Shouting & Silence
A Palm Sunday sermon for 2025
I was asked to guest-preach last minute at a Baptist Church where my friend is the pastor, because she was sick. Her church used the “Everything In-Between” worship series from A Sanctified Art for Lent this year. This is the sermon I crafted based on those series notes, including the title, and what she told me was going on in the life of the church. I’m wearing my Grandpa’s stole :-)
I met your pastor and her family through my daughter. My daughter and your pastor’s daughter went to elementary school together and became good friends. Imagine my surprise, when the first play date was arranged and I met your pastor and discovered that we were all clergy! At the time, I had recently left pastoring, after over a decade in the church, and moved into hospital chaplaincy. I did my first residency over at WakeMed and it so happened that I was on call during a number of patient deaths, more than anyone else in my cohort. You never forget when it is a child who dies and I provided care for a few families before and after the death of their child. You also never forget the first one, and for me, it was a child who was a year younger than my daughter and her friend, who had been in a really bad car accident. Once the child moved out of the trauma bay and into surgery, I sat with the parents, for what felt like an eternity, in a family waiting room. It was significant, because every time I thought about speaking, whether to ask a question or to offer prayer, every time I even thought about opening my mouth, it felt like the Holy Spirit closed it. I think I got out one question, and it was clear that the parents did not want to talk. It was a time for silence. And so I prayed silently. Later, I met their pastor when she arrived, and we talked briefly in the hallway. She asked for any guidance, being new, and all I could say was that we’d been quiet and to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit would nudge you when it was time to say anything, but mostly it was a ministry of presence. It was being with them in this tragedy, being a silent witness, because there were no words to say.
Knowing when to speak and when to keep silent is something we constantly negotiate. Or maybe we don’t, and we just say whatever is on our mind, no filter, or distract ourselves with the constant noise of the TV or music. But you can’t bear witness if you’re distracted. And you can’t bear witness if you verbalize every thought you have. There has to be something in the messy middle, a discernment, led by the Spirit, of when to speak and when to be quiet.
I don’t know about you, but I am used to noise on Palm Sunday. It’s a noisy Sunday celebration. I’ve been at churches where we have processions, outside, inside, all around. There’s a lot of movement. All five senses are engaged. Palm Sunday services can have a lot going on. Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem is a celebration. The people shout “Hosanna!” and there’s music and it’s loud. But then, the Pharisees complain about the noise. “Hello? Yes, I’d like to file a noise complaint.” And Jesus says, “The noise doesn’t matter. If the people were quiet, then the stones would cry out.” If the people stopped shouting, the stones would start shouting, because this is a time to cry out. The noise level isn’t the point, nor are they making random noise. This was a time when the Spirit was moving people to cry out, not just to make noise, but to praise God and name who Jesus is. “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” In other words, we know who Jesus is. We know who is king – and who is not. Our allegiance is to Jesus, and not to Caesar, or to Pilate, who is entering Jerusalem the same day on the other side of the city with his own parade. This is what those words meant, what that noise meant, what the Pharisees were trying to quash. Jesus is King; we have no other. The Pharisees wanted the people quiet because they were afraid of the political ramifications if the authorities heard the people shouting that Jesus is King. Jesus said no, this is a time to cry out.
A more recent example of someone discerning when to speak out is Oscar Romero; anyone familiar with him? He was a Catholic priest in El Salvador and appointed Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977. Romero was picked because he was considered a safe choice, one who would stick to his books and not rock the boat in the already rocky Salvadoran society. Well, “rocky” is an understatement. Serious oppression, terror, and violence was going on, all sanctioned by the government and enforced by the military. People were mysteriously disappearing, elections were rigged, the press was censored, and you never knew if soldiers were about to start a massacre. Archbishop Romero decided to start speaking out about it after his good friend, Rutilio Grande, was murdered. Padre Rutilio Grande was the first priest of many to be killed during this time, and, keep in mind, in a Catholic country, priests are sacrosanct. During his three years as Archbishop, Romero became the voice for the voiceless of his country. His sermons were broadcast on Salvadoran radio and his common theme was the church and how the church has a duty to speak out against injustice and oppression.
Archbishop Romero himself was assassinated 45 years ago last month, while celebrating Mass, just as he finished preaching. His final sermon was on John 12, where Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life will lose it; those who hate their life in this world will keep it forever.” One of the things he said about this passage was that “one must not love oneself so much as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us, and that those who try to fend off the danger will lose their lives, while those who out of love for Christ give themselves to the service of others will live, like the grain of wheat that dies, but only apparently.”[1] Romero discerned when it was time to speak out and he lived what he preached. He received death threats. He was called all kinds of names and accused of all kinds of things. Yet he stayed true to his call and clear in his own mind and conscience that he was doing Christ’s work, that he needed to speak up against the injustices that were happening. That this was the Holy Spirit prompting him and he could not stay quiet.
Your pastor told me that she was going to use the example of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the letter he wrote from a Birmingham Jail. There, Dr. King described the tendency of the White Church to stay quiet, to not speak up, to feel safer with maintaining the status quo. That was Archbishop Romero before his friend was killed. The violence going on didn’t affect him directly until then. He knew it was going on, but felt who was he to say something? Then he realized he had a microphone, he could speak up for the oppressed, the suffering, the families of those who were disappeared, and those who lived in fear and did not have a say in their government as the “presidents” were actually dictators.
It can be hard to speak up, especially when we’ve been conditioned to be quiet, to be polite, to mind our own business. But if my neighbor is suffering, Jesus says the Good Samaritan, the one who stops to help, is the one who is a good neighbor. “It takes wisdom to know when our voice is needed and when it’s just noise.”[2] It’s a process of discernment, of listening for where the Holy Spirit is nudging you, or maybe hitting you over the head with a 2x4. Anyone remember the old Kudzu comic strip with the Rev. Will B. Dunn? In one strip, the first panel showed the good Reverend on his knees, praying, “God, send me a sign!” The second panel shows Rev. Dunn, still on his knees, next to a large flashing neon sign with the word “sign” on it. God sent a sign! It wasn’t a very helpful sign, but God answered his prayer! The Holy Spirit doesn’t always show up with large flashing lights. It’s often a quiet whisper, which means you have to be quiet enough to hear it.
So, I’m curious. Does this church speak? When do you speak? For whom do you speak? Jesus says that “even the stones will cry out.” It is often uncomfortable. It is often risky, because it is not maintaining the status quo and how things have always been. Change is scary, I know. And yet God often calls us to get uncomfortable. To help someone different from us, like the Good Samaritan. To reach across the aisle. To not play it safe. Friends, we are not here to play it safe. Our voices matter. Our voices are needed. And we have the privilege of being able to use them and make them heard. If you’re feeling unsure, pray about it, and about what to say so that you’re not contributing to a cacophony, but to a harmony.
One final thought, which is that a harmony is not all one note. In a choir, everyone does not sing the same part. You have altos and sopranos, bass and tenor. Each section has their own notes to sing. I had a professor in seminary, who’s now the Dean at Duke Divinity School, and he used this analogy for the Church. The Black Church, the White Church, the Hispanic Church, the Korean Church, all the different churches, we all have a part to sing and we don’t sing the same part. But we each have to know our part so that we don’t lose it and start singing someone else’s part. Nor can we drown out another’s part and effectively silence their voice. We each have a part that is just as important as any other. 1 Corinthians 12 talks about one body with many members. We need each other. We need each other’s voices. We have to discern when it is time to speak and when it is time to be silent, as it says in Ecclesiastes. I know y’all are voting today on “words of welcome” because you want to make sure each person’s voice is heard. Sometimes feeling loved looks a lot like feeling heard. We’re called to bear witness, to bear one another’s burdens, to help each other along life’s journey. Jesus says the greatest commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor. Let us go and do likewise.
[1] Oscar Romero, Voice of the Voiceless, p. 191-2
[2] From the sermon prep for “Everything In-Between” worship series by A Sancitified Art