March 16, 2008

Scripture:         Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon:           “We Love a Parade”

            A couple of weeks ago we began a bible study with the adult Sunday school class dealing with the events of the last week of Jesus’ life.  So we’re looking at Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, the crucifixion, and then the resurrection.  And we’re looking at each of these events in every place that we can find them in the bible and noticing how each writer told the stories a bit differently.

            Mostly, these stories are found in the gospels, of course.  There is a version of the Last Supper in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  But, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are where you’ll find the bulk of these things.  And given the details that are different for each writer, there is actually so much more in common.  Consider that none of these books were written for at least 40 years after the life of Jesus and that all of the writers relied upon the spoken memories of those who witnessed these events.  That they do agree on so many details is remarkable.  To me it says something about the underlying truth of what actually did take place.

            What I can’t believe that we missed when we were doing this bible study a couple of weeks ago is this:  according to Matthew’s gospel, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a Monday, not on a Sunday.  Did you hear that?  One of those little details that get confused in the memories of the first Christians that wrote all of this down winds up making one of the gospels talk about Palm Monday.

            It’s true.

            You won’t hear it in the text today—which, by the way is Matthew 21, verses 1 through 11.  The first time that a date is mentioned for any of these events is actually two days before the Passover, which would be Wednesday.  And if you work your way backwards in Matthew, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem occurs on the Monday of that week.  Can you believe that?

            Turn with me to our scripture lesson.  It’s on page 30 of the New Testament in the pew Bible if you like.  Listen now for the word of the Lord…

            When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethpage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus went two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me.  If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The lord needs them.’  And he will send them immediately.”  This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”  The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.  A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and other cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.  The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest heaven!”  When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?”  The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

            We do love a parade.

            It’s the major problem with Palm Sunday, you know.  And we’ll call it Palm Sunday, even if Matthew believed it was a Monday.  The major problem with Palm Sunday is that we really do love a parade.  We love the spectacle.  We love the entertainment.  We love the high-flying hymns that sing of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem as if he were going to be crowned a king.

            The truth is that we love a victorious Christ.

            It’s Christ crucified that we don’t much know what to do with.  And the whole story is drenched in the irony of what is about to take place in a matter of days.  The man that folks are lining the streets to welcome as a king is going to be wearing a crown made from briars on his head.  In the city where his people were ruled by real kings in days gone by, he’s going to be humiliated with a hand-painted sign of scrap wood above his head:  King of the Jews.

            We don’t really know what to do with that.

            And I suspect that it’s always been that way.  One of the very first Christian writers, the Apostle Paul, referred to the cross as foolishness in the eyes of others.  He said, “It’s foolishness to those who are perishing.  To us it’s God’s power to save us.”  (1 Corinthians 1:18)  Now, why’d he say it that way?  Because you don’t very well convince folks of the power of God by showing them a man who was hung up like a criminal with no power to defeat even the corrupt politicians of his day.  What kind of God is that?

            Who’d ever fear that God?

            Maybe Palm Sunday is a kind of warning to all of us who would dare to say the kinds of things about this Jesus that we do.  Do you know what I mean?  We’re pretty fond of Jesus while he looks like a mighty Savior who can deliver us from our sins, our enemies, and all the things that make life difficult.  We love a victorious Christ—as long as he’s on our side.

            But, then we start to discover that we can’t really control this guy.  We can’t quite bend him to fit into exactly what we’d like him to be all the time.  And even though he sure does seem to love us more than we thought we could deserve, he turns right around and says things that we much care to hear.

            The folks in Jerusalem on that day would turn around just a few days later and say to heck with this guy.  He’s no Messiah.  Crucify him!

            You and me?  Well, we do it in more subtle ways.  But, we do it.  When we come face to face with a Jesus that suddenly doesn’t fit into our lifestyle, our economics, or our politics, that’s when we, too, can turn on him.  That stuff doesn’t sit too well with us.  We’d never use the words “crucify him”.  That would probably mean that we were aware of what we were doing.  Instead, we go through the contortions of justifying our behaviors.  We say things like: a person’s religion is a private matter—as if it shouldn’t make an appearance outside of the home.

            Do you know what Jesus did after all of this parading into the city?  He marched into the courtyard of the temple and started driving out all of these guys who were preying on the poor.  You see everybody had to have animals for the sacrifices at the temple.  That was part of how folks believed their sins could be forgiven and they could get their relationship with God back on track.  But, these greedy thugs would sell the cheapest birds, doves, the old pigeon of peace, to people who could only afford that.  And they’d charge exorbitant amounts because, hey, what were these poor sinners going to do?  And you couldn’t give an offering to the temple with money from those heathen countries.  So, these same “upstanding” businessmen would rip folks off by exchanging money at incredibly low rates.  That’s why Jesus said they were making it a den of robbers.

            Oh, people didn’t want to hear any of that.  When Jesus starts getting into your wallet, you know, that’s the kind of thing we don’t do too well with.  We’ll compromise a principle here or there in order to balance the budget.  We won’t ask too many questions about where this product came from and how old the workers were that produced them.  We don’t want to know too much about that.  We know that times are hard, getting harder.  But when it comes right down to it, we’ll buy cheaper rather than buying local and maybe saving jobs.  And if Jesus is talking about that kind of stuff, maybe we don’t want to know about it.

            We read these almost absurd stories of Jesus crossing social boundaries, and breaking taboos of his time.  He’s a Jew that’s hanging out with Samaritans.  He’s a Jew that’s reaching out to a Roman centurion of all things.  He’s mixed up with those unpatriotic folks known as tax collectors.  Lepers.  Women with quite questionable reputations.  You’ve read the stories.  You know what I’m talking about.  He’s just knee deep in sinners and outcasts and a few folks we’d probably classify as undocumented workers and such.  And what does he do every time?  Just loves them.  They don’t all love him back.  But, every time he loves them.

            And we know that the gospel calls us into a much different way of being—one that breaks free of the divisions of race and language and all.  But, we don’t look much like that different way of being.  Folks don’t refer to Sunday morning as the most segregated hour in America for nothing.  And all of our churches could change that if we had the mind to.  Goodness.  Instead, we tolerate it when somebody’s cracking a joke about what it’s like to be different—black, or a woman, or gay, for heaven’s sake.  Right in the hallway of a church.

            Palm Sunday is like a warning to us.  We’re pretty good at the excitement of Jesus when he’s lifting us up.  But, like those crowds we can just as easily turn when it gets too personal and too challenging.

            So, it ends up being foolishness.  Christ up on a cross.  Isn’t going to just make the world conform.  Instead, he’s just hanging there, bruised and battered, like he’s looking down at us and saying, “y’all are just killing me with this stuff.”

            It’s foolishness.  It’s only got power to change our hearts.  And that’s if we’re willing.

            Like the crowds on Palm Sunday, we can also pretty good at getting the words right on our lips, but betraying them with our lives at times.  They were shouting things like “Hosanna to the Son of David!” and “This is the prophet”.  And they still missed the point.  It’s like they could memorize all the details of Sunday School.  They could recite various verses from scripture.  Doctrines of the church were well known.  Knowledge was not the problem.  Theology was not the problem.  But knowing the truth was not the same as doing the truth.

            Being a believer in Jesus Christ isn’t just something we get our heads around.  Probably believer isn’t even the right word for belonging to Jesus.  We’re called not to believe, really, but to follow.  And that’s more than belief.  It’s our lives.

            Someone who observed college students made the point that “It is possible to make an A+ in the course on ethics and still flunk life.”

            I think Palm Sunday is a warning to us.  We can at once make the incredible claim that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and then fail utterly for our lives to reflect it.  And so we end up crucifying him, too.

            Now, that’s a pretty awful place to be.  Makes for a sermon that just beats you over the head.

            But, it turns out that something happens when Jesus is crucified.  That’s kind of central to who we are.  What looks like death to us…it isn’t.  That kind of death, as it turns out, is transforming.  Despair to hope.  Sin to forgiveness.  Loneliness to community.  Brokenness to eternal life.  All kinds of foolishness.

            And now and again we do determine to carry a cross for at least a step or two.  Somebody stands up for a coworker, you know.  And it may cost her own job.  But, she’s not going to sit there idly by while the boss continues to harass the woman next to her.  And that little crucifixion transforms a corner of the world.

            I remember the first time that I dared to say something to my grandfather.  He was just as bigoted as they come, you know.  He could come up with new and inventive slurs at the drop of a hat.  It might have been funny if it wasn’t so disturbing.  I’m not sure what happened to him.  Over time my grandparents became just about the only white folks on their block down in Atlanta.  And the things he’d say behind closed doors about black folks were unbelievable.

            It made me uncomfortable.  And my conscience was pricked that I never said anything.  But, one day I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore.  And I was just sure that he’d never speak to me again.

            He belted out one of his prejudiced creations.  And I just looked at him and said, “Papa, that’s really not funny.  And I hate it when you do that.”

            You know what he did?  He sheepishly looked at me and said, “I’m sorry.  I know.”

            It was just a little cross, I suppose.  A little one like you have on your desk or on your wall.  It wasn’t one of the big ones that you can get killed on.  But, I want to believe that it was big enough to make some difference.

            We who would follow Jesus are likely to peel away when he starts heading towards Calvary.  But, that death transforms the world.  And it’s a death that we can participate in, too…if we are willing.  Maybe we’ll transform a little slice of our world, too.

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)