Palm Reading

When I joined the staff of Saint Thomas Church in New York City back in the last decade, I was bemused by some of the neighboring businesses. Right next to us was a store called “Love”: it was related to the Gap, but one didn’t find “Gap” in its name, just “Love,” in sedate letters carved into stone. Across the avenue and down the street was a hangout called “Burger Heaven.” The best tables were up the stairs, but other than that it didn’t live up to its name.
    So here we were, a church somewhere between Love and Burger Heaven. We offered, one might say, both an alternative to the love you could buy next door and a taste of heaven that had no onions or mustard.
    Also down that street, across from the celestial burgers, was a storefront that said Palm Reading. It still catches me short—I came of age during the time of Gemini space launches—to realize that people resort to palm readers to try to find out things that are true. It seems to me that the one true thing to be read in your palm, if you went there, was that you had just wasted your money.
    Better to go across the street and buy a bovine sandwich.
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    But we Christians do our own palm reading.
    He is entering the holy city, and we want to honor him. We have no red carpet to roll out, but we can cut off some tree branches and spread them on the road in front of him. And we can put our own cloaks and coats down there too.
    Those branches were, of course, palms. Can you read them? Those palms say: we want to honor this person.
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    We also give voice to our joy. He comes in the Lord’s name. We know that he comes to save us.
    But another aspect of this palm reading is that we don’t really get it. We’re delighted to welcome him, but within a few days some of us will be caught up in the social mob of opposition. We won’t stick with him, and we won’t stick together. Our palms say that, too.
    Our palms get read and we see we don’t really know what heaven us, we don’t really know about love. Our palms tell us this is a lot more serious than we thought.
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    Out & About. I am to preach at Church of the Incarnation in Dallas on Maundy Thursday (April 18, 7 p.m.) and at the Easter Vigil (Sat., April 20, 8 p.m.)—both of these are traditional services.
    Recently my blog posts were on the opening lines of the Lord’s Prayer, and some of you have asked me if I intend to continue. Yes, I do, and in due course I hope to write on each line.
    My lecture on the theology of suffering has been posted here: https://incarnation.org/classes/theology-of-suffering/
    My sermon on the prodigal son, “Who Says I Have Sinned?” is here: https://incarnation.org/sermons/traditional-service-who-says-i-have-sinned/
    Muriel Spark’s novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, will be discussed at the next Good Books & Good Talk seminar, Sunday, May 19.

 

The Rev. Canon Victor Lee Austin. Ph.D., is the Theologian-in-Residence for the diocese and is the author of several books including, "Friendship: The Heart of Being Human" and "A Post-Covid Catechesis.: