Midweek Faith Lift
March 27, 2024
Palm Sunday- Beware of False Praise
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
The Ides of March - March 15
Feeling Betrayed; an Opportunity for Forgiveness
The “Ides of March” is a reference to the historical Roman calendar dating system. The Romans did not count the days from the start of each month 1,2,3, …31 as we do now: Instead they identified three days in each month that had pivotal meaning based on lunar calendars, which had religious and superstitious significance derived from the phases of the lunar cycle. The "Ides" fall in the middle of each month. Today, the period is generally thought of as the 15th of the month.
"Shakespeare's famous line, 'Beware the Ides of March' - a reference in the Roman calendar to March 15 when Julius Caesar was killed - is an opportunity for us to look at our perceptions of having been betrayed. It's an invitation to heal ourselves through forgiveness." - Scott Awbrey, Spiritual Passages
Affirmative Prayer for Today: Divine Spirit, create in me an open heart that is willing and empowered to embrace forgiveness and the healing it brings. Open my mind, body and spirit to that greater reality that Jesus and all the great spiritual teachers constantly demonstrate in their very living. May the energy of “Holy Week” restore me to wholeness. Amen.
Today we are remembering the events of Palm Sunday and the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. When the crowds who had flocked into Jerusalem for the festival heard that Jesus was actually coming, they rushed out to greet him with branches of palm as he road into town on a young donkey. And upon entering the city, Jesus spoke these famous lines:
John 12: 23-24
“Now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you, most solemnly, unless a grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest. (RSV)
Jesus surely knew that despite the adulation of the crowds, the swarms of people who wanted to see him that his own death was imminent. He did not believe that all the praise and hoopla would last or that it would change the course of his life. He goes on to say to the disciples:
John 12:35
35 Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.….While you still have the light, believe in the light and you will become the sons of light. (RSV)
There are several really significant things to note about these statements that also illumine our path. The first is to note that this is a very human journey that Jesus is taking and he refers to himself as human, as the Son of Man, not as the Son of God. That reference is to amplify his connection to all of us, to our common humanity. There is a huge lesson coming up here, friends, in this human experience that I am going to have, so take note and learn! There is suffering and betrayal and death, but that is not the end of the story by any means. If you give in to the darkness, you have no idea where you are going! Now is the time to believe in the light so that you also may discover and demonstrate your divinity, despite all outer conditions and circumstances.
We should also note that just before the events of Holy Week, in the gospel of John, there is also the story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. This demonstration of the power of life and that there is more to all of us than our human experiences is the very essence of the Jesus message. This message was demonstrated in how he lived each day and in what he did, not only in what he said. The admonition to his disciples to believe in the light and you will become the sons of light is again a powerful affirmation that Jesus is directing all of us to focus on the light, the power of life, not the darkness. He does not deny the darkness or try to escape the darkness of suffering. His message and demonstration is that he and we are greater than the darkness, greater than our suffering.
The clarity of Jesus about his message and his mission is reflected in all the events of holy week, all that happens after the heady experience of Palm Sunday. He is very sure and clear about what is to happen which is demonstrated metaphysically by his ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. It is not majestic like a horse; it is humble and sure-footed, reflecting the clarity of Jesus about his path. Jesus knows he is not going to please the people by becoming their earthly king, which is what they want. That is the reason for all the praise and hosannas! He knows the Romans are going to kill him because he has too many followers and has become a threat. He knows that the Pharisees are also going to support his death because he has become a threat to their power. He does not fight the reality that is part of his human journey.
The other part of the story is that Jesus is very aware of the reality of his situation and the human limitations of his closest friends. Judas will betray him for 30 pieces of silver and Peter will deny that he even knows Jesus three times. He predicts this even as it comes to pass, even as the disciples deny that they will do these things. They are human beings not yet aware of the fullness of what Jesus is trying to teach them. We hear the very human Jesus express anguish when his disciples fall asleep in the Garden of Gesthemane. We hear the anguish as he prays, “take this cup from me,” before his arrest. And yet, he follows through on this human journey in faith that God is with him and has not deserted him. It is a huge, huge, lift of faith and yet he does it and does not stop the events leading to his crucifixion. He remains present to what is no matter how painful and difficult.
What does that mean for us? Well, the opening story was one of betrayal and death of another leader, a Roman emperor, Julius Caesar. In the Shakespearean play, Brutus says something to Caesar about the fault lying in our “stars” alluding to when we are born. Caesar corrects him saying the “fault lies with us.” This is truly an empowering statement that acknowledges what is there, what is real and as our Buddhist friends would say, Karma is real and bites hard! It is not about blame, it is about our capacity to be with what is and to lean into it and learn and grow from it. When we forgive, we stop arguing with what is there, expecting it to be other than what it is. It is true freedom.
I don’t always want to do that! Who wants to go to an IRS audit, a divorce hearing, a custody hearing, mediation with a difficult colleague, a difficult and painful medical procedure, the deathbed and funeral of a loved one? Not me! But when I find myself there, I pray to have equanimity to be with what is there, to have clarity about my part of any of it and the presence of mind to show up with true love, self-love for sure. We don’t always show up that way, even when we want to do so. As we learned from Buddhism and from the example of Jesus, suffering is inevitable but how we engage the suffering is what really matters.
Richard Rohr’s March 15 blog, “Facing Reality” says it this way:
Both God’s truest identity and our own True Self are Love. So why isn’t it obvious? How do we find what is supposedly already there? Why should we need to awaken our deepest and most profound selves? How do we do it? ….the most important way is to live and fully acknowledge our present reality. This solution sounds so simple that most of us fabricate all kinds of religious trappings to avoid taking up our own inglorious, mundane, and ever-present cross of the present moment.
As James Finley says, “The greatest teacher of God’s presence in our life is our life.” For some reason, it is easier to attend church services than quite simply to reverence the Real—the “practice of the presence of God,” as some saints have called it. Making this commitment ….(requires) vigilance, desire, and willingness to begin again and again. Living and accepting our reality will not feel very spiritual. It will feel like we are on the edges rather than dealing with the essence. That’s why many run toward more esoteric and dramatic postures instead of bearing the mystery of God’s suffering and God’s joy inside themselves. But the edges of our lives—fully experienced, suffered, and enjoyed—lead us back to the center and the essence, which is Love.
We cannot truly love until we experience all the edges of our lives, all the suffering, deserved or not, all the betrayals, all the hurts and the deep mystery of healing that returns us to a new life, one beyond what we have humanly experienced. We are called to follow Jesus, to do his journey to the center of love by fully experiencing our own lives. We may be praying for pizza and be upset at God with what is “not pizza” as in the opening prayer. It is only in fully embracing all the wonderful and awful parts of our lives that we are finally free to fully live and truly enjoy the pizza when the Universe delivers!
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb