Scriptures: Isaiah
50:4-9a Psalm
118:1-2, 19-29
Philippians 2:1-11 Matthew
21:1-17
Clint Eastwood fans will recognize the plot – a town in the
Old West is threatened by powerful interests – cattle barons, mining companies
and such – who want to run the townspeople off their land. A mysterious stranger rides into town, takes
on the bad guys, and rides off into the sunset.
Today’s gospel reading is not a script
for a Clint Eastwood movie – but it might be an interesting thought exercise,
to ask what Clint Eastwood’s character in Pale Rider or High Plains Drifter
would have done, and compare it to what Jesus did – Jesus, the mysterious stranger
whose ride into town we celebrate today.
For Jesus and his disciples, it’s the end of the road, and a
long, long road it has been. Jesus, in
the company of his disciples, had healed and taught, fed and cast out demons,
from Jesus’ home area of Galilee, in the Gentile cities of the Decapolis,
moving south into Samaria, moving further south still into Judea. For some time now, Jesus has been warning his
disciples that they would be entering Jerusalem, where he would be handed over
to the chief priests and scribes, who would condemn him to death and would hand
them over to the Romans to be crucified.
He also told the disciples he would be raised on the third day, but they
had no idea what Jesus might mean by that, and surely the thought of Jesus
going to Jerusalem to be killed must have terrified them. And yet they followed Jesus into Jerusalem to
celebrate the Passover, the Jewish festival of commemorating liberation from
slavery in Egypt, and into what the disciples had to know would be a tense,
potentially dangerous situation.
Throughout the Gospels, the disciples aren’t always the sharpest tools
in the shed, but at least in this moment we have to give them credit for
courage and loyalty.
It would appear that Jesus had made advance
preparations. Two disciples are sent
into Bethphage, a little village just east of Jerusalem, to get a donkey and
its colt, which Jesus said would be tied up near the village entrance. Jesus told them that if anyone asks why
they’re taking the donkey and colt, they are to say, “The Lord needs
them.” And it all comes to pass as Jesus
says. Jesus has arranged to enact the
words of Zechariah which we read earlier today.
And so Jesus begins his ride into town.
The crowds accompanying Jesus remembered Zechariah’s words
as well – under Roman occupation, Zechariah would have been one of the texts
they clung to. Remember that a warrior king would have come
on a warhorse, not a donkey. Zechariah’s
images of a king who would come in peace to release the imprisoned and restore
the people would have been very attractive to people living under foreign
occupation. And so the crowds shout
“Save us! Blessed is the one who comes
in the name of the Lord!”
The residents of Jerusalem were not so thrilled, as they see
the shouting crowds and the man on the donkey.
The English translation says “the whole city was in turmoil” – but
really, this is too tame a translation.
The Greek word, eseisthe , has
the same root as our English word seismic, referring to earthquakes – and so
really, Matthew is telling us that Jesus’ donkey ride had Jerusalem in an
upheaval, all shook up, shaken to its core.
After all, the Romans understood perfectly well that the Passover
festival was a celebration of freedom among their Jewish subjects, and they didn’t
want those Jewish subjects to get any crazy ideas in their heads about
celebrating their freedom from Pharoah’s oppression by staging a rebellion
against Roman oppression. Indeed, Bible
scholars such as Marcus Borg and Jon Dominic Crossan have suggested that there
may have been two parades in Jerusalem that day. From the west, the Roman governor Pontius
Pilate would have been riding into town, surrounded by cavalry riding
warhorses, soldiers marching with swords and spears, their helmets gleaming in
the sun, some carrying the Roman eagles mounted on poles – all of this a show
of force meant to intimidate the
populace. Pilate wanted peace and
order during the festival, the kind of coerced peace that comes at the edge of
a sword or the point of a spear, among an occupied populace fearful and
threatened into silence. At the same
time, in a parody of Pilate’s show of force, Jesus rode into Jerusalem from the
east, not on a warhorse, but on a donkey, so small perhaps that his toes may
have dragged in the dust of the road, surrounded by his followers and crowds
from the countryside, and by children – clearly coming not to intimidate, but
to invite . Two parades – Rome’s official parade proclaiming that, Passover
festival or not, Caesar is Lord, and Jesus’ unofficial counter-parade
proclaiming that God is Lord. Two
messages of peace, one from Pilate that told the Jews, “Celebrate your
so-called freedom all you want, but we are still in charge; keep your head down
and obey or be killed”, and the message of peace from Jesus, calling on the
population to lift up their heads, for their salvation was drawing nigh.
While the religious and political establishment was quaking
in their boots, the crowd was revved up – now, at long last, they thought, Jesus
of Nazareth was going to kick some Roman butt and establish the Jews as an
independent nation once again. This
would be a Passover to remember. Only
one problem – Jesus didn’t take on the Roman establishment. Instead, Jesus took on the Temple religious
establishment. Oops! Matthew’s
Gospel paints quite a striking scene – immediately upon having ridden into
Jerusalem on a donkey and a colt, Jesus goes to the Temple and starts kicking
out the moneychangers. Jesus knocks over
the tables and as the moneychangers are running for cover, Jesus yells at them,
“My house should be a house of prayer, but you’ve turned it into a den of
robbers.” The scene becomes more
striking still – as the moneychangers are running for the exits, the blind and
lame are entering seeking healing, and Jesus cures them. Little children have found their way in as
well, and they’re singing “Hosanna to the Son of David”. The religious leaders are sputtering with
rage, but Jesus shuts them down. He then
makes his exit and goes to Bethany, the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, to
spend the evening. But he’ll be back the next day…..
Jesus surely knew how to make an entrance that was
memorable, so much so that we celebrate it each year almost 2000 years
later. Indeed, perhaps in Matthew’s gospel more than
the others, when Jesus drove out the moneychangers out of the Temple so that
the sick and the children could come into the Temple, Jesus gave the people a
glimpse of what the Temple was meant to be – a house of prayer for all people,
a place of healing, a place where children could sing and be safe and loved. But Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem made an
impression on the religious leadership as well, and not a favorable one. Jesus’ demonstration at the Temple set off an
escalating series of clashes with the religious leadership that would result in
his betrayal and arrest, and the events of Good Friday.
Today, Palm Sunday, begins a clash of two systems – the
domination system represented by Rome and the Temple establishment – and
continued by empires and religious hierarchies ever since - and the liberation
brought by Jesus. Two parades, one a
show of force and the other an invitation to freedom. Today we have a choice, as the people did in
Jesus’ day - which parade will you be a part of? Which system – domination or liberation –
will you support? By default, as
sinners, we are all caught up in the domination system. By default, apart from God’s grace – and that’s
important – “apart from God’s grace” - we all look out for our own interests, all try
to grab more for ourselves, all try to look good to impress others, all try to
have our own way, even if it comes at the expense of others. To the extent that we don’t act like that, we’ve
been touched by God’s grace in one way or another. We all have to answer to all sorts of human
authorities, which often don’t hear our voices or have our best interests at
heart – and in dealing with those authorities, apart from God’s grace, all of
us are taught to kiss up and kick down – that is, to ingratiate ourselves to
the powerful and step on those less powerful.
Jesus offers a way out, not just
pie in the sky when we die, but a different way of living now, today. It’s not an easy way – Jesus bore the pain of
others during his earthly ministry and the sins of the world on the cross, and
as followers of Jesus we also have a cross to bear, as we find that our lives
are connected to the lives of others, as we find that their pain is our pain
and their struggle our struggle. But
that cross is a key that unlocks the door of the domination system, the door to
the prison cell of self-centeredness and self-seeking, and allows us to unlock
the prison cells of others.
What would Palm Sunday have looked like if Clint Eastwood’s “man
with no name” character or “preacher” character had ridden into Jerusalem that
day? Hard to say exactly, though it
probably would have involved several guns and a whole lot of bullets. This also is part of the domination system,
the myth of redemptive violence that tells us that the answer to a bad guy with
a gun is a good guy with a bigger gun. But,
of course, there’s always yet another bad guy with an even bigger gun, and
though we may win a battle here and there, the war against evil is never won –
because evil isn’t just this bad guy or that bad guy, but a whole system, what
Paul called “principalities and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places.” The struggle against evil is much bigger than
taking out this bad guy or that bad guy, especially since evil is not only
around us, but within us. But we know what
Jesus did. Jesus came to take on the forces within his own community’s
religious leadership that oppressed the people, that held them down and bled
them dry. And Jesus did this, not by taking
the lives of others, but by laying down his own life for his friends – and we
are his friends if we do what he tells us. (John 15:13) Jesus came, not to kill, but to
die, to give his life as a ransom for many.
“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” May we remember how blessed we have been by
Jesus, who rode into town on Palm Sunday and laid down his life for us. And may we be a blessing to others, as we
follow in the way of Jesus. Amen.
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