Palm Sunday sermon

 

Scripture Readings:    Zechariah 9:9-10; Luke 19:28-40

Making an Entrance

How do you make an entrance?

When I was a kid, we had a minister who spent the half hour or so before the service started “glad-handing” around the congregation – stopping at one pew to admire a baby, or introduce himself to visitors, check in with the committee chairs, tell a joke to the kids that were getting antsy to go to Sunday school. When the choir got ready to process in, he would dash out, throw on his robe and appear at the end of the procession for the first hymn.

The minister who followed him was not as extroverted! He would stay closed away in his office (perhaps praying?) until someone in the choir came and got him.  

Another minister felt that the time before worship should be more reflective than social, so he would sit in the front pew of the congregation and model reflective prayer for us. As a kid I can remember him turning around and glaring at us when we were not being as mature as he in our spiritual preparations. 

It says a lot about their ministry doesn’t it? Making that entrance colours how they will relate to other people in the life of the church. When there is a transition in ministry, I often hear my colleagues debating two opposite approaches: on the one hand, they say, don’t change anything major for a year.  Wait and find out why they do things that way, maybe you will see the value in it. 

On the other end, other colleagues advise you Start the way you mean to go on.  There is no easier time to bring change than when you ARE the change.

So start the way you mean to go on.

We are learning a lot these days about how to make an entrance mostly by the politicians who are campaigning for our votes: who introduces the candidate? A teen-aged daughter or the party president? What music is played as a walk up song? How do they greet the crowd? Is the politician accessible to people? Who gets to ask questions? Do they have a background of carefully selected party members standing behind them to show their strength?

That's how they make their entrance into the voter’s consciousness. Its really important.

Today we have heard the story of Jesus “making an entrance”.into Jerusalem. It wasn’t his first time in the city, it wasn’t like he was a complete unknown, or that this was everyone’s first impression. But it was the beginning of a very critical time in his life and ministry, however. And he clearly chose to start the way he meant to go on.

However, it’s unlikely his was the only procession into Jerusalem that day. At another gate, possibly another time of day, a very different parade was being organized.  Because it was the time of the Passover Festival, the Roman governor for Palestine, Pontius Pilate, would also be entering the city that day. Though the governor spent most of his time at Caesarea Philiipi, where a beautiful palace by the sea had been built for the Roman leaders, Pilate recognized that Jerusalem was where he needed to be for the festival.

But he didn’t go alone. No doubt there were beautiful horses, and shining chariots, there were embroidered banners and blaring trumpets, there was a legion of soldiers, and all the beautifully dressed wives and handmaidens who represented Rome in all its glory occupying the city, laying claim to its best palaces and most powerful leaders.

You see, Pilate also chose to make an entrance that said this was the way he meant to go on. With all the power and all the privilege of the Roman Empire as it was already occupyied a tiny, beaten state, maintaining the tight grip of control across every province of the Jewish peoples.

So it was in contrast to Pilate’s parade of greatness, that Jesus chose the nature of his entrance. His entrance said Humility. His entrance said I am down here at street level. His entrance said Come and listen to me, and I will listen to you. And together we can build God’s kingdom.

So instead of modelling his procession in a paler version of the pomp and circumstance of Roman power, Jesus chose the obscure words of some of the ancient prophets, in particular drawing from Zechariah chapter 9:

your king is coming to you;

righteous and having salvation is he,

^bhumble and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

^10  cI will cut off the chariot from Ephraim

and ^dthe war horse from Jerusalem;

and the battle bow shall be cut off,

and ^ehe shall speak peace to the nations;

^fhis rule shall be from sea to sea,

and from ^gthe River¹ to the ends of the earth.

 

Whereas Pilate came to enforce Roman rule, and Roman tradition, from atop a high horse – instead Jesus would speak of peace – global peace – God’s peace, to all the ends of the earth. He would speak that message of peace while riding close to the common ground, so that even the children and the weak might hear him.

Jesus chose the colt of a donkey – which kept him at eye-level with most of the crowd. And instead of giving everyone colourful banners with all his title embroidered in gold on it, he came utterly empty handed, so that the people in the crowd took off their own coats and cloaks to lay on the ground before him, they took branches from the trees and made a path of peace on the way.

And the people remembered the Judean kings of old, the king who once danced in the streets, and fought alongside their people for freedom and justice. And so they greeted Jesus with the same greeting remembering King David:   "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!"

And when some of the Pharisees, who were also there in the crowd to welcome Jesus, cringed and said “Oh no, Jesus, tell them to stop calling you that way.” Jesus answered them “I tell you, even if these human voices were silent, the stones on the road would shout out.”

Even Pilate couldn’t claim that the rocks and stone under his horses’ feet were welcoming him, that they might start to shout out his name. 

Both of these processions started out the way they meant to go on – they both chose their entrances to send a message to Jerusalem. 

Jesus’ entrance said: You are God’s people. Make that your first priority, the way you see me doing it, and together we can build God’s kingdom.

Pilate’s entrance said: I have the power. If you want peace, then do as I say and no one will get hurt.

As we all know, that’s not the way the story ends.

We have heard and acted out this story so often on Palm Sunday that sometimes we don’t understand the change that Jesus represented, against this backdrop of domination and colonization. Jesus was a big deal, and everyone was talking about him, how he healed and he nourished and he changed people’s hearts. He didn’t present himself like a king or any kind of threat to the current empire. But simply representing change was enough to make him a revolutionary.

The Roman peace, you see, was a fragile peace in Israel, it was a secret handshake kind of deal between the governor and the chief priests of the temple, who had negotiated to keep their temple and worship legal. All they had too so was squashed any rebellion and thoughts of freedom. These were difficult times, times where the future was unclear, and it looked like their fragile peace might be at risk.

Using your imagination, you can put yourself on the streets of Jerusalem that day when Jesus rode into town and the people tore branches off the trees to greet him, and even laid their coats on the road to make a path for him.

When the disciples came to him asking about Passover in Jerusalem, he knew what he wanted:  Riding a borrowed donkey, he showed the crowds that his vision was not the empire of Rome.  

In him they found someone who came from God, the faithful God of a people who believed in peace and justice.

He went on that week to overturn the tables in the temple, and to claim that the temple itself would fall. He healed those who could not see or stand or claim any respect from the people around them. He built a new temple from his bodyand his followers.

Luke was writing these things three or four generations after the death of Jesus. The temple at Jerusalem where he turned the tables had been destroyed by the Romans, and all that was left constituted a lot of stumbling blocks, large broken stones to trip up anyone who dared to return to the holy centre of their faith. 

Jesus was seen by the Romans as a stumbling block, when in fact he was the cornerstone.  The first stone which served as a reference point for laying all the other stones around it, so that the final creation might be strong and true.

In the same way as that ancient tradition of building from the cornerstone out, Jesus’ teachings, his truths and his parables, are now the reference point for us as we try to understand which way to turn.

Which way to turn when we do not get what we want. Which way to rebuild when we do get what we want but it doesn’t satisfy us. Which cornerstone to choose when it seems like all around us is broken and we need a new hope.

May the stories of Jesus entering Jerusalem, and facing his opponents give us courage for the Holy Week journeys we all encounter.  Thanks be to God. Hosanna! Hosanna to the one who comes in the name of our God!