Sixth Sunday in Lent
April 2, 2023
By Jody Mask
I never knew until I went to seminary that “liturgy” meant “work of the people.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops notes the fuller sense of the Greek word from which it came: “public work or work done on behalf of the people.”
Today we celebrate the Liturgy of the Palms which commemorates the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Matthew doesn’t refer to the branches being waved as palms, but church tradition insists on it.
That’s good for me, living in Florida. Palm trees are a dime a dozen here! Instead of having to source responsibly farmed palms from a far-away place, we can go to our backyards. Armed with a pair of loppers, we watch out for paper wasp nests on the back side of saw palmetto fronds, or bats roosting in sabal palm trees. Ideally, we look for non-native palms first, but that is not always practical. We share the responsibility so that no one has to cut too much from our native species.
We work together as the people bringing our gifts of greenery into the worship space. This is a public work. We do it on behalf of the whole people of God. It is closer to actual liturgy than any responsive reading in worship, important as that might be.
Palm Sunday arrives, and we wave our locally sourced fronds together--a glorious display of local color!
As the celebration ends, and Holy Week dutifully advances, we give thanks for the communal gathering of the fronds and for the trees and shrubs that produced them. Then, we set them alight. We source the remnants as next year’s Ash Wednesday ashes. Nothing is wasted, especially the work of the people. Hosanna!
Rev. Jody Mask pastors Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida and fosters creation stewardship through guided hikes in Seminole County.
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