Time to Celebrate — Jesus, the Way

Willow branches are our palms this year – could be hard to make into crosses?

A sermon for the congregation of St. Stephen, Summerland, on Palm Sunday, March 29, 2026 by the Very Rev. Ken Gray

I begin with an extract from a 2024 sermon preached at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, UK, by then, recently retired Archbishop Michael Curry:

“I am passionately committed to the way of Jesus of Nazareth, but you know obviously I’m a bishop so . . . you know it’s in the job description. But I am . . . [concerned that] somehow Jesus of Nazareth has been separated from the Christian faith . . . It’s very strange, but there’s a sense in which Jesus-the-Christ in the abstract is invoked. But the teaching Jesus, the Jesus who not only taught with his words, but the Jesus who taught by his actions — how he treated people, how he interacted with them, how he interacted with the Empire of the world — the teaching Jesus, his living example and his living real presence, now — somehow that Jesus has gotten sidetracked . . .

I really believe that it is time to reclaim our origins, our deepest origins, as not simply the church, but as the Jesus Movement, a movement [that] has a church, but a church that serves him and his cause, not our cause.

And that Jesus, if you look at him carefully — it’s not rocket science — at the core and the center of his life, of his teachings, of why he sacrificed himself, and the power that raised him up at the center of it all, is a way of unselfish, sacrificial love, that seeks the good and the welfare of others.”

I encourage you to find my own sermon online (www.takenote.ca) and click the link to the Archbishop’s St. Paul’s Sermon. He is a fine and engaging speaker, possessing both fire in the belly, and a witty, lively, southern style of preaching that will make you smile, and shudder, simultaneously.

As we watch Jesus walk towards Jerusalem, knowing full well that his past, present, and future actions have consequences, He knows full well that he can do no other thing. He will meet his human destiny at Jerusalem, as have the prophets before Him. There is but one way to love God and for his critics  and admirers alike, He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

As we hear the Palm Sunday Gospel, itself a report of a party, of a cavalcade of praise, a record of a parade, we are not yet able to clearly see the road ahead, a travel characterized by persistence, and prophecy. That said, with Jesus, our adventure into the “known unknown” continues. We can but wonder about our own next steps. Archbishop Curry advises that in Jesus, “we will discover not only faith renewed, but we would discover power to help to transform this world from the nightmare it often is, into the dream that God intends.”

I love that graphic image, the sharp contrast between the nightmare of today’s world, and the dream God intends. Regardless of circumstance or opportunity, we all live within that particular tension. We feel its effects. As the palms (or in our case, today, willow branches) are brandished, there is no resolution of tension; there is only heightened anxiety beneath the shouts and the smiles. Know that the Archbishop spoke shortly before the second Trump Administration took office. The collusion of fools and cruel gangsters now victimizing the people and nation of the United States, who continues to escalate their racist, self-serving agendae against Canada and all nations in the world except Russia, well, choose your nightmare. You won’t be wrong.

What a nightmare, especially in the Middle East, where the roads between nations, and the road into Jerusalem is anything but easy to walk. We live presently in a world of horrors, not unlike what the Jerusalem jews of Jesus’ day experienced under the Roman occupiers — as vassals, slaves, an exploited and impoverished people, and nation. Today, however, the shoe is on the other foot. Whether Jew, or Gentile, Arab, or American, or any citizen of the world, all are engaged in the struggle, where the charge to “love your neighbour as yourself” though seemingly in short supply, is more essential than ever.

No individual person or nation has the solution in hand. All must band together to create peace and community. Peace does not function in solitude. While on the coast, Kathie and I visited our former Colwood parish. We always have a good time there. The parish is in great shape with strong, stable leadership, both lay and ordained. They have just created a new logo and tagline. The logo is a stylized cross colorfully illuminated. The tag line is this: “We create belonging.” In one sense, this an ordinary statement. Most  churches in our tradition describe themselves as “belonging” communities.  The Advent folks take this a step further. They actually work, hard, to create belonging, to fashion a place in dialogue with the community that they call home, and a community where feel they belong. There is a difference. “Belonging” is not simply a social characteristic; for the Church of the Advent belonging is something to be strived for; it’s an ongoing vocational priority.

I challenge us here to consider how we create belonging as Anglicans in Summerland. We are all in this thing, life, together, whether we agree or disagree, whether we share the same values or find ourselves challenged by enmity. We all share birth, life and physical death. We all are offered the gift of eternal life. We are part of a magnificent movement. The final word to Michael Curry:

“Jesus began the most revolutionary movement in human history,

a movement of people who committed themselves to him and to his way of love, and their lives were changed, and in time they changed the world.”

Yep, the world. And the people said, Amen.

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