A Few Interfaith Expressions of Gratitude

And when the darkness comes, and with it the cold, let us remember where the warmth can be found- in being together, as families, as friends, as a community…

Let’s us dedicate our time together this day to know that we stand in the dark of an unknown, yet seeking a certain abundance, if we allow our hearts to warm and inform us…

Before being flung out into the season of cold and darkness, let us give thanks for the light and the warmth we can bring to one another…. PEL

 

Some World Religious Prayers and Reflections

I thank Thee, Lord, for knowing me better than I know myself… Make me, better than others suppose that I am, and forgive me for what they do not know about me… Amen   Islamic Prayer

I am thankful that all the darkness of our world, has not put out Thy light… Anonymous

May all Thy children unite, in one fellowship, to do Thy will, with a perfect heart… Ancient Hebrew prayer

 

For rest and the shelter of the night

For health, for food, for love and for friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends…

We are grateful! AMEN

R.W. Emerson

 

adapted from A Native American Blessing

Let us not forget that there would be no Pilgrim holiday, no Thanksgiving in North American culture, if it were not for the Native Americans…. From the story and myth of the first Thanksgiving we are told of a coming together of Native Americans and Pilgrims from Europe, and how they put aside cultural differences, their religious prejudices, and any fear of the unknown or any xenophobia, and they sat down to eat together, thereby practicing interfaith hospitality, cooperation, and peace.

It is out of respect for the Native Americans, that I now offer this Offertory prayer:

Let us, for this moment, become aware of the beauty of our lives, and the grace that attends to beauty…. Grandfather, we are thankful for the gifts of the Sun, and Grandmother, for the gifts of the Earth … We give thanks for the times of meaning, the times of purposes, our times together…

Let us reflect on our struggles and how they have enabled and ennobled our growth; If we but shut our eyes, even for a moment, we can awaken to wonder;

And then we see with new eyes, the land, the sea, the creatures, one another…

And if we can feel a sense of gratitude, that grace will grow corn in our hearts, then we know beauty, then we know you, O Great Spirit … Ah Ho…

Matake Owassion- We are all connected to the earth… We are all relations…..

 

Come, O Lord and sit with us.

May our talk, Glow with peace;

Come with your love to surround us.

　

 

An Interfaith Thanksgiving Prayer:

God of Love,We pray that we may be truly grateful for the many, many blessings we enjoy this day. The air we breathe, the fresh water to quench our thirst, the beauty of this world where we live.

In the world around us there are many who are hungry, some without homes, suffering health problems, experiencing war, lonely and without direction.

We pray for your guidance and protection for those people who are giving of their time and money to help these hurting people.

We pray for our service men and women who are giving their time and even their lives serving their county working to make a better place in your world for thousands of people. We ask for protection for us and our country.

Guide us towards peace.

We ask your blessing on the food that has been prepared for us.

Thank you for the hands that have prepared it.

Help us to live a life of cheerfulness and have faith in all that is good.

May we be worthy of your love. Amen

 

　

　

From Shinto teachings, we are given this reflection that finds a spiritual resonates throughout the world faiths:

All life is given to us by God; lent to us enough to last lifetimes… Nature, our bodies, the sun by day and the stars and moon by night- all are freely given to us by God…

As gifts that are intimate and ultimate, they contain qualities that are eternal; they are given freely and deserve our respect and our gratitude.

So much of our lives we can take for granted- so much we can treat harshly,, we gratefully recognize God’s world of human compassion and kindness, the gifts of making and giving, where our best and most constant response is “Thank you”

 

A Composite or Inclusive Prayer

Life consists of daily and lifelong blessings… How could we exist without the favor, the kindness and the gifts of everyday life that God bestows on us ? Even when we fail to recognize it clearly, how could we exist for even a day, a night, an hour of the next moment without God?

As the Suras teach us, God is closer to us than our juggler vein, and there is a Pakistani prayer that speaks of how we owe our very existence to God’s grace. The oldest prophet in Hebrew writings, Job, declares that it is the Spirit of the Almighty that gives us life, and as Solomon advises, it is wisdom that teaches us humility, reverence, and thanksgiving…

In The Bhagavad Gita, we are given our assurances:

Those that seek Me will see me; they will see Me everywhere… So it is that I will never be out of sight, out of touch… I will always be nearby… I will never lose my hold, even when you feel that difficulties in your life make you feel as if you had let go…

The Early Christian Coptic Church recognized our need for one another and the gratitude that can be found in belonging to a group that honors the God of many names, for a community does not exist without a sense of mutual respect and a sense mutual gratitude for being together.

St. Cyril writes:

The blessings of God rest upon all those who have been kind, upon all those who care about their sisters and brothers in their faith and on those who seem to live outside faith’s door. The blessings of God extend themselves from every kind heart- towards those who serve God from many faiths, many directions.

So as we gather today, we ask our merciful God, to reward their faithfulness and compassion as living proof, that we understand their holy books, and that we are growing in our understanding of You. AMEN

PEL

　A grateful attitude is a creative one, because, in the final analysis, opportunity is the gift within the gift of every moment– the opportunity to see and to hear and smell and touch and taste with pleasure.

 

There is no closer bond than the one that gratefulness celebrates- the bond between the giver and the thanksgiver. Everything is a gift! Grateful living is a celebration of the universal give-and-take of life, a limitless yes to belonging.

Can our world survive without gratefulness? Whatever the answer, one thing is certain: To say an unconditional yes to our mutual belonging of all beings will make this a more joyful world. This is the reason yes is my favorite synonym for God.”

Brother David Stendahl-Rast OSB, Ph.D.

　

 

 A circle of friends is a blessed thing.

Sweet is the breaking of bread with friends.

For the honor of their presence at our table

We are truly grateful O God.

Thanks be to Thee for the friendship shared;

Thanks be to Thee for the food prepared;

Bless the Cup; Bless The Bread;

May God’s blessings rest on each and every head! AMEN

Walter Rauschenbusch Protestant Theologian

 

O great Spirit; Creator and source of every blessing;

We gather to pray that you will bring peace to all our sisters and brothers in this world.

Give us wisdom to teach our children how to love, how to

respect, and how to be kind to one another.

Help us to learn how to share our world, and how to share all the good things that you have always provided for us.

Bless all who have come here, to eat with us today; especially our children who are the hope of a new world and a more peaceful future.

We ask for your help in being just, being unselfish; being kind- for the world needs to honor differences and to discover

how best to live cooperatively and compassionately- to live together, praising God with an open heart.                         Anonymous

Notice, that the more you become a connoisseur of gratitude, the less you are a victim of resentment, depression, or despair. Gratitude can transform us into being generous and loving beings… The sense of gratitude produces a genuine alchemy- a change of heart that is good for the largeness of one’s soul. …   Sam Keen

 

As people who seek to find hidden meanings and inclusive understanding, the usual approach toward holidays and holy days of other denominations is one of curiosity and interest- curiosity, maybe even an appreciation of the tradition and the beliefs involved, but rarely is it a full acceptance and a rightful adoption into our own calendar of meaningful events.

The day of All Soul’s November 2nd, is different. As Universalists, we have full rights to this day, and I feel that it should be celebrated yearly as a reminder of one of our foundational theological ideas, and as an opportunity to check and affirm the timeless connections of church history and the personal connections with both loss and life that every human being shares.

Originally, All Soul’s Day is a late- comer- being instituted after both All Hallows and All Saints were in full observation. This weekend is a rare event; we have all of them over a weekend and can attune ourselves more closely with their greater meaning for us.

Briefly, in church history there is the pattern of adopting indigenous holidays and making them ” Christian.” All Hallows Eve was a time when the dead came alive and their spirits walked the earth for the last time before being sent up to heaven or being condemned to Hell. It was a time for ghostly visitations, and when the energies and impulses toward good and evil became manifested in people and the culture.

The Church, seeing this as a pagan revelry celebrating the harvest and the mischief of merry-ma king, transformed it into a night where there was a battle of good and evil and the night before all the Saints- all the blessed faithful would ascend to heaven to be with God. This more pious approach became a Holy Day of Obligation- a time when everyone was to go to church and pray for the souls of the faithfully departed, that they might rest in peace, and that their entry into heaven would be assured.

However, that practice became modified and exclusive. It became a day for honoring those appointed and officially recognized by the Church as saints, with the sinners still having to worry about going to Hell. Then the prayers began to focus on releasing people from Purgatory- that in-between place that was the place of judgment of eternal salvation versus eternal damnation.

What was then instituted was another day to follow, and that day would be for the rest of us; and a day when all the faithfully departed, would gain entry into the everlasting mercy and peace known as heaven. That became All Soul’s day.

For Universalists, who following from their careful Bible study and an appraisal of Western theology, concluded that if God were as good as these orthodox priests and ministers claim, then why would there be such fear and grief over death?; Why would there be a question about salvation, and where one’s soul goes after death? If God is good, and a God that is love, there is nothing to fear for any or all of us, whether they are strong believers and even the most adamant of unbelievers, all of us will still go to heaven…

Why even the Devil himself will be saved in the end! ( Al Pacino included!!!)

Universalists reinterpreted All Soul’s as a day that affirms the goodness of God, the defeat of the teachings on damnation, and as a time in the history of a community when those who have departed this earthly life are remembered with respect and compassion. All Soul’s, for we religious liberals, is an occasion when we begin to evaluate the past and appraise the future; when a community comes together to live with both memory and hope.

The Devil and his Friend

One day, the Devil went out for a walk with his friend…. They saw a man ahead of them stop, stoop down and pick up something from the ground…

” What did the man find?”, asked the friend. The Devil said, ” Oh, he found a piece of the Truth.” “Doesn’t that disturb you?”, asked the friend…

“No” said the Devil- “I just will let him make a religious doctrine out of it”

A religious belief is only a signpost pointing towards the truth. When you cling to the signpost you are prevented from moving ahead to the goal. When you believe that you have the whole truth, there is no incentive to find out more or expand your understanding of truth that comes in from all directions.

During this time of the year, Jews from every nation and sect gather together in their temples and synagogues to celebrate Yom Kippur– The Day of Atonement. This day is the highest and holiest day in the Jewish religious year; it is a day of prayer, reflection, and fasting. It observance marks the end of the 10-day New Year period that started with Rosh Hashanah. It is the year 5768 by their traditional calendar which is considered to be the first day of the Creation, and it is when a record of the soul of the Jewish people began.

It is a time that is greeted with solemnity and gratitude, for Yom Kippur prepares and proclaims a special oath, covenant or promise. The promise is twofold: That we can come closer to the presence of God in our lives, and that we are assured of the forgiveness of our sins. This twofold promise translates into a twofold theology much akin to our traditional understandings of a Unitarian God and a Universalist doctrine of salvation.

The Jewish people, according to Evelyn Underhill, the renown religious scholar, states that:

The Jewish soul, as it discloses itself to us in its records, was,

from the beginning, peculiarly sensitive to God.”

As recorded, these early Jews possessed a rare and almost absolute devotion to the leadership of Yahweh. This dedication, expressed through its sacred holidays and ritual observances, became the focal point and the rhythmic life’s blood of the Israelite society. This devotion to their God and the noble almost defiant resolve they maintained even through many centuries of persecution, created a unique and intimate relationship of a people with their God, which was then collected into inspirational and ethical teachings that became known as the Hebrew Scriptures. These writings and subsequent Rabbinical commentaries created the picture of a people with a distinctive moral fiber. It is a quality of fiber that, when it was woven together, understood and practiced, gave each believer a spiritual and ethical quilt of meaning and purpose for their whole lives.

The twofold message of the Jewish understanding and practice during Holy Day of Yom Kippur finds its greatest and most lasting meaning in the atonement and in the forgiveness of sins. This outlook and commitment becomes for us, the key point for our understanding and for our appreciation of the Jewish religion as a whole– to understand how, and in what way, forgiveness and absolution are given and received.

Yom Kippur demonstrates our universal human need for the both reverence and repentance; that without a willingness to devote yourself to something and/or someone, and to the equally important need or willingness to accept each other’s brokenness and trials, and to offer forgiveness, we humans can easily give in to sins of self importance, vanity and pride, and miss the opportunity to live our lives with inner peace.

This reciprocal ideal is the basis of Judaism. It translates directly into the later Rabbinic wisdom of Jesus, and helps to form the basis of Christian thought and making its way down to us as the roots of our Western standards for morality.

Originally, in the era of Jewish history that predates the establishment of the local temple or synagogue, animals sacrifices were substituted for personal repentance. Not until the later time of the Prophets, did the concern for individual conscience take priority over the group consensus.

In those earlier times, a bundle of sticks would be attached to a goat and then the goat was either sacrificed or sent off into the wilderness. Each stick represented a known or confessed sin, and symbolically, the animal carried them all away, thereby absolving the sins of the transgressors. This practice was the origin of the term- scapegoating: It was a ritualistic way of transferring or projecting the flaws and sins, the guilts, fears and shames of a tribe, a group, or any family onto a sacrificial target so that the offending people can start again with a clean moral slate.

Now, as this practice has changed over the centuries of culture, this scapegoating procedure now primarily refers to projecting an excuse for rightful blame; We are all familiar with the therapeutic abuses of this practice… Such as in early Freudian understanding, we could indict our parents: ” I blame it all on my mother! Or as the great comic theologian, Flip Wilson, used to exclaim: : The devil, the devil made me do it!”

In a more convincing and compelling understanding of the practice of scapegoating states that it is a spurning of reality and responsibility for what we, as individuals, and as adults what we choose to do! Unfortunately, or tragically, we often scapegoat what we, as communities, groups, and nations are willing to deny and then accept about ourselves; What we are willing to tolerate from our leaders, or what we can easily justify and condone in our daily or social life! All the avoidance of personal and corporate responsibility negatively affects our interpersonal behavior, lowers our cultural reputation or can serve to corrupt our national consciousness. That might be the truth behind the popular statement: We get the government we deserve!

Back to the development of the idea of forgiveness…

Historically, when worship became more localized in temples and synagogues, the expiation of sins and trespasses that a person had to atone for became more individual and communal. In this shift of emphasis, the faithful would enter the place of worship and be instructed to be quiet, to meditate and to rest or to wrestle as they continue their introspection.

They were told to fast from food, and more importantly, to fast from their frantic pace of life in order to allow space in their thought … To give themselves a space and a time for reflection … To give themselves more time to the consider their lives and to appraise or evaluate their current motives and ethical directions. This thoughtful, thorough, and sometimes agonizing assessment of one’s behavior, ethics, and values would eventually lead the person to a heartfelt contrition.

This time, having been set aside at the beginning of the Jewish New Year, holds many valuable lessons for us today. Jew and Gentile, agnostic or mystic alike, can each benefit from an examination of their values, their goals, their ways of relationship, and to evaluate those areas of their lives that are in need of improvement or redirection. It is time set aside to recognize their next steps, their best steps towards wholeness.

Like the devout Jew, we can find profound benefit in a periodic personal and communal struggle to find workable answers, and in the renewed willingness to resolve our own personal and communal shortcomings. Because of the power and the benefit of this practice, modeled by Judaism for the world, I will ask you these introspective questions:

Do you give yourself least a day each year to take a good look at your life? When did you last take a moral inventory or give yourself a spiritual assessment or schedule an ethical check up?

When did you last consider your motives and acts, your habits and patterns, your vices and values?

Since cultivating both forgiveness and repentance are the central concerns for healing any lingering emotional problems any of us might have, how do you provide yourself with this opportunity?

How do you use your spiritual ideals and beliefs to examine your motives and values, so that you can let go, and free yourselves of any past negative patterns or difficult feelings?

When these problems plague us, it is often beneficial to express them in confidence, and with seriousness to a caring and appropriate person; someone who will understand you and place them in a healthy spiritual and/or psychological context for our greater understanding.

It is often problematic if or when we keep our feelings to ourselves, and then by our all too human tendencies, we wind up dwelling on them, so then they become intensified! Because such rehearsal can make us angry or bitter, in fact, it can paralyze us emotionally by becoming an obsessive concern and become, in our minds and hearts, overwhelming!

As I have learned personally and professionally, when we keep our negative feelings to ourselves, we can become attached to them- as it is said psychologically, we over-identify with our problems- so much so that we miss the whole purpose of letting go- of losing them and freeing or forgiving ourselves!

We can ask: How is it that you still find some value in holding on to the thoughts, feelings, or experiences that promote the three great spiritual and psychological poisons: Regrets, remorse, and lingering resentments? Ask yourself: How is that attitude working for you? How does holding on to it help you to live more completely and love more fully?

Now does that mean you should openly share everything, with everybody? You know, “wearing ones heart on one’s sleeve?” Or does it mean that we are to be so open that you allow the cruel and insensitive people in our world to dump on you? Does it mean because you have been hurt, you allow yourself to be used as someone else’s punching bag? Of course not! There is a definite need for privacy, and an abiding respect for disclosure and discretion, and that certain ethical boundaries should always be maintained. …

Additionally, and vital to our well being is this corollary: While we are encouraged to forgive, we are compelled not to forget what others do to us, but to use whatever the painful wisdom of those lessons have given us. By refusing to forget, we can promote self esteem and self respect by avoiding the tendency to fall into the same traps or patterns. As I see it and practice it, forgiveness and tough love effectively work together.

When forgiveness is taught as a genuine spiritual approach its full or lasting emotional benefit is not given through a quick pious formula or is to be used as a convenient rationale that gives easy permission for your ego to feel justified- and then keep on doing what it pleases- be it an addiction, a self punishment, or simply continuing to do anything that is hurtful to ourselves or to anyone else.

Forgiveness does not come from just bluntly airing your differences, or causally telling or complaining to someone about your troubles. Equally true, is that forgiveness surely does not come from just logging time in the pews, or sitting piously through a religious service, or from going through the enforced church instruction or the expected motions of repentance without truly understanding it deeply. It is not some pious magic ritual that gives you instant salvation or can satisfy you easily with some form of cheap grace.

In my research and understanding, in my life and professional practice, forgiveness has four general ways it expresses itself- two are self defeating and unproductive, and two are positive and in religious language, they are more redemptive.

Briefly, the less positive ways we express forgiveness center themselves on how and to what extent we will avoid conflict, try to keep the peace, etc., because we are afraid to lose the friendship or partnership, so we often too quickly forgive. …

We forgive without expecting a change in the behavior of those who have hurt you… Guess What? They will do it again!

The second self-defeating approach is found in the refusal to forgive- when we continue to rehearse the hurt, hold on to grudges, remain stuck or refuse to move on emotionally from slights and insults we all might receive over a lifetime…

The two more positive ways combine a willingness to forgive with the expectation of behavioral reform, or true contrition by the offending person. The first way is simply known as Acceptance. Accepting what has happened to us, knowing what our roles in it was, and understanding both the offense and the best response of wisdom and then moving or getting on with our lives. We have to accept that we might never receive a sincere apology, but we have learned from the situation, and now choose to let go…

The last approach is Genuine Forgiveness. It involves not holding a grudge, not lording over another in some pious way, but clearly expecting behavioral changes that restore trust and intimacy, that give or help to regain respect and equality to the person who is willing to offer forgiveness…

Forgiveness is accomplished only when it is understood in earnest, and then reinforced by one’s community’s or one’s personal and family values. Forgiveness is then affirmed in one’s heart or received by one’s conscience. And when it is genuinely experienced, it is a powerful and often transformative way to find a release from any burdens and toxic beliefs that troubled us for so long.

In the Kol Nidre Service, which comes at the culmination of the High Holy days, there is a prayer of forgiveness…

As it is a long prayer, I would like to share a short portion of it with you now…

If you have trouble with the concept of a God, please interpret it as Truth, Spirit, or the Source of whatever is good, right, fit or true for you…. you might like to sit quietly and use this as a prayer for yourselves, or just listen as it is an example of the Jewish promise of peace and release….

“[May it be your will, dear God, that I fall short or sin no more, that I do not revert to my old ways, that I do not cause anger or hurt by my actions.

Holy One, I ask that you wipe away any misdeeds that I might have committed with your great compassion. As it is said in the Psalms.... May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable before You, my God, my Rock and my Redeemer. Salat AMEN

So I ask you to understand that we are all in need of empathy, forgiveness, and respect; And even though you might wear the marks of physical pain, personal loss, some relational scars, or some secret shame, know, down to the depths of your being, that today you have been given a promise of release and relief upon your acceptance and repentance, and that the God or source of your understanding holds out its heart to you, and offers you this day, the soulful gifts of freedom and hope ....

So it is that my last thoughts on Yom Kippur for you is this: Shalom and Shalem... Peace and wholeness; peace and restoration ... May there always be enough... Enough forgiveness, justice, empathy and compassion for us all. So BE IT

　

　

Opening Words:

The irreverent and antiestablishment psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz encapsulates the teachings of forgiveness in these pithy and declarative words:

The stupid neither forgive nor forget

The naive forgive and forget

The wise forgive but do not forget....

Children and Forgiveness;

When we are young, we learn from our parents...

When we are older, we judge their actions...

And when we are old enough, and wise enough,

we learn to forgive them... . Adapted from Oscar Wilde

Closing Words:

"[We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. Any of us who is devoid of the power to truly forgive, is also devoid of the power to truly love.

It is true that there is some good in the worst of us, and there is some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate, and more open to life and love.]” From Martin Luther King, Jr.

May we as a nation be guided by the Divine to rediscover the sacred flame of our national heritage, which so many have given their lives to safeguard;

Let the wounds of separation and divison be healed by opening our hearts to listen to the truth on all sides, allowing us to find a higher truth that includes us all;

May we learn to honor and enjoy our diversity and differences as a people, even as we more deeply touch our fundemental unity;

May we as a people, undergo a transformation that will draw forth individuals to lead our nation who embody courage, compassion, and hold to a higher vision;

May our leaders inspire us, and we so inspire each other with our potential as individuals and as a nation, that a new spirit of forgiveness, caring, and honesty be born in our nation.

May we, as a united people, move with clear, directed purpose to take our place within the community of nations to help build a better future for all humankind;

May we as a nation rededicate ourselves to truly living as one nation, “under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all;”

And may God’s Will be done for the United States, as we, the people, align with that Will.

Entering In: Towards a more inclusive understanding
Of Palm Sunday and its meaning for us
The Rev. Peter Edward Lanzillotta, Ph.D.

Invocation/ Opening Words:

What is required of us is to take courage, to enter in.
There are frontiers to cross, doorways to open, thresholds to step over, heroic pathways to life, love, truth and forgiveness.
The gate of Palms opens, and you can cross over…
Take heart, be courageous, enter in…

Responsive Reading: # 35 Life of the Spirit

Selected Reading: The Gospel of St. John 12:11-17a NEB (adapted)

The next day, after hearing about Jesus, and his intent to walk into Jerusalem, a great crowd of pilgrims took palm branches and went out to meet him. When they saw him, they shouted, “Hosanna! Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord!…
Then Jesus found a donkey and mounted it and rode into the city and the people placed palm branches in the road before him. This was done in accordance with the Scriptures, that read, “Fear no more, Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, mounted on an asses’ colt.” At the time, the disciples did not understand this, but after Jesus was glorified, they remembered that this had been written, and that this had happened to him.

Benediction/Closing words:
What is required of us is to recognize deeper meanings, to explore and risk, to take heart and enter in… What awaits us can also bless us… Find God, take heart, enter in… AMEN

Pastoral Reflection: “Blessed is He, and blessed are we”
Each Palm Sunday either a reference or a reading is made to the phrase, “Hosanna in the Highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Hosanna is a cry or a statement of love and adoration- it refers to Jesus as God’s healer and teacher; as someone who provides a salvific example, an inspired presence.
Yet, even this words are inadequate when they are sentimentally or just historically remembered. It is neither sufficient justice nor glorious enough to keep them in the past tense. As Jesus refuted the necessity of blood ties as the definition of family, he also rejected the idea that he alone would move forward into a holy city without bringing others along with him-especially those who were his spiritual brothers and sisters. Jesus defined sisters and brothers as anyone who desires to do the will of God in their lives. Likewise, all those who act to live their lives more spiritually, that is, with more depth and authenticity, live and act in the name of God and can be considered blessed by that aspiration.

Now this might sound blasphemous, but I believe in the more inclusive and multidimensional sense of palms and blessings.
The creation of attitudes of love and service recalled in the life of Jesus makes us one extended family.
Each of us can receive Hosannas as we courageous claim our spiritual identities as the children of God, and the sisters and brothers of Jesus. As we learn, and as we grow more fully in our understanding of God’s mysteries and our own depths and abilities, we, too, enter into the Kingdom, and arrive at the gates of a Holy City. Then we can say and reaffirm on every Palm Sunday, that we are leading our lives in the name, and in the loving servant reality of Jesus. Hosannas to you all. AMEN

Reflection/Reading: The many Meanings of Palms
The Palm has always been regarded as a life-giving plant.
It retains its timeless value for us today, not just as a historical symbol, but as a gift of caring we can give to one another.
The image of the Palm was found everywhere in the ancient world. It adorned the walls of the glorious Temple of Solomon, and its practical uses for food, for rope, and for shelter are numerous. (I Kings 6:29 and other places)
The word palm comes to us from the early Greek word Phoenicia, which meant “land of the Palms,” the stretched all along the Mediterranean Sea. Many of the region’s coins had one side, decorated with a palm leaf for tails, and the heads side was the image of the current ruler or emperor.
In religion and ritual, the early Jews used palms as a welcoming or housewarming gift. Hanging palms outside one’s door was a sign of hospitality, much like seasonal wreaths and Colonial pineapple carvings of more recent years. When hung by one’s door, palms would signal that this was a place where a person could come, be cared for, welcomed and respected.
Among the early Christians, hanging palms shaped into simple crosses was a sign of sanctuary- comfort for anyone weary or anyone who was in need of solace and inspiration. It was also considered to be a sign of protection from damaging rains, wind lightning, fires or flooding. (Hmm… I wonder if it could protect religious liberals from pollution and loud politicians?)

I have a special remembrance of palms as it relates to comfort and caring… I remember fondly my paternal grandfather Paul, sitting me down at our kitchen table, and asking me to help him to make little crosses out of palm leaves that he just received at church.
Intently, I watched his patient process of stripping the individual leaves, then pairing them and placing them carefully in rows. Then he would take each pair, and begin to fold them and interlace them to make these gentle, graceful, bowed crosses. After he had made one for me, he began to make them for all his grandchildren, approximately three dozen, filling a large wicker basket with them. (Here I start to make one for the congregation…)
He then went around giving one to each grandchild, instructing them to place or hang them by their bedside, or somewhere in their room. Later, he taught his children how to make them for their homes and offices. He always hung them in the greenhouse as a sign of encouragement and for protection for all the little tomato seedlings that he had planted.
Making crosses for each of his grandchildren was his traditional way of showing his caring. It was for him, an extension of his devotion and caring. Often, he would tell me the Palm Sunday story in his own words, and said that the palms were a sign “that God could always come to us, and could enter into our hearts whenever we would ask or let him in.”
Today, grandparents might elect to do a similar thing, such as give their grandchildren an inspirational card, bookmark, or some other token of the spiritual message of the Easter season that would be more personal and meaningful than chocolate bunnies or sugary eggs. While eggs and flowers retain their symbolic value, especially on Easter Sunday, a gift that expresses a parent’s faith has, at least to me, a more lasting, deeper importance.

Receiving palms, hanging them in my home, making gentle bowed crosses, and then giving them to others, will always remind me of my grandpa Paul, and his gift of faith and caring.

Homily: Gateways to God and Palm Sunday:
A “Gnostic” look at its meaning for us today

The climatic event in the Palm Sunday story is when Jesus, astride a young colt, rides down the royal road, over a bed of palm leaves into Jerusalem accompanied by a joyous crowd. It was the pinnacle of his popularity, his “claim to fame.” It was the triumph before the tragedy, all foretold, and all to be revealed in the week’s events.
Jerusalem then was a thriving city, a contemporary metropolis. It was a world center, a place where people brought their families for important celebrations and their products for vital trade or commerce. It was also a place where ideas and beliefs were expressed and contrasted, a place where Greek philosophy mingled with Eastern mysticism, where Babylonian gods were being absorbed into Jewish theology, and rituals. Simply, when anyone or anything entered into Jerusalem, it became known to the entire world. Thus, Jerusalem became a spiritual center: a place where wisdom, prophecy, logic, and mystery all found internal admission within the culture and in each person’s life.
Entering in… through the door or past the gate… And what about Jesus and the symbolic act of entering into the Holy City?
Other than coming in from the outside, or as a separation– picket fences, garden gates, iron barriers, etc., gates also stand for what permits and protects us. There are material gates of security, and emotional boundaries of protection. Also, there are physical doorways to enter into a new place, and spiritual thresholds to cross over to enter into new awareness.
In Gnostic thought, there are always many levels or depths and dimensions to any possible interpretation for Biblical and personal events. Gnostic approaches to life parallel ordinary events but takes us into our hearts and souls for definitions.
Gnosis is involved in the search for wisdom and meaning, and how that quest has purpose and value for our deeper selves or for our spiritual identities.
When Jesus entered into the main gate, accompanied by a teeming, celebrating crowd, he stirred up both advocacy and animosity. On one level, it was a crowd expectant, they felt overdue for deliverance-they yearned for a Messiah and welcomed anyone who had a new message and gave evidence of a new reality.
Jesus’s arrival also stirred up jealousy, and animosity for anyone who might challenge the status quo way of religion and society. Few people in power ever want to relinquish it.
Yet, this entry was not like so many others. It was not like the mayor in the motorcade, or the beauty queen riding in on a pageant float. Who Jesus was, and what his entry into Jerusalem represented, acted as a sign. It was a meeting point for a welcoming readiness, and symbol of an arrival at a new religious paradigm. Additionally, it was a spiritually-based visitation by a man who represented a new doorway, a new path towards God. For his followers then and now, Jesus’s life, his ethical principles and his spiritual understanding, show how God can enter into our lives and fill us with a new awareness. Our reverent response is to spread palms; to open our hands, our heads, and our hearts and to give permission for whatever is holy to come in, to be recognized, and be understood. For a follower of Jesus, that means looking, listening, watching, praying and acting on that comprehension and empowering new model for being oneself and in relationship to others.
This gateway to God swings inward. It moves us from our outer concerns and fears, and into our core selves. When we enter in, we find our wounds and our wonders, our pain and our gifts. The door from God to our hearts is not an easy one, but its necessity compels our search for knowledge, and completes our sense of wholeness and holiness.
When we open that door, we look into our past. We take a long look at our problems. Then with courage and persistence, we move through them looking to find what truly comforts and uplifts us.
We enter through the gate of a Holy City whenever we cross over that threshold of what was for what might be. We enter in every time we are willing to search attentively and reverently, whenever we are willing to risk love and acceptance, forgiveness and peace as answers to life’s questions.
By looking within, we become Gnostic and contemplative. We examine our motives and incentives, we see what our lives have been about, and what ways they need to be changed or affirmed.
This doorway from God to each of us is also the gateway that teaches us how to replenish and restore ourselves from the stresses and strains of living. Just as we cannot continue to work without rest, we cannot offer any cooling comfort to anyone else from our empty well- nor can we offer hope and love from an empty or broken heart. The Gnostic Christian recalls the words of Jesus when he said, “[I am the door, I am the gate that leads you toward God.]” In proclaiming this, he did not say that his physical person or even his life or death is the entry point for us. He stated that his reality, and the effects of learning his ethics and spiritual understandings would replenish and inspire a Christ consciousness could be seen in each of us.
Gnostic teachings would state that whosoever enters into Jesus’s reality can be made whole, free, and find the rest, nurture, self-acceptance and peace so many of us lack or need. They would remind us of Jesus’s promise:” [I, as the Christ consciousness that is in me, has come into this world, so that you might have a greater sense of life and purpose and then have it abundantly.]” John

There is a second door. It the door or the gateway that leads out of our hearts. It swings outward to welcome in the stranger and the friend. As we learn to live more in God, we nourish ourselves and strengthen our families and community so that we can turn our care, concern and compassion out into the world.
This door of our hearts swings outward to be inclusive and responsive to human need. From the inner rooms of our souls, and from the support we receive from our spiritual communities, we ready and open ourselves to others in ways of service, encouragement, and justice-making. As the Psalmist put it, it is “out of the abundance of our hearts” we give to make the world more equalized and fair. From our solace and comfort, we act with compassion and empathy. The door from our hearts opened first by God, and kept ajar by a sustaining grace; it is a pathway that becomes a wide open welcoming entrance, a redeeming way that blesses the world by our caring.

Visualization Exercise: Entering In/Crossing Over
Now, I ask you to participate in a short visualization that focuses on the doorways and gates of your lives… please close your eyes, sit comfortably and breath slowly and deeply.. .
Picture yourself before a doorway or at an entrance that can open up a new dimension for your life. Picture this doorway in some detail…
What does it look like? Is it high or heavy, low or light? Would it be easy to open? Where, if you go inside, will it lead? Do you know? How do you feel about entering into a new or unknown place?
If you cross over that threshold, do you have an idea what might be in store for you? Does it matter? Can you trust going in?
Is there anyone else there with you? Is there anyone there to greet or guide you? If so, Who is it?
Now go inside…cross over …What do you see and what do you discover?

Ask yourself how will going through this door might change your life? Change who you are, and what your next steps might be?
Lastly, ask how might it contribute to others and to our world?
Come back to this time and place… with what you have discovered or learned…
Some people might still see the events of Palm Sunday in a literal or more orthodox way-as only one man’s triumph or as a prelude to a sacred tragedy. I feel that the timelessness of the story can be also seen on this deeper level of contemplation and consideration. The Palm Sunday story reminds each of us about entering into the realm of God, into a more holy consciousness or awareness that teaches, heals, consoles, forgives and that frees. It is a new level of gnosis or spiritual wisdom that can affect us deeply.
Jerusalem is everybody’s inner city. It is the place in our lives where we can meet or greet God. Without escaping from the fact of working beyond our egos and present difficulties, Palm Sunday holds within its promise, the gateway to the heart’s triumph and to the soul’s victory. It is a spiritual victory, a personal triumph that public scorn, betrayal, and even crucifixion cannot stop or prevent. Finding our sense of God within, and then opening up the door of our hearts to others is to know life and to have it abundantly. For it is from one opened doorway to the other, that the steps toward God and toward one another can be found. It is from that new place that our way might be paved with palms, and that we learn how to be more spiritually attuned and become servants to our planet and caregivers to one another. AMEN

Benediction/Closing words: What is required of us is to recognize spiritual frontiers, to explore and risk, to take heart and enter in… What awaits us is what can also bless us… Find God, take heart, enter in… AMEN