Luke 19:29-41
The Things that Make for Peace
This has been the holiest of Holy Weeks.
As you know, On Monday at 5 pm a group of us welcomed our beloved new friends, Zahida and Malik. We met as they began their sanctuary stay with us. We formed a small procession as we walked them downstairs to their new temporary quarters saying welcome, welcome we are honored to have you with us.
We hope to be worthy of these friendships entrusted to us.
In the Letter to the Hebrews, we recall that “always we must welcome the stranger for surely we are entertaining angels unaware.” (13.2)
While Malik and Zahida are from Pakistan, their home is in New Britain for 18 years. They are known by the locals for their generosity to the community– and for their great pizza! They are also famous for their outgoing and precious daughter, Roniya who turns on the charm and sings with abandon! I’ve seen the videos!
Together, we’ve been like the disciples waiting in the Upper Room trembling with fear of what may happen next and yet, comforted by being together in loving community.
All week an amazing team of our church members mobilized for sleepovers, food, a toaster and showers to make the basement a home away from home.
One wise theologian among us said, we’ve created a place of paradise here in the midst of hell.
The ankle bracelet on Malik’s leg is a chilling sight and reminder of the oppression they are enduring. The freedom they do not have.
On Thursday, at the press conference here in our meetinghouse, moving testimonies were given and the small band of advocates along with Malik and Zahida spoke truth to power in the face of their ongoing persecution.
These stones shall not be silent!
On Saturday morning, we left our new friends in safe haven in our church and gathered with the multitudes at the March against Gun violence in Guilford. Apparently there were over 800 marches across the country and countless others around the world!
One teenager at the podium spoken eloquently about how she doesn’t want to be known for being the “Lockdown Generation” but instead dreams of being famous for curing cancer or saving the world from climate destruction.
These brave young leaders are today’s prophetic voices.
These stones shall not be silent!
In Luke’s gospel text this morning, the scene on the road to Jerusalem initially is one of celebration. Sitting on a borrowed colt, Jesus making his way down from the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem to the city. This isn’t a royal entrance of marching armies but, a procession of peace lined with the cloaks of followers. Perhaps they witnessed Jesus’ ministry and teachings. Maybe they’d heard a parable or two and were touched by Jesus’ healing presence and mercy.
And as they welcomed him, the scripture says the disciples “praised God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen.” (v.38)
When asked by the Pharisees, to quiet the commotion, Jesus refuses and quotes from
the prophets (“I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” (see Habbukuk 2.11)
It is a watershed moment between heaven and hell, life and death,
crucifixion and resurrection. We know what’s ahead.
At the next turn, Jesus catches a glimpse of the teeming city and weeps.
Jesus’ tears are familiar to us and so very human…we find him weeping at the bedside of his friend Lazarus and earlier in Luke’s gospel, Jesus laments the city’s oppression, calling it the place “that kills its prophets and stones those who are sent to it.” (13.34) He goes on, “ How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”
Jesus’ tears may hold the deep grief over his inability to create the sanctuary of love and mercy for His beloved People.
As Jesus weeps, he tells the crowd, “If you, even you, only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! (v.41)
How do we journey on together in this threshold place of rejoicing and lament in our own lives?
This has been the holiest of Holy Weeks.
On this Palm Sunday, our kids wave palms and dance their own dances around our meetinghouse. We know well the deeds of love that abound here at FCCOL and at the same time, have witnessed the actions of injustice and cruelty against this cherished family (and countless more like them.)
Together, we hold gently the responsibility, privilege and commitment of what it means to now be a Sanctuary for others-
How will we be shaped by this profound call in the coming days?
We marvel, too, at the loud, growing voices out in our world that bring us HOPE, those crying for justice, freedom and the things that make for peace– voices from our young people who have inspired a movement of change that is already changing the world.
These stones shall not be silent!
Friends, with a determined hope, steady faith and resilient love, we have everything we need to accompany and support our new friends in the nitty gritty of radical hospitality. However long it takes.
With palms and hosannas lifted up, our spirits rise for the unknown journey ahead. We’re on the lookout for resurrection!
Writes the poet Becca Stevens ,
Before the sun rose,
Or an altar was hewn
Before the crocus bloomed
Or a winter passed
Before the birds sang
or the seas parted
Before a word was spoken
Or an apple bitten.
Before the wine was blessed
Or a cross lifted
Before the path was chosen
Or a prayer offered
There was sanctuary.
There was sanctuary. Amen!