Stony the Road We Trod

Homily by Pr. Craig Mueller on the Sunday of the Passion + April 13, 2025.

Rocks usually don’t speak. Though Jesus suggests they may shout. Stones can be beautiful — or they can be impediments.

Like the day we visited Table Mountain overlooking Cape Town. And decided to hike down rather than up, thinking it would be easier. Wrong! There wasn’t a trail, as I recall, but the route was filled with stones, boulders, really. It was hard to keep our balance. We were hot and hadn’t taken enough water. What if we fell and there was no emergency rescue service? The stones were impediments. However, the stony path didn’t seem a big deal for the twenty-somethings, leaping from rock to rock like gazelles.

I have a large stone with me today. And our baptismal font has been filled with stones during Lent. As Luke tells the last week of Jesus’ life, it is littered with stones. As the people place their cloaks on the road (did you notice there are no palm branches in Luke) they begin to shout, “Hosanna,” which means “save us.” The Pharisees shush them. Be quiet. Remember where you are. Rome may hear you. And through the crowd’s cacophony, Jesus retorts, “If these keep quiet, even the stones will shout.”

Jesus says of the temple that not one stone will be left upon another. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. Jerusalem, sometimes victim, sometimes perpetrator. Surely the stones in the holy land cry out with lament this Holy Week. Jesus will be described as the stone rejected by builders. In Gethsemane he will pray a stone’s throw from the disciples. And finally, he will be placed in a stone-hewn tomb. Stony the road we trod on our way to new life. What are the stones that are impediments this year on your journey to resurrection?

The stones cry out to us this day as they do throughout Luke’s gospel. The lowly are raised up and the powerful brought down. Instead of retribution, Jesus offers words of forgiveness to those who crucify him. Instead of cruelty, Jesus declares, with compassion, that the thief next to him is in paradise. And at the end, instead of blame, he utters words of trust: Into your hands I commend my spirit.

Let us listen now to the passion and hear what the stones are crying out to us.