A Message from Pastor Kaji
Dear Church:
I really enjoyed worshiping with you for our last Sunday of Lent for the year. This entire season, we’ve been saying “enough” as our form of repentance. I’d love to hear from you what this has looked like in your faith life.
Now, we head into Holy Week, and I think of Jesus’ words to his friends as words to me (and us), as well. Could we not linger more closely with Jesus as we remember all that he did for us? Could we not set more time aside for him? If you have the privilege of your own schedule, Good Friday should always be a day off. Join us for worship, linger with Jesus. Live his story again. See his wounds and don’t turn away. Every year God speaks to us through Jesus’ Passion. He deserves our time.
Next Sunday, beginning at 10:30 am, we will head outside to offer Palms to our neighbors on the street. You can be a blessing to someone walking past the congregation. Invite them to come for worship. It’s good for us to come to the people.
After church, we will head back downstairs to complete the Park Sets the Table Mealkit packing for 110 families, which doubles our distributions last year. I thank our staff, Chef Jasmin and Treasurer Candace for their work to get us ready to continue to give more and more meals to the community.
We will distribute the meals in two locations on Monday 3/30 at Community Health Academy of the Heights, where our former Moderator, Rebecca Stanton teaches. This time, we are adding MS/HS223, The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology in the South Bronx. Please sign up to help us pack the kits. Many hands make light work! We need people to help Marcos Lindley Monday afternoon to take the kits to the Heights for after school.
Let’s turn to our text. We continue in Matthew’s Gospel with his telling of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We’ll wave our palms and shout our Hosannas, God save us.
Bible Nerdy Sunday Syllabus: The Colt and the Peace We Need
Before Jesus enters Jerusalem, he’s been on the road, coming up from Jericho, healing as he goes and drawing a crowd with him. By the time he reaches the city, the air is already charged. The entry opens the week’s first great movement. Ahead of us: The Temple, the Last Supper, the garden of Gethsemane, the Cross, the silence.
Palm Sunday’s story draws on two prophecies:
The LORD has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to daughter Zion, “See, your salvation comes; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.”
They shall be called, “The Holy People, The Redeemed of the LORD” and you shall be called, “Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.” (Isaiah 62:11-12, NRSV)
&
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, will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. 11As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. 12Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.
(Zechariah 9:9-12, NRSV).
Our passage from Matthew hears both prophets at once. Isaiah gives him the summons to Zion, while Zechariah gives him the image. “On a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” carries the music of Hebrew poetry, where a line is spoken and then spoken again with greater precision. The image settles lower to the ground. It grows younger, plainer, more tender. I take the scene to be Jesus riding a donkey colt.
Zechariah keeps going: the chariot, the war horse, the battle bow are all cut off. Peace is what this ruler speaks and peace is what this ruler brings. Matthew lets us see that peace.
Our friends at the SALT Project suggest that we hear Jesus’ Passion like a symphony: in movements. Palm Sunday gives us the opening movement: procession, praise, and a king already revealing the kind of peace God’s people need, a peace no war has ever been able to yield.
Questions for Reflection:
What are you asking God for right now, and what longing is sitting underneath that prayer?
When have you welcomed God’s help with a clear picture in mind, only to discover that grace was arriving in a form you did not expect?
Where in your life do you need God’s peace?
Pax Christi,
Pastor Kaji
SCRIPTURE
Matthew 21:1-11 (Year A, p. 185)
1 Now they had come near Jerusalem and reached Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village before you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; release them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Son of Woman needs them.’ And they will send them immediately.” 4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
5 “Tell the daughter of Zion,
‘Look, your sovereign is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ”
6 The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them; 7 they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that were going before him and the one following were shouting, saying:
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Holy One!
Hosanna in the highest! ”
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was shook, asking, “Who is this?” 11 The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
