Palm Sunday | March 29th, 2026 | The Rev. Irene Tanabe

Several years ago, I saw a movie that I have not been able to forget. It’s called “Lion.” It is a story based on an autobiographical book “A Long Way Home,” by Saroo Brierly. In 1986, five-year old Saroo got lost when he hopped on the wrong train, and days later found himself transported from rural India to the streets of Calcutta. Even though he knew the name of his home village, no one recognized where that could be. He eventually ended up in an orphanage and was adopted by an Australian family. But as he was growing up with his new parents, he never forgot his family in India. Every night as he went to bed, the images of his life before flashed before him: the train station with 3 platforms, a water tower, the rocky field where his mother labored. Every night in his dreams, he searched for his beloved mother and older brother, running from the train station through the alleys and byways that would take him home.

Years later, when he was a college student in Melbourne, he told his new friends his story. “I’m lost,” he told them, and one of them told him about this new “Google Earth,” where one can zoom in on anywhere in the whole world and see actual photographic images of the topography and all its features. Perhaps Saroo could look for familiar landmarks. Saroo remembered that he was on the train for two days, so his friends helped him calculate the speed of trains in the 1980s, figured out how far the train must have traveled, and marked that distance on all the rail lines going out of Calcutta. And thus began Saroo’s Google Earth search that consumed his life for the next six years.

One late night, Saroo found a water tower next to a train station with three platforms, near a rocky field and town that could be pronounced the way he remembered. This had to be his hometown! He was all but certain he had found his home, and so, within a short time he was on his way to this little town in India to find his mother.

It was a long trip, but when he finally got to that train station, he found that the village had changed. Landmarks were faded and things didn’t look quite the way he remembered. But Saroo didn’t hesitate. He made his way from the station, through alleys and tunnels and across fields and pastures to the house where he had lived so many years ago! He ran straight to his home, into the arms of his mother who had never stopped looking for him and waiting for him, never giving up that one day, her son would find his way home.

It was such a compelling story that I searched online to learn more about this remarkable story. If you search YouTube, you will find several interviews of the real Saroo Brierley including a 60 Minutes segment. As I viewed these clips, the one thing that stayed with me is the description of how he found his way from the train station to his childhood home. Saroo said he let his legs lead him to his home, because there wasn’t much he recognized when he got to his home village. He said it was as if his legs had “memory.” His legs took him home.

And this is what I want to talk about today, this the Sunday of the Passion that we call Palm Sunday. Folks often ask me why, why do we read this same long passage from Matthew year after year after year. Why does it matter that we take part in the procession, at the beginning of every Holy Week, year after year, waving palm branches as we recreate Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem?

Why does it matter that we observe Holy Week? Why does it matter that year after year, we go to Maundy Thursday service and eat together and wash one another’s feet as Jesus commanded? Why does it matter that year after year, we sit in vigil Thursday night with the consecrated bread and wine as if we were sitting with Jesus that night in the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing that Judas had betrayed him, knowing that the soldiers would soon imprison him? Does it really matter that we come to church on Good Friday, walk the stations of the cross with the condemned Jesus, does it matter that we go with Jesus to the tomb? Does it matter that we venerate the cross upon which he went to his death?

We Episcopalians are know for worshipping with our bodies, they call it “pew aerobics,” stand to sing and pray, sit to listen. Why does it matter that we worship with our bodies, because surely that is how we observe this most sacred and Holy Week. We return to Holy Week year after year because our souls need landmarks. When we walk the stations of the Cross, we are training our feet to stay with Jesus even when things get dark. When we sit in vigil, we teach our hearts not to fall asleep when the world is in pain. Just as Saroo’s legs remembered the path to his mother’s house, our liturgical habits will lead us back to Jesus when our faith feels thin.

Like Saroo, the muscle memory in our legs will lead us home. And God, like Saroo’s mother in the tiny village in India, never, ever stops waiting for us. Whether we are carrying a palm branch today or a heavy cross on Friday, trust your “leg memory.” Trust that these holy rituals are paving the way back to the One who has never given up on us.