Rooke Chapel Congregation
4.14.19
Luke 19: 29-44
Some of you, like me,
Probably went to a church that read the Passion narrative on Palm Sunday.
[indeed, that might be the tradition here]
As Maundy Thursday and Good Friday become less popular,
It’s important to take time,
To mark and honor the story of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, and death.
So we’ve stuck it on the Sunday before easter.
That Jesus died,
Is rather important to the story.
And reading that story together,
Reading ourselves into that story
d shouting “crucify him!”
Is certainly meaningful.
But I want us to linger here, this morning.
On the so-called “triumphal entry.”
Because it has much for us.
Surrounded as we are,
By empire and evil and injustice.
Which mostly just wants us to give up,
To despair.
This morning wave our little palms and say, simply,
We’re part of a different story,
And eager to see it unfold and participate in its telling.
We are headed another way.
There were really two processions into Jerusalem that day,
That week, that season.
Even before we get into the text itself,
Which is rich with symbolism and history and meaning.
We have to note,
Jesus’ entry was a sort of response.
Almost perhaps, a provocation.
Both for the ruling powers,
And for all those who expected, who wanted,
Jesus to be king.
From the West, came Pontius Pilate.
The Roman governor of Judea and Samaria.
Whom Philo – a first-century Jewish historian –
Remembered for his “endless savage ferocity”
Pilate’s was a military procession,
a parade of conquerors,
meant to show strength and control
even as the fever pitch of the holiday,
indeed of the season,
reached its apex.
Factions and warlords and messiahs scattered the countryside
Competing claims to the throne,
Splashed whatever the first-century equivalent of a newsfeed was.
And the holiday of Passover was upon the city,
In which thousands of faithful Jewish tourists,
poured into Jerusalem,
To make their sacrifices,
And remember the liberation of the Hebrews
From the hand of the Pharaoh.
Now, a new occupying army is in town.
And the city was at a “fever pitch”
As AJ Levine,
The author of our Lenten text study said,
“Tensions and expectations were running high.”
And Pilate marched into town to keep “the peace.”
they called it “Pax Romana”
But it wasn’t, really.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said,
Echoing Amos and Micah, Zechariah and Jesus:
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.”
There was no peace in Jerusalem in those days,
Only occupation.
Only empire.
Their Pax was maintained,
through the shows of force,
like military parades,
With Pontius Pilate mounted on a warhorse,
Surrounded by legions.
Their “peace” was maintained by brutal public executions of political dissidents,
Through crucifixion.
And on the other end of town.
From the east, mounted not on a warhorse,
But on a colt of a donkey,
As humble an animal as could possibly carry a human.
Comes riding Jesus.
And the peasants and forgotten people come to greet him.
Laying their meager and threadbare cloaks on the ground,
And those who didn’t have even them,
Branches and palms.
Jesus’ narrative has been marching inexorably,
Toward Jerusalem,
Toward the cross,
But his disciples and followers don’t yet get it.
He, they think, will bring the messianic age,
Will purge the city of its conquerors,
He will be the lord. messiah. king.
In much the way that Pilate is,
Only better.
A humble king, riding on a donkey.
The donkey is a strange and seemingly innocuous detail,
Present in all four gospels.
But it matters much.
Indeed, close readers might have noticed,
That Palms didn’t actually show up in our text today at all.
That detail is reserved for the Gospel of John.
But the donkey, is pervasive.
Perhaps we should consider renaming it “donkey Sunday?”
biblically literate readers of the text in those days,
And indeed,
Those who gathered on that Passover eve,
Would have known this image,
From the prophet Zechariah.
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” (Zechariah 9:9-10, NRSV)
Jesus is signaling to them.
Evoking all their expectation.
“Here I come,
The one you’ve been waiting for.
But it’s not the story you expect.”
even his closest followers aren’t ready for how different a king he is to be.
For his sights weren’t set on the Roman Empire,
But on death and empire and despair itself.
In the days to come,
They will be disappointed.
This is not a new conquering hero,
Who will displace the old one.
They wanted a king,
Who would chase the bad people away,
And return Jerusalem to its former glory.
Who would restore David’s line,
And rebuild their armies,
And allow them to take over again.
His entry builds their hope,
But his procession doesn’t end with the throne.
It ends on the cross.
And I can’t help but wonder,
Which procession would we have lined up for,
How would I have felt?
I can imagine myself,
Like a Pharisee,
Doing my due diligence,
Lining up for the powers that be,
And encouraging Jesus’ followers to settle down.
Lest we all get in trouble.
I am taken by the promise of false peace,
And security more often than I would like to admit.
I am more willing to compromise for proximate security than I would like.
And I can imagine myself staying home.
Cynical.
Trying to stay above the fray.
Because who can say what is right and true,
When anything can be anything?
And anyone named Lord and King.
It’s hard to know whom to trust,
Whom to believe.
Disillusioned and done,
And ready to stay in my lane,
And get what I can get.
“It’s not going to end well.” They thought.
And it didn’t.
I can imagine myself,
Showing up for this humble would-be king,
With cloak and branches,
Eager for a new empire to take hold.
For his promises of hope and of change,
Only to fall away later in the week,
When things got really tough.
There’s no feeling quite like disappointment,
Is there?
we build up this sense of expectation,
Our brains get ready to be happy again,
Ready for something,
And then – nothing.
Worse than nothing,
Absence.
Jesus’ entry into this Jerusalem,
Is meant to evoke expectation.
Here he is the new King,
The new sheriff in town,
Who will chase away our tormentors,
And everything will be good again.
Like with David.
Or Moses.
And they shout “Hosanna”
Save us now.
And then:
arrest, and death and trial.
How could this possibly be good news?
Might there have been some both welcoming him,
On that Sunday,
And shouting “Crucify him”
With the crowds the next Friday?
I imagine so.
And no one.
No one.
Gets what they want,
What they anticipate,
What they hope for.
The Pharisees see chaos sown.
And the followers see tragedy.
And the cynics see only reason to stay cynical.
And you, if you’re anything like me,
Are pulled in all these directions at once,
On the regular: chaos, tragedy, and cynicism.
But I think as much as anything,
Jesus of the triumphal entry.
Jesus of the cross,
And that Saturday before the resurrection,
Is simply there to tell us:
It doesn’t have to be this way.
It doesn’t have to be about military power,
And economic might,
And privilege and injustice.
And as we fight for justice, for change,
Our fight doesn’t have to look the same way.
Jesus on the donkey reminds us,
we will be disappointed.
Like those peasants in Jerusalem awaiting their new king.
But in that disappointment,
God is ever with us.
The new way is hard,
But we will never walk alone.
Jesus and those little waving palms Remind us,
we needn’t turn to chaos or despair or cynicism
The crowds who were shouting “Hosanna”
were drawing from Psalm 118.
Which is about finding God amidst the mess,
Amidst the violence.
And it says even as the armies are encamped,
Even as the proverbial mess is hitting the fan,
“This is the day the lord has made,
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Jesus upends all our expectations,
And instead says,
“I’m with you here,
Right in the midst and the muck of it.”
God is not come like some greater conqueror,
No. God is come humble,
And mounted on a donkey.
God is come willing to be arrested and die.
God is come to tell us,
That warhorses and conquering armies are not what power looks like.
Power is life overcoming death.
Power is peace, even amidst the mess.
Power is justice through love
Power is hope that outlasts disappointment.
And it is coming, and it will come.
And God is come saying, even in the middle of it all,
This is the day. This is your day.
This is our day.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
It would have been easier, if the story went another way.
But somewhere deep inside,
Especially as the world is ever whispering to us,
This is the way it always is, and has to be
You’d better get used to it.
Somewhere deep inside,
I think that little man,
Mounted on that little donkey,
Resonates with us,
And speaks from within us,
“No, it doesn’t.”
And indeed, not only does it not need to be this way,
It’s not this way.
So we wave our Palms still,
And wait and work, knowing God is with us.
And we say.
This is the day the Lord has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the Highest.