good palm sunday piece by dbb ..

Palm Sunday: Ordinary Time
By © Diana Butler Bass
The phone rang. I was sitting at the desk in the back bedroom of a cheap graduate school apartment off of the Duke University campus.
Have you ever gotten a call that changed everything?
Mine came in 1989; I was just two years in my doctoral work. On the other end, was the chairman of the religious studies department of the college where I had been an undergraduate student a few years earlier. “We have an opening for an assistant professor in church history. We would like to hire you.”
“But I still have two years to go,” I replied.
“We are eager to hire a well-qualified woman,” he explained. “We will hold the position. And we’ll pay for your final two years of grad school.”
He shared with me how much they loved my work, what good reviews they had heard, that he thought I was perfect for the job.
I felt like I won the lottery. I worked very hard to finish on time. I did not want to disappoint. I passed with highest honors. Oxford University Press published my dissertation.
When I arrived at the college in 1991, the school was buzzing with news of the first female professor in religious studies; the local town paper interviewed me; students filled my classes; long waiting lists ensued. I was asked to serve on every committee, as a mentor for women who wanted to be pastors, was featured in a “town and gown” lecture series at City Hall and at the University Club.
And then came my first tenure review. My faculty peer reviewer took me out to lunch. “You have a stellar record. You are a great teacher. You have done everything expected and beyond.”
I smiled. What relief! It had been an exhausting decade. Tenure would cap all this bruising business with a sense of achievement. Accepted by my peers. Recognized and rewarded.
“And,” he looked into my eyes from across the table, “they plan to fire you.”
* * * * *
Today is Palm Sunday, the day we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. “Daughters of Zion! Look, your king is coming to you!”
And Jesus rode into the city. Crowds spread their cloaks, they waved palm branches, they formed a parade: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in God’s name! Hosanna!
And the whole city was in turmoil! He has arrived. The long-awaited one. Jesus, the prophet, the King, has arrived!
* * * * *
Thus begins Holy Week – the last week of Jesus’ life. For many centuries, Christians have reenacted these days, following from Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, through his final teachings to the Passover meal that becomes his Last Supper, to the prayer in the garden, betrayal, arrest, mock trial, way of the Cross, and execution.
The emphasis is rightly on Jesus. Tradition invites his followers to observe, with spiritual depth and intensity, these events. To place ourselves in the story. Where are we? In the crowd waving palms? Acting the part of disciples bringing a donkey or sitting at the table of that last meal? Yelling for Pilate to free the criminal Barrabas instead of innocent Jesus? Fleeing from our friend in his moment of need? Standing with his mother at the base of the Cross, watching the beloved child die?
Over the years, I have imagined myself as all of these actors – watching these holy events unfold – confused or sad or doubting or afraid or angry. But the Passion itself? These things happened to Jesus, the divine Son of God, handed over to be betrayed and killed. The Lamb of God to the slaughter. God betrayed; God hanging on a Cross; God dying for us. Terrifying and tragic – the divine One, the Beloved, executed by an imperial overlord. There is no worse story, no more horrifying tale.
Theologically, all these things are true. But this year, I have been reflecting on it all from a different perspective. Not as an observer watching a divine drama; not as a guilty bystander somehow complicit in this sacred crime; not as a learned theologian pondering the religious implications of this death; not even as one full of righteous indignation about the injustice of it all.
This year, I keep thinking of how human it all is.
How often have we come into a situation or relationship as a triumphal entry? A move, a job, a marriage, a political success, an art exhibit, a promotion, a project victory – with a parade of joy, of congratulations, of the feeling that we’ve achieved everything we ever dreamed – we are hailed by friends and colleagues and everyone around us is on our side, nothing could go wrong, that we are finally rewarded for our hard work, our character or wisdom or insight, our luck and persistence at finding the right partner or spouse. Hosanna! Shout our parents and friends! Blessed be! Life is full of such parades, from graduations to wedding marches, to climbing a career ladder or the ranks of the Globe and Mail bestseller list, right to the last, from retirement parties to the day when a procession takes us to our final resting place. Praise and parades mark our lives.
Until, of course, someone looks across the lunch table and says, “They plan to fire you.”
When we really understand the last week of Jesus’ life, something becomes quite obvious: Holy Week isn’t strange to us at all, it isn’t really all the special. It is pretty mundane, actually. Jesus’ story isn’t just his story. It is our story, too. We ride into town on our colts with flowers strewn along the way, only to discover that treachery waits. What appeared a victory is a prelude to misunderstanding, jealously, gossip, and betrayal. How many times in a life does it happen? When friends turn their backs; you are sold down a river by those who honestly think they are doing you a favor; or by a rival wishing the parade would be hers. Sometimes the betrayals are small, but others are great. Some hurt only a little, a few last many years.
But we all know this story, because we have all experienced this story. It is not only a story in the Bible, safely bound in the covers of an ancient book. We have all know the power of the waving palms, the sting of a crowd turned against us. We all have Last Suppers; we all know agonizing prayer in our private gardens; we all have felt the surprise when a kiss turns into a knife; we have all travelled pain-filled paths with our crosses; we have all hung in shame, naked and alone.
Holy Week isn’t just Jesus’ passion. It is a microcosm of humankind’s passion. It is our hearts ripped in two over the intensity of injustice; the sacred space where anger and ardor meet; where fury and fervor collide. Our passions are our humanity at their most tender and most explosive, where we are most valued and most vulnerable. Passion is our experience, part of being human. It is truly holy. It is in us. No one escapes. Not even Jesus.
Remembering our own passions, the story suddenly reverses: Not only do we travel the way of this sacred experience with Jesus; Jesus travels the holy week with us. There he is: Ecce Homo: Behold the Man. Walking the same humiliating and shame-filled road, enduring the brokenness of betrayal, abandoned by those he thought his friends. As a human being. Jesus’ Passion was not particularly sacred or divine or mystical or exceptional. No. It was very, very human. More violence that many of our passions; but throughout history certainly far too many human beings have suffered a passion at least as gruesome. Palm Sunday and its subsequent events are, tragically and horribly, all too common. Painfully, completely, universally human.
We might protest: But he was Jesus! He didn’t deserve it!
But do any of us? Do any of us deserve it?
It is not about deserving or not deserving. It is about living. About being fully human. We are all betrayed; and sometimes, we betray. And that of course, is a profound difference between Jesus and us. He did not betray anyone. But even when we act the part of a betrayer, it does not mean we deserve the same in return.
* * * * *
I fought the tenure review for two years. It was the most painful, publicly humiliating experience I have ever had. People lied about me and to me. I was the subject of scrutiny and ridicule, of communal-wide opinion and gossip. With so much pressure, I did things I wish I hadn’t done; reacted in ways not helpful. A big yellow “NT” (for No Tenure) hung on my chest would have been better. There were a handful of people determined to destroy my career – or even personally hurt me. There were long nights of tears; long bouts of yelling. There was a mock reconciliation process; a kangaroo court held by the college president. Lawyers got involved. It was reported in the local newspaper and in Christianity Today magazine. I never even knew what I did. Those who opposed me said that I “didn’t fit” in their department.
And so, they sent me packing. No tenure. Academic execution. All for the crime of not fitting.
Odd thing about betrayals – they often become the mealy seedbed of new life. People told me at the time that everything would be all right – indeed, they insisted that I would look back and say it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Twenty years ago, their actions were like that of Job’s tormenters – or like the people who mocked Jesus as he walked a way of sorrows. It didn’t help.
But, as the years unfolded, it became clear that leaving that college was the beginning of my life; that dark winter bloomed to the most beautiful spring; a spiritual and vocational death led to rebirth. It is NEVER right to betray someone, to make them walk the Way of Sorrows, all the while saying it is good for them. But unjust passions do, ultimately, condemn the guilty and justify the innocent. The ancient wisdom of the Christian story is that at the end of even the darkest of paths, new life waits. Yes, passions happen all the time. But so do resurrections.
Thus, the events of this week are not extraordinary; rather, Holy Week is a surprising Ordinary Time; a time to remember how Jesus our brother suffered as we do; how we are bound together with him in the most human of ways.
* * * * *
During this Holy Week, I invite you into a new question. Instead of thinking “Where am I in Jesus’ story?” ask yourself, “Where is Jesus in my story?” I don’t think you will discover that he is a friend who betrays, in the crowd who wants your hide, a corrupt judge wanting to wash his hands of your case, or those who barter for your robe as you shiver in fear. No. Jesus is with you. Walking right next to you. Tears in his eyes, remembering his own dark days, and entering into your Passion. And he will be the first to celebrate when you experience Resurrection. He's been there; done that. For him, it is just ordinary time.