Palm Sunday 2025

Some while ago my son introduced me to an app called What Three Words.  I’m sure you’ve heard of it.  In a spirit of curiosity I decided to install it on my phone yesterday morning.  You’ll be pleased to know that my three words (when sitting at my desk, at least) are

ridge folders immediate

Some of you might think those rather appropriate!  I was just pleased it wasn’t rigid!  I can’t imagine I’m going to have much use for this app, but of course it can be a life-saver.  I saw a fascinating programme the other day about a woman who had had a fall from a cliff on a remote Hebridean island, and having the app meant the helicopter could pinpoint her position exactly.

Of course, just three words can have other uses and applications.  Political parties pay their strategists thousands of pounds to come up with three-word slogans that will catch the public imagination.

Stop the boats
Save the NHS
Take back control

And not only political parties.   Remember Vorsprung durch Technik?  Not to mention Bean Meanz Heinz!  The nationalistic, bling-covered prosperity gospel expounded in some places in the USA could not be further from the gospel I find in my bible. Yet these so-called evangelists attract millions.

In Germany in the 1930s three-word or three-syllable slogans were also found very useful.

Heil Hitler
Arbeit macht frei
Deutschland über alles

One person who was not swayed by such slogans was the pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Born in 1906 in Breslau, then Germany, now Poland, he was a gifted student. He trained for the Lutheran ministry and was ordained in 1931.  He held a variety of teaching posts in Belgium, Sweden, the USA, and spent two years as a parish priest to the German congregation in Sydenham, south London.  You may have heard last Sunday’s Morning Worship on Radio 4, which came from there.  Bonhoeffer wrote his most famous book, The Cost of Discipleship, in 1937, when he was only 31.  I will be reading from it during our Agape Supper on Maundy Thursday and again on Easter Day. As you will know, the mainstream churches for the most part colluded with the Nazi regime.  Bonhoeffer and others signed the Barmen Declaration, and formed the Confessing Church, strongly distancing themselves from the subjugation of the church to the state.  This is a simplification, but you can of course read about it in greater depth online and elsewhere.  In 1939 Bonhoeffer moved to the USA.  But he quickly regretted his decision and after only two weeks felt compelled to return to his home country, where he undertook a ministry of preaching, teaching and resistance.  In 1943 he was arrested by the regime, and on 9 April 1945, 80 years ago this week, he was hanged at Flossenburg, just three weeks before Hitler’s suicide and the effective end of the war. His statue stands on the west front of Westminster Abbey, one of ten martyrs of the 20^th century.

This morning I listened to a fascinating programme on Archive on 4. It was Kenneth Williams reading the Bible, a recording made by Bp James Jones and never released before.  I do commend it to you.  Of course one of Kenneth Williams’ most famous lines was, “Infamy, infamy – they’ve all got it in-for-me!”

What Jesus asks of us, as we follow him into this Holy Week, is the option of infamy. That we take up our cross and follow him.  That is what Bonhoeffer did. “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” (Mt 16.25). Or, as the hymn puts it: “For only he who bears the cross may hope to wear the glorious crown.”It’s hard to imagine exactly what went on that day in Jerusalem.  We’re told by Matthew that the crowds were very large.  Word had got around, and presumably without social media. Whether they were inspired by religious fervour or looking for a political messiah is hard to say.  The heady mix of politics and religion is sometimes hard to separate.

They had their own slogan.  Not three words, but three syllables. 

In English,

The longing for quick and easy solutions has always been part of human psychology. A charismatic leader, who can attract big crowds and sway them with his rhetoric, is very appealing.  Who doesn’t love a good orator?  Was it not with words more than actions that Churchill won the war?

But, of course, the fellow on the other side had quite a way with words too.  And

can easily turn into another three-syllable word:

as Samuel Crossman will remind us in our hymn later.

You don’t need me to remind you of the worrying trends taking place right across our world.   The rise of the demagogic leader promising neat, quick solutions is all too evident.  People who come to power by seemingly democratic means can very quickly (and it would seem easily) subvert the democratic process.  When this is coupled with religious extremism and Christian nationalism it is very alarming indeed.   The blessing of Putin by the Russian Orthodox Church is a horror show. I wonder if anyone heard the seriously disturbing story of President Trump’s religious adviser? I heard this woman, Paula White, promising special blessings and ‘your own personal angel’ if you contribute to her church funds.  A Senate report found that the church White operated with her husband spent tax-exempt ministry funds one year to pay nearly $900,000 for the couple’s waterfront mansion, and over a million dollars in salaries to family members and for the Whites’ private jet.   This is the President’s faith adviser!