Preached by Ken Pennings on March 28, 2010 (Palm Sunday)
Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan have written a wonderful book called The Last Week. They begin their account of Jesus’ last six days with a colorful portrayal of what we are celebrating today. They describe “the triumphal entry” of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, riding on the colt of a donkey covered with home-spun cloaks into the East gate of Jerusalem at the same time that Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, enters the West gate riding on his mighty steed covered with military cloaks and armor.
It was right before Passover, when Jews remembered and re-lived their liberation from Egypt and affirmed their own identity as a people distinct from the empires which had oppressed them for most of the previous 500 years. From the Roman perspective, this feast always meant trouble. Pilate has brought in the troops to “keep the peace” and to prevent another Jewish riot or revolt. Pilate’s entry is designed to intimidate and terrorize the masses: a grand display of military power, with an entire garrison saluting with spears and swords; and of imperial grandeur and glory with banners waving, drums beating and trumpets blasting.
Jesus – demonstrating a very different kind of power, glory and grandeur – enters the City on a beast of burden, surrounded by his somewhat ragged group of followers “saluting” with palm branches.
Both Pilate and Jesus seek peace, but by very different means:
For the Empire, the way to peace is through violent overthrow of peoples, the occupation of land, the imposition of taxes and—if the local rulers can’t or won’t keep the population under control–direct rule by a Roman governor. This is why Pilate was in Jerusalem.
For Jesus, the way to peace is through justice and compassion; sharing food, healing the sick, welcoming outsiders, forgiving sinners, and loving opponents and enemies.
Pilate rides on a war horse, high above the crowds, demanding their submission to imperial power and threatening them with annihilation.
Jesus, in contrast, sits on a young donkey, and is not one inch higher than anyone else. Unpretentiously, unassumingly, he displays the real power of the universe, which is love.
In Luke’s Gospel, the disciples understand the difference between the power of the Roman Empire and the power of God. They shout, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”
This is from Psalm 118, long associated with celebrations of Israel’s military victories over its enemies and sung each year at Passover. It describes the victorious king of Israel leading a procession with leafy branches up to the horns of the altar – “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Ps. 118:20, 26-27).
But what kind of victory has Jesus won? What kind of “king” is this Galilean nobody? He’s dressed like a peasant! He hangs around graveyards with the insane; he talks to Samaritans and treats women and children as equals; he touches lepers and people with all kinds of disgusting diseases; He “welcomes tax collectors and sinners and eats with them”(Luke 15:1). What kind of victory is this?
What kind of glory and grandeur belong to this Son of David? Is it the domination, privilege, and wealth of empires? Or is it God’s power which frees us to “do justice, love compassion, and walk humbly with God not one inch higher or lower than other people (Micah 6:8)?
For Jesus and that throng of lowly, branch-waving disciples—loving the way God loves is stronger than military, political or corporate power—it is stronger even than death.
Didn’t Jesus teach his disciples that receiving God’s blessing has nothing to do with hoarding wealth, coveting privilege or vying for position?! Instead, the poor are blessed and the kingdom of God is theirs. The hungry are blessed for they will be satisfied. The weeping are blessed for they will laugh. The hated, excluded, insulted and denounced are blessed for they will leap for joy…(Luke 6:20-23).
The branch-waving disciples seem to get it: THIS rabble-rousing rabbi really IS “the king who comes in the name of the Lord”!
But, this is SUBVERSION !
This is HIGH TREASON against Caesar!
If all these low-lifes start living and loving like this rabbi, they will cease to be afraid and refuse to be controlled by anyone. No wonder the Pharisees,–terrified at the thought of what the Romans will do– insist,
“Teacher, order your disciples to stop.”
In so many words, Jesus replies, “You may be able to stop these disciples from giving praise but you can’t stop creation. The very STONES, hills, trees, stars and the rest of creation have been proclaiming God’s praise from the beginning of time!
Listen to a rock, a blade of grass, the cow grazing in the meadow, the moon shining in the heavens. They aren’t literally shouting, “Hosanna in the Highest!” But when rocks are rocking—(that is,) being the rocks they were created to be– rocks are praising God. When the grass is grassing, it is praising God. When the cows are cowing, they are praising God. When the moon is mooning, it is praising God. And when humans are being genuinely and fully human, they are praising God. How do we join creation in giving praise? By being and doing what we were created to be and to do. One of the early church fathers exclaimed, “the Glory of God is the human person fully alive” (Irenaeus of Lyons, b. 115- d. 202). In other words, humans praise God by living and acting humanely!
When each created being performs its role in harmony, balance & cooperation with everything else in creation, God is praised. Psalm 19 says “the heavens are telling the glory of God and the sky proclaims God’s awesome deeds; one day tells the next day the astonishing story and each night tells the next this fabulous news!”
Creation doesn’t have to use words or make speeches but if we look, listen, touch, smell and taste creation carefully, we will discover the same life and love embodied in Jesus.
What is the praise of God, if not living together with all creation in the beloved community!? Singing “Hosanna to the Son of David!” or exclaiming “O MY G— !” may be what the praise of God sounds like, but doing justice and loving with compassion is what praising God looks like!
Jesus’ “entry into Jerusalem” was the celebration of oppressed and exploited people coming out of the shadows, finding their voices after a lifetime of hearing those with privilege say, “Silence! We don’t need to hear from you!” But now we’re hearing from them, and they are singing for joy! Why? Because they know they’ve been given the greatest power in the universe, the power to love which is the praise of God.
Christians have not always lived the praise of God as Jesus did. Instead, for many of the last two thousand years, we’ve participated in the same kind of brute power systems that crushed the people of Jerusalem: our history includes unspeakable horrors that range from the Inquisition to religious wars, from witch-burnings to the repression of women and the selling of slaves, from colonial empires to the killing of Jews…and we used a misreading of the Bible in every case to justify what we did. And all of this time, the God of compassion and justice was weeping.
But now we get it, don’t we?! Like the disciples spreading their cloaks in front of the donkey, we get it—at least some of the time. We are beginning to really understand that God’s power is NOT the power of empire, of war, of killing people in the name of peace. We protest and resist such power and call for beating swords into plowshares—(and rejoice when our military resources are used for humanitarian aid).
Like the disciples we are learning to cry out with the stones and using our voices for the voiceless: for those who have been told repeatedly by patriarchy, racism, classism, or heterosexism to “Be quiet!” “Keep Silence!” “Shut Up!” or “Stay in the closet!”
A few years ago, when thousands of LGBT people and their allies descended on Washington D.C. to protest the Defense of Marriage Act, an African-American Grandma and her grand-daughter, both dressed in their Sunday best, including hats, gloves and purses were riding the Subway. You could see they were serious about going to Church and praising the Lord. The train pulled into a station; the doors opened; and dozens of people carrying banners and chanting in unison got on board. The little girl asked, “Grandma, why are those people singin’?” “Baby,” she replied, “They’s singin’ for their freedom.”
This Palm Sunday, we stand with the oppressed and lament with Dr. King, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of bad people, but the appalling silence of good people….Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Like the stones, we refuse to be silent! Hosanna! Blessed is the King who comes in the Name of the Lord “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (19:38). With this last phrase Luke echoes and completes the song the angels sang to shepherds— “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth…” (Luke 2:14).
From the beginning of Luke’s gospel to the very end, from the cradle to the cross, the entire life of Jesus is the praise and glory of God, the Doing of justice and compassion, the blessing of peace in heaven and on Earth.
This is why we can still hear disciples and stones singing:
Hosanna! God saves and sets us free!
Closing prayer of commitment and resolve for freedom:
Lord, we will not remain silent. We cry out with the stones!
We who are well fed speak up for those who are hungry.
We who are well dressed speak up for those who are naked.
We who cherish our homes speak up for those who are homeless.
We who have jobs speak up for the unemployed.
We who have dependable health care speak up for the uninsured.
We who are well speak up for those who are sick.
We who are able-bodied speak up for those who are differently-abled.
We who have a homeland speak up for the dispossessed and the refugees.
We who have citizenship speak up for undocumented residents.
We who have just representation in the court system speak up for those who cannot get it.
We who live in freedom speak up for those who have been wrongly incarcerated.
We who are of sound mind speak up for those who would benefit from treatment instead of prison.
We who are consumers speak up for the sustainability of our planet.
We will not remain silent. We cry out with the stones!
Amen.
