April 13, 2025 Palm Sunday

Sticks and Stones

“Sticks and Stones” A sermon for Palm Sunday, based on Psalm 118:1-2;19-29; Philippians 2:5-11; and Luke 19:28-40 delivered on April 6, 2025 by Rev. Alison Andrea Young at the First Congregational Church UCC of Onekama, Michigan.
(Our Theme throughout Lent will be the Lord’s Prayer. Today we explore the words: “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread. . .”)
“Sticks and Stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me” . . this is the chant of children on the playground, a chant meant to self-comfort children who are being taunted by bullies or being called names by those who need to do that sort of thing in order to feel “better than” someone else. “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me” . . .is almost a chilling statement for Palm Sunday, for in the case of Palm Sunday in the stark face of the reality of what we now call Holy Week—the chant become a mockery—because it did not hold true!!! . . .

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