-
This post is reprinted with permission from Nancy Willbank's blog, All Our Days.
--
Hosanna means “Save us now!”
I want to thank Diana Butler Bass for reminding me this morning in her Palm Sunday Musings: Protest not Parade, that Hosanna means “O save us now,” and is not a praise word like “Alleluia,” and for her observation that Palm Sunday and Holy Week make more sense in terms of crowd dynamics if you understand the Palm Sunday crowd as frightened people, crying “save us!,” as “desperate subjects of a bloody empire,” who are disappointed by Jesus’ failure to overthrow the Roman government right then, and who capitulate and hunker down in the face of his arrest by the Roman soldiers and hoping to avoid a similar fate. She reminds me that many people have this natural tendency to back down in the face of threats. Power over with its threats to safety/security/life leads to “fight, flight or freeze” responses, and we’ve seen a lot of examples of different responses in the news recently..Protest or Parade?
A couple of years ago (in 2023), a ministry colleague needed surgery and the only time she could get the surgery was just before Palm Sunday, so she asked/begged me to cover for her for Palm Sunday and Easter. She knew I had just left the congregation I’d been serving and she sounded both so desperate and sincere about wanting me to preach that I said yes. I knew her as a thoughtful, progressive, and caring person, an immigrant, a woman of color, who’d gotten a Ph.D. in theology. Her church was in an old mill town that had a fair amount of gentrification as well as a good number of immigrants. I assumed that her congregation would be somewhat diverse and used to being challenged to think by her sermons.
In the beginning of my sermon, I asked how many people had been to or in a parade and how many had been to a protest march, rally or vigil. Let’s just say that my assumptions about diversity were in error and very few people had been to a protest, rally or vigil. When I described a parade versus a protest march, and asked whether they thought Palm Sunday was a parade or a protest march, most did not agree with me (or Diana Butler Bass) that it was a protest. (Maybe 4-5 did?)
In fact after the sermon, a lesbian couple came up to me to report that they happened to be sitting near someone who audibly responded to the idea that Jesus was leading a protest with, “What horsesh*t!!” The couple further shared how poorly those same people had been treating them after they discovered this couple was a couple, even though they were all long-time members of the congregation. I spent about 20 minutes doing pastoral counseling in the aisle after church about things we’d like to protest, (and yes, I did follow-up with their pastor later).
Cry Out: A Palm Sunday Protest by Nancy Willbanks
Today, I didn’t end up making it to church, but I did do a lot of thinking again about Hosanna, and Palm Sunday as protest. This afternoon, musical inspiration struck.
I want to dedicate this song that emerged to any/all of us who are frightened, to all those who don’t think Jesus was leading a protest march, and to all of us who may have something to learn from stones and rocks.
--
To listen to an audio recording or review a score of "Cry Out" and finish reading the article, go to Nancy's webpage, All My Days.
Nancy Willbanks is a second career minister, ordained in 2011 in the ABC-USA, and has served churches in Cambridge and Littleton, MA. Today Nancy’s ministry includes writing reflections and composing music, leading book groups and contemplative nature walks, all of which you can link to via https://allourdays.substack.com/. She also regularly co-facilitates Monday Morning Grounding for Music that Makes Community, on Zoom, and serves as an occasional workshop and retreat facilitator for Music that Makes Community, as well as serving on the MMC Board.
Do you like this post?
Showing 1 contribution