Erl Purnell Sermon

bPalm Sunday ~ April 9, 2006 ~ A sermon preached by The Rev’d Erl G. Purnell at Old St. Andrew’s Church, Bloomfield, CT

Isaiah 45.21-25; Psalm 22.1-11; Philippians 2.5-11; Mark 14.32-15.47

The story we’ve heard again today has been told and retold for generations. We tell the story by living it out all week long in the passion of Holy Week. As I’ve said so often recently, please consider experiencing this week of the passion through prayer, meditation, and worship.

As I approach Holy Week 2006, I’ve been looking back at my own formation as a youngster who attended St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Ligonier, Pennsylvania in the 1950s. Church was not something we decided about weekly. As a family, we just went to church every week, no questions asked. Well, that’s not exactly true. It seems like, “Oh, do we have to?” popped out of somebody’s mouth pretty often. It never had any real effect though, except maybe to elicit, “Hurry up, or we’ll be late.”

The Purnell family consisted of six children, five brothers, including my younger brothers who were triplets, and a sister. So, somebody—usually Mom—had to get all of us dressed and out the door for either school or church six days a week. Not an easy task. Blessèdly, our parents left us to our own devices on Saturdays.

We lived on a rambling 132 acre farm with a sizable garden, an apple orchard, fields for hay and corn, a brook with craw fish and water moccasins in it, and a huge barn filled with animals—sheep, pigs, veal calves, horses, and…a donkey. The donkey’s name was Chica and she was mine.

Why my grandparents gave me a donkey for my seventh birthday, I’ll never know. Grandfeathers had been stationed in Central America as commander of Naval forces in the area. He was a Rear Admiral which is probably how he got Chica back to the United States and to our farm without the customary hassles like quarantine. Anyway, Chica was part of the family. To fully appreciate what I mean by “part of the family”, let me give you a few details.

Because we had a lot of animals on the farm and because we were pretty ordinary country folk, we found it both reasonable and convenient to fence the animals. No surprise there. That way, the sheep were with the other sheep and the horses with the horses. The pigs were in the pig pen. The three dogs ran free, of course, along with the four or five cats we had at any one time. The obvious place for Chica, the donkey, was with the horses.

Well, talk about an insult. At first I didn’t speak donkey, but I learned the language pretty fast. After constant “Hee Haws” for a couple of days and Chica’s uncanny ability to escape the horse pasture, we came to understand that Chica had not the slightest intention of living with a couple of long legged though bred hunters. Moreover, she didn’t mean to be fenced at all. One morning shortly after breakfast, she Hee Hawed just as clear as could be, “Wasn’t pastured and fenced in Guatemala and won’t be pastured and fenced here, thank you very much.”

My Mom was very tolerant of animals—a lot more tolerant of them than she was of the six of us—and so she just accepted that Chica would roam free like the dogs, and that’s exactly what she did. It was that spring Dad needed to fence the garden…to keep Chica out! Chica made herself right at home on Powder Mill Farm, wandering around and nibbling the lawn at her leisure. She didn’t roam at all. Why?, when there was so much good grass available and kids running all over the place.

Chica was so much a part of the family that she took walks with us down our old dirt road—knocked brother Tom’s front teeth out one Sunday when she kicked up her hind hooves in a display of unbridled exuberance. More than once Chica sashayed right up and onto the wonderful spindle-railed wrap-around porch and leaned right over the half-open Dutch door and into the kitchen. I’ll bet none of you have ever had a donkey stick her head in to watch you eat lunch at the kitchen table.

All of which is to say, I know a little something about the critter that carried Jesus from Bethphage and Bethany to Jerusalem. The choice of a donkey for Jesus is just perfect, completely consistent with his “new-rules” social and religious movement.

Even though the opening line of today’s service says, “Blessed is the king…”, Jesus is anything but what one might expect a king to be. No crown. No fancy palace. No royal robes. No power. No army. No big horse, just a donkey. Jesus of Nazareth, an itinerant healer, teacher, spirit person comes into Jerusalem, that holy city, sitting on the rump of a donkey with his feet dangling down. He and the donkey are awkward characters in a world that honors and values the rich, famous, powerful, and good looking. We don’t know what Jesus looked like but there are few people willing to sing the praises of a donkey’s exceptionally good looks. (Gretchen LaBau and I might be two of them.) Anyway, what could possibly compel a world of people to pay attention to this Jesus? He’s as unassuming and humble as a donkey. He has neither royal nor loyal subjects.

What Jesus does have, however, is a new perspective on the world, on how things should be, on how people should live and be in relationship with each other and with God. Kind of makes me wonder if Jesus’ donkey didn’t pass along some good sense genetically to Chica who figured out that the way to live is to be free, while at the same time, an integral part of a loving family.

A lot happened in the last week of Jesus’ life. There are myriad details, like his entering Jerusalem on a donkey. Although you know what happens— the order of things to come and the empty tomb—can you step into this week with a new perspective? Here’s what I mean.

As the week’s events unfold, instead of watching from a far—that is, from the spectators’ pew in the 21^st century—can you step into the drama and adopt the point of view of some of the supporting characters? No, not that of the apostles, or Pilate, or Caiaphas. Rather, consider what’s happening from the fringes. Maybe start by entering Jerusalem as the donkey with this strange man on your back. What’s that like? Imagine yourself a money-changer or a dove-seller when a wild man comes and knocks everything over. Take the place of the unknown woman who kindly anoints Jesus with expensive oil. What about the man whose ear is cut off after Jesus is arrested? Be that man and ask, What’s going on here? Or, make yourself the young man who runs away naked. Who is he? What’s he doing at Gethsemane that night? Slip into the sandals of the girl who recognizes Peter as a Galilean and friend of Jesus only to have Peter blurt out a denial three times. Stand as the guard who whips Jesus. What does that feel like? Act the part of Simon of Cyrene and lug the cross beam for Jesus to Golgotha. What goes through his mind? Look up and see Jesus dead on the cross as the Centurion. Would you say what he says? Come to the tomb on Sunday morning with the distraught heart of Mary Magdalene.

You see what I mean, don’t you? Try it. Try living into the passion story in order to understand what was happening and why and how it effected various people along the way. Open new eyes, find a new perspective, to this compelling story. You may be surprised by what happens and by what you learn about yourself and Jesus who was crucified but was then resurrected.

Amen.