In defense of Palm Sunday

With Liturgical Renewal and the simple fact that Holy Week is not what it used to be, Palm Sunday is a fast fading tradition in the church today. It is quickly being supplanted with what we refer to as "Passion Sunday" which as one can imagine changes the focus of the service from Christ's entry into Jerusalem to Christ's Passion (suffering and death). The standard practice is quickly becoming to begin with a Palm Sunday gospel reading, process into the church waving palms to "All Glory, Laud, and Honor" and then essentially transitioning to the Passion narrative.

One thought is this is the way it should be. Passion Sunday properly puts Palm Sunday in its place, as a set up for what happens in Jerusalem. This kind of order puts the cries of "Hosanna" in contrast to the cries of "Crucify Him!" There is something to be said for the power of that, and the way it does resist a triumphalism about the entry into Jerusalem. This system also allows the lectionary to give you "two passions", namely a passion according to whatever synoptic Gospel you are on for that year (this year it is Luke) and then the reading of John's Passion on Good Friday. Of note here is that John takes a particularly different approach to the passion story than Matthew, Mark, or Luke.

Along with theological and liturgical reasoning for the transition, comes simply the practical argument which is what I said before, "Holy Week is not what it used to be." And there is certainly truth to this. I'm too young to have seen this, but it was still not all that long ago when businesses would close down from 12-3 on Good Friday, so one could go to church. Contrast this with a memory of mine from high school when at our Good Friday early service, the choir outnumbered the rest of the congregation! And this is not some large choir, we're only talking about 8-10 people outnumbering the rest of the congregation. Maundy Thursday can be even worse. Some churches and traditions do not even do services on it, electing to bunch it in with Friday. And if you are only going to pick one service during Holy Week, Maundy Thursday ain't gonna be it, not unless your church has marked it with something special that has a particular attraction to it (first communion, seder meals, foot washing - although the latter might even scare a few off). With attendance to midweek worship services dwindling, with Holy Week not being what it used to be to so many church goers, the practical cry for a Passion Sunday is perhaps the most relevant. Because of whatever liturgical, theological, and practical perks there are to putting Palm and Passion Sunday together, they do not compare to the liturgical, theological, and therefore practical issue of going from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday with nothing in between. The lackluster attendance for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday means a great number, in fact perhaps a majority of members are missing the Passion story from their worship! It really undoes much of the work of the liturgical calendar and lectionary (particularly from Christmas to Easter) and if one is afraid of triumphalism and churches avoiding anything close to theology of the cross, going from Hosanna to Alleluia with no Crucify Him is a good way to do it. And so perhaps the best argument truly is the practical one, that is, Passion Sunday makes sure we aren't skipping the passion in the life of our church.

But now we must stop so that I may object. I hold that there is certainly great concern here, but I hold that the hijacking of Palm Sunday is not the answer. Quite frankly, the move to turn Palm Sunday into Passion Sunday fails to truly recognize that Palm Sunday is in itself a key and essential moment in the Jesus narrative. It is one of only a handful of events recorded in all four gospels, which should be the first hint that from the beginning, this stood out in Christ's ministry. It's connection to the Old Testament and Messianic fulfillment also are of particular note in the gospels. If we take Luke's Gospel as a mere example, Luke notes particularly throughout the Gospel that Christ is moving towards Jerusalem, and when we get to the Palm Sunday text he gives us nearly a play by play. The story slows downs significantly for this event, doesn't anyone think we should pay attention to that theologically and liturgically? Of all of the Gospel readings we do through the year, in what way does the Palm Sunday Gospel, which the authors of the Gospel intentionally slow down to speak about, why is that Gospel reading not worthy or worth its own Sunday? The liturgy and lectionary tend towards far more obscure and Passionless moments in the Gospel yet see some big issue in the dramatic unfolding of the story in letting Palm Sunday be Palm Sunday, and in doing so, it gets significantly undercut.

Furthermore, if we were to speak "practically", it is impractical to give us a "processional Gospel" along with a two-chapter Passion story (not counting the Old Testament, Psalm, and Epistle Reading) and expect there to be time for a good sermon on either. What I usually hear is no sermon, or a brief sermon, or a few words trying to tie the Palm story to the Passion story. If you are worried about triumphalism, or some Palm Sunday experience that is without serious reflection on the entry in relation to the cross, then don't bloat the readings to the point that one has no time to really preach on it. Dare I say, that if all these other obscure moments in the gospel are either ok to be read on their own, or we truly trust that our preaching will use that to proclaim none other than Christ and him crucified then why don't we have the same trust over Palm Sunday preaching? Why are we tending towards scriptural overkill (which dare I say may take away from reading any of it) in place of solid preaching. The other significant issue is this much content in readings can also really take away the details. Not only is the pastor on time constraints, but pastor has such a vast narrative to cover that reaching into the rich details of texts (especially ones that lie uniquely in this Gospel or that Gospel) also often disappears.

Let me also get picky as to how this is bad for Holy Week itself. The first argument is that it enables missing Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. I tend to disagree here. That is, attending those services are still quite different from Passion Sunday. Perhaps a case can be made that those who never attend midweek services do not realize this, so the fact that Good Friday tenebrae services or seven last words or adoration of the cross, or whatever else Good Friday tradition you can think of, maybe those folks don't realize how different that is from Passion Sunday, so Passion Sunday will do for them. But that stands true in a Palm or Passion Sunday world. Simply put, if you don't go to church in a Palm Sunday tradition, you're not going to go in a Passion Sunday tradition. I'm not sure enabling is the proper term. Accommodating? Yes, perhaps. But one could call accommodating the same as preaching. That is, in the name of its mission the church has historically tried to find ways to be flexible, that is, to get the message to the people. Passion Sunday can make that argument, it gets the passion to the people who don't get there midweek, even though the midweek services still have their own integrity and uniqueness. However, our current lectionary is rather flawed in the way it uses Passion Sunday. Part of this is a consequence of the pure stupidity of being a three year instead of four year lectionary. At this critical juncture in the story (same with Easter season), it really jumbles up the journey through a single Gospel. Yes there are already times in the lectionary that we make an occasional foray into John, but the general mode of the Revised Common Lectionary has been to really work through a single gospel at a time, allowing one to work from its unique witness, and hear the story (somewhat) as that author intended, let God speak from a single Gospel rather than past movements at Gospel harmonization, which cared more about making it seem like an interchangable story than God's Word intending on and utilizing different emphases and narratives for a reason. In Holy Week however, this principle falls to the wayside. You get the entire Luke Passion put on Passion Sunday to assure you that you won't preach on the unique details of Luke's Passion (or the unique details of Luke's entry into Jerusalem). When the rest of the year you essentially labor through one Gospel and focus on that, we crash course that entire account of the Passion (even though it is the main focus and longest account of the Gospels) in a single day and we spend Maundy Thursday and Good Friday in John's Gospel, even though John records no Last Supper (so we turn to Corinthians) and John's understanding of the Passion is quite different from the Synoptics. This is what Passion Sunday and the lectionary using it do to Holy Week, it takes us away from really honoring the narrative journey we have been going through and defaults back to harmonization mode that wants to place the last supper into John.

If you see no problem in this system, remember again how big details can be. Only Matthew's Gospel utilizes those key words in the Words of Institution "for the forgiveness of sins", but how likely will that get preached on, seriously preached on, when it is only ever read as part of the massive Passion Sunday reading and not a part of Maundy Thursday when we truly pause and focus on the Last Supper and institution of the Lord's Supper. And dare I say we do our midweek worshipers a disservice by them only getting John then regularly for those midweek services, it actually limits what Holy Week can be. Additionally, it also means that while we give our non-midweek worshipers a crash course on the Passion with Passion Sunday, it means they will not hear John's account of the Passion, which is different. Thus Passion Sunday not only affects how our church celebrates, understands, and preaches Palm Sunday, but it affects how it celebrates Holy Week.

One of these problems goes to a bigger problem of having a three rather than four year lectionary, and thus is not entirely the fault of Passion Sunday, however the utilization of Passion Sunday fuels this problem. The greater one is the problem with our ability to truly understand the Passion as more than something to breeze through and pack into a single event, including not just the integrity of those various parts: supper, garden, trial, crucifixion. But also the entry into Jerusalem itself. By being seen as part of Holy Week, even though the act is often separated by other "in Jerusalem" content between the entry and passover and crucifixion accounts (such as cleansing the temple in the synoptic gospels), it is nonetheless clear that the entry is itself seen as a part of this narrative. It is seen as crucial in the gospels themselves. It deserves as much as Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and Transfiguration, and Baptism of Jesus, and Christmas, and Pentecost, and feeding of the 5000, and parable of sower, it deserves as much as all of these its own day and its own sermon, and the liturgical aim and focus being on this event, because like all of these, it is part of the story of Christ's passion. The gospels are about the cross and telling that story. And we ought to see the importance of each day tending towards that. I think we can clearly and without having to read the entire passion in one sitting still look at the entry into Jerusalem as more than just some triumphant glory parade, we are able to do that effectively with other messianic texts.

Now what shall we do? If I were a part of conversations of the next liturgical renewal, I would make Palm Sunday about Palm Sunday. I would also make a four year lectionary to start, so we can get a year to each Gospel's unique telling of the Passion. I would see Palm Sunday as part of the Palm Sunday - Maundy Thursday - Good Friday - Easter liturgical "drama" if you will. Each one letting us focus and really work through the story as it unfolds and is given. Holy Week still has its merit. It gives us a real time line, it immerses us, breaks up the story. But part of that merit only happens if one day is Hosanna and the next is you will betray me and the next is crucify him and then it is he is risen. Passion Sunday interrupts and downplays that experience and that intentional day by day transition. It also kind of treats the listeners like idiots, or newcomers to the story. As if those who jump from Hosanna one Sunday to Alleluia the next have no real idea what happened in between. That is, it acts like this is the only way we talk about his death or experience his death. And yet at the same time take away from that experience by interrupting the Holy Week movement.

The other real limitation here, which the liturgical calendar somewhat does, is it binds us so strictly to the Holy Week movement that we act like the story of the passion can occur nowhere else within the life of the church. The passion is essential to our life, it is the central story of the Gospels, and maybe with a four year lectionary (removing John from its places here and there where we insert it into another Gospel's year) one could have plenty of other opportunities to preach it and read its parts in church. Maybe instead of Lent being so oriented towards the journey to Jerusalem and the cross, being so Holy Week heavy, if Holy Week is falling out of regular practice for many instead of trying to jam the Passion into one Sunday to accommodate that absence of Holy Week attendees more of Lent should be about really focusing on the Passion itself. Imagine for example if that season was largely dedicated to the Passion only, reading it little bit by little bit, really focusing on it and dwelling in it. That would do more justice and orient the church more to the Passion and then the Easter joy than any Palm to Passion Sunday extravaganza would ever do. If the message of Lent is the centrality of Holy Week, perhaps we should show that by spending more of our Sunday actually in Holy Week rather than "preparing" for it. Or if that doesn't float your boat, you like the preparation and drawing out towards the great Holy Week Drama, well then again you shouldn't like Passion Sunday because it kinda really lets down on that drama. It doesn't give it the real time Lent suggests it deserves. But again we should come to liturgy and liturgical calendars and lectionaries being to help our preaching of the cross, not hinder it. Then have a passion Sunday some other time. Maybe instead of random sermon series in the summer (when so many churches abandon the lectionary anyways) spending a summer going through the passion. Other readings repeat themselves at different times in the year, repeating the passion, or parts of it, elsewhere is certainly appropriate. This already happens somewhat with Christ the King Sunday at the end of the liturgical year. One year Christ is on the cross, another he is on trial. It should show us how the Passion narrative need not be locked into Holy Week.

This should show us that the real problem here is some need to box the Passion into Holy Week, and then the struggle to do that when half our members are not attending Holy Week services during the week. But the solution damages what is actually done and the purposes/journey of Holy Week, and it encourages this concept that the Passion story somehow only belongs this week. But it doesn't, because it is something we as the baptized are called to be drawn into daily. By washing and renewal, by dying to sin and rising to new life. If the cross and resurrection is the center of our story and so much of our worship, faith, and theology hinges on it, then getting so caught up in the Lent to Holy Week drama that we limit the passion to Holy Week ignores or in some way acts against our confession of faith. I think Holy Week is good. I think the step by step yet still in one week immersing in that narrative is powerful, and the sense of time is important. But that must not be the end of the cross for us as a church, and thus it need not be the end of it for our reading and preaching on Sundays. I simply think it is better to give Holy Week, as well as Sunday readings of the Passion more credit than what we do. I don't think accommodation for proclamation needs to be done in a way that takes away from that. I think it is good to let Palm Sunday be about Hosanna. I find it funny that for how much our lectionary can jump between gospels, readings, and pericopes, that we have such a get up on going from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, as if that is the most outrageous jump liturgically. As if preaching that day will be cross-less. I find it interesting that we spend an entire season about approaching the passion and then think rushing through it is an acceptable accommodation and alternative when people aren't coming on Maundy Thursday - Good Friday.

In my new parish, I asked the worship and music committee "do we do Palm or Passion Sunday here", there was a bit of confusion as to what I meant. So I explained, and the overwhelming response was "We do Palm". Now I'm not sure if they have never done Passion, I'm guessing they have, if for no other reason simply because the worship planning resource they use does a Palm to Passion transition. Consider this, that the Palm part stood out. That they wanted this Sunday to be about Palm Sunday. That if the Passion was getting read there on that Sunday, it did not have the same hold or impact, or meaning as simply the beginning "processional Gospel" and waving the branches in the air as we sing "All Glory, Laud, and Honor". The first seven minutes of the service had more hold than the next 50 in terms of how they defined and understood this Sunday. People want to live into Palm Sunday, and I don't think it has to do with trying to escape the cross. I think it has to do with the power of Holy Week when done in parts. They remember them more. They get to liturgically live them. They get to hold the Palm Branch and wave it, and that sticks out more than two chapters of the Gospel of Luke and a three to five minute sermon.

Ironically, this also speaks of the value of our midweek worship, which people are seeing as less and less important. Maybe part of resurrecting that is making it the way you get the cross in holy week, and letting people experience each service as its part of the drama. If Palm Sunday has that great, different, and memorable feel to it, then Maundy Thursday and Good Friday have that too more than Passion Sunday. Then Easter has that too, the special Easter cries, the resurrecting the word "Alleluia" the Lillies and dresses, the white paraments. We live into these days in a special way, and that integrity still matters.

Passion Sunday also presents us with a real issue to consider as a church: namely, sporadic attendance. If we are so concerned about missing midweek worship, perhaps we should consider that regular attendance in general is getting less common. If we are so outraged at our regulars/semi-regulars going from Hosanna to Alleluia how about all those folks who go from "Gloria" (Christmas) to "Alleluia" (Easter), or those who go from Christmas Eve to Second Sunday after Epiphany, or miss the summer, or are harvesting in the fall. Is it illusion or is it a liturgical dramatization that is so fragile that we panic when part of the story is missed? Granted it is a central part of the story, but again then we should ask ourselves why we read it only one week a year anyways. And if we are so concerned about folks missing the story, then we ought to think about reading the whole Passion on Easter morning. Then we can connect crucify him to he is risen.
...oh wait, but that would take away from Easter. My point exactly.