Palm Sunday Service of Reconciliation
What to do with our failure?
"Yesterday's Palm Sunday Service of Reconciliation revisited the place where worshipers who were denied entrance knelt to say the General Confession. Yesterday, worshipers knelt to acknowledge their failure saying the same words that were said here 50 years ago. Worshipers then received assurance of God's forgiveness, and were given comfortable words from our Lord Jesus Christ: 'Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.'"
I
first want to say what an honor and privilege it is to stand in this pulpit
today. I don’t say this as a
formality. Rather, the opportunity to
witness to the good news of Jesus here today and every day is not something I
take lightly. I am truly grateful for
the opportunity. Even more, what an opportunity
we all have to be bearers of the good news of Jesus Christ in our daily
lives.
I am also grateful for
this opportunity because here I stand in one of the most beautiful churches in
the diocese and even country. These
walls and windows are made even more beautiful when you think about all men and
women who have offered prayers to Almighty God in this space for over 160
years.
And I am grateful
because here I stand before some of the most faithful men and women that I have
come to know in my thirty-one years including our new friends from St. Mark’s
and Brown Chapel and elsewhere. So I
want to thank all of you for being here and for giving me the opportunity to stand
here.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation
of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our strength and
redeemer. Amen.
A lot of you have asked
where the idea for the service came from.
This question could take me in a lot of directions. I could talk about how the Diocese of Alabama
passed a resolution in 2008 that encourages parishes to hold such
services. I could talk about how Bishop
Sloan dropped a seed when I first took the job by giving me a brief history of
the events in 1965. But looking back at
all that has happened to this point it is clear to me that the idea came from
God working through his people.
"We were called to worship by Miller Childers, St. Paul's, and Lou Willie, St. Mark's. Miller was a vestry member who opposed the vestry's stance on segregation and Lou was nine years old when he and his mother Yuvonne were denied entrance." Photo Courtesy of Justin Averette at Selma Times Journal.
God has called us all
here this morning and quite a journey it has been. I don’t know what that journey looks like for
you. But I hope you will tell me
sometime and or at least tell someone else.
No matter what path you have taken to be here this morning, we are all
here to worship our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are all here to worship the one who willingly died the death that
belonged to us so that we might live the life that belongs to him alone. We are all here because of a hope that we
have in a God who is making the world new through his Son Jesus Christ.
I’ll be honest and say
that the beginning of my journey here today started with some hesitation. The first step was not an easy one. A part of this reluctance was because I was a
brand new rector and didn’t want to upset that apple cart as they say. The experts say don’t do anything drastic for
the first year. So, in the spirit of reconciliation
I’ll just say this—please accept my apology!
Even more, a part of me wondered how digging
up history that is 50 years old would help healing and reconciliation. Can’t we just go on with our lives already?! Haven’t we been slammed over the head enough
by our transgressions?! But every time I
hesitated, every time I tried to justify why today didn’t need to happen, God
kept on telling me not to be afraid as God said to so many in scripture. God kept on reminding me—you are not defined
by what you have done or left undone; you are defined by Jesus Christ—the one
who has already done it all for us.
God kept on reminding
me that he isn’t interested in reminding us of our transgressions—we do that
enough on our own without God’s help. Instead,
God wants to remind us of his love and mercy through his Son Jesus Christ
because God knows that we lack confidence in is the truth that we are called
beyond our sin and brokenness to a place that is complete in the good news of
Christ.
We live in a world that
is hungry for this good news, good news that points beyond failure. This hunger is evident in a culture that
jumps at every opportunity to criticize the church when it fails. And the church has failed a lot—just pick up
a history book. St. Paul’s has failed to
live up to the call as Christians—as we did 50 years ago. St. Mark’s has too. Every church has. And the church will continue to fail at its
mission to be the people that God is calling us to be—even 50 years from now. So what do we do with this failure to live up
this billing as God’s people through Jesus Christ? We have good news to proclaim.
The good news is that
the church isn’t called to be perfect; the people of God, you and I aren’t
called to be perfect. Instead, we are
called to be faithful to the one who is making us perfect through a love that
was willing to die for us, a love that was willing to go to the cross for us, a
love knows that we struggle to do the good that we want to do but fail to do.
We are called to be
faithful to the one who has made a world that is perfect through his resurrection,
a world that is no longer held captive by sin and death. Jesus has made this world available for all
this children. This world is available
when we have the grace to recognize that we cannot create this world through
our own good efforts, efforts that will ultimately fail us. Like one prayer in the prayer book says, we
can give thanks for our disappointments and failures because they ultimately
lead us to acknowledge our dependence on God alone.
"An acolyte from St. Mark's holds the parish banner as the procession of the palms gets under way in the courtyard. "Photo Courtesy of Justin Averette at Selma Times Journal.
As God was reminding me
of these gospel truths, the country was reminded once again in too many ways that
we still have a long way to go in terms of race relations in our country. Even though we are 50 years removed from the successful
struggle to integrate this church, we still live in a world that struggles to
see beyond the color of skin. We still
struggle to be a part of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream where people are
judged based not on the color of their skin but based on the content of their
character.
But I am not here to
remind you of human dreams. Instead, I
stand in this pulpit today to remind you of a dream that already is a reality. I am here to remind you that God’s dream for
all his children from every race and nation is available now in a life lived
through his Son Jesus Christ. I am here
to remind you that we have an opportunity to witness to God’s dream of
reconciliation for all people, of a God who judges us not based on the content
of our character—thanks be to God because we all fall short under the
microscope—instead we have a God who looks at each of us, his beloved children,
based on the content of Jesus’ character—the one who shows compassion and mercy
and love for all people—especially the unlovable and the sinner.
"Worshipers gather in the St. Paul's courtyard to begin the Palm Sunday Service."
Photo Courtesy of Justin Averette at Selma Times Journal.
Through Christ, God is
giving the church an opportunity to show the world a different way of living, a
gospel way of living. This way of living
doesn’t involve name calling or hyperbole.
This way of living doesn’t involve shaming those who have failed. This way of living doesn't invovle minimizing our failures and transgressions. This way of living doesn’t involve proving
why you are right. And this way of
living certainly doesn’t involve the justification of our actions or inactions. Instead, God’s dream for his church is seen
through the passion and death of Jesus Christ, a passion that is soaked in humility.
"Acolytes prepare to process into church"
Photo Courtesy of Justin Averette at Selma Times Journal.
How can we be a part of
this dream? How can we start to live in
this reality today? I have good
news. We have already started living in
God’s dream--just look around this room. We started to live in God’s
reality when we knelt together before the doors of this church, Christ’s
church, and acknowledged that we are all a part of the problems that plague our
world.
We acknowledged again
how we are a part of the problem in the Passion Narrative. One of you commented after I assigned you your
part, I wanted to be a good guy! And to
that I responded, “There are no good guys except Jesus!” Not even Peter, the first pope or bishop of
the church, can say that he isn’t a part of the problem. Not one of us can say that our hands are
clean. I can’t say—“Jack, this isn’t
your problem because you weren’t born until 1984.”
Friends, God’s dream
doesn’t stop with the death of Jesus on the cross. God doesn’t leave us to wallow in our shame
or guilt. We can stop feeling ashamed
because soon we will be met by the risen Lord who says to us like the stained
glass window at the entrance of the church says, “Come unto me all who labor
and heavy laden and I will give you rest.”
The kind of rest Jesus is talking about isn’t like a Sunday afternoon
nap—which sounds really good about now.
Window in Narthex of St. Paul's
The kind of rest Jesus
is talking about is the kind of rest that is found in perfect service to our
Lord. The kind of rest Jesus is talking
about tells us that we can stop worrying about being defined by what we do or
don’t do and rejoice that we are defined by the one who makes us beloved sons
and daughters of our heavenly Father.
The kind of rest that Jesus is talking about is the kind of rest that
frees us from the impossible demands of this world, demands that we can never
repay, but the good news is the demands have already been paid through Christ
crucified.
Finding rest in God is
the difference between serving others out of fear of failure or obligation
versus serving others with joy in the knowledge that whatever happens—no matter
how badly we screw up—we have a God who is making things right through Jesus
Christ.
We have a God who is
committed to working out his plan of salvation through his people, no matter
how thick headed we are, and God has used a lot of thick headed people—just
open the Bible, look around this room, look at me! We have a God who works
through the struggle of ordinary women and men, as we saw 50 years ago, to
bring about extraordinary change. This
is the God that the world is hungry to know, this is the good news that the
world is starving to hear.
On this Palm
Sunday and through reflection on what happened 50 years ago, I hope you find
room in your heart to celebrate a God who brings extraordinary change through
the passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, a passion that begins when
Jesus kneels on the floor to wash the feet of his followers.
God give us the grace
to kneel and serve the world alongside our Lord and Savior and may all the
world know the healing power of your love.
Amen.
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