PALM SUNDAY: THE SUNDAY OF THE PASSION

29 March 2026

COLLECT OF THE DAY

Eternal Father,
your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ fulfilled
your will
by taking our nature and giving his life
for us:
help us to follow the example of his
humility
by walking in the way of the cross;
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the
Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Confronting empire

     We begin where today’s service began – with Jesus’ triumphal procession into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey. As you may know, theologians Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan pointed out with great insight some twenty years ago that this procession is charged not only with spiritual meaning but also with political meaning. Jesus is heading “to the capital city of his people to confront Roman imperial power and religious collaboration with it.” [1] He is heading to Jerusalem to proclaim the power of God’s love over the powers of this world that rule by force and domination.  

      That’s the procession that we remember every year on Palm Sunday and that we re-enact as we walk into church, palm branches held high. But, as Borg and Crossan point out, today we also remember a second procession that was entering Jerusalem at the same time, at the beginning of the week of Passover. Passover was what they call a “tinderbox time” in Jerusalem [2], when the Jewish people, oppressed and crushed by Roman rule, celebrated their divine liberation from the Egyptian Empire. Riots against the Roman Empire would sometimes break out at Passover, so every year the Roman governor – which, in the time of Jesus, was Pilate – would ride up to Jerusalem from the west, from the imperial capital of Caesarea, in a mighty show of force.

    Our theologians invite us to imagine that imperial procession – calvary on horseback, foot soldiers, banners, weapons gleaming in the sun, the sound of beating drums and marching feet, the smell of dust. Pilate’s procession from the west symbolized Roman imperial power.

    By contrast, Jesus entered the city from the east, in what these theologians call a “counter-procession.” Whereas Pilate rode into the city on a war-horse, Jesus entered on a donkey. He chose to ride this humble animal because it recalls the prophet Zechariah, who predicted that the king of peace would come on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9-10). The king of peace would bring an end to war. No more chariots. No more war-horses. No more bowing and scraping. No more empire. 

     The procession that we re-enact on Palm Sunday is an act of resistance. The scene from Matthew’s Gospel that we hear in the Liturgy of the Palms sounds a lot like a conversation among people in the underground who make plans and speak in passwords to keep their arrangements secret. Jesus tells two of the disciples to go into the village ahead and to find a certain donkey tied, and a colt. He says, “If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’” And he will send them immediately (Matthew 21:3). If you’ve ever been part of a secret plan for non-violent civil disobedience, this is what it sounds like. 

    So, Palm Sunday presents us with two processions on a collision course: Jesus and Pilate, the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar. This archetypal spiritual battle is underway today in many countries around the world, including here in the United States. For us, Palm Sunday arrives this year the day after a major nationwide No Kings Day protest – the third in a series of non-violent mass protests that have galvanized millions of Americans to oppose the rising authoritarianism of our federal government and to affirm that this nation belongs to its people, not to a king. No Kings Day is only the most dramatic of countless, mostly peaceful protests [3] being carried out in communities across the country against what looks like the beginning of a police state in which opposition is silenced, dissidents are punished, the rule of law is overturned, and power is concentrated in the hands of a few wealthy men. 

    That incipient police state also seems bent on destroying the living world that God entrusted to our care. Our government’s unprecedented concentration of wealth and political power [4] has unleashed an all-out assault on climate science and the natural world. Fossil fuel companies and executives donated almost half a billion dollars to elect the current Administration and Congress [5], and these donors are now enjoying major returns on their investment. [6] The administration has swiftly dismantled policies that protect the climate [7], opened vast areas of public land and waters to drilling, canceled clean energy projects, erased the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and well-being, and is now refusing to regulate greenhouse gases [8] – all this despite the fact that climate disasters will drive still more people to become refugees, even as countries increasingly shut their doors. 

      As followers of Jesus, we hear a summons to resist. After Renée Macklin Good was fatally shot in Minneapolis by an agent of Immigration Customs and Enforcement, A. Robert Hirschfeld, the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire pointed out (in remarks that went viral) that clergy should be prepared for “a new era of martyrdom… It may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.” [9]

     In a similar vein, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe wrote a public letter to The Episcopal Church [10] in which he observed that “Like Jesus, we live in frightening times… Carrying out the simple commands of Jesus – feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, visiting prisoners, making peace – now involves risks for the church and grave danger for those we serve… We must commit ourselves to paying whatever price our witness requires of us.”

      Likewise, more than 150 Episcopal bishops released a statement [11] that affirmed our Gospel summons to respect the dignity of every human being. They declared, “This is a moment for action. We call on people of faith to stand by your values and act as your conscience demands… Every act of courage matters.” 

     Given the crisis in which we find ourselves, Palm Sunday feels different this year. Today we don’t simply remember a far-away conflict in the distant past. Today we know in a visceral way that we ourselves are reckoning with the ruthless forces of empire and its machinery of cruelty and greed. We know that our faith is on the line.

    I am filled with questions. How did Jesus find the strength – how do we find the strength – to proclaim the sovereignty of God in a society so corrupt and unjust that dissidents can be picked off the streets, detained on bogus charges, subjected to torture and humiliation, and almost casually executed? How did he – how do we – come to love God and neighbor so passionately that we are willing to give our lives to express that love? How did he – how do we – find the physical and moral courage to keep standing with the outcast and the condemned, to endure suffering, and yet to maintain a merciful and forgiving heart?  These are some of the questions I hold as we enter Holy Week. 

      I know that Jesus will help us find our way and give us the strength to follow him through this dark time with courage and faithfulness. The special services of Holy Week invite us to stay close to Jesus as we walk with him and as he walks with us. 

     I want to share a simple way of praying that has meant a lot to me over the years and that you, too, may find helpful as we walk the path of love with Jesus. As I imagine it, the cross is not far away in Golgotha nor limited to a particular place and time. The cross of Christ is planted deep within me, deep within you, and at the cross I can pour out my anger, my fear, my grief, for I trust that at the cross of Christ, everything is perpetually being met by the forgiving love of God. Whatever I need to feel and to express – rage, sorrow, fear, guilt, whatever – all of it is being met by the never-failing, boundless love of God. Everything that we bring to God is transformed at the cross. It’s like alchemy, like piling up food scraps and turning it into good compost. As I see it, crucifixion is the place where God breaks through our numbness and denial and our hearts open wide to love the world in all its suffering and pain, in all its beauty and fragility. 

     At the cross, we allow ourselves to feel anger – because anger is an expression of love. We allow ourselves to feel emptiness – because emptiness creates a space for something new to arise. We allow ourselves to feel sorrow – because shedding tears can water the soul and bring new life. We allow ourselves to feel fear – for that in itself is an act of courage. [12] Praying at the cross is where we can finally face and bear what we find so challenging, and where God in Christ can hold and bear for us whatever we cannot bear ourselves. Learning to breathe into the cross, allowing the power and love of God to contact everything within us, sets us free from being reactive and helps us to weave God’s love and strength into our very being. 

    We are not alone. Jesus is living these days with us and through us. From within your own life, with all its responsibilities, what is yours to do in this precarious time? How is Jesus inviting you to walk the path of love?