There’s an episode in the TV show Superstore where the mood of the show shifts dramatically. In this show that rarely addresses topics in any serious manner, this particular episode sees a beloved couple make a difficult decision to break up. It is a heartbreaking moment that shocks you from this typically happy-go-lucky show. And just as the tears are about to stream down your cheeks, something equally surprising happens. The comedy returns, abruptly and unexpectedly. I don’t want to give too many details away, in case you haven’t seen the show. But this return of comedy in the face of this tragedy you’ve just experienced in the show leaves you feeling a bit discombobulated and wondering how to feel, sad about the break up or happy about the ability to find joy even in the face of such tragedy.

That scene from Superstore came to my mind as I thought about the story we read from the gospel of Luke for today. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. He and his disciples are headed there for the Passover celebration. On the way, Jesus is of course teaching the disciples, as he was prone to do. And amidst the parables he tells them, he also foretells his impending death. Jesus knows that he is going to Jerusalem for the last time in his earthly life. Now, when he gets to Bethany and Bethphage, which are less than two miles outside of Jerusalem near the Mount of Olives. While there, Jesus sent two of his disciples into the village ahead of them, which was probably Bethphage since it was closer to Jerusalem than Bethany, and tells them that they will find an unridden colt of a donkey there. They are to untie it and bring it to Jesus, which they do. Then they drape their clocks over the colt and set Jesus on the colt’s back. Then Jesus rides toward Jerusalem on the donkey’s back.

It’s at this point that something really interesting happens. Jesus’ followers get excited! They begin to lay their cloaks on the ground and wave palm branches in the air as Jesus approaches them. What was going to simply be a walk into Jerusalem turned into a parade. I’m not sure that was what Jesus had in mind, perhaps it even felt a bit out of place given what Jesus knew was soon to occur. But it happened anyway. And sometimes we just have to let our friends celebrate us, because we would do the same for them. That’s what friends do. They make ridiculous scenes in the attempt to show their other friends love and support. That’s what families do too, right? We’ve all heard the parents who yell louder than everyone else and sometimes even make a scene when their child’s name is called for graduation or at a sporting event or when they’ve just played a solo in the band concert. We celebrate those we loved, whether the timing of that celebration is appropriate or not.

And that’s what Jesus’ friends did. They gathered along the road where Jesus was riding his borrowed donkey and they shouted out and waved palm branches and spread their cloaks out on the ground in front of him. And then the crowd started shouting praises to God for all of the wonderful deeds of power they had seen. Essentially they were praising Jesus for showing them God. And of course we know that Jesus did a lot during his earthly ministry to show the power and love of God. He performed miracles of healing and restoration from the dead. He exorcized demons and fed the hungry and welcomed the outcast as friends. He spoke with authority and offered forgiveness of sins. And the people along the road to Jerusalem were praising God for the things God had done in Jesus.

This morning as we think about this parade, as we wave our palm branches and shout hosanna, I think there are three things we can take from this story to remind us that we are good enough and that we are beloved. The first is that God is at work. The people celebrated God at work through the person of Jesus. They had seen how gracious and loving Jesus was and they praised God for it. Do we take notice of God at work in our lives? In our world? I visited with someone recently who said they didn’t know if they had ever seen God working in their life. Is that true for you too?

I recently came across a list of 4 spiritual practices that help us to “see differently” and find God in the world around us. These are practices that come out of the Fransiscan tradition within the Catholic church. The first practice is called attending. This is the practice of anchoring ourselves and learning to pay attention to what is before us, around us, and even within us. Sigmund Freud tells the story of a three-year-old boy crying in a dark room of a home he was visiting one evening. “Auntie,” the boy cried, “talk to me! I’m frightened because it is so dark.” His aunt answered him from another room: “What good would that do? You can’t see me.” “That doesn’t matter,” replied the child. “When you talk, it gets light.” Practicing attending is simply recognizing that God is already with us and at work in our lives and our world. And when we do that, the world will often feel a bit more light.

God is at work and it’s good for us to recognize that. But we can also learn from this story that we need to celebrate one another. I don’t just mean that we celebrate one another in the good times. I mean that we celebrate one another no matter what the situation. There’s a beautiful passage in Paul’s letter to Rome, chapter 12, that talks about letting love be genuine, hating what is evil, and loving what is good. And it says we are to love one another with mutual affection. And eventually it says this: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” That is what we do with friends and family. We rejoice with them and we weep with them. And sometimes, we lift them up when they are down. Maybe even throw them a big party or a parade in order to show our support.

I love TV shows and movies that depict friends or families that go through some pretty rough stuff together but still stick together. One of the shows that really capitalized on that ideal is the show Friends. In fact, the theme song of the show right away gives us a clue that this group of friends is in it for the long haul. The theme song says, “So no one told you life was gonna be this way…Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s D.O.A…It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear…When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year, but I’ll be there for you (When the rain starts to pour)…I’ll be there for you (Like I’ve been there before)…I’ll be there for you (‘Cause you’re there for me too).” I really believe that the show Friends was so successful because it showed us what friendship can be and it showed us what we all desire…to have people who rejoice with us when we rejoice and weep with us when we weep…and sometimes even go to embarrassing lengths to celebrate us, whether we deserve celebrating or not.

God is at work and it’s good for us to recognize that. We need to celebrate one another. And, finally, we need to rejoice whenever we can. Jesus was entering Jerusalem for what turned out to be the last time. And it seems pretty clear that Jesus knew what was going to happen. He could see the writing on the wall well before he was lifted onto that donkey and paraded into the town. Jesus knew that he was coming into Jerusalem, not just for the feast of the Passover, not just to celebrate with his friends, but to do the very thing that the people on the sides of the road were imploring him to do, even though their idea of how he would do that was much different than the way it came about. Jesus came into Jerusalem to save the people…not by coming on a mighty steed and conquering Herod and the oppressive Roman Empire, but by coming in peace and being abused and killed for no crimes of his own. This journey into Jerusalem could have been a very somber one. After all, Jesus had been predicting his own death for a while. Yet Jesus’ friends saw the opportunity to rejoice and they took it.

“Frank Laubach, a missionary to the Philippines known for his Letters by a Modern Mystic, began to experiment with practicing God’s presence when he first arrived on the mission field. In those early months, Laubach described himself as ‘a lonesome man in a strange land.’ He had a lot of time on his hands with which to give focused time to noticing God’s presence and work. After a while, the demands of ministry began to increase, and Laubach was with people every moment of every waking day. In that context, he wrote: ‘Either this new situation will crowd God out or I must take Him into it all. I must learn a continuous silent conversation of heart to heart with God while looking into other eyes and listening to other voices. If I decide to do this it is far more difficult than the thing I was doing before. Yet if this experiment is to have any value for busy people it must be worked under exactly these conditions of high pressure and throngs of people.’”

I mentioned earlier the 4 spiritual practices to help us “see differently” and find God in the world around us, but I only listed one of the four: attending. The other three are: inhabiting (which is recognizing that the place where we are is sacred), valuing (which is recognizing the inherent dignity and value in everything that God created), and the fourth is gazing (which is essentially contemplating what we do with what we learned from the other three practices). I think if we all applied these four practices to our lives, we would be quicker to recognize God at work in our lives, in both the good times and the difficult times. We would be ready to celebrate our friends and family, rejoicing when they rejoice and weeping when they weep. And we would be ready to rejoice no matter the circumstances because we know that God is always with us and always at work in and through us. So, may we be like Jesus’ disciples and celebrate the wonderful works Jesus has done for us and may we also celebrate one another for who God created each person to be and let’s lift one another up, even in the darkest of times. That’s what friends are for! Amen!