Commentary on Lectionary for April 17, 2011

Palm Sunday

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31: 9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 26:14-27:66

It’s the little images, the short phrases in these readings that are intriguing. For example, those first lines of the Isaiah reading: 4The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. 5The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious…

The idea that a teacher can sustain a weary person with a word! What would that word be? Would it be a word of understanding or the kind of praise that sees something deep inside of you that you yourself are only vaguely aware of?

And then Isaiah puts before us this image of having your ear awakened. As we get bombarded with commercials, phone calls, texts, emails and everyone shouting, cajoling, seducing us for our money, we have to put our hands over our ears. I doubt they had such over-stimulation in prophetic times. But they may have needed to have their ears awakened so they could take in a really important message.

And then there’s the Psalmist, who sounds like a depressed paranoid schizophrenic: “I hear the whispering of many— terror all around!— as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But then he says there’s one person he trusts: the Lord! He pleads for what he imagines—that the Lord’s face may shine upon him. Think about what it means to have someone you trust greet you with a shining face. Would any words be necessary?

Paul says his joy will be complete if we could only be of the same mind and realize that God is at work in all of us. Instead of posturing, needing recognition, needing control, think of Jesus, who gave everything up and took the form of a servant.

Not only that, as Matthew makes clear in the story of his execution, he took the form of one who was deserted by his friends, betrayed by his own disciple. He took the form of a criminal, of one whom the government thought deserved the death penalty. He took the form of bread and wine.

If our own world starts to crumble, what word would sustain us? What face would shine upon us? Can we awaken an ear to hear it? Can we put our ear to the ground to hear the good news that a faith community provides? Can our spirits be like a huge vacuum sucking up enough light and peace to become beacons ourselves?

What if the word is “TRUST” and what if the face is GOD’s?