Sermon given on Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011 at Millbrook UMC, Randolph, NJ.
Have you ever driven down a road, thinking you were heading in the right
direction, only to wind up some place else? Last August Amanda and I had
planned a trip to Maine. The trip to my parent’s house takes about 11 hours from
here in Northern New Jersey, so we always break up the trip into two days and
either stay overnight at a motel or with my cousin in southern Maine. On that trip,
though, we were feeling particularly adventurous and decided to pack up a tent
and find a campground. Amanda located one in New Hampshire, and I called and
made reservations. I entered the address into my car GPS and started driving.
We got to New Hampshire at dusk; as we crossed into the state, my GPS told me
we only had 40 miles to go before we arrived at the campground. I turned off the
main highway and proceeded along a narrow one lane road, which soon turned
into a rough dirt path. All the while my GPS was assuring me the campground
wasn’t much further. The dirt slowly turned to grass with faint tire tracks rutted
into it, and at this point I realized something wasn’t right. By this time it was quite
dark and Amanda and I were irritable from a long day of driving and just wanted
to stop somewhere for the night. I managed to turn around and backtrack to a
gas station, where I got correct directions to our destination, only to arrive there
and discover the campground had closed. After about another hour of driving, we
found a motel and were grateful for warm beds and sound sleep.
You see, my problem was, I thought that road was taking me in one
direction; indeed, I had electronic assurance that I was headed in the right
direction, when in reality I was going someplace else. And that, my friends,
brings us to Palm Sunday.
We know this story from Matthew so well that it is easy for us to think like
those in Jerusalem that day — that Palm Sunday is taking us someplace else, a
joyful place where celebrations and happiness abound. In reality we’re on a
different road, a road we might not choose, a road we had not planned on, a road
we do not welcome.
The day Jesus rode into Jerusalem, the crowds were ready for a change.
The oppression of the Roman empire lay heavy on them like the Egyptian
captivity from which their forebearers had been delivered. It was Passover week,
after all. During this most holy of celebrations, the Jewish people remember the
violence, domination, and oppression prominent in their history, and God’s
unfailing promise of divine deliverance. This meal appeared to be about an
ancient story, a tradition, a reenactment that celebrated the deliverance of the
people of Israel from a tyrant, Egypt’s Pharaoh. Moses, chosen by God to lead
the people out of captivity, had instructed the Hebrews to gather with their
possessions in hand, their garments ready for travel, their staffs in their
hands. They were to put the blood of a lamb on the door post, and wait for God’s
deliverance.
And deliverance came. The death angel passed over Egypt, and all over
that land death visited Egyptian households, taking the future of the nation with
it. Wailing could be heard rising from compound after compound. The will to
resist the God of Israel had faded. Pharaoh relented, and God’s people were
free. It was a temporary freedom, as Pharaoh changed his mind and pursued the
nation of Israel, but God continued to protect God’s people. They had slipped in
the dark of night from the chains of slavery into the guidance of God.
It was that same hope of freedom that the crowds in Jerusalem invested in
Jesus that day he came riding in. His popularity and reputation proceeded him;
he had healed on the sabbath, insulted religious leaders, and, just last week,
revived someone from death. It was not the first time the crowds had searched
for a leader to usher in God’s reign, and it would not be the last. But Jesus
seemed different. Here was a mystic, a prophet, a healer, and yet an everyday
working-class man who stayed with common people, ate with tax collectors,
forgave people of ill repute, played with children, and taught vast crowds who
came out to hear him. And while Jesus didn’t say anything directly about
overthrowing Roman rule — he had even suggested they pay the taxes owed
Caesar — he certainly implied it. Jesus broke social, religious, and political
barriers, because he knew the grace and love of God knows no restrictions.
Jesus also seemed to fear no one, but the Pharisess, the chief priest, and the
other religious leaders feared his popularity. The less popular they were, the
more popular Jesus became.
So, on that Sunday morning, when Jesus came in riding on a donkey and
her colt, the clue that Zechariah says is the arrival of the triumphant king who
would bring peace, those in Jerusalem took up the chant, “Hosanna to the Son of
David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” People yank of
their cloaks and break off branches and spread them on the road, determined to
provide Jesus with the royal entrance they believe he deserves. Some of the
crowd, perhaps those who had travelled to Jerusalem from a distance and hadn’t
yet heard of this Jesus, said, “Who is he?” The crowds enthusiastically answer,
“It’s Jesus! It’s the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee!”
Over the last few weeks the world has been mesmerized by the toppling of
dictators in the Middle East and North Africa as people, longing for freedom, have
protested and pressured their rulers to make way for democracy. This is
happening in Egypt, Syria, the Ivory Coast; there are continued struggles against
regimes in Israel and Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, indeed around the world.
Perhaps the most disturbing of these uprisings has been in Libya where an
armed and untrained ragtag group of “rebels” has been attacked by the equipped
and well-trained army of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator for over forty
years. If ever there was an example of how the power of dominance and control
always turns evil and destructive, this is it. But, perhaps what’s most disturbing
about this scenario is that few of the commentators or reporters I have heard or
read are surprised. What we are witnessing is not an anomaly. It is a pattern that
has been played out many times in the history of human power struggles. This is
what the human system of dominance looks like. Violent, oppressive domination
by a nation, state, or individual cannot abide freedom, equality, or non-violence. It
is the principalities and powers of this world against the extraordinarily radical
and always just ways of God.
At the time of Jesus such images of power and control were rather
commonplace. The crosses that dotted the countryside were tangible witnesses
to the fierce and decisive response that could be expected should anyone
question or challenge the dominance of the Roman Empire. Power was won
through conflict and through the humiliation of opponents; crucifixion as a form of
execution was designed to humiliate and make an example of its victims. And, of
course, power was retained through the exact same methods.
But it is not only in the political arena that such violent “power-over” is
practiced. In business, competitors are often treated as ‘enemies’ and no mercy
is shown in seeking to drive others out of business in order to reach the top of the
heap. In sports, the language of war is often used, and opponents sometimes
even inflict serious injury on one another in the quest for glory. Winning is
everything, and the losers must be humiliated. Perhaps the one place where we
would expect this pattern to be conspicuous by its absence is in religion.
However, even here, human history has witnessed the same violence,
dominance and power struggles between different religious sects, even, at times,
within a single religion. Human beings, it seems, have yet to fully understand the
destructive and corrupting influence of power.
You see, the Jerusalem road on Palm Sunday was not the road to political
dominance, or the powers of this world, as so many in the crowed had expected
it to be. Jesus wasn’t coming as a military tyrant, ready to exchange one form of
power for another. We know that Jesus rejected that during his temptation. The
road to Jerusalem is one paved by the non-violent, just and peace-loving ways of
God, ways that run counter to this world and always expose it for what it is:
empty and meaningless, bereft of hope, leading to destruction. In our celebration
of the wonder of Palm Sunday, we see the fickle nature of worldly powers. We
know that only a few short days from now, Jesus will be betrayed, arrested, tried,
abandoned, whipped, spit upon, slapped, have his beard torn out, mocked,
ridiculed, and ultimately killed. And the same crowds that had on Sunday sung
Hosannas at his arrival, would shout on Friday for Pilate to release Barabbas and
put Jesus to death.
The road that Jesus trod into Jerusalem was the same road he had always
walked. It was the road of humility, of love, of patience, of hope, of
encouragement. It was the way of salvation, not the way of the empire. It was the
way of the kingdom, not of the king. It was the road to glory, not to government. It
was the way of righteousness, not of Rome. And when the road in Jerusalem
changed from triumph to torture, Jesus stayed on it. When the shouting of the
crowds moved from joy to judgment, Jesus stayed on it. When the mood of the
mob switched from adoration to accusation, Jesus didn’t flinch. When the road
became rough, steep, and lonely, Jesus kept going.
And in a perfect world a man who did nothing but good, who relieved
suffering, who comforted the mourning, who sat with the sorrowful, who ate with
sinners, who made the broken whole — in a perfect world such a man would be
honored, praised, loved, and revered. But such people are always attacked by
those who love violence and oppression, by those who have given themselves
over to the principalities and powers of this world. In their confusion, anger, and
fear, those who on Sunday had welcomed Jesus as their new messiah-to-be and
Friday had turned on him, were weary of disappointment, weary of themselves,
weary of their lives. And so tired of all they could not control, they cried out for
vengeance they could control. If Jesus won’t be our king, if Jesus won’t give us
what we want, then let’s be rid of him, they said.
Friends, the road to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday intersects with the
highways of our lives; it is a road we cannot avoid. Our GPS’s can’t calculate an
alternate route. But, when we end up on that road, we have a choice to make.
When those around us turn against us, when peace turns to violence and pushes
in at all sides, we can yield to the maddening multitudes. When those that we
once trusted and loved begin to gossip and spread all sort of rumors about us,
we can submit to the chaotic crowd. When anxiety and worry and situations that
seem out of control threaten to overtake our very souls, we can give up to the
teeming throngs. Or, we can stick it out. We can reject the deadly forces of evil
with the goodness of God. We can resist those who would tell us to live violently,
to oppress and to use those around us, and instead choose to live in the light of
God’s justice. We can renounce the voices of doubt and despair and instead
raise our voices in praise of God’s blessed assuracne. Yes, we can be sure that
our Palm Sundays will lead to Good Fridays, but we know a better day awaits, a
day of glorious resurrection, and by God’s grace we will all get there. Amen.
