a celebration of misunderstanding

I am honored to be the preacher for Holy Week at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Johns Island, South Carolina, and grateful for the invitation from the Rector Callie Walpole, whom Claudia and I first met when she visited our church in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico last year. I’d like to share with you my sermon for Palm-Passion Sunday. 
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Let’s begin with a bit of historical context for Palm Sunday.

At the time of Jesus, Jerusalem was under the brutal occupation of Rome. Farmers, barely able to raise enough to feed their families, paid 25% tariff of their harvest to Rome every two years and 10% tariff of their harvest to the Temple every year. Enormous amounts of resources were taken from the people of Israel to benefit the Roman Empire. The Israelites were particularly hard for the Romans to pacify. Central to the identity of Jewish people was (and is) the story of the Exodus where God delivered the people from a brutal empire ruled by Pharaoh. 

Over time, the Romans perfected the art of putting on intimidating triumphal processions. The formula was carefully planned. First, the new ruler of a vanquished city would march in on horseback accompanied by his troops, wagons loaded with treasure and prisoners in chains. Crowds, who were often forced from their houses and herded to the street by Roman soldiers in order to give the impression of popular support for the regime, would welcome the parade. The new ruler and his entourage would proceed to the local temple to offer a cultic sacrifice to whatever gods were honored there, and to the Roman gods “who had made the conquest possible.”

Again, by the time of Jesus, violent riots were such a regular feature of the season of Passover each year that the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate had begun to make it a practice every spring around Passover to leave his headquarters in Caesarea fifty miles away to the west and travel those fifty miles across the countryside and process through the streets of Jerusalem to his palace there. 

Now perhaps you can understand why poet John Leax once said Palm Sunday “seems the strangest holiday of the year, a celebration of misunderstanding.” It begins with the festival atmosphere of children waving their palms and leading the rest of us in singing glad hosannas to our Lord, reenacting the joyful crowd of disciples who lined the dusty road as Jesus entered Jerusalem. 

It’s a makeshift parade - the kind children conjure up on a bright spring day, playing in the backyard, lining up after each other, wearing funny hats, blowing kazoos and appointing one of their own a king. What would this parade be without a donkey to carry the triumphant king? A donkey? Seriously? Yes, a donkey shall carry this king. (At least that is what Matthew says, echoing the prophecy of Zechariah.) Then who will find a donkey at this late hour? Why you will, faithful disciples, ever ready to serve. You will find the donkey that will carry our king. 

So, off you go looking for a donkey to haul into this parade, simply because he said so. That’s all you need to say to the owner whose jaw drops when you start to steal his donkey off the street in broad daylight. Negotiating a donkey so the messiah can ride in glory? Oy vey! Okay yes Luke and Mark refer to a colt along with the donkey; still it’s not exactly a stallion fit for the Empire’s version of King. You might think it’s a joke, only it isn’t. 

But actually it is — in the way that only God can tell a joke in the mystery of the world’s redemption. 

Some scholars think the two disciples sent out to find the colt were James and John, which is hilarious because only a few days earlier they were asking Jesus to put them in the best seats in house, on the left and right hand when he comes in glory. Now it comes to this: finding a suitable animal for his triumphal entry! 

And I imagine those merciful eyes of Jesus as he slowly approaches the city. Is that a sad smile or a determined grimace? What is he is thinking as he listens to the crowds sing his praise and welcoming his entourage of exuberant disciples. Jesus, for his part, is weeping over the city. Weeping that we do not know the things that make for peace. Does anyone have a clue who he is and what he intends to do now that he has entered the city of power and might? They welcome him as one who blesses them. The joy they have in Jesus can be described as joyful resistance. It’s an alternative to the power they (and we) know so well. 

Unlike the powerful of the empire, the disciples are beginning to understand that Jesus’ kingdom – the kingdom of God – is not about blessing things as they are presently arranged, but changing them until the present arrangement reflects the one God intends. Everything is at risk when Jesus begins his entry into Jerusalem. Political arrangements are at risk, the ones that ensure the poor will remain so forever, that dissidents will be silenced and brute force will be deployed when necessary to maintain political order. 

The parade is a declaration. It’s an act of JOYFUL resistance. It’s a proclamation of an entirely different kingdom with a different Ruler of our lives. And so we rejoice gladly, waving our palms. Perhaps those early disciples had a glimpse of what was happening even if they didn’t fully grasp what was coming, anymore than we do. Let us who sing triumphal hymns not forget the reason why.

We are pressured to make accommodations to an order that crucifies prophets and fears the stranger, puts cruelty over compassion, status over service and abandons love as mere poetry. Yet, God’s arrangement is much wiser than our own.

Jesus comes riding into our lives promising to arrange things differently than the this world’s arrangement. To those who receive Christ, our life is at risk. Change – beautiful change - is possible. We know what happens: God’s folly turns rejection, even crucifixion into an occasion for the healing of creation, the salvation of the world. We call this Easter. When you receive Jesus triumphal entry into your life, a new journey of healing and service and mercy begins. This is what the Christian faith calls salvation. 

So today, we wave our palms and engage in joyful resistance to the powers of this world. Yet, most important question is whether we will remain with Jesus when the hosannas of today are over. In Jesus’ cross is our healing; in his resurrection is our hope. 

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Amen.

Luke 19:28-40  The triumphal entry 
April 13 Palm Sunday
St. John’s Episcopal Church 
Johns Island, South Carolina 
Roy W. Howard