A Palm Sunday Story

Palm Sunday Church in Bethphage

It is right to praise you, Almighty God, for the acts of love by which you have redeemed us through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. On this day he entered the holy city of Jerusalem in triumph, and was proclaimed as King of kings by those who spread their garments and branches of palm along his way. Let these branches be for us signs of his victory, and grant that we who bear them in his name may ever hail him as our King, and follow him in the way that leads to eternal life; who lives and reigns in glory with you and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.
(The Book of Common Prayer, page 271)

This morning I received a call in my office from an Army Reserve Chaplain, looking for palms to celebrate Palm Sunday this weekend at Fort Devens. Of course, I haven't been in the office for weeks; I'm working remotely. But the miracle of the times we are living in meant the message came to me as an audio file by email, and so I called the chaplain back. 

As it turned out, just last night I'd been on a Zoom call with some of our clergy and remembered one of them saying, "we kept our palm order to support the local business where we purchase them and made palm crosses to send out in the mail to parishioners. But I have fifty left if anyone needs them..." 

When I called the chaplain I said, "how many do you need?" He said, "forty or fifty." 

Now, I know the Holy Spirit is working overtime these days and She's got a lot going on. But I kind of needed, in the midst of a lot of complicated challenges these days, an easy one. A "lay up" if you will. So I'm going with this as a Holy Spirit moment in the midst of a long week...

The priest, the Rev. Mary Rosendale, offered to drive the palms to my house. She put them into my trunk and we visited from well over six feet away for a bit. (I think she was glad to get out of the house and take a ride.)

Then I had a Zoom meeting. (I have a lot of those these days.) And then Chaplain Joel Wiggin showed up from Devens, and he took them out of my trunk and we visited from well over six feet feet away for a bit. He told me he's with a medical unit and they are being called up to offer support on this pandemic. He also told me he's a Baptist, but military chaplains do it all and he has a bunch of Roman Catholics who really will be glad to have Palms. (I think he was actually glad to get off post for a bit and take a ride.)

This isn't earthshaking stuff. But does anyone else think it's a cool story? It's how we are the Church, in little ways. It's about the sometimes hidden connections we have to one another, about extra palms from one of our smaller congregations but shared in love. It's about  Episcopalians and Baptists and Roman Catholics, who are many and yet One Body. It's about doing what we can, with God's help.

It kind of made my day to be the middle man.