“Palm Sunday on the London Underground”

• Scriptural Reference: Luke 19:28-40
• April 1, 2007

If you’ve ever been to London, England, you’ve been beneath the streets of London. There’s almost no way to visit the city without using the underground, or what the Londoners call, “The Tube.” It’s a fantastic way to get around but to tell you the truth, a subway is a subway. Dark, stony substrata look the same whether it’s London or New York or Washington.

And something else I noticed: it seems that people riding the subterranean trains anywhere in the world all look the same. There’s this placid, disinterested look people get, as if everyone on the train has had a frontal lobotomy. The only difference I’ve noticed was in Paris. There, people have that urban, beneath the streets dead look, too, but their lips are pursed more than anywhere else in the world. That’s so they can be ready to say things like, “Je ne sais pas! Je n’parle pas Angles! Tout le jour!” That notwithstanding, it seems like people on those trains get that dead look everywhere.

And don’t get too proud that in America, we drive our cars instead of taking subways. Have you ever been in a traffic jam and looked at the person in the compartment next to you? They’ve learned to carefully avoid eye-contact, too, unless you cut them off – then they have a digital editorial to show you, if you take my meaning.

I wonder what would happen if the next time you were in a traffic jam and you rolled down your window and got the guy’s attention in the neighboring car and when he rolled his window down you said, “I was just noticing that you have a fine automobile. I hope you have a nice day. Wife doing fine?” He’d probably think you’re crazy. Maybe you’d get that digital editorial. But who knows? Maybe they’d smile back and you’d strike up a conversation and eventually invite one another over for dinner. Want to try it next time?

The point is, we get rather used to our routines, even when they’re rather stilted and boring, don’t we? Even when our lives begin to feel just a little past routine and into the realm of drudgery, we feel reluctant to effect much change. After all, the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know, right? Better a bird in the hand than two in the bush, right? In this day and time, risk is a very dangerous thing.

Julie and I were in London on Palm Sunday 1985. We’d traveled there because her dad was on sabbatical and studying New Testament literature at the British Museum. Julie and I were on our way to West Africa where I was to lead a retreat for FMB personnel and we decided to got a week early, take the train from Paris to London, and spend a week with my in-laws before continuing on the Ivory Coast. That’s more detail than you probably want to know, but we’d attended Palm Sunday services at St. Paul’s cathedral and were on our way to Victoria Station to catch a train back to Folkstone where we would board a ferry to France so we could resume our trip to West Africa our of Charles DeGaul Airport in Paris.

Julie and I were both feeling rather sad at leaving the Edwards at their flat in London and as the car we were riding in on the Tube rocked along beneath the streets of London, both Julie and I were staring silently and glumly at the grated metal floor. We fit right in with all the other passengers. The train roared and rocked with the occasional high-pitched screech of metal wheels spinning against the metal rails. Then the train slowed for a stop and we heard the mumble of the engineer say something no one could understand about which stop it was. Like in Washington on the metro, you had to know where to get off yourself. No way you’d be able to do that right listening to the intercom! (Ladies and gentlemen, brubbh-bab-sliba-shlicka-ssssssssstt-la-hummmm-assissssssst.)

That’s when it happened. Suddenly two guys singing at the top of their lungs and pounding on acoustic guitars leaped through the doors of the station. They landed in the middle of the car and shouted, “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen!”

My head jerked up out of my stupor. One guy wore an olive drab trench coat, unbuttoned to reveal black pants and black t-shirt. A chain attached to a belt loop swooped toward his back pocket and swung to the rhythm of the train as it accelerated. His hair looked as if he’d shampooed in motor oil. His guitar hung about his neck on a wide belt and he pounded away as they launched into Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May,” only his voice wasn’t quite as clear as Rod Stewart’s. (Think about that.)

The other guy wore similar attire, only his head had been shaved except for a strip across his crown where he had five spikes, standing at least ten inches tall and dyed bright orange. He had half-inch washers embedded in his ear lobes which made me immediately think of some tribal chief deep in the Congo. He, too, pounded his acoustic guitar and sang harmony. Veins stood out on his neck giving testimony to the fact that the song was pitched just a little too high.

They sang with energy. They bent down toward various passengers, who turned every way they could to avoid eye contact. Some lifted their papers over their faces. Others looked out the window and studied the dark rock zipping by. Some poked their hands in their pockets and stared at the floor.

They noticed that Julie and I were looking at them and they danced our way. “I suppose I should collect my books and get on back to school,” they sang. They gyrated and spun. People behind them looked at them in disgust. Others whispered to their companions unintelligible comments. Any time, though, that the singers would approach a person, they’d resume that lobotomy look, staring off into space.

Then the train slowed for the next stop. The guys stopped playing and when the doors opened, they ran out, up to the next car and dashed through to the center of it. I watched through the window at the end of the car and saw a couple of people’s heads jerk up in surprise and then quickly resume that stare. As the train accelerated, I couldn’t hear what the guys were singing. But I could tell that everyone on that car was uncomfortable.

And then it hit me: it was as if I was in the land of the living dead when it was invaded by life and vitality. It struck me as more than a little ironic that those living dead were in a coffin shaped object underground.

We’re odd aren’t we? Even when we’re bored out of our wits, even when we’re buried beneath layers of our culture’s efforts to squeeze the individual vitality in us so we’re more amenable to buy the goods being shoved at us, even when our living death gets confronted, we get uncomfortable and want that challenge of life to just go away!

That’s what happened on Palm Sunday. Life Himself came riding into Jerusalem, interrupted the comfortable routines of the power-elite and upset their sense of satisfaction and comfort. This Jesus guy wasn’t dressed right, he didn’t have the right credentials, and he had fooled the crowd. He was the guy with the olive drab trench coat singing songs where there was no stage.

“Hey! Jesus! Shut those people up! Make them behave! You and we both know that you’re not a real king. What they’re saying is reserved for the right kind of worship service, not spontaneous joy!”

“That’s just it, gentlemen,” Jesus responds. “You can’t hold back the life of the Divine. You can’t silence the voice of Truth. If they shut up, the very stones will break out in song, so get with the program! God’s new order of the spirit is confronting you and you may as well try to hold back the ocean with a sewing thimble.”

That’s the deal with Palm Sunday. It’s not about waving leaves from a subtropical tree. As I say every Palm Sunday, the point’s not in the palms – it’s on the donkey! God’s life confronts you. God’s way of doing things confronts you. God’s dreams address you. God’s people invite you. While rocking along in the compartments of your life, God has suddenly jumped onto your train singing songs of joy and life. Are you going to look away? Are you going to join the Pharisees and say, in effect, “Hey Jesus, get real. All that forgiveness stuff? All that losing your life to find it stuff? All that love your enemies stuff? All that life doesn’t consist in an abundance of things stuff? That stuff about dropping our nets and following you? I’d rather not. You see, I don’t believe that if I seek your kingdom and your way of doing things above everything else that you’ll really take care of me. That’s so unrealistic. Very impractical. You need to change your tune!”

And Jesus’ response? “You tell me to get real? Well, the life you’re living is the illusion. It’s the unreal life. You’re living a life free of risk, you think, but you’re losing your spirit in the process. You might gain a great portfolio, but you’ll lose your soul. And as your soul dies, it’ll cry out. You can’t keep it silent. You can tell me to be quiet, but your very nature will cry out. So listen to it now – and take up your cross and follow me.”

Folks it’s not about the rituals: it’s about letting Life Himself enter our lives, wake us up and send us out – maybe even into the streets of London.