09 July 2016

Sermon 20 March 2016 Palm/Passion Sunday Matthew Passion Gospel Year C

         We’ve just heard what is probably the lengthiest Gospel reading of the year. I’m always a bit surprised people don’t slip out for a cup of coffee or suddenly remember they need to check their tires or change their baby. It’s easy to let our attention wander, especially when we’re hearing a story we know so well. I’m as guilty of it as anyone. Despite participating in the Gospel reading, I sometimes find myself thinking about the rest of Holy Week, or what will happen Easter Sunday, or other details. I’ve been blessed though, that each year I’ve received a gift of one thing that has stood out for me that recalls the Passion of Jesus. Some times it’s a material thing, often it’s a quote, a poem, or what someone has said to me. A couple of years ago it was Honey Maid Graham Crackers.
         You may not even like graham crackers, nor may you care about a calculated and clever ad campaign on the part of the company that owns the Honey Maid brand.[1] Some of you may remember this story. It certainly had plenty of media play in 2014. The gist of the story is this. Honey Maid Graham Crackers decided to run ads about the wholesomeness of their product. The ad campaign was called, “This is Wholesome.” To demonstrate wholesomeness, the ads showed various parents and children enjoying graham crackers. Among the people shown are a biracial couple, a gay couple, and a single male parent. The ads released a backlash among people who opposed same-sex or biracial marriage, or both.
         In yet another calculated move, Honey Maid decided to respond by embracing the issues via social media. In the first couple of weeks after it ran, their social media response, which you can still watch on YouTube, had more than 1.5 million hits or views on Facebook.[2]  Honey Maid responded, of course, because they are knowledgeable enough to know that a large part of their customer base is exactly what they portrayed in the advertisements.
The company hired a pair of artists to do something with the negative responses to the ads. The artists rolled the printed complaints into tubes and glued the upright tubes together to spell the word “love.” And it appears on the ad as though once that was done, the artists walked away. But the voice-over tells you that Honey Maid received more than ten times as many positive comments as negative. As the camera slowly pans away, you see the negative responses are totally surrounded by the positive comments.
Andrew Solomon, in his article in the New Yorker online wrote, “The first half turns hatred into love, the second half provides evidence of love itself.”[3]
I think that’s precisely what we need to take away from the Passion Story of Jesus. The first half – the story we heard just now, is the story of hatred turned into love.
Today we heard the story of Jesus turning hatred into love by giving himself up to death on the cross. This story of hatred turned into love on the cross, is for us to hear and absorb today and in Holy Week, before we get to the second half. We tend to rush the second half of the story in our anxiety to have a better ending. If we rush to the ending, we miss what occurs on Jesus’ journey to the cross: the deep and compelling evidence of love. Be patient. Be watchful. Evidence of the love itself surrounding and outweighing the suffering and death comes at Easter. AMEN.


The Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2016





[1]http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/04/honey-maid-and-the-business-of-love.html

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBC-pRFt9OM

[3] Solomon, Andrew. The New Yorker, April 5, 2014. Accessed 13 April 2014.

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