Walking with the Servant King

Palm Sunday, Year C
​Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.  For you have redeemed me, O God of truth… Amen…
​     
​St. Augustine of Hippo once said ’Go forth on your path, as it exists only through your walking’… 

    Walking is a way of life. 

    If we’re able, we spent a great part of each day walking.  We walk from our beds to our bathrooms and closets, then on to the kitchen, and then to wherever else we may need to be in the day.

    For much of human history, certainly before the advent of the car, people walked everywhere - into town, to the market, to church, you name it. 

    A surefire way to disarm a child who complains about taking the bus to school is: ‘well back in my day, I had to walk to 5 miles to school - uphill - in the snow!’… 

    Walking has been shown to have numerous mental health benefits, too.  It reduces stress and anxiety, improves mood, increases alertness, and enhances cognitive function - I know I always tend to have clearer thoughts after a good walk outside… 

    Hippocrates was right when he said 'Walking is man’s best medicine’…

    Whether we realise it or not, walking is a core feature of our Gospel lesson today. 

    Indeed, like the crowds who surround Jesus on his procession into Jerusalem, we too gathered outside of the church proper and processed, that is walked, into the nave for our worship today. 

    Walking is one of the many ways in which we can embody our faith, moving as active participants, not stationary observers, in the story of God’s salvation of mankind…

    Over the last few weeks I’ve encouraged us to think about Lent and Holy Week as a pilgrimage of faith.  

    Spiritual practices, like pilgrimage, are important because they help us to not be stagnant in our faith, but to move in ways that open for us new points of connection with God. 

    Each Monday morning during Lent, a handful of us would gather here in the nave and walk the Stations of the Cross, contemplating each moving scene in those beautiful icons that surround us, as we journeyed with Jesus toward the cross. 

    These spiritual practices, walking the stations, forest bathing, Lectio and Visio divina, and so many others that we touched upon, are all ways in which we can journey, physically and spiritually, with Jesus. 

    Holy Week 2024 was for me a week of walking - it was a literal pilgrimage, just like those of ages past. 

    Over the course of 6 days, from Holy Monday to Holy Saturday, I had walked the 90 miles from London to Canterbury, the great pilgrimage city of medieval England, where for hundreds of years saints and sinners sought healing and new life. 

    I had always loved walking, especially with my mom growing up. 

    Grace and I take our dog, Cadi, for lots of walks, especially with the weather warming. 

    But I had never done anything like this. 

    With all my belongings for the week strapped to my back, with my hiking boots laced up, I set out from London on that cool Monday morning prepared to walk alone. 

    I wanted silence and solitude - and I did get that in good measure.

    I have often felt that God speaks most clearly to me in nature - maybe you feel the same.  I can feel His presence in the quiet whistle of the wind, the rustling of the leaves, and the singing of birds. 

    When the Pharisees bid Jesus to silence the crowds, Jesus says ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out’. 

    Indeed, we can hear all of nature, if we just immerse ourselves in it, singing the praises of its creator. 

    I knew this to be true as I walked, and walked, and walked, all those miles.  The solitude of own thoughts was only ever consistently interrupted by the wind and the rain, creation shouting at me, like those stones of Jerusalem, the power of our shared creator. 

    The point of a pilgrimage is to draw closer to Christ.  And as my body wore down, particularly my knees as I struggled to free myself from miles of mud, I became wholly reliant on His strength to carry me. 

    I prayed for strength, for healing, and for the courage to go on. 

    I had never undertaken something like that before; I had never put my body through such sustained pain, and it was honestly one of the greatest experiences of my life. 

    In having nothing to do each day but walk and pray, my soul became a vessel into which the Holy Spirit could enter in. 

    I became attuned to the voice of God that was all around me. 

    And in hearing that voice, I drew ever slightly closer to understanding the nature of who Jesus Christ is for me, and for us. 

    There were moments, many moments, along the way where I longed for companionship, and God sent me someone with whom to walk - but that’s a sermon for another Sunday. 

    There were moments when my body needed to stop and rest, and God provided a safe and comfortable place, usually a tree stump, on which I could sit. 

    But what was most evident to me, after all of that walking alone, was that even as God walked with me, He was leading me back toward community…

    I was at my weakest, physically, on Maundy Thursday.  I could barely walk, and so I decided to rest and instead go across the River Medway to Rochester Cathedral, where the diocese was celebrating its Chrism Mass. 

    Hobbling along those ancient cobblestone streets, I stumbled into the cathedral church, limped up ancient stairs that had literally been worn down by the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who climbed them over the centuries, and took my place in the great nave. 

    It was the first I had been around any sizeable group of people that week.  

    And I’ll never forget what happened to me there.  The Chrism Mass, if you don’t know, is the annual service at which clergy renew their ordination vows, and new holy oil is consecrated by the bishop to be used for healing and baptismal anointing. 

    Healing prayers and anointing were offered to everyone, and when I came forward to receive mine, with the organ playing away in the background and scores of folks singing around me, the tears rolled down my face.  

    My body, so in need of Christ’s healing touch, found it there in midst of the Church, that great family of faith; fellow pilgrims on the way…. 

    That experience was just a first of many instances in which I met Christ, so powerfully and so vividly, on the final stretch of my journey.  

    It was as if that entry back into community, if only for a couple of hours, had given me all that I needed to continue walking my own path. 

    It serves as a reminder to me that life, in all its forms, is simultaneously a journey that we walk alone with God, but is made all the sweeter when we stop and cherish moments with those we meet along the way. 

    Jesus and His disciples are entering Jerusalem that Palm Sunday as pilgrims themselves.  They walked to that holy city for the Passover holiday. 

    Many different people, many walks of life, all brought together by a common faith in God. 

    Many different people, many walks of life, all of whom were touched, in one way or another, by a God who healed them when they were sick, soothed them when they were suffering, pitied them in their affliction, and loved them beyond measure. 

    A crowd is a group of individuals brought together by a shared circumstance, that was true of those who proclaimed Jesus as king on Palm Sunday, and it is also true of the crowd who would chant ‘crucify Him’ on Good Friday. 

    But crowds, the best kind of crowds, congregations of people, can by their enthusiastic witness, point to a new path forward. 

    At that Chrism Mass last Maundy Thursday, that crowd of clergy and pilgrims, brought together by their commitment to Christ, sang a hymn that has stuck with me ever since. 

    The Servant King, by Graham Kendrick, which is our hymn of the day, beautifully and simply illustrates the kind of king whom we worship. 

    It was written for Holy Week, and its refrain is what keeps me coming back to it over and over again, particularly when I find myself walking a difficult path in my life. 

    Jesus Christ, the king of kings who we acclaim today and everyday, is not the king our world expects.  

    He is the king who throws out the money lenders, and gives to the poor. 

    He is the king who sits down to dinner with his friends, even the one who is to betray him. 

    He is the king who exchanges a crown of glory for a crown of thorns, and a throne for the hard wood of the cross…. 

    Each of us is on a pilgrimage of faith, and we each walk it at times alone.  But this Holy Week is an opportunity to remember that our faith is richer when it is lived out together, in a shared love of He who gave His life for us. 

    I hope you will consider walking the Way of Christ together this week as we journey with Him toward the cross and the empty tomb…

    Our king is a servant king, and he calls us to follow Him, to bring our lives as a daily offering, of worship to the servant king. 

    In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… Amen…