Sermon

(Luke 19.28-40)
Palm Sunday – Sunday 14th April
I don’t know how you will be marking Palm Sunday this year – whether you will have
processions – and the waving of palm branches – or even a donkey. I remember one year
preaching at a church where – instead of the donkey – they had a pantomime horse. How
apt – for that first Palm Sunday was something of a Pantomime.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Oh no it wasn’t”

Oh yes it was, for a pantomime means literally - all mimed and it refers to a drama that is
performed without words – a drama in which the actions and the gestures convey the
meaning. The dictionary refers to it as ‘a performance of a dramatized tale followed by a
transformation scene.’ And this is exactly what Palm Sunday and Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem
was all about.

As a Christian, much of the impact that you have on others will come from your actions –
how you live – and not just by your words. It is pantomime in a very real sense. Much of
your mission – if you like - is pantomime. People often say (probably wrongly) that when
Saint Francis sent out his missionaries, he told them ‘Preach the gospel - use words when
necessary.’ That’s not to say that words are of no importance. They are! You need to be
able to articulate your faith – to give an account of the hope that is in you. But your words
will be empty and useless unless they are framed by the actions and the gestures that
present the gospel as appealing and intriguing and challenging.

And your actions will also speak of your sense of purpose. One of the things that makes this
Christian life so exciting is that God can do something totally amazing by working through
people like us. You are a Transforming Presence in the world and God will use you – at
some point - to do something utterly transformative. He may have done so already and you
may be completely unaware of it. Your life has a purpose. Saint John Henry Newman put it
like this, ‘God has created me to do him some definite service. He has committed some
work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it
in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection
between persons. He has not created me for naught; I shall do good - I shall do his work; I
shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it if I do
but keep his commandments.’

Our actions also show something of our heart. They reveal our compassion. Just a few
verses on from today’s reading in Luke, we get an insight into the very heart of God. It says:
As Jesus came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only
recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your
eyes.’ Jesus looks out over the city and as he does so he weeps. In fact, he does more than
weep. He’s inconsolable. Luke 19 verse 42 actually doesn’t make sense. The NRSV does its
best to tidy it up but it still sounds pretty ropy. ‘Would that you. Even you. This day. Knew
the ways that make for peace. But they are hidden from your eyes.’ Jesus is not talking in
complete sentences. He’s not making sense. He’s incoherent with grief. He has looked over
the city and his heart is broken. He cries. He sobs. He’s beside himself. He cannot contain
his sadness.

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Our actions demonstrate our care for others. They show our love for people – and betray
the fact that we have allowed them to matter to us. Jesus did what he did because he loves
us. What we do – our actions – are the product – the fruit of our loving. The great
missiologist David Bosch put it like this. ‘There is church because there is mission. There is
mission because God loves people.’

Our actions also say something about how we see ourselves – It is because of our actions,
for example, that people might say that we are humble. And in a world like this, it is up to
us - the Church - with all our inflated grandeur and our polite respectability - to show the
world true humility. When we look at the actions of Jesus – particularly in the account of
Palm Sunday - we see genuine genuine humility. By comparison – we the Church can be at
times too hierarchical to be a true community of love, too bound by dogma to relate
properly to this world, and too worried about public acceptance to risk being too
distinctive. Our cutting edge has been blunted. We are sometimes ignored and treated as
irrelevant - and all this is because we have failed to live according to the example given to us
in Jesus Christ. We have held on to power and status rather than risk having God be made
manifest in our weakness and in our vulnerability and in our powerlessness. This world
needs to see again an example of Christ-like humility if it is ever to be saved from the
pestilence of pride and the poison of prejudice. And it is us - the church - that is called upon
to provide that example; to have the same attitude that was in Christ Jesus himself.

So much comes down to our actions. It is a pantomime. So may our actions speak of our
calling and of our love and of our humility. May we – in our actions – reveal something of
Jesus Christ who came to us in great humility – and showed his love for each and every one
of us. Amen.

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