Palm Sunday March 29th 2026, There is Always a Choice
Palm Sunday March 29th 2026, There is Always a Choice
There is Always a Choice
Homily by Lisa Wiens Heinsohn for St. John’s Episcopal Church
Palm Sunday, March 29, 2026: Matthew 26:14-75
Today we enter the great, beating heart of Christian faith, the holy week when we commemorate the full story of Jesus’ final days. Beginning with a day of seemingly great triumph, in the events we now celebrate today as Palm Sunday, Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem from the east on a donkey, the crowd hailing him at the exact same time as Pontius Pilate and all the power of Rome entered the city of Jerusalem from the West, with the pomp and circumstance of empire. The contrast could not be more striking. The people shouted “Hosanna in the highest!” and laid their palm branches on the ground before Jesus, like a great red carpet for one they hoped would be the messiah of a new era. And indeed he was, but not in the way any of them thought he would be, not in the way any of them hoped. Not in the way Jesus himself hoped, as we will see in his anguish Thursday night in the Garden of Gethsemane.
No one wants to suffer. But we have in Jesus the very heart of a God who chooses to give up any and all privilege and instead joins humanity in all its suffering for the sake of love and healing. I love this beating heart of Christian faith because in it there is no pretense of a Pollyanna philosophy that pretends everything is OK. It most certainly isn’t.
And in the Great Story, we are all of the characters. Sometimes we are Peter, the one whose intentions are good, but who ends up failing in the critical moment, denying the truth of what really matters and who we really are, and we weep, bitterly. Sometimes we are the one who is betrayed by someone who promised the world to us and who did not keep their word. Sometimes we are the crowds, stirred up by outrage and breathing violence even though a quiet part of our inner soul knows better and is warning us. Sometimes we are the Roman soldiers, numbly doing our job even though we know innocents are crucified because of it. Sometimes we are Pilate, throwing up our hands in despair, saying it’s not my fault because the system doesn’t permit me to make any other choice.
But the truth is that there is always, always, always a choice. Two hundred thousand people chose to march on the Capitol in St. Paul yesterday to express their love of Minnesota and their insistence that authoritarianism and imperialism are a menace to the world that must be peacefully and democratically overthrown. Many more clergy and specifically Christians, including myself, will be marching this afternoon to the Capitol to reclaim the “love your neighbor as yourself” version of Christianity that we believe is the heart of following Jesus, and not the version that falsely idolizes the nation. We choose. We can choose to truly love, to embody compassion, to refuse to hate anyone or to demonize anyone, even those with whom we most bitterly disagree.
Jesus walked a terribly difficult road, one that led to and through suffering and death. His was not a success story. He died so young. So if your heart is broken, feeling that some things or people ended too soon; if you see no world in which things can be made whole again; if you are sick to the death of the selfishness and violence and self-righteousness everywhere on display; then take heart, dear ones. You are not alone. We walk this road together. And among us still, is the Spirit of Christ, the love of God so great that nothing could defeat it. We can always choose love. We can always choose to tell the truth. We can always choose to sacrifice our own personal privilege for the greater good. We may suffer loss because of it. But loss comes whether we try to avoid it or not.
The one thing that cannot ever be taken away from you is your choice of attitude about how to walk the road life puts in front of you. This choice exists every moment of every day. Viktor Frankl was a thirty-seven year old man who survived Auschwitz, who weighed eighty-five pounds when the camp was finally liberated. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning reflecting on his experiences, he said this: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” Most of us have enough freedom to choose our actions as well. If you are like those first disciples of Jesus, and every follower of Jesus since then, sometimes you’ll get it wrong, and sometimes you’ll get it right. Either way, the next moment provides you another opportunity to choose love. The next moment provides you another opportunity to recognize the humanity, to see divine light, in another who is very different from you. The next moment provides you a chance to realize that the earth herself is sacred and alive and worthy of respect. The next moment provides you the chance to let the past go and for this moment, to begin again.
However you have failed or how others have failed you; whatever future you imagine is likely; whatever tempts you to give up; I invite us all to walk through this holy week, finding your unique story in the Great Story of Jesus, of death and resurrection that is the rhythm of nature, the heartbeat of reality itself. Let go what must be released. Allow the new life God is always bringing about to come to birth. It will come. Let us be on our way. Amen.
10am Service
Download Sermon TextPalm Sunday March 29th 2026, There is Always a Choice
Palm Sunday March 29th 2026, There is Always a Choice
There is Always a Choice
Homily by Lisa Wiens Heinsohn for St. John’s Episcopal Church
Palm Sunday, March 29, 2026: Matthew 26:14-75
Today we enter the great, beating heart of Christian faith, the holy week when we commemorate the full story of Jesus’ final days. Beginning with a day of seemingly great triumph, in the events we now celebrate today as Palm Sunday, Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem from the east on a donkey, the crowd hailing him at the exact same time as Pontius Pilate and all the power of Rome entered the city of Jerusalem from the West, with the pomp and circumstance of empire. The contrast could not be more striking. The people shouted “Hosanna in the highest!” and laid their palm branches on the ground before Jesus, like a great red carpet for one they hoped would be the messiah of a new era. And indeed he was, but not in the way any of them thought he would be, not in the way any of them hoped. Not in the way Jesus himself hoped, as we will see in his anguish Thursday night in the Garden of Gethsemane.
No one wants to suffer. But we have in Jesus the very heart of a God who chooses to give up any and all privilege and instead joins humanity in all its suffering for the sake of love and healing. I love this beating heart of Christian faith because in it there is no pretense of a Pollyanna philosophy that pretends everything is OK. It most certainly isn’t.
And in the Great Story, we are all of the characters. Sometimes we are Peter, the one whose intentions are good, but who ends up failing in the critical moment, denying the truth of what really matters and who we really are, and we weep, bitterly. Sometimes we are the one who is betrayed by someone who promised the world to us and who did not keep their word. Sometimes we are the crowds, stirred up by outrage and breathing violence even though a quiet part of our inner soul knows better and is warning us. Sometimes we are the Roman soldiers, numbly doing our job even though we know innocents are crucified because of it. Sometimes we are Pilate, throwing up our hands in despair, saying it’s not my fault because the system doesn’t permit me to make any other choice.
But the truth is that there is always, always, always a choice. Two hundred thousand people chose to march on the Capitol in St. Paul yesterday to express their love of Minnesota and their insistence that authoritarianism and imperialism are a menace to the world that must be peacefully and democratically overthrown. Many more clergy and specifically Christians, including myself, will be marching this afternoon to the Capitol to reclaim the “love your neighbor as yourself” version of Christianity that we believe is the heart of following Jesus, and not the version that falsely idolizes the nation. We choose. We can choose to truly love, to embody compassion, to refuse to hate anyone or to demonize anyone, even those with whom we most bitterly disagree.
Jesus walked a terribly difficult road, one that led to and through suffering and death. His was not a success story. He died so young. So if your heart is broken, feeling that some things or people ended too soon; if you see no world in which things can be made whole again; if you are sick to the death of the selfishness and violence and self-righteousness everywhere on display; then take heart, dear ones. You are not alone. We walk this road together. And among us still, is the Spirit of Christ, the love of God so great that nothing could defeat it. We can always choose love. We can always choose to tell the truth. We can always choose to sacrifice our own personal privilege for the greater good. We may suffer loss because of it. But loss comes whether we try to avoid it or not.
The one thing that cannot ever be taken away from you is your choice of attitude about how to walk the road life puts in front of you. This choice exists every moment of every day. Viktor Frankl was a thirty-seven year old man who survived Auschwitz, who weighed eighty-five pounds when the camp was finally liberated. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning reflecting on his experiences, he said this: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” Most of us have enough freedom to choose our actions as well. If you are like those first disciples of Jesus, and every follower of Jesus since then, sometimes you’ll get it wrong, and sometimes you’ll get it right. Either way, the next moment provides you another opportunity to choose love. The next moment provides you another opportunity to recognize the humanity, to see divine light, in another who is very different from you. The next moment provides you a chance to realize that the earth herself is sacred and alive and worthy of respect. The next moment provides you the chance to let the past go and for this moment, to begin again.
However you have failed or how others have failed you; whatever future you imagine is likely; whatever tempts you to give up; I invite us all to walk through this holy week, finding your unique story in the Great Story of Jesus, of death and resurrection that is the rhythm of nature, the heartbeat of reality itself. Let go what must be released. Allow the new life God is always bringing about to come to birth. It will come. Let us be on our way. Amen.
