Here is a simple service for Palm Sunday. The theme of the service is “Jesus - the leader with principles.”
The Collect for Palm Sunday:
Almighty and everlasting God, who in your tender love towards the human race sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ to take upon him our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross: grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
We listen to the hymn Ride on ride on in majesty
Reading: Matthew 21: 1 - 11
For a year from September 2006 to August 2007 I served as minister to the town of Newton Aycliffe in County Durham. The town centre was quite run down and uncared for. But, every so often, painters were to be seen painting graffiti off walls, and the whole place was tidied up. Why? Because our MP was about to make a rare visit to us... one Tony Blair. I never met him but he wasn’t very popular in our part of the Sedgefield constituency because he really didn’t get our problems at all.
A visit from a leader is a huge thing. Them coming into our part of the world means something. We want them to notice us and understand us and do things for us to make life better.
On Palm Sunday, with Jerusalem at its busiest as the Passover was about to take place and at a time of tension because the people were fed up with being suppressed under Roman rule, Jesus, the leader, enters the city. Remember the religious context: the Jews believed that one day God would send his anointed Messiah to make life perfect again for them. Step one would be to boot out the Romans! They had expectations about what this figure would do, say and look like.
Today we have expectations of leaders. We wait to hear the Queen address the nation at a time of national emergency. We still stop on Christmas Day at 3pm to hear her deliver what is always an excellent Christmas sermon. Some people stand up for the whole of it. My late Auntie Doris used to ensure that Christmas dinner was over well before 3 so she had time to change her clothes to be properly dressed as the monarch spoke to her.
I picked up this fabulous book in a really good secondhand bookshop in Downham Market. It’s a book written by Harold Wilson about Prime Ministers. We’ve been watching the series Victoria on DVD. There were four Prime Ministers in the years the series has spanned so far: Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Russell and Viscount Palmerston. It’s been interesting even in four Victorian leaders to see different leadership styles. Weak, autocratic, enabling, maverick, but all finding when times were tough, popularity could soon turn and resignation would be inevitable.
Today we need to pray for our Prime Minister and his cabinet. Mr Johnson was elected largely on a get Brexit done ticket. He could not have expected to have to lead the country through a pandemic a few months into his leadership. The Labour Party has elected a new leader in Sir Keir Starmer. The country needs good opposition so we wish him well. He said this in his acceptance video: "This is my pledge to the British people. I will do my utmost to guide us through these difficult times, to serve all of our communities and to strive for the good of our country." Wise words we need to see in action. The pressure on political leaders is huge especially when the tabloid press gets going.
Leaders still command respect in many places but perhaps not as much as they used to! Take the Superintendent Minister in Methodism of old. I lay worked in a village church in Hertfordshire from 1991 to 1994. Some of the folk there liked to be mischievous breaking rules and often declaring mutiny. I was told “Boy, there is one rule for Methodism and one for here!”
They dug a hole for a patio without permission while I was on holiday and I arrived back to find a huge JCB! The Superintendent arrived. They only saw the Superintendent once or twice a year or if there was trouble. He got out of his car, and stared at the hole in silence. I watched a group of innocent elderly ladies shake in fear. Then he got back in his car and left. We knew where we stood! (This picture is of a later patio many years later which had permission!)
Jesus, the leader, came into the city with people wanting so much. Those who saw him waved their palm branches and shouted “Hosanna!” “Save us!” “Do something - now!” Others I think watched from a distance, plotting together how they might rid themselves of a new political and religious threat to their power. We think the noise of this day was loud and happy and like a party. But Matthew in his Gospel which we read today (Matthew 21: 1 - 11) hints at the incredulity in some there at what they saw. “Who then is this?” they exclaimed.
“Who then is this?” A leader on a donkey? He’s not what we want. So let’s turn on him! Or when it gets difficult, let’s pretend we had anything to do with him and look the other way. The great acclamations of Palm Sunday are soon turned to dust, to betrayal, to hatred and to death. The crowd knew what sort of leader they wanted, not one bringing peace, on a donkey, asking difficult questions, claiming to be God. They wanted revolution on their own terms. Jesus came into the city with the Kingdom of God, and they didn’t like it, and those who did like it, soon ran away, leaving their palm branches behind them.
I want in Holy Week to think about different emotions in Jesus as he “sets his face resolutely towards Jerusalem.” He sticks to his principles, he knows his message and though tempted to give up he keeps going.
The crowd say: “Who is this?
“Who are you Tony Blair?” we said in Aycliffe in 2007, “you haven’t a clue about our town.” So we will ignore you.
“Who are you Boris Johnson or Matt Hancock or Alok Sharma?” we shout at the press conference wanting answers now as coronavirus deaths rise and we continue in lockdown and you tell us you instruct us not to go out in the sun away from our homes.
“Who are you, football manager?” fans shout when their team is relegated.
So it results in voting the politician out, and the football manager being sacked - and what about clergy? Well, we don’t re-invite them after five years! Sticking to your principles isn’t easy. I’ve had times in leadership where I’ve tried to do what was right even when it wasn’t popular. I’ve had the nasty e mails and I once had a man who loved to come down the manse path in the dark and put really snotty letters through my door to put the fear of God in me so I might do what he wanted. We want to be liked and it hurts when we aren’t.
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