Palm Sunday, March 24, 2024
Becoming Humble
Scripture: Mark 11:1-11; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Psalm 31:9-16;
Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 15:1-39
For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness, and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Thomas Merton
For three years, Jesus walked with his disciples throughout Palestine, teaching and preaching and healing—gathering disaffected people with messages of a new kind of community that would flourish in hope and love. He turned expectations upside down, tore apart familiar systems of power and injustice, offered alternative ways of living. His was a “bottom-up” message, a story of inclusion and liberation designed to redefine the traditional social and political hierarchy—and one that brought him into direct confrontation with history. Jesus broke things—not to destroy, but to restore. Not to enable complacency, but to insist on action. Not to promote despair, but to announce joy.
It would be easy to identify with those who cheered and threw down their palm branches before Jesus as he entered Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday—especially in the chaos and suffering of today’s world—but we would be mistaken. The “festal processions” and “Hosannas” are just one part of the story, and they are not the end of it. They are a story of exuberant expectation, but they belie the internal pain and external humiliation Jesus would suffer. He was a “broken vessel”— “wasted from grief;” the “scorn of adversaries;” a “horror to his neighbors;” a victim of “whispering and scheming.” Simply looking for someone to get us out of the mess we are in today would be to ignore our complicity in the world’s injustice and abdicate our responsibility to help fix it. It would give us an escape route from suffering—our own and that of others. Yet sacrifice is part of the redemptive, transformational love Jesus embodied, and this week we feel—perhaps more than any other time—the external and internal turmoil manifested in our journey as Christians. It is helpful to remember that feeling when we are tempted to withdraw into whatever security and safety we have created for ourselves.
During his last week, Jesus did indeed stand before the existing power structures, but he did so not in glorious resplendent triumph as folks hoped, but in quiet defiance and humility—the epitome of stubborn determination, obedient “to the point of death.” To recall the words of Howard Thurman from an earlier meditation this month, he “yielded the nerve center of his consent” to a need greater than himself. He may have been publicly humiliated, but that did nothing to destroy his steadfast inner humility, a deep courage that manifested itself in strength—not in passive surrender but in extreme nonviolent resistance. Sir Thomas More wrote that humility is “that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot,” and Jesus shows us how to live from our “roots” and not by flashy ostentatious displays of power or influence—even in the face of our most challenging circumstances. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, it was not just about him—it was about us, too—about how we fit into the ongoing story—about our “becoming who we are” by taking risks, living into our freedom, exercising our commitment and neighborly hospitality, and stepping humbly into the footsteps of Jesus.
Whitney Plantation, Louisiana
Becoming our best selves—living solidly by our roots—reflects our capacity for humility through listening, witnessing, and offering ourselves to receive the grace that changes us forever and leads us to act on behalf of a hurting world. “The Lord has given me a trained tongue,” writes the psalmist, “that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word…and I was not rebellious; I did not turn backward.” Humility, Jesus teaches us, is the greatest demonstration of strength—the certain pathway to joy. It is not about giving up or giving in—about denying who we are or succumbing to corrosive power structures—but rather about courageously becoming who God imagines and wants us to be. It requires sacrificing our delusions of control, relinquishing the idolatry of our own egos, and accepting the wonder of un-knowing. It is in humility, said Mother Teresa, that “our love becomes real, devoted, and ardent.” We are not imprisoned by our humility; we are liberated and empowered by it. Liberated to act on behalf of a hurting world even as our nerve centers become raw with the effort.
During his life and ministry, Jesus emptied himself; he took risks and made commitments that shaped, freed, and transformed him into his best self—both divine and human—and this is our most sacred work as well. Because Jesus was humble, God “exalted him even more highly and gave him the name that is above every other name.” And this we can know for certain: God searches us and knows us and calls us, too, by name—if only we are humble enough to be silent, listen and pay attention.
The Questions for the Week
· How do you define humility? When does humility become mere servility or obsequiousness? How can it involve taking risks?
· How does humility relate to service and compassion?
· Have you ever suffered because you chose humility over ego? Have you ever stood bravely and quietly in resistance to power? What did you learn from this experience?
· Are there people in your life who model the kind of humble strength Jesus taught? Do you?
The Practices for the Week
- Keep an informal diary of “pride,” noting times when you insist on having your own way or silently feel resentment because you don’t get it. Write a prayer of humility.
- Invite someone you haven’t seen for awhile for coffee or a meal. Make a conscious effort to learn more about their story. Listen with a humble, ardent and loving heart.
- St. Francis said, “What a person is before God, that he is and no more.” Come and walk the labyrinth and make a special effort this week to participate in other Holy Week opportunities provided at First Presbyterian Church. Come just as you are and stand before God without pretense.
The Prayer for the Week
Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
(Sir Francis Drake)
Inspiration: Humble
A SUDDEN STILLNESS by David Whyte
We love the movement in a seeming stillness,
the breath in the body of the loved one sleeping,
the highest leaves in the silent wood,
a great migration in the sky above:
the waters of the earth, the blood in the body,
the first, soft, stir in the silence beneath a strident
voice, the internal hands of our mind,
always searching for touch, thoughts seeking other
thoughts, seeking other minds, the great arrival
of form through all our hidden themes.
And this breath, in this body, able,
just for a moment to give and to take,
to ask and be told, to find and be found,
to bless and be blessed, to hold and be held.
We are all a sun-lit moment come from
a long darkness, what moves us always
comes from what is hidden, what seems
to be said so suddenly has lived
in the body for a long, long time.
Our life like a breath, then, a give
and a take, a bridge, a central movement,
between singing a separate self
and learning to be selfless.
Breathe then, as if breathing for the first time,
as if remembering with what difficulty
you came into the world, what strength it took
to make that first impossible in-breath,
into a cry to be heard by the world.
Your essence has always been that first vulnerability
of being found, of being heard and of being seen,
and from the very beginning
the one who has always needed,
and been given, so much invisible help.
This is how you were when you first came
into the world, this is how you are now,
all unawares, in your new body and your new life,
this is the raw vulnerability of your
every day, and this is how you will want to be,
and be remembered, when you leave the world.
BLESSING FOR A BROKEN VESSEL by Jan Richardson
Do not despair.
You hold the memory
of what it was
to be whole.
It lives deep
in your bones.
It abides
in your heart
that has been torn
and mended
a hundred times.
It persists
in your lungs
that know the mystery
of what it means
to be full,
to be empty,
to be full again.
I am not asking you
to give up your grip
on the shards you clasp
so close to you
but to wonder
what it would be like
for those jagged edges
to meet each other
in some new pattern
that you have never imagined,
that you have never dared
to dream.
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