Have you ever noticed that you can often tell a lot about a person just by the way they address you or how they say your name?

If I hear, “Oh, Mom!” I am usually correct in assuming that someone wants money or needs permission to go someplace.

When one of my children says, “Mother!” They are letting me know that I have embarrassed them yet again. I know this because I remember using the same tone of voice when speaking to my mother.

If someone comes into the church and asks to speak to the pastor, it is a good bet that this person is not an Episcopalian. Although I like the gentle quality of this title, Episcopalians don’t commonly use the title pastor.

How we address people, the titles we use for people and the way we talk to or about people is often freighted with meaning. The writer of Luke’s Gospel used this to his advantage. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ life, ministry and death are all viewed through the lens of Old Testament prophecy. Jesus is depicted as the fulfillment of prophets’ words; he is the culmination of God’s efforts to intervene in human history in order to rescue humankind and save creation. Consequently, all the language used to address Jesus and to talk about Jesus carries the weight of meaning acquired over centuries of use.

Our Gospel lesson is Luke’s telling of Palm Sunday. At this point in the story, Jesus has concluded his journey to Jerusalem and now prepares to enter the city. As at numerous other places in Luke’s story, Jesus’ words to the disciples are immediately fulfilled in the events that follow. Like other prophets in Israel’s history, Jesus seems to have the power to predict future events. Here Jesus lives into the prophecy of Zechariah.

As Jesus enters Jerusalem, a multitude of disciples praise God joyfully singing the words of Psalm 118, “Blessed is the King, who comes in the name of the Lord.” Yet, if we look at the text closely, we notice that Psalm 118 actually reads, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” The people are proclaiming Jesus as King, and not just any king – a king like King David. The multitudes believe they have found the mighty, warrior king for which they have been longing, the one who will rid their land of the Roman occupation.

Jesus accepts the title of King, for he tells the Pharisees that if the people did not proclaim him king, the stones would shout out. Our Gospel lesson ends at verse 40, but if we read just the next two verses, we learn that although Jesus acknowledges himself as king, he has no intention of carrying all the prophetic baggage that comes with that title. As the procession rounds the corner and Jesus looks out over Jerusalem, he weeps and says, “If you [Jerusalem], even you, recognized the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

For all of its joyful hosannas, Palm Sunday is a day of contrasts and contradictions. We enter worship in happy triumph yet we know we teeter on the edge of the inevitable crucifixion. On a day of celebration, the church is already draped in red – the blood of martyrs. We see the contradictions in Jesus himself; the king of creation chooses to ride a barrowed colt. A man, who appears to know the future, willingly walks toward death. Using language, the ways we talk about and address Jesus, Luke sets up a collision of contradictions.

We have our own confusion about what to call Jesus. Before I came to St. Mary’s, I served as a transitional rector. I led a parish that was searching for a sitting rector and helped to prepare them for new leadership. Because there are challenges and opportunities unique to transitional ministry, every month I met with other transitional rectors. This was my favorite meeting; I never missed our gatherings. I don’t say this lightly for in my vocabulary, favorite meeting is usually an oxymoron. I enjoyed this group because it brought together a wide range of experience and opinion. There was a lot of wisdom in the room. One of my sage comrades was Jack Nietert. Jack had been a rector for over thirty years before retiring to do part time transitional ministry. Jack relished transitional ministry because it allowed a freedom he had never had as a rector. He could say whatever he wanted to say. He could speak truth without worrying whom he would offend.

Jack was serving a parish that was limping along after years of poor leadership. The congregation’s biggest pledgers were withholding their money until they met the new rector and decided they liked HIM. No one would step forward to lead the stewardship committee. Jack was frustrated; he felt there was much that was hidden from this congregation’s eyes about being church. He knew that the parish would make another bad choice in calling a rector unless they began to see their situation clearly.

So Jack ran the stewardship campaign he had always wanted to run and he chose the theme, “Everybody wants a Savior but nobody wants a Lord”. As Jack saw the situation, the congregation refused to or didn’t know how to take ownership of their situation. They believed in a savior, a God who would rescue them. They wanted a rector to ride in on his white horse and make everything right. Jack reminded his congregation that Jesus is both Lord and Savior – a package deal. Believing in God as Lord would mean being obedient and accepting boundaries and taking responsibility for their actions and the fiscal and organizational health of their parish. This was not an easy sell. But eventually Jack’s parish came to learn, as the disciples did, that we don’t get to choose the God we want. If we go looking for what we want, we will be disappointed.

During Holy Week we are invited to journey with Jesus into this collision of contradictions. We are called to face our own contradictions with God. What is hidden from our eyes? If God is all-powerful, why does God permit war, disease, and poverty? If God is all-knowing, why does God allow children to be born to parents who will abuse them? Why does God never answer our whys? During Holy Week, the king of creation rides into our lives on a donkey and then dies on a cross. This is absurd! Can there be any doubt that God expresses power and knowledge in ways that are most often beyond our comprehension?

When we peel back the layers of pain and suffering of Holy Week, we will find a God whose almighty power and knowledge is love. We find a God who weeps for us when we are blind to the reality of our situation. We find a God who in humility serves us. We find a God who, out of love, forgives us “for we know not what we do.” By the end of Holy Week, we have stripped Jesus of all of his titles. Jesus is not the Lord that we want. Jesus is not the savior that we want. And Jesus is not the king that we want. But with God, we do not get what we want; we get what we need. In the end, God is love.

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iGeorge W. Stroup, “Theological Perspective: Luke 19.28-40,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C Vol. 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Eds., (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 152.
iiWilliam G. Carter, “Pastoral Perspective: Luke 19.28-40,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C Vol. 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Eds., (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 156.