Palm Suinday
First Reading (Psalm 118:1-2,19-29/NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Luke 19:28-48/NRSVUE)
Hosana — Rev. Brent Gundlah
One weekend many years ago, before our daughters were born, a friend and her two young sons came to our house for a visit. The kids were playing, we were chatting and the TV was mostly talking to itself in the background. I was, however, paying enough attention to notice that it was tuned to a show about wildlife in the Serengeti — you know, the kind of thing you’d find on NatGeo Wild or Animal Planet.
At one point, the camera zoomed in on a leopard that was crouched in the grass lying in wait for its prey, and then switched to a wide shot of a group of zebras headed the leopard’s way (fun fact: a group of Zebras is called either a “zeal” or a “dazzle” — I hope that little piece of knowledge does you some good at some point).
Anyway, it was pretty easy to figure out where all of this was headed next: the leopard sprung from its hiding spot and began running towards the zebras, who were, at that point, blissfully unaware of what was happening and so were still running towards the leopard. The leopard soon keyed in on the slowest Zebra and, well, we all know how this was probably going to work out. I can’t say for sure, though, because I didn’t actually get to see it.
You see, with this tense chase underway, one of the boys suddenly became a little agitated: “What’s happening?” he asked, with som fear in his voice. As his mom lurched forward to grab the remote off the coffee table, she replied, “Oh, they’re just playing” and also managed to change the channel to something less problematic before I could even blink; I have to say, her reflexes were every bit as impressive as that leopard’s.
Now, I’m generally a proponent of telling the truth, but I sort of understood why she did what she did (and I would understand it even better when I became a parent myself). There was no point in traumatizing two kids under the age of four in an attempt to teach them a lesson about the survival of the fittest — one that they were way too young to grasp. There would be an appropriate time and place for that conversation; the truth always comes out, eventually.
But I also came to appreciate something else that day — something that might seem a bit self-evident: our understanding of a story is shaped by how much of it we get to experience. I mean, the boys thought the leopard and the zebras were simply engaging in a fun game of tag because that’s all of that story they got to see (even though, in retrospect, I think they may have understood more than we thought they did). I, on the other hand, knew that it likely turned out differently because I’d watched a whole lot of “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” in my childhood.
I can’t help but think that this is kind of what’s going on with today’s gospel reading, which is, of course, Luke’s account of the first Palm Sunday.
Like the Parable of the Prodigal Son that we heard a couple of weeks ago, this is a story that most people kinda know (indeed, it’s one of those rare instances where all four gospels contain a version of it). And if I asked you to summarize it, you’d probably say something like this: “Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey amidst a crowd of people waving palms and shouting “Hosanna.’” But is that really how it goes? And is that really all there is to it?
I ask because Luke’s account contains neither a donkey nor a palm nor a single Hosanna. Matthew, Mark and John all have their fair share of Hosannas, but only John mentions palms (though he never says that anyone is waving them). Matthew talks about the people having “branches” and Mark speaks of them having “leafy branches” but they both say only that the people in the crowd spread those branches on the road.
John says that Jesus finds a “young donkey” and rides into town upon a “donkey’s colt,” Mark says it was a “colt,” and Matthew says that Jesus was on “a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” So, did Jesus switch animals part way through the parade, or did he somehow manage to ride two at the same time, like a trick rider at a rodeo? Details, details.
Nonetheless, we can piece together the basic contours of this story from what the gospels tell us: Jesus enters Jerusalem from the East (we know this because all four versions say that he’s coming from Bethpage and Bethany and the Mount of Olives, which lie in that direction); he’s riding some sort of humble farm animal; a large crowd has gathered to greet him and they’re pretty fired up about the fact that he’s in town; there’s a better than average chance that they were yelling “Hosanna” (which means “Save Us”) because they expected Jesus to liberate them from Roman imperial rule (I say this because three of the four authors mention this); and they’re laying stuff in the road (their cloaks and, possibly, branches that may or may not have been palms) to pave Jesus’s way, as if he were a king.
Luke goes on to say that some of the Pharisees who were also there want Jesus to tell the crowd to tone down the celebration; Jesus responds, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” And that’s where the Lectionary ends today’s reading. So, if that happened to be all you experienced of this passage from Luke it’s fair to say you’d think that Jesus comes to Jerusalem riding a colt and people are happy (as evidenced by their shouts of, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”), then those party-pooper Pharisees want Jesus to quiet them down and Jesus says “Good luck with that.” The end. But there’s way more to the story than that — we know there’s way more to the story than that — and that’s why I read you the whole thing.
To put this in a slightly broader context, the parade we heard about wasn’t the only one happening that day. As those of you who read “The Last Week,” by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in our Gatherings book group already know, as Jesus was approaching Jerusalem from the East in that humble procession, Pontius Pilate was approaching from the West amidst all of the trappings of his imperial office — horses and chariots and a whole lot of soldiers.
They were converging upon the city for Passover, along with a gazillion pilgrims who were coming there celebrate. Moving toward this chaotic cauldron of people, Pilate sought to ensure that the peace that allowed the Roman empire to survive and thrive (the Pax Romana) was preserved at all costs, while Jesus was coming to cause a little trouble (good trouble, mind you, but trouble nonetheless). And kinda like the leopard and the zebra out there on the Serengeti, these two were headed for a confrontation.
Sure, we could have stopped at the end of the Palm Sunday parade and left it at that, turning our attention toward Easter. But you can’t have the joy of Palm Sunday and Easter without the pain and sadness of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We can pretend it didn’t happen, we can avoid the tough stuff all we want, but that’s just not how the story goes. And, like I said earlier, the truth always comes out, eventually.
These people who are overjoyed at the prospect of instant and effortless liberation from their oppressors when Jesus, their Messiah, rides into town are about to be really disappointed when that doesn’t happen. And when that doesn’t happen, as the people hoped and expected that it would, they’ll turn on Jesus pretty quickly.
And so as Jesus approaches the city in the additional verses we read, he weeps — and there’s probably a bunch of reasons for that. He knows at least something about the suffering that awaits him; he knows that the crowd is impatient and fickle and will soon turn on him; he knows that one of his closest friends will betray him, he’s seeing his people living under the oppressive thumb of Rome and knows that even he can’t fix this quickly or on his own.
And what does he do next? He acts; he goes to the Temple and flips over some tables; he stands up and says, “This is not right”; he speaks truth to power knowing full well that power doesn’t like to be spoken to like that.
He doesn’t ride in to town with an army and lay waste to the place; he doesn’t violently overthrow the powers that be. Instead, he engages in small acts of defiance — and that’s enough to get him killed; it’s important to understand that revolution can be a dangerous business.
Bible stories are funny things – they can resonate with us in unique ways at different points in our lives, and that’s definitely the case with this one today. As we face a social and political situation in our own place and time, it’s easy to give into the despair and become consumed by the sadness; it’s easy to forget that, even in the midst of all this awfulness, there’s still good in the world; it’s easy to be afraid when we see cruelty and oppression and chaos around us; it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the enormity of challenges we face, to be so frustrated by the fact that we can’t do everything and fix everything instantaneously that we do nothing instead. But Luke’s story about the first Palm Sunday — the whole story — reminds us that this is all part of that story.
Did the people wave palms or not? Did Jesus ride into town on a donkey or a colt? Did the the crowd shout “Hosanna” or something else? Who cares? These aspects of the story don’t really matter; but here’s a few that do:
First, even in the worst of times, there’s still much to celebrate and it’s perfectly okay to shed tears of anger and sadness and frustration. The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that there’s a time to laugh and a time to cry, but it probably also should have mentioned that there are times for doing both simultaneously, that there are times when some will want to laugh and some will want to cry, and that there’s space for all of this.
Second, even when our problems seem insurmountable and our struggle against them seems pointless, there’s always work to be done, there’s always work that we can do, there’s always work that we need to do.
Third, we need to remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day and it wasn’t gonna fall in a day either (history reminds us of this over and over again — just fill in the empire of your choice).
Fourth, we should never ever ever underestimate the power of even the smallest acts of defiance: of merely caring for the people that power has turned it’s back on; of simply speaking the truth; of just standing up and saying, “This is wrong, this is not okay, this is not the way it should be.”
And if you think that such small acts of defiance don’t matter, if you think they don’t take strength and courage, if you think they’re not dangerous, if you think they’re not effective ways of standing up to the powers-that-be, then I invite you to watch how the powers-that-be are going to react to Jesus over the course of the next week.
Look, we can pretend that this story is simple and easy, we can delude ourselves into thinking that all of this complicated and difficult stuff isn’t part of this story — that it isn’t part of our story — but it is.