It Was Quite a Rally (Reflections on m Palm Sunday 2026)

 

“Tell the daughter of Zion,

Look, your king is coming to you,

    humble and mounted on a donkey,

        and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Matthew 21:5—quoting Zechariah 9:9)

 

So, did you hear about the March 28 “No Kings” rally? I’m writing this post before the event, but I’ll bet it’s going to be one epic shindig—actually a bunch of epic shindigs all across the country. I don’t have to tell you that lots of people are pretty upset these days. It seems our government has decided to start a war without asking our elected officials for permission. There’s also been no small amount of public ire over the way untrained goons have been dispatched into our city streets with, apparently, unlimited authority to harass anyone who speaks English with an accent. The President thinks we should all bring our birth certificate and passport (assuming you have a passport) to the polls in order to be allowed to vote. And, of course, prices—particularly gasoline prices—are shooting up like a bottle rocket dipped in gasoline. (This last is particularly irksome to Americans as even a ten cent per gallon increase at the pump is historically received as if it were a crime against humanity!) All considered, it’s not hard to see why folks have taken to the streets to register their displeasure.

I think we can well sympathize with the folks who came out in mass for a demonstration in that Jerusalem street back in 33 AD. They were none too happy with their rulers. They were living under occupation by a foreign empire whose big chief expected to be worshiped like a god. Their governor had no respect for their culture. Pontius Pilate once robbed their temple treasury for a building project and had his secret police beat the living snot out of the people who gathered to protest.[i] Roman taxes were pretty high, too, and the tax collectors weren’t exactly the most honest civil servants you could ask for. There was a lot of corruption and a lot of anger in those streets, and it didn’t take much for a riot to break out.

Every year, just around the time of the spring equinox, we Christian re-enact one of those public demonstrations. This one, however, was actually peaceful—but it was no less political. You know Jesus knew exactly what kind of statement he was making when he rolled into town on that donkey[ii]. He knew folks would be familiar with Zechariah 9:9[iii] They’d recognize the rabbi riding the donkey was doing something they expected a true king to do. At least that’s what their prophet had told them:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The folks must’ve caught on to the symbolism because they start shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Hosanna” was originally a phrase which meant “Help us, please!” The people were sending out an S.O.S. indicating they were none too pleased with the way things were going and they begged Jesus to save them from the goat rodeo that was life under Roman occupation and the religious authorities collusion. To drive home the point, they call Jesus the “Son of David.” David, of course, was Israel’s greatest king back in the good old days before the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions and the country’s subsequent subjugation to other neighborhood bullies. Back when Israel was the meanest dog on the block and didn’t take guff from anyone. Jesus, as we know, was born in the family of David[iv], so you can see why people were expecting some pretty radical stuff from him—as if Jesus’ teachings weren’t radical enough!

All of this kingly hoopla about Jesus must’ve given the local authorities a real wedgie. But then, just in case the street demonstration was too subtle for the ruling class, Jesus entered the temple and performed a pretty wild act of civil disobedience. He chased out the money folks who were ripping off the peasants and invited into God’s house the blind and the lame—the folks the authorities looked at as sinners cursed by God. Jesus then provided these marginalized people free healthcare.

This “Pro King” rally back in 33 AD was certainly a political statement in its time. An abused and discontented people looked at Tiberius Caesar and said, “Not my emperor!” They were fed up with the cruelty and corruption and greed they saw in Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, and all the other big shots. What they wanted was a king who loved them and would rule in mercy and righteousness.

Every year we in the Church reenact this famous street protest. We wave the palm branches and sing “Glory, Laud, and Honor” to the one whose kingdom is not of this world, but whose kingly authority is meant to rule in our hearts. As obedient subjects of this king, we strive to love everyone, even those with whom we disagree. We are to practice humility, kindness, forbearance, mercy, charity, inclusivity, generosity, and hospitality. If the rulers of this world aren’t into those things, we who are ruled by Christ will press on with them anyway. For us, the demonstration never ends.

Keep singing, my friend. Keep believing. Keep on keeping on.

 

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[i] This story isn’t in the Bible, but was recorded by the historian Flavius Josephus in his Antiquities 18:60-62)

[ii] Don’t get too hung up on Matthew’s insistence that there were two donkeys. Jesus wasn’t a trick rider. This was likely a mistranslation of the Zechariah text Matthew was quoting.

[iii] Actually, there was no “9:9” in those days. The Bible verses were numbered hundreds of years later.

[iv] See Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38.

Even if it Stinks (Reflections on Lent 5, Year A 2026)

 

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-27)

I phoned my friend Jerry this past week. We met years ago at the Lutheran/Roman Catholic Dialogue, and I’ve always known him to be a good dude. In fact, if you looked up “good dude” in the dictionary there should be a picture of Jerry. He’s a US Navy veteran, a retired Philadelphia police officer, and a retired religion teacher at several of the high schools in the Catholic Diocese of Philadelphia (he was even principal at one of these schools) and has been a Roman Catholic Permanent Deacon for the last thirty years. Jerry always used to come out and represent Saint Anselm’s Parish at our annual ecumenical Easter Sunrise Service. He once told a family who requested I speak at their loved one’s funeral, “I know Pastor Owen. He’s a good man. He’d make a good Catholic.” I guess to Jerry that was high praise.

But Jerry has cancer. He’s been fighting it for a long time. Now he’s seventy-nine years of age and getting really tired. And his doctors tell him the cancer drug has stopped working.

That stinks.

I think I know how his family feels. They’re probably praying a prayer similar to the one Jesus hears in the Gospel Lesson the RCL gives us for Lent 5 (John 11:1-45): “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” I’ll bet they’re praying Jesus shows up in time—not to raise a soul to heaven but to give a body a little more time here on earth. I wish I had the power with my own prayers to grant that time to Jerry.

But Jerry, who has been a minister of sorts all his life, is resting rather serenely in the promise I printed above. “Those who believe in me,” Jesus says, “even though they die, will live.” He’s cool with that.

This story from the eleventh chapter of Saint John’s gospel always has me thinking about the way we handle grief and loss. Both of Lazarus’ sisters confront Jesus with the statement, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” They both play the “if” game. It’s the same one we often play ourselves. If such-and-such had happened, or if such-and-such had not happened, the ending would be different. But Jesus has no time for ifs. He changes the question to “do you believe?” And—really—that’s the most important question of all.

Our faith asks us to believe and trust that God can give new life to things we think are already dead and stinking. We worry about the future of Christianity in America as we witness the rise of the “nones” (those with no religious affiliation) or watch as Christian Nationalist nitwits profane our faith and alienate the young by preaching intolerance as virtue. We fret about the future of our country as we see one bad decision following another made by a government of uniquely unqualified, corrupt, and rapacious nincompoops. We are right to lose sleep over a war and its collateral damage. We grow increasingly uneasy about rising prices and dwindling financial resources, and we sniff the stench of decay at times over relationships, aspirations, and our own physical and emotional health.

And yet, Jesus asks us, “Do you believe?”

Despair is, as Luther told us, a great and serious sin. But, perhaps, when we’ve reached the point of thinking something is dead and in the grave, that the raven is croaking “Nevermore,” we have not seen what God has the power to do. Doubt is a cousin to despair, but it still admits a sliver of daylight. Doubt comes when the Lord says to us, “Mortal, can these bones live?” and we answer, “O Lord God, you know,” because we certainly don’t know ourselves. Nevertheless, we admit a possibility. If we can admit the possibility we can move from despair to doubt and from doubt to hope. Hope says what we long for may not be so, but we will press on anyway as if it is. If we can move from doubt to hope, in time we may make it all the torturous way to belief. Belief says “I can’t see it or prove it, but I know in my soul the Lord God loves me and all God has made. I know with unshakable faith God is in control and God will make things anew—perhaps not the way I imagine, but beautiful all the same. God can and will—should I be willing—use me to the furtherance of God’s glorious will. This moment is temporary. God is eternal.

I wish my friend Deacon Jerry were well and strong enough to join us at sunrise on Easter this year, but even if he is not, I know that he will be with us in spirit. And I know someday we will all be whooping it up together in celebration of an Easter morning that has no end.

Keep believing. I’m so glad you stopped by!

You See? (Reflections on Lent 4, Year A 2026)

 

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” (John 9:39)

Sometimes we only see what we want to see. I guess every dumb thing I’ve ever done looked like a good idea at the time.

There’s a great story in the first pericope lesson appointed in the Revised Common Lectionary for Lent 4 (1 Samuel 16:1-13). I really love the whole saga of the kings of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures. It’s full of jealousy, plotting, intrigue, and general skullduggery. All of First and Second Samuel and a good chunk of Kings and Chronicles reads kind of like a Tom Clancey novel. But I digress.

I think the compilers of the Lectionary wanted us to focus on verse 7: “…for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Jesse’s youngest boy, David, doesn’t look like the kind of guy who should be king over Israel, but God sees what everyone else seems to be missing.

If you know this story, you know there’s a woeful lack of vision here. It starts earlier when the people of Israel look around and see that all the other peoples in the ancient Near East have kings, and they decide they should have a king. So, they go to their prophet Samuel and ask him to ask God for a king. God knows this is a real lack of insight on the part of the people. He tells Sam to warn the folks that giving so much power to one mortal dude is going to bring about a world of grief. The only king should be the Lord God. Samuel passes on the message. Do the people listen? Heck no! They see all the other tribes with kings, and they want one too. Okay, God says, but when this guy turns out to be a jerk, don’t come crying to me.

God does pick a pretty good guy to be king. Saul is a big, tall, impressive looking fellow, and he manages to get the job done of defeating some of Israel’s enemies. But then he gets blinded by his own success, violates the separation of powers, and ignores the commands of God. When Saul starts thinking he can do whatever he wants, God withdraws God’s support. Samuel has to look for a new king to anoint.

Spoiler alert here. Saul anoints David—the least likely candidate—and David is a really righteous guy. He fights bravely for his country, and he refuses to denounce Saul even though jealous Saul has put a hit out on him. David respects the king’s office. When Saul is killed in battle and David is crowned, he reacts with humility. But then he gets blinded by his victories and the love the people show him. Almost as soon as the crown goes on his head, David becomes just as corrupt as Saul. Of course, David ultimately sees the error of his ways, but at the end of his life his personal life is spilled porta-potty. He dies a beloved monarch but a sad old man. I have to wonder if God saw that coming.

We see what we want to see. It’s possible to have such a great vision that we become blind. In 2007 I read Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church and I became inspired to launch a massive direct mail evangelism project. I raised thousands of dollars for postage and printing and planned to reach 22,000 households within a two-mile radius of the church. A beloved older sister of the church told me she had seen such a program before and assured me it would not work. Rather, I’d simply be wasting the congregation’s time and financial resources. Nevertheless, I pressed on. The program reached the 22,000 homes and netted Faith Lutheran the growth of exactly one new family—a family which vanished from our pews as soon as the youngest child made confirmation. The venerable sister saw what I did not.

Of course, Rick Warren’s vision wasn’t exactly 20/20. He saw the potential of using business-style marketing tools to attract “seekers” to his Southern California congregation. He revamped the church by eliminating the arcane symbols and vocabulary of Christianity which might’ve been off-putting to people unfamiliar with the faith. What he failed to see was, by eliminating symbols and traditions which had such deep historic meaning, he was alienating older Christians and failing to provide the newcomers with the profound substance of life in Jesus Christ.

Our gospel lesson (John 9:1-41) is full of myopic people. The disciples don’t see the young mendicant as a child of God. They see only his affliction and see that as a sign of punishment for sin. The bystanders who behold the miracle of the blind man receiving sight don’t believe their eyes. They can’t see the miracle because they don’t believe there could really be one. The blind man’s parents don’t see the joy and new life this healing has given their boy. They only see their status in the community is threatened. The Pharisees, of course, don’t see the Son of God in their midst. They only see the infraction of Sabbath law—a law they jealously guard as a symbol of their own self-righteous importance.

What are we not seeing? What does God want us to observe about our lives or the lives of others or the work God is doing to which we have turned a blind eye? Can we admit we might be missing something? We observe the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

I think these stories in our lessons are appropriate for the penitent season of Lent. Sometimes we just have to admit—at least I have to—that we’re groping in the darkness. Lord, you know our hearts. Show us where we’ve wandered off the road. Show us what we are too stubborn to see. Help us to see as you see.

God bless you, my friend. I’m honored you came to visit my blog. Please come again.

 

 

Have Some Living Water (Reflections on Lent 3, Year A 2026)

 

“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24)

I love the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well which is the gospel lesson in the RCL for Lent 3, Year A (John 4:5-42). Jesus’ chat with this gal is actually the longest conversation he has with anyone in the Bible. And, like so many of his interactions with folks, he always confuses the bejeezes out of them—and maybe out of us, too.

There are some important “woman at the well” stories in the Hebrew scriptures[i]. Back in the day, that’s where a guy could go to cruise chicks because fetching the water was always women’s work. In fact, in much of the developing world today it still is. There is a scene in the 2016 film Whiskey Tango Foxtrot[ii] about Afghani women who must walk a mile from their village every day to draw water from a well. The US Army Corp of Engineers digs a well for the women in their own village so they need not make this grueling daily journey. Mysteriously, however, this well keeps getting destroyed. The soldiers blame the Taliban or other insurgents, but a clever woman reporter realizes the women have sabotaged the well themselves. Walking that mile to the well every day is the only chance they have for some girl time away from the men.

You’ll notice the well in our gospel lesson is located outside of the village so the Samaritan women would have a bit of a hike to get to it. I think it’s significant that in the gospel story the woman at the well is alone. She’s come at noon, not in the morning, possibly to avoid the other ladies who might’ve shunned her, thinking she’s a skank for having hooked up with so many dudes. Being by herself, there’s nobody around to give her guff for breaking what must certainly have been a strict bit of cultural etiquette—she’s talking to a strange man without a family member around. I’ll bet in the ancient world a girl could get herself a reputation for doing something like that. If she didn’t already have a reputation, that is.

None of this cultural stuff seems to bother Jesus. He’s willing to strike up a conversation with an unescorted lady—and a Samaritan at that. Note how John the evangelist likes to point out that Jews and Samaritans aren’t exactly kissing cousins. Nevertheless, Jesus is open to this encounter. He’s not afraid of getting cooties by drinking from the same cup as a Samaritan. What really freaks this lady out, however, is Jesus’ cryptic reference to the “Living Water.”

In the world of the text, “living water” may have referred to water flowing from a stream or from a spring. Well water, in contrast, doesn’t seem to give off the same vibe of freshness. It just sits there at the bottom of the well where the cruddy micro-organisms hang out. I’m sure our unnamed heroine would much prefer living water to whatever she has to pull up from the bottom of that well, but there isn’t a stream or spring in the neighborhood. You can’t blame her for being a little confused by what this strange Jew is telling her.

Obviously, Jesus is peaking metaphorically as he often does. What’s “living water?” We could say it’s the Holy Spirit. It’s God reassuring, revitalizing presence within us. Maybe it’s just God’s grace. It’s unconditional love for us which translates into our love for others. Maybe it’s a reference to Holy Baptism. I kind of like that idea. What does baptism do? First, it forgives sins. Jesus knows this gal’s been around the block a few times, but I don’t think he wants to scold her for all the guys she’s been with. Rather, I think he wants her to embrace a life that’s free from shame. Yes, she may have broken some rules, but nobody should be defined by their sin or guilt. The other purpose of baptism is to wash the baptized into the communion of saints. The water of baptism gives us identity as God’s children and makes us a family. We are no longer outcasts when we claim this living water.

I’m sure our heroine must’ve been confused by what this strange Jew was saying to her, but I hope she recognized Jesus’ cultural sensitivity when he suggests they continue the conversation in the presence of her husband. She confesses she’s not married, and Jesus tells her he knows the guy she’s shacked up with isn’t her husband. Rather than being offended (face it, Jesus was telling the truth), the woman realizes she’s talking to a pretty holy guy and starts to ask him some religious questions. I wonder if she’d been puzzling over this question about where to worship for a long time but was just afraid to ask anyone about it. Sometimes we keep our mouths shut and our questions to ourselves out of fear of looking dumb or causing offense or rocking the boat somehow.

That’s a big take-away from this story. God doesn’t care about the form of our worship or about any of the piddly little things which we fuss over and which divide us as people. There is only one God, and we must worship God in spirit and in truth. Part of this worship is learning to love our neighbors in spite of our differences and past histories.

There are two other things which always pop out at me in this story. The first is that we have a female evangelist. This woman on the outside of society rallies folks on the inside to come to Jesus. That’s pretty cool. The other thing I love is Jesus’ apparent joy over this encounter. When the woman is moved and moves others to come to him, the Son of God feels great satisfaction. When his buddies come back from town with the take-out order, Jesus isn’t hungry. He’s been fed and refreshed by doing the work of the Father.

We should all take our nourishment in that way. Amen?

May God bless you and keep you safe and well during this Lenten season and straight through the joy of Easter. Please drop me a comment and come and visit again.

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[i] Abraham’s servant finds a wife for Isaac at a well (Genesis24:15-27), Jacob met Rchel at a well (Genesis 29:10-11), and Moses met Zipporah at a well (Exodus 2:15-22).

[ii] The movie was based on journalist Kim Barker’s 2011 book The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, if you catch the significance, rather accurately expresses American foreign policy as it still is today.