It is Palm Sunday, already, or at last, depending upon your sense of Lenten time. We are gathered here to remember a day that was the best of times, just before the worst of times. We heard of them both in the triumphal entry and passion gospels just read. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do with the twin towers of joy and sorrow that stand over this week. This is because we know they are not just events out there, or from long ago, but they are within us and they are the events of now.

One of the things we bring to this reading is that thirty six years ago today Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated during his triumphal entry into Memphis . Do you remember, those of you who were old enough to remember anything, what you were doing when you heard the news?  We always seem to remember those moments when catastrophe strikes, as if those moments of our lives are imprinted forever upon a more universal tragedy. I was in seminary, practicing my guitar chords and singing, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”  That night a friend and I walked the streets on the edge of Harlem, numb, angry, fearful, perhaps feeling much the same way Jesus’ friends felt all those many years before.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and his death was a political event as well as a religious one, which is why we need to read the news of our times for signs of God’s grace and judgment, sin and hope. The event for me this Palm Sunday is Richard Clarke making a confession and asking for forgiveness. Having served under three successive presidents as a senior White House counterterrorism official, he has to command a certain amount of credibility. He cannot be easily dismissed as partisan or an attention seeker. And so we need to listen when he says, “Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard but, that doesn’t matter, because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness.”

While he is referring to a very sad situation, the terrorism of September ll, his confession itself is hopeful and refreshing. Here is someone not pointing the finger at others, not blaming others to cover his own decisons, but taking responsibility for his own part in failing to prevent a tragedy. Here is an action of maturity.

So we bring these things with us as we journey back in time to Jerusalem to the event we call the Triumphal Entry. What an exciting and hopeful moment that was!  Every Christian should have the experience of standing on the Mount of Olives and looking down to the Golden Gate, where Jesus entered the walled city, riding on a donkey, straight out of Zechariah, a prophecy fulfilled.

What hope resounded in the hearts of all who walked with him, those who had traveled with him and those who saw him perhaps for the first time, caught up in the crowd’s enthusiasm. This was it. It was the way the Messiah was to come. This was the moment Roman rule would be overthrown and David’s throne re-claimed. Think of a time when you have felt such a wave of hope and joy. These people cut down branches of precious trees to wave. They threw their garments before him. They who had perhaps only one cloak put it on the stones for the donkey to trod upon, so caught up in the moment that they did not think about what cold wind might blow that night.

Perhaps it is because we know what happens all too soon that we hold our own hearts in check. We know how quickly the shouts of “Hosanna” will turn to “Crucify Him.”  He didn’t deliver the goods. He didn’t live up to their expectations of what a messiah should be. Their hope is in shambles, their cloaks are in rags. And hope disappointed can turn ugly.

We know how our own emotions can go from wild hope and generosity to more measured and reasonable responses, quickly. After all, we are Anglicans, and restraint and order are our virtues. Yet under the masks of reason, we also know hearts that can feel anger, hatred and rage. And we know all too well how life can take us from a moment of joy to a moment of tragedy in a heartbeat.

So we hold our hearts in check.  But for a few moments this morning, let the hard shell around your soft spot, your vulnerable heart, melt away.  Feel their feelings, feel our feelings. Feel the joy, the hope, the disappointment,  the anger, the rage of being betrayed, of being duped, of not having answers or direction. 

But above all, know the original goodness that lies beneath all the ugliness. It is the goodness deep within that causes us to hope. It is our being created in the image of God, of wanting to do and know good in the world around us that sets us up for such disappointment and confusion that we can hear our voices blend with the crowd, “Crucify him.”  We sometimes get stuck in the darkness around our hearts and are so frightened by it that we want to blame others. So we have movies and theological discussions about whether it was the Jews or the Romans who crucified Jesus, missing our own part, missing our own responsibility. 

But it is finally okay to admit, “It wasn’t the Romans, it wasn’t the Jews, it was I.”  I who have still not learned to trust God, to see that Jesus came to offer his life as an end to temple sacrifice, as an end to all violence as a way of salvation. St. Augustine said that Jesus went to the cross like a bridegroom goes to his bride. There was purpose and mission there. We do not need to blame. 

Rene Giarard, a theologian who has reflected deeply on the myth of redemptive violence, says that our response to the crucifixion of Jesus should be, “It is I!  And I will never do such a thing again, so help me God!”  That we will end our role in thinking of violence as a solution, whether in our homes or in our communities or elsewhere in the world. That we will accept our own responsibility for our failure to find  loving and just solutions rather than  violent ones. 

And we good and hopeful people who threw our garments down before Jesus, who waved branches of palm over his head, know that it is possible to stop the violence and to live out of our original goodness. We can with the grace of God be the people we are created to be. We can choose day by day, moment by moment, to be the most generous and loving people we can be in each situation we find ourselves in. We can let Jesus take away the encrusted sin that surrounds this heart of love and restore it to work for the reign of God, in small ways, in all ways.

Do you remember the chorus to “Where Have all the Flowers Gone,” the song

I was singing when I heard that Martin Luther King had been shot?  The words are “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn.”  When will we ever learn?  May it be today. May it be this Holy Week.

Here is a final word—a prayer in the Celtic tradition.

O Loving Christ, who died upon the tree
Each day and each night I remember your love.
In my lying down and in my rising up
In life and in death
You are my health and my peace.
Each day and each night I remember your forgiveness
Bestowed on me so gently and generously.
Each day and each night may I be fuller in love to you.