As If Palm Sunday Never Happened

Palm/Passion Sunday Year A

Matthew 21:1-11

Matthew 27:11-26

April 9, 2017

Fondren Presbyterian Church

The Rev. Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

           Frederick Buechner, the teacher of preachers, once said, "anyone who preaches a sermon without realizing they are heading straight for Scylla and Charybdis ought to try a safer and more productive line of work, like laying eggs, for example."  There are few times when those two sea monsters of Greek lore who guard the narrow strait of Messina and menace every ship that dares pass between them feel as close as they do when preaching between the twin shoals of Palms and Passion.   Making the waters choppier still is our rapidly unfolding political and world circumstance of the last few days.

            From time to time a Sunday morning will conspire to remind us that ours is a complex world and we worship a complex and nuanced God who is present with and for us even on days when the rocky shoals seem dangerously close.

            Like Christians in so many places around the world, we began our worship today by waving palm branches in sacred imitation of the crowd in Jerusalem who welcomed Jesus.  That palm branches were used was no mistake.  It was tradition in ancient near eastern custom to cover the ground for the feet of one held in high esteem and often that was done with palm branches and even the cloaks of those standing by.  That is exactly what happens to Jesus according to the gospel accounts.  The palms carry another meaning as well.  Palm is one of the four species carried for rejoicing during the Jewish festival of Sukkot.

            When Jesus comes into Jerusalem, the people welcome him with shouts of “hosanna, loud hosanna,” a carpet of palm befitting a king, and the waving of holy branches of rejoicing.  It must have been a sight to see.

            For most of the history of the church and in almost all the artistic interpretations of that scene, our interpretation stops there with the celebration.  It’s a parade, and who doesn’t like a parade?  This moment seems like a time when the Jewish people welcomed their Messiah into the Holy City and for an instant all was right with the world.

            We know from the fullness of Jesus’ ministry that the complexities of the world and the very real issues facing God’s children are never absent from Jesus’ thoughts and rarely at a distance from his work in the world. 

            Was it anyone else riding that donkey, we might be able to leave it at “who doesn’t like a parade?”  But riding that donkey is not anyone else, it is Immanuel, God with us, and when God with us rides in our midst something more must be afoot.

            In recent years, scholars of different theological stripes have begun to come to consensus that in addition to a moment of celebration in the believing community, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was a piece of first century political theater.  Jesus had to know that by parading into the city the way he did he was poking his finger in the eye of Imperial Rome. 

            First, he rides in like a conqueror but leaves out the chariot, the legions, and the spoils.  Instead he rides a lowly donkey demonstrating that his power flows from something other than the spring of violence and force that provides the Pax Romana.   

            He rides over a blanket of palms and cloaks like a king but not just any king, a JEWISH king.  Cue a finger in the eye of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. 

            The people shout Hosanna thus tying this king to the king of heaven in direct defiance of the imperial cult, which declares Caesar the only living deity.

            When we take a step back and look at this whole unfolding scene, we see that Jesus is the little boy in the street who shouts out that the emperor has no clothes.  He has, in the time it took a donkey to walk down the street, cut imperial Rome down to size and proclaimed that the true power in the world is the power of the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

            It was divine political theater and the crowds ate it up.

            Until.

            We don’t know exactly how many days elapsed between the entry to Jerusalem and the crucifixion, but it was less than a week.  In less than a week, the people who had been shouting, “Hosanna, hosanna!” and throwing their cloaks on the ground so even the donkey would not walk on the bare earth began their shouts of, “Crucify him, crucify him!”

            If Palm Sunday was divine political theater demonstrating the true power of the gentleness and mercy of God, Rome answered with some theater of its own. 

            It was tradition during the Passover for the Roman governor to show mercy and pardon someone as a gesture of goodwill to the Jews.  With great pageantry and solemnity, Pontius Pilate appears before the people and asks who they wish to be freed. 

            Pilate was a savvy political player.   You did not rise in the ranks of Roman leadership without being able to read the crowd. 

            According to the gospel accounts, Pilate reviewed Jesus’ case and interviewed him face to face and found no fault with him.  He was kept in jail only because the Saducees and Pharisees wanted it and that was the deal with Imperial Rome. 

            When the time comes to free a prisoner and thus parole him from his fate of crucifixion, Pilate offers up the innocent one called Jesus.  Whether motivated by a sense of justice to free an innocent man or more venal political motives thinking he was freeing a leader of the people, his offer is met with only cries of, “crucify him!”

            The people want someone else, so Pilate relents.  He tries to show mercy through the power he has as Roman governor, but in the end he is powerless to free even the innocent man.  The people want Jesus so Pilate famously washes his hands of the whole thing.

            If the theater of the street showed the power of mercy in the person of the lowly Christ, the theater of the consul’s courtyard showed the powerlessness of power in Pilate, the embodiment of Rome.

            When the time comes for the sentences against the condemned to be carried out, we get the penultimate act in this unfolding political drama.  Jesus, nailed to the cross and life slowly ebbing from his body, finds himself confronted by two thieves, one on either side, each suffering his own fate.

            One mocks Jesus and asks why he cannot save himself.  The other asks Jesus forgiveness and is assured by the voice of Christ that he will be with him today in paradise. 

            With his final breaths on the cross, Jesus once again rejects the temptation to seize power as it is understood in the world- the power to save yourself- and instead embraces the true power he has from God- the power to show mercy, even mercy to a thief on a cross. 

            Sanitized and evacuated of their comment on the state of our world, these stories are easily left to remain on the page and their transformative power is easily tamed. 

            The only problem with doing that is that ours is not a past tense God.  The same one who came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and whose words brought comfort on a cross stands with us today.  The same God who bore witness to the political situation in that day bears witness in this day.

            And thank God for that because this is a moment that needs a witness; it needs a witness to the power of mercy and hope in a world seduced by violence and power.

            Recent days have brought the heartbreaking news that the humanitarian crisis in Syria has escalated.

            That Syria is in crisis is not news.  At least it should not be.  For half a decade the nation has been in a civil war and a civilian humanitarian crisis caused by the brutality of ISIS, the terror of the Assad regime, the ongoing violence of the rebel groups, and the staggering indifference of many western nations including and especially the United States. 

            There have been over the last few years dozens of pleas for assistance with the refugee crisis. For a time it looked like the United States would step up and assist with resettlement, however in recent weeks the Syrian people have been subject to a wholesale ban from the United States and our commitment to the United Nations refugee program has been eliminated.

            In response to the recent gassing of civilians by the Syrian government, the United States by order of the President launched fifty missiles at the airbase from which the attack was thought to come. 

            When mercy was an invited, our doors were closed.  When violence became feasible, we were ready in an instant.  

            As I heard commentators and anchors on television describing the missiles being fired at Syria as beautiful and as the President stood with righteous indignation promising greater shows of force, I became acutely aware of exactly how fully we have been seduced as a culture by the pageantry and power of Rome; how fully we have become convinced that violence is the only viable option and answer.  It is as if Palm Sunday never happened.

It wasn’t long until I found myself wringing my hands as if to wash my hands of the whole business.

It not long after dawned on me that my attempts to wash off the blood of suffering men, women, and children half way around the world would work for me no better than it did for Pilate.

Though I would like to point to others and say, “they are the ones!  Don’t look at me.  I didn’t launch any missiles at anyone.”  If I am honest I also have to say that though I may not be guilty for what I have done, I am most certainly guilty for what I have left undone. 

Christ entrusted the church with the proclamation of the gospel and if we do not live into that promise in and for the world, who will?

There are no short cuts on path to resurrection and righteousness.  It leads only through the justice of the one who, even in death, showed mercy.

The one who came riding into Jerusalem that day proclaiming the gentleness and mercy of God, is with us even now as the hymn writer said, “granting us wisdom and granting us courage for the living of this hour.”  As disciples of Christ, it is on us to bear that mercy into the world.   

To borrow the old saying about preaching the gospel, “Show mercy at all times.  When necessary, use words.”

Let us pray.

Humbling, gentle, God, hear the prayers of our hearts and illumine the paths of our living.  Give us the courage to be a Palm Sunday people, shouting Hosanna and welcoming Christ into our lives and our world.  Give us also the fortitude to be people of the Passion recognizing through the veil of worldly power the gentleness and mercy of Christ.  Amen.