Palm Sunday - The heat is on

It’s a day of excitement. Jesus arrives in Jerusalem as he has done many times before. Only this time it is so very different. Now his mission is reaching its climax and he has come to confront the powers of his day.

And as he enters the city in a meticulously planned entry, there is much expectation surrounding him. Now, I do not think for a moment that the whole city was filled with excitement. Amidst the bustle of the coming Passover celebrations, the streets would have been full. Probably only a limited number of people were caught up in the events of the day for otherwise Rome, paranoid at such times, would surely have intervened as a matter of order. But for those who were involved in these events, this was surely a heady day.

And how they celebrate as Jesus comes into the city upon a donkey. Cloaks are placed on the road whilst branches are cut from the trees and placed on the road whilst some go forwards shouting;

“Hosanna to the Son of David!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest!”

So what is this day all about? You see, it is a day that we have made safe for those sweet processions with donkeys, processions that so very often would seem to be so very distant from the passions and the radical challenge posed by that entry which we remember today.

Let’s for a moment look first at Jesus riding on a donkey. The detailed preparation for this suggests that we have here no accident. Far from it, we have before us a highly subversive piece of street theatre in which all was deliberate. There is a fulfilling of ancient prophecy from Zechariah even to the point of Matthew improbably suggesting that Jesus was riding two animals. And yet the riding on a donkey is highly significant. For whereas we tend to have a less than exalted image of donkeys thinking that their main purpose is to provide rides for children at such cultural centres as Blackpool or Skegness, they were well regarded animals at the time of Jesus. So well regarded as to be fit to carry a King. But here comes the rub, the donkey was fit to carry a King who came in peace whereas a horse was the means of transport for a King who came for war.

But then those branches and the shouts. Well to understand that we have to go back about 200 years to a story that was well known to Jesus’ contemporaries albeit not included in our Bibles unless we have the Apocryphal books. Anyhow a tyrant named Antiochus Epiphanes had tried to destroy thr practice of Judaism with great brutality. An elderly priest named Mattathias had rounded up his sons and they had launched a sort of insurgency. It was a bloody affair. And it took some 20 years and the loss of many lives before it came to a successful conclusion. When one of the brothers led his victorious troops into Jerusalem the First Book of Maccabees tells us, he was greeted with praise, palm branches and music. Now there are clear echoes of this in the welcome that Jesus receives in our Palm Sunday narrative.

And quite frankly there’s the rub. Because this hints at an expectation as to what Jesus would be. For many in the crowd, there would be the hope that Jesus would be the one who like the Maccabeans would bring freeedom from an oppressive overlord. Even Zechariah’s prophecy would be remembered as coming in the context of the destruction of hostile enemy nations. Of course this expectation could only be whispered. After all not that many years before, a Zealot revolt led by Judas of Galilee and Zadok the Pharisee had been punished with the public crucifixion of all 2,000 people captured during that rebellion. Surely, the years of hurt might be brought to an end by this Jesus. No wonder the shouts of “Hosanna” meaning “Save Us” pierce the air.

Indeed, the failure of Jesus to meet these expectation may well have been a significant factor in the change in public opinion during that week. For the week would end with a crowd that may have included some of the first crowd now crying out;

“Crucify him!”

But we need to hold it here. Because Jesus doesn’t lead a bloody insurrection, does not leave us with a Jesus merely uttering pious sentiments. Far from it. Palm Sunday is full of radical challenge. And there are two ways that I feel we need to be aware of that.

The first of those ways is in Jesus living non violence. The American theologian Walter Wink has written much in recent years about what he calls the “myth of redemptive violence.” Wink contests that this myth rather than Christianity, Islam or any of the other world religions, is the dominant myth in our world today. He roots this myth back into early Babylonian creation myths and notes its prevalence in much of the television we inflict on our children today. Its essence is that evil is defeated by what is often seen as heroic against the odds violence. Violence redeems ths bad situation. Commemorating as we are doing this week the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, we see the power of this myth. If there is an evil or an unplatable situation the answer is force - John McCain a possible future President of the USA singing, “Bomb. Bomb bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” only last year to a well known Beach Boys song. And the same goes on in a smaller way in just about every playground. The myth is strong and drowns out all talk of mercy, peace and reconciliation.

But Jesus confronts the myth. He has done so in his ministry time and again. He will do so again when Peter draws a sword in Gethsamene. For the King who comes in peace on a donkey comes proclaiming and embodying a love that is more powerful than any weapon of mass destruction. And in now way is that contrast more clear than the events of this day. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossman project the possibility of two processions on that day. From the West Pontius Pilate and his military enter the city with all the apparatus of state power, coming to remind the people at this notoriously volatile celebration, just who is boss. From the East, Jesus and his followers enter the city with all their powerlessness. And yet, despite a day of darkness looming later in the week, it is the powerless unarmed Jesus who brings transformation to the world rather than the imperial might offered by Pilate. Contrary to the voice of the “myth of redemptive violence” it is Jesus that we need rather than the Superman our culture cries out for.

But finally, whilst his path is non violent, Jesus does indeed confront the powers. You do not need to kill or bomb to confront effectively. It is the Nobodies of the world who enter the city with Jesus. And in the week ahead, Jesus will continually challenge the powers on behalf of the Nobodies. This would continuee within the early church. And that church would challenge the symbols of empire and the exploitation of one human by another. For Jesus comes as the King who offers a very different Kingdom to that of Rome or even the empires of our day. His is Kingship rooted in self giving love and mercy rather than in the cult of domination. And today as then he challenges so much of what we think is our Christian way of doing things. The hostile crowd who would say he was no friend of Caesar were right then. And still today they are right. This Jesus is truly the great subversive who subverts even those things we do not question.

So into a bustling city comes Jesus laying down the gauntlet. Still today he lays down that gauntlet. And he invites you and me to move from the domain of the Pilates of this world to the Kingdom that he embodies.


ALWINGTON METHODIST CHURCH Sunday March 16th 2008