Theologian's Almanac for Week of March 28, 2021
Welcome to SALT’s “Theologian’s Almanac,” a weekly selection of important birthdays, holidays, and other upcoming milestones worth marking — specially created for a) writing sermons and prayers, b) creating content for social media channels, and c) enriching your devotional life.
For the week of Sunday, March 28:
March 28 is Palm Sunday, commemorating Jesus’ jubilant entry into Jerusalem. It’s essentially a piece of street theater dramatizing Zechariah’s ancient prophecy: the long-awaited divine monarch arrives on a humble donkey, announcing “peace to the nations” (Zech 9:9-10). Shout hosanna! The new era, the Great Jubilee, has begun! For more on Palm Sunday, see SALT’s commentary here.
March 28 is also the birthday of St. Teresa of Ávila, born in Gotarrendura, Spain, in 1515. After growing up in a privileged household, as a teenager she decided to become a nun. Shortly after her decision, she contracted malaria and nearly died, suffering paralysis of her legs for three years. During this period, she had several mystical visions, including many of intense rapture — and these shaped her theological and spiritual life for the rest of her life. She eventually founded the Discalced Carmelite Order (“discalced” means “shoeless” — think Francis and Clare!), a new reform order in which the sisters lived in poverty, simplicity, and prayer. Teresa crisscrossed Spain on a donkey, establishing 16 new monasteries for women. Her books, including The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle, are now considered masterpieces in the Christian mystical tradition.
March 29 is the birthday of comedian, author, and composer Eric Idle, best known for his membership in the surreal comedy group, Monty Python. He co-wrote and performed the classic theological film, “Life of Brian,” a send-up of the life of Jesus of Nazareth; in particular, Idle wrote the film’s most famous song, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” He also wrote a “comic oratorio” called “Not the Messiah,” a parody of Handel’s “Messiah” loosely based on “Life of Brian.” Blessed are the cheesemakers!
March 31 is the birthday of poet and novelist Marge Piercy, born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1936. In middle age, in her work and life she became newly intrigued by her Jewish roots, and especially by Reconstructionist Judaism: “The seasons are very vivid and real to us. Living seasonally is part of what I love about Judaism, as well as the tradition of social conscience, and the historical, religious, and spiritual aspects of Jewish holidays.”
April 1 is Maundy Thursday, “maundy” from the Latin mandatum, “command” or “mandate,” a reference to the “new commandment” Jesus gives his disciples on the eve of his death: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). Not an abstract or generic “love,” then, but a love “just as I have loved you”: compassionate and tangible, as simple and strong as kneeling to wash someone’s feet and then drying them with a towel (John 13:1-15).
April 1 is also April Fools' Day, a day for benign foolishness, tricks, pranks, and other nonsense. In 1983, Professor Joseph Boskin, an historian at Boston University, explained that the practice dates back to the Roman Emperor Constantine, whose jesters challenged him that a fool could run the empire as well as he could. The emperor accepted the challenge and appointed a jester “king for a day” — and one the new king’s first actions was to decree an annual day of tomfoolery.
After interviewing Professor Boskin, the Associated Press published the story nationally — and only later realized that Boskin, true to the spirit of the day, had made the whole thing up!
April 2 is Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. All four Gospels link the crucifixion to Passover, a clear signal that we should understand his death first and foremost as a sign that God is once again liberating God’s people, inaugurating a New Exodus in the tradition of the exalted exodus from Egypt. Here’s SALT’s “Strange New World” podcast episode, “Ten Ways of Looking at the Cross.”
April 3 is Holy Saturday, for Christians a day of silence and waiting, and also the day, it is said, when Jesus “descended into Hell” to free those held captive there. It is a day of shadows and ambiguity, a time of mourning and hope-against-hope. Holy Saturday’s silence is broken by the “Alleluia” of the late-night Easter Vigil — or the dawn of Easter morning.
April 3 is also the birthday of British primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall, born in London, England, in 1934. Goodall revolutionized the study of the social lives of chimpanzees by living among them for years. She’s a household name today — but imagine her in 1960, a 26-year-old unknown with no formal scientific education, alone and armed with only a notebook and binoculars, embedding herself with wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. She initially spent months establishing herself as a non-threatening presence, eventually working her way up into what she dubbed “the banana club” by sharing food with her subjects. She mirrored their behaviors as much as she could, climbing trees, mimicking gestures, and sampling food.
She was the first to discover that chimpanzees make and use tools, as well as eat meat (they were previously thought to be vegetarian). Breakthroughs like these led to her becoming one of the only people in the history of Cambridge University to be awarded a PhD degree without first earning a baccalaureate degree.
She said, “I don’t have any idea of who or what God is. But I do believe in some great spiritual power. I feel it particularly when I’m out in nature. It’s just something that’s bigger and stronger than what I am or what anybody is. I feel it. And it’s enough for me.”
April 3 is also the day in 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his last public address, now known as his “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech. King had come to Memphis in support of a sanitation workers’ strike, and was not scheduled to speak — but the workers clamored to hear from him, and so, though he was exhausted and under the weather, he came to Bishop Charles Mason Temple that evening to say a few words.
Speaking without notes, he said, “All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper.’ If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn’t committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren’t going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.”
He spoke of death frequently in the speech, recalling an episode a decade earlier when he was stabbed at a book signing, as well as the many death threats he’d received over the years. Even the flight he just taken, from Atlanta to Memphis, was delayed for an hour because of a bomb threat.
He ended this way: “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”
As he finished, he nearly collapsed — and had to be assisted back into his seat. Tears were streaming down his face.
He was killed the next day, April 4, 1968, at the age of 39.
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A special SALT “thank you” to Anna Hermsdorf for this beautiful linocut illustration of Jane Goodall!