Every year, around the world, people remember it. Palm Sunday. The day Jesus goes on a little ride into the city, a journey that changes everything. You may have had some of those–times of traveling a road or two that changed everything for you. This story is often called “the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem” which is ironic, of course, since the word triumphal implies that somebody is the victor and somebody else is the defeated and that is precisely NOT what this event is about. When Jesus rode the little donkey into Jerusalem some versions of the tradition say it was palm tree branches the people waved and put down upon the road–maybe because they wanted Jesus to be a military victor and palms traditionally were used to welcome vanquishing heroes on horses, taking by force a fallen city. But he rides on a donkey, a symbol of peace, and his teachings are about compassion and not about violence and power over. At its essence, Palm Sunday was a non-violent protest march. And if this story informs our faith journey at all, it seems to me this is essential–the message at the heart of Holy Week was and is about protest of the empire and the demonstration of a new way to live.

But as it turns out, Jesus’ enemies and his friends, too, did not understand that about him, according to the old stories. And today, too, it seems that the essence of his message still is lost. Though his teachings centered on the idea that God’s realm is among us and that it is about welcoming home and feeding the hungry and healing the sick and even though they keep asking him, “Are you the one who is promised the prophets?” And he keeps saying, “yes and no,” and keeps trying to show them enlightenment, he turns out to be a huge disappointment to all of them because he does not offer the revenge and triumph that they believe they want, which helps to explain why the entire crowd turns on him by week’s end, ultimately leading to his state-sanctioned murder on so-called Good Friday. We know it in our history and in our present day, how easily it is done–that crowds of otherwise good people can be brought together and turned on a dime with focused blame and scapegoating and before you know it, you have a mob shouting, “Gas them! Lynch them! Deport them! Crucify them!”

I believe that the spiritual cautionary tale of Palm Sunday and Holy Week is this: that we really do reap what we sow. We really do make the road by walking. And as we go, what sort of ethical compass will guide us? Because our compass will point to the destination. I’ve thought a lot about that fateful day in 2003, when six weeks after the invasion of Iraq, George Bush stood under that banner that proclaimed, “Mission Accomplished.” When I think of it now, it seems in an ironic way to underscore just what the enlightened ones of this age and of every age and of every religion and of no religion know and teach us all–that violence begets violence. When the mission of the palm parade is killing and destruction, then that will be what is accomplished. When I sow seeds of violence in my life–when I point my moral compass in a direction that leads me to speak and act in ways that are not filled with compassion and humility and deep listening and forgiveness, then violence is what I shall reap. Mission accomplished.

And so, let us sow something else. I believe that the teachings of Jesus and of all the great ones throughout the centuries point us in the same direction–the truth that the road we make by walking will be rough and steep at times and that we may choose to make it a way of new and renewing life. Thich Nhat Han puts it in this simple and yet, complex way: “Peace begins with us: take your practice into the world.” So, forgive the pun, but it works: Jesus, Thich Nhat Han, and all the great ones before, with, and after us, are palm pilots. A pilot is a person duly qualified to steer ships through difficult waters, or in the case of a business project, the pilot is the one that goes before, is the experiment, the paradigm, the introduction before something becomes more and more widely used, prevalent in the world. Let us not be swayed or dismayed into violent triumphal invasions in word or deed in these days, when the pilot project of the universe is really, Peace begins with us, take your practice into the world.

The ways of sorrow –the crucifixions of this life, the death and destruction are undeniable, very real. But the enduring hope of this day is that Palm Sunday falls this year on the day of the vernal equinox, and the irresistible truth is that life will struggle back from death, that Good Friday’s capital punishment is not the end of the story, in the bud there is a flower, that there are times when we actually get it, and we start down a new road–a road of equity and justice for one another and for the creation, and when we do that, then we also reap what we sow. I want to do what Wendell Berry commands me when he writes: “Practice resurrection.”

Around the world today, different kinds of decorations will come out to celebrate– they will be brought into churches and will line streets and sidewalks and paths through the pueblos–olive branches in some places, pines, palms, and willows will parade and wave and pad the way in beauty. I guess I am bent toward the willows. Do you know that the Wiccans, in their practice, when someone is dying, they wave farewell with a bough from a willow tree, a blessing good-bye to all those who are passing over to the Summerland…and so, as we remember Jesus and all who suffer, we might think that he is being waved into Jerusalem with palms and willow branches as he makes his way to that place where his work is done, mission accomplished–one of the pilots, the pilgrims, who make a road by walking–a road that points us to God. Once, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “I am a willow of the wilderness, loving the wind that bent me.” May we be willowy travelers on the roads in this beautiful spring, bending and moving, growing and strong, exploring and opening and making the roads that lead to peace. Amen.