Sunday: Palm Sunday
Reading: Mark 11:1-11; 14:1-15:47
Preacher: S. James Steen

Numerous encounters from my past come back vividly when a new experience evokes a flashback to one of them. I imagine we all have these Proustian moments. Some of my recurring memories are agreeable, even moving, like the time I felt the presence of God anew, as I entered Robert E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church, following a period of intense agnosticism during college. A less pleasant memory is of a confrontation that took place back when I was a young adult living near Seattle.

One of our Golden Retrievers - my wife and I had two at the time - was frolicking in the front yard when the child who lived next door wandered onto our property. When the rambunctious young dog frightened the child, the girl's mother raced into our yard and yelled at me, "Why can't you control your dog? Look at what he's done to my child," to which I shouted back even louder, "If you had been paying attention to your child, this wouldn't have happened. So don't blame me or my dog!" Then I immediately stormed into the house.

Fight or flight. Surely we're all familiar with that pattern, which can be so powerful as to take control of us. I have a big, athletic friend who finds it impossible to argue, so much so that if an argument ensues, he races from the room. As I have said before, the late Family Systems expert and my mentor, Dr. Edwin Friedman, has described such responses as reptilian, because they utilize only those parts of the brain we share with reptiles. When we exhibit a reptilian response, we bypass the human capacity to exhibit playfulness and to connect meaningfully, as well as the ability to make reasoned choices and to experience comfort with deep emotions.

In place of the fight or flight reflex, Friedman advocates for remaining connected. He says that in the face of disagreements, the mature, human response is to hold on to our position, while simultaneously remaining connected to others with whom we are interacting. So, the challenge is to show respect for others and for ourselves, neither caving in weakly, nor aggressively attacking, both of which ultimately lead to alienation and keep us stuck in childish behavior. By contrast, remaining clear but connected deepens relationships and opens us to the possibility of transformation.

I know that while this makes a great deal of sense, it's so much easier to have as a goal than to practice as a reality. After I ran into my house following that shouting match with the next-door neighbor, I quickly realized that my behavior was cowardly and could only lead to ongoing alienation. So I summoned every ounce of determination and courage I could muster and walked next door to attempt an adult conversation. Fortunately, my neighbor was as eager as I to reconnect, and having once overcome the hurdle, from then on we found it much easier to maintain an adult relationship, or to use Family Systems terminology, we found it easier to be self-differentiated while, at the same time, staying connected.

In her excellent book, Fierce Conversations, Susan Scott maintains that great relationships, including marriages and relationships with our children, are built one conversation at a time. When she urges us to engage in fierce conversations, she doesn't mean conversations that are angry or hostile. Far from it, she has in mind adjectives like robust, strong, and powerful, all synonyms for fierce according to Roget. For Scott, "a fierce conversation is one where we come out from behind ourselves into the conversation and make it real."¹ Believing quite simply that the conversation is the relationship, she exhorts us, in every conversation, to "speak and listen as if this is the most important conversation you will ever have with this person. It could be. Participate as if it matters. It does."² When measured against that standard, I am appalled to think of all the wasted conversations - and thus wasted opportunities - I have participated in.

It's Palm Sunday, and you may be wondering what in the world all this has to do with Jesus ministry, his triumphal entry, his death, which we will recall dramatically before we leave this morning, and his Resurrection, which we will celebrate this coming Saturday night and next Sunday. I believe that what I've been discussing has everything to do with these events.

During this coming Holy Week try reading Mark's Gospel from start to finish, in one sitting, if possible, and see how many fierce conversations you find Jesus having with the people he encounters. If you take this challenge, will you find any conversations that aren't fierce? Does Jesus ever speak without authenticity, hiding behind a mask? Does he ever indulge in wasted conversations, where he beats around the bush for fear of upsetting others and deprives his audience of courageous words that could be life changing?
The truth is that he wouldn't have ended up on the cross had he avoided fierce conversations, had he backed off for fear of upsetting people, when he knew what God was calling him to say. Jesus knew that too much was at stake to spend his life making small talk.

Marcus Borg and John Dominick Crossan observe that the notion that Jesus died for our sins is totally absent from Mark, the oldest Gospel. In Mark, it isn't that Jesus died for our sins, but rather he died because of our sins. And it was the fierce conversations in which he challenged those who oppressed others, urging them instead to claim their citizenship in God's kingdom of justice and compassion, that brought about his death.³

At the end of this liturgy, when Jesus is brought before the religious and civil authorities and accused of the capital crime of treason, be aware of how he responds: He never denies the charges that are brought against him, never denies the kingship that Pilate views as such a threat to his own authority. Throughout, he remains so secure of his own identity that he doesn't even try to convince his judges to see things his way; nor does he turn his back on them in rejection. Regardless of their behavior, he remains connected and open to the possibility of relationship - to the end. Just imagine that, given his dire situation.

Today's service ends in death; but this week we call Holy calls us to life. It calls us to life where we don't settle for half dead relationships because we are too timid to be fully present to one another. It calls us to life where we dare to remain in relationship with those who tell us what we don't want to hear, because we suspect they may be telling us the truth. Most of all, this week calls us to abundant life and to the promise that in Jesus we can discover our own deepest identity. So come, let us worship. Together, let us walk the way of the Cross all to way to the empty tomb.

Amen.

¹ Susan Scott: Fierce Conversations (The Berkely Publishing Group: New York, 2004) p. 7.

² Scott, p. xv

³ Marcus J. Borg and John Dominick Crossan: The Day-by-Dad Account of Jesus' Final Week in Jerusalem (Harper Collins Publishers: New York, 2006) pp. 153-155.