Palm Sunday - The Choices We Make!

Karen Sloan 28/03/2021

Reading - Luke 19: 28-40

Here we are, Palm Sunday 2021.  It seems a long time since we’ve had palm fronds in church. It gives me a warm glow, although it’s probably not all that safe for people over 70, so don’t trip over!

Today is a day that can be called Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday. But I think today it’s important to take in the bravery, courage and determination of the man Jesus before we get to the cross, so we are focusing on Palm Sunday. We need to understand our traditions in context, to understand his response, to fully understand Easter.

Just like we have to understand the world in which people like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela lived, the sacrifices they made to stand up to the injustices perpetrated on their people in their time and place.  Or the many women who stood up when women were not supposed to be feisty.  Women such as Rosa Parks, Malala Yousafzai and Dorothy Day.  Or even the indigenous voices that have helped aboriginal people for generations here in our own land. People like Shirley Colleen Smith , Joyce Clague  and Professor Megan Davis, a human rights lawyer and activist involved in formulating the Uluru statement from the heart. And who is still active.

Maybe they were inspired by our man, Jesus, our spirit infused man whose life and message has sent shivers down the spine of all those who think power and violence is the way to peace for 2000 years.  A man whose love of God made people think and believe they saw God.  Whose love and compassion for people transformed those that followed.

We know that some that I named were. And how incredible their response was.

So let’s put some context around this day for us.  So we may also be inspired.

We know that Jesus was Jewish, and that during his lifetime Jerusalem was home to  political, economic and religious oppression.  Gods passion for justice seen in Jesus’s Jewish roots had been replaced by injustice. Mainly at the hands of the Romans but also by the system itself.

As he travelled and preached many people thought he was the longed for Jewish messiah. Who would magically rescue them from the Roman oppressors with his power and might. It was an understanding steeped in ancient beliefs, an expectation that here was the new dawning found within this one man. But it was a rescue bound in blood.

Yet Jesus clearly was not that sort of Messiah. His teachings, mission and life reflected that reality.  As Rev Dawn Hutchinson highlights, “his messiahship was almost a non-event, for Jesus insisted on the wisdom of peace through justice rather than war, generosity over greed, selflessness over selfishness, mercy over vengeance, hope over fear, and above all love and kindness over hate.”

He was not the messiah that many around Jerusalem expected that day. They wanted someone to take control. Jesus was something else entirely, someone completely different.  In fact, even the disciples had trouble understanding who Jesus was. A messiah who called those listening to participate with him, a messiah that said the Kingdom of God was already present in and among them, they just had to join in. A messiah that chose powerlessness, not power.

So people were confused.  We heard about the events of Palm Sunday in the year 32 from our two reporters, who did some time travelling.  Jesus riding on a donkey or colt, depending on the gospel, through one gate into Jerusalem, while Pilate rides on a stallion through a different opposite gate. Two different parades, two different ways of seeing life.

If anyone was confused at the beginning of the day, they wouldn’t be at the end. Jesus was clearly making a statement, a very dangerous statement.  

But what about us.  Are we confused? The accounts in the gospels vary. And were written well after the event.

Yet when we examine the synoptic gospels, Mark, Matthew and Luke, in particular, the revolutionary Jesus, the Jesus of peace and nonviolence comes through pretty clearly.  In Mark the procession is well planned and he spends a lot of time telling his audience about the preparations.  This was not just a spontaneous act, but a intentionally political act, contrasting the Kingdom of Rome to the dominion of God.  This thread is seen throughout Matthew and Luke, whose story we heard today.  While only the gospel of John has people waving palm branches, Mark and Matthew have leafy branches of some sort, perhaps even olive branches, while Luke has none. 

The issue with palm branches is interesting. Maybe Mark, Matthew and Luke do not include people waving palm branches before Jesus because they knew they were linked with victory and generals, or perhaps, as others say, palm trees would not have been available at that time or at any time in Jerusalem.  Who knows? Either way, they have become a symbol of peace and of Jesus and today we would have  waved them this afternoon at the Palm Sunday March for refugees, if we had a march.  So I have them here.

What we do know is that when Pilate entered the Jaffa gate he was showcasing his power and military might, and the might of Rome.  Get in the way and you will be crushed. Instead of power and might Jesus enters the lions gate, down from the garden of gethsemane.  A different gate and a different parade.  One stressing nonviolence and love.  And justice and inclusion for the poor and marginalized. And forgiveness and peace.   

So while the details change there is a truth that is breathtaking to behold. Rome or God.   As our reporters saw, this man called Jesus was going to change things, but not in the way people might have thought. 

Yet even Pilate got it, for he knew Jesus was not a military Messiah. Otherwise he would have had all his disciples arrested.  Rather as Bill loader says, he saw Jesus as a dangerous stirrer. Fancy suggesting that Rome’s empire and kingdom was not enough!.  So Pilate did what totalitarian regimes often do.  He eliminated Jesus, executed him by the usual method designed to scare people off from ever acting against Rome, crucifixion.”

So context is always important.

But what do we do with Palm Sunday in 2021.

I think  the message is clear.  The throne of power was a throne upon which Jesus would never sit, because that is not where hope is engendered. Hope and justice, oddly enough, are not achieved from the top down but from the bottom up. They are achieved from people like those in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago and from people like us today. For while we live in the 21st century, not the first, we have the same choices to make. We, ordinary people, leading ordinary lives can make a difference.

Yet, it’ s not easy, and never has been.  How do we hold on to this idea that Jesus shows us a different way, an alternative way of living.  One that is transforming ourselves and for others. How do we hold on to his teachings.  Perhaps It’s like being in the stream or river, realising we’re home, this is where we belong.  Jesus reveals a truth to us, if we listen and join in. A divine ancient truth that has nothing to do with messiahs and kings or power and might, but about love.  Jesus reflects the God of the universe, found within all of us, calling all of us to participate in his vision. Collaborative eschatology as Dominic Crossan would say. A big word which just means we are called to collaborate with the life and love of the universe in order to transform ourselves and our society for the better. And Jesus points the way, as he has pointed the way for so many..

if we look  round, it’s happening all the time, little and not so little acts that end up being life changing. Both for ourselves and for others.  Acts that have far reaching consequences than we might ever dream. We may not be a Desmond Tutu or a MLK  or a Malala or a Rosa Parks but we can be a Matt and a Kerry and a Russ and a Joan, there are a lot here, or a Karen or a Mavis or a Vic. Or any of us.

As Eleanor Roosevelt– an incredible activist in her own right said

 “Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just one step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.”

Or as Margaret Mead colluded

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

In the midst of so much violence, and disaster and suffering and injustice there is a way.  And it starts with us. As Luke says the final line of the reading, if his disciples were to stay silent, the stones would shout out. 

So which gate, which parade are we going to choose?. Are we going to choose the way of love or be tempted by Rome.  And keep choosing it, day after day, week after week, year after year..

A challenging question…. but one which we are obliged to answer if we are to be followers of Jesus of Nazareth. For it does make a difference, day after day, week after week, and year after year..

Amen.