Coming Out Publicly

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Palm Sunday

Bob Armstrong, MDiv, MA, LPCC (he/him)

Pastor, Rose Run Presbyterian Church (New Albany, OH)

Allied Christian

Palm branches, donkeys, and Hosannas fill the stories of what is commonly called Jesus’ “triumphal entry into Jerusalem.” This event occurs on Palm Sunday and marks the beginning of Holy Week, the seven days before Easter. If you show up on just those two Sundays, you leap from one joy-filled day to another.

However, the power of the Easter story is not experienced unless we realize that when Jesus entered Jerusalem on that donkey, he was coming out publicly for the first time. Until then, he had kept his full identity hidden from the public, only hinting at it. Even his closest friends and followers rarely spoke it aloud among themselves. On this morning, he stepped out of the shadows, entering the crowded streets of Jerusalem to publicly proclaim his full identity.

There were cheers and encouragement from his friends, the disciples, as well as members of the crowd. But Jesus heard the other voices, the murmurs who told him to silence the ovations and go back into the shadows. He

knew the cheering would subside, his friends flee, and the anger of those who took offense at his very being would build. Still Jesus continued openly into the very heart of the city and the Temple, the place he called his Father’s house, a place of prayer for ALL people.

Some people reading this may have felt the need to hide a part of yourself; known the anguish of rejection or condemnation when you have been open and honest about yourself. This story assured us that Jesus has walked that path as well. Any words of condemnation are NOT his. He offers compassion and courage to his companions in the way of grace and truth. He leads us all openly into the sanctuary of God’s love, the truly triumphal entry.

Reflection

What thoughts or feelings do you have when it is suggested that the events of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem are viewed as his coming out publicly?

When, if ever, have you felt that you were welcomed into the Sanctuary of God’s Presence when you were being fully yourself?

Call to Action

Think of who in your life has walked the path of coming out with you and consider how they may have demonstrated the presence and care of Jesus for you. Then share those thoughts with them if it seems appropriate.

Were You There?

Monday, April 7, 2025

Happy Monday, my friends! As we prepare for Palm Sunday and Holy Week next week, I’m thinking about a classic hymn and spiritual which we will likely hear, Were You There?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they said he couldn’t use the bathroom? [1]

Were you there when they said his history was divisive?

Were you there when they separated him from his parents?

Were you there when they revoked his visa and green card?

Were you there when they called him “illegal?”

Were you there when they flew him to a torture facility?

Were you there when they were restoring “sanity” by erasing him from existence?

Were you there when they disappeared him for opposing their policies?

Were you there when they called his art offensive?

Were you there when they sold his blessings for $1,000?

Were you there when they called him a terrorist?

Were you there when they took away his health care?

Were you there when they took away his legal counsel even though he was a child?

Were you there when they denied his creation and shouted “drill, baby, drill?”

Were you there when they used his words of love to justify their hate?

Were you there when He rose up from the dead?

Were you there when He rose up from the dead?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when He rose up from the dead?

Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

Faithfully,

Ben

[1] I encourage you to read these verses rather than try to sing them. I didn’t write these verses to match the music.

A New World and the Vision to See It

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Fifth Sunday of Lent

John Gilmer (he/him)

Nominee for Holy Orders, Episcopal Diocese of Alabama

Allied Christian

I am about to do a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43:19)

In a letter, Bishop Glenda Curry of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama shared with our community that “there is something transformational that happens when we go on pilgrimage. Exploring and entering into a story that’s already been lived once, moves us and shapes us. We believe that pilgrimage is part of who we are as Christians. It also serves to tune our hearts and remind us that there is nowhere that God has not already been and indeed already is – life, death, and new life.”

I heard Bishop Curry’s encouragement and, with many others, took it to heart this past August for the 26th annual Jonathan Daniels and the Martyrs of Alabama pilgrimage. Down in tiny Hayneville, Alabama hundreds of wonderful folks across several Episcopal dioceses and other churches joined to honor and remember those who suffered and died in the Civil Rights Movement.

The Jonathan Daniels and the Martyrs of Alabama pilgrimage honors the life and martyrdom of Jonathan Myrick Daniels and others murdered in Alabama during the civil rights movement. A Virginia Military Institute valedictorian and seminarian at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, MA, Jon heard MLK’s call to clergy and students to rally in Selma to prepare for their march to Montgomery in March of 1965. Jon was 26.

On August 14, 1965, Jon was arrested in Lowndes County at Fort Deposit with many others while helping register Black Alabamians to vote, providing critical social services, working to integrate congregations, and actively protesting segregation by picketing businesses practicing it.

The group, including members of The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was released after almost a week in Hayneville’s dilapidated sweltering jail. Several of them went to Varner’s Cash Store to buy something cold to drink in the Alabama heat. There, acting under color of law, a special deputy, Tom Coleman, stood on the porch and pointed a shotgun at a seventeen-year-old girl, Ruby Sales, and screamed a hateful threat. An instant later, as Coleman pulled the trigger, Jon threw Ruby down behind him and stepped in front of the barrel of Coleman’s shotgun. He died almost instantly. As the group fled, Coleman fired again into the back of a Catholic priest in their group, the Rev. Richard Morrisroe, grievously wounding him. As pilgrims, we, knelt in prayer on the pavement where Jon died and Richard, almost bleeding to death, gasped for air and water.

Coleman would never be convicted of a crime in the Hayneville courthouse where we celebrated a Eucharist, but Jon’s final sacrifice and the work of his life was not in vain.

Our vibrant, diverse churches are a living testament to the world he died working to build. A world we see too in Ruby Sales’ transformative service as a professor and lifelong advocate for the welfare and wellbeing of others, especially our LGBTQIA+ siblings.

We remember the horror of Jon’s death, but I want to share a vision of his joy and love for others, of his life, something no weapon could ever destroy. In his valedictory speech, Jon called out to his classmates in his last lines:

My colleagues and friends, I wish you the joy of a purposeful life. I wish you new worlds and the vision to see them. I wish you the decency and the nobility of which you are capable. These will come with the maturity that it is now our job to acquire in far-flung fields.

Jon saw and shared a glimpse of a new world, and to build a new world requires our wrestling with our own destructive tendency to otherize, to alienate. To treat others as anything other than beloved by God.

With that in mind, Bishop Curry shared the words of theologian, civil rights leader, and a mentor to MLK, Howard Thurman: “Community cannot for long feed on itself. It can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown brothers and sisters [their unknown siblings].”

Each of us others somebody, and to see Christ in everyone takes a special courage, the same strength that animated Jon Daniels and the civil rights champions he served alongside. God made a way in the wilderness through the faith, services, and sacrifice of so many, and that work continues still through us.

Reflection

Why do we and our systems of power “otherize?”

What are concrete steps we can take in our daily lives together and as citizens to combat the dehumanization of others?