grace are at work in us from before the beginning of time, now and in the future. Salvation, Gods work to save us, not our own work, is continual from the moment of our birth, to the moment of our death.

Of all of Jesus' names, the most meaningful is Immanuel,God-with-us. If God is not with us through Jesus, then God cannot save us through him.
In order to save us God has to be with us.

And this is true for us as well.
If we want to help people we have to be with them.

God is always inviting us into deep personal relationship with Christ, and Jesus has given us a hint how that is to happen: He tells his disciples, "Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you,will try to enter and will not be able.”

What does Jesus mean by the narrow door?

Doors are an interesting symbol. There are certain things we just get about them.
They can either welcome you – or shut you out. If one speaks behind closed doors – it indicates a mystery, or the fact that some people are restricted from hearing what is going on, or being present, have full participation in.

We know for certain that this is not what Chrisitianity is about. That was the whole point of Chrisitianity, you didn’t need special knowledge to get that someone died so that you would be free.

Open doors are a warm and welcoming symbol. They signify an invitation to enter. All are welcome. The Episcopal Church welcomes you. We get this, and it certainly expresses Jesus' meaning.

But we also learn that the door is narrow, and something is required of us to fit through it. This door invites us to venture in, because there is often something good that lies behind a door. We want to go through the door because we believe there is something behind it that we want – so we put forth the effort to go through that door.

And what is that effort and what is that door? The door is Jesus and the effort is believing in him. It is the simple key that unlocks and moves us through the door.

Balance is not easy, we all seek balance in our lives. Few of us have it.
It is like trying to cut out a geometric shape or draw a star freehand.
I am always amazed at how bad I am at it.
One side always looks too long, but once you cut it, you throw the symmetry out somewhere else and then you have to trim the other side with your scissors - until there is nothing left of your shape or your star.

Living a balanced life, living a life that is equally balanced between self and God and neighbor - is hard. How do we do this? By living the life we have been commanded to live, love God, love your neighbor, and contained within loving your neighbor is love yourself, with all our heart, soul, body, mind and strength. When life loses its balance it is usually because one of these three is not being attended to.

"Do this and you shall live," Jesus says. (Luke 10:28)

Luke 10:1 "After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go."

There is something about our Christian faith that cannot be lived out merely by attending church - it simply has to be lived out in the world. It is the only way that Christianity can be comprehended in its fullest. Gospel truths become apparent in homeless shelters, prisons, and hospitals.

In the Scripture passage from Luke 9:57-60, Jesus says to a young man, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."


Do you think Jesus is saying that we should forget about our families.
After all, later, in Matthew 12:48-50 he says: "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

Or is he warning us that we make excuses for things that we do not get done. We constantly shift our priorities from important tasks to the little tasks of life,
And claim that we are too busy.

It is through compassion that miracles occur.
"And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick." Matthew 14:14

Contrary to public opinion, picking up your cross gives strength and structure to the challenges in life. Jesus said: My yoke is easy and my burden is light - Matthew 11:30