Oooppss ... No Palm Branches

We just passed through Palm Sunday. This is the beginning of Holy Week, the most important week in the Christian calendar. After 2000 years, we tend to have the routine down pat. Wave palms, sing Hosanna on the first Sunday, remind people of the importance of praise and the fickleness of the praise of men. Next there's Maundy Thursday--bread and cup (in our church feetwashing) and darkening the sanctuary at the end. Good Friday, somber crosses, reverent reflections, hammering of nails, thinking about death and graves, Easter morning ... lilies, magnificent praise songs, empty tombs, full churches being reminded that death is swallowed up in victory ... thanks be to God!

Except at my church this year, there were no palms waved. Nothing was waved except some worship flags in the contemporary service. Somebody forgot to order the palms. (Actually, the person who has handled this for six years is taking a leave from worship ministry to get some rest.) I noticed, just before the 8.15 service. My worship chairman commented right after the service. Nobody else seemed to notice at all - or if so, kept it to themselves (until one young lady who had brought her Catholic mother to the service with her stopped in my office to ask about the missing palms. Her mother had noticed because in her tradition, she places a palm behind the cross on her mantle until the next Lenten season (which is next year).

Roger, my worship chairman and I, had briefly talked of explaining it as a cost cutting measure during the economic downturn. In the end we settled for transparency ... someone forgot to order the palms. In some churches this would considered a major offense against ritual. It would be grounds for flogging or at the very least a two-hour board meeting. In a week in which we affirms God's unconditional love and amazing grace, a little forgiveness and mercy seems more appropriate.

A religion is not its rituals, at least not Christianity. Rituals are intended to be tools to anchor us to and remind us that which is at the heart and foundation of our faith. God never wanted us to worship the ritual, He wanted us to worship Him. Whenever we begin worshiping our rituals we engage in an exercise in missing the point.

Sometimes I think makes us mess up our rituals so we will once again be reminded of what is really important ... a relationship with Him.

Question: Do you have a thought about the place of ritual or a question, please email me at sdunnpastor@coglandisville.org.