"Who is This?" Preached on Palm Sunday, April 9th, 2017 At Wollaston Congregational Church Scripture: Matthew 21:1-11 I love Palm Sunday, I always have. As a child I loved it for what it was then. In the church I attended, there was a special afternoon service in which the children acted out the Palm Sunday procession. I’d imagine Jesus out in front riding the donkey. We’d sing hosanna as we followed the priest in his red and golden royal vestments, carrying the golden, jeweled cross high in the air. I even remember a verse from a favorite children’s hymn of the time: Into the city I’d follow the children’s band, Waving a branch of the palm tree high in my hand; One of His heralds, yes, I would sing Loudest hosannas, “Jesus is King!” Yes, you’ve got it … I swallowed it all hook, line and sinker, as we proclaimed “Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.” But, of course, it was an illusion. Members of the procession that accompanied Jesus on his journey Jerusalem that first day of the Passover festival, were not dressed in royal vestments. They did not command military might. They were a disarmed group. They had no swords, no armor. They were not led by their leader on a stallion war horse, but by Jesus a humble female donkey. If they were looking for it, the residents of Jerusalem could find military might in a different parade. The Roman governor Pontius Pilate, had been summoned to return from his weekend place, in the glittering coastal city of Caesarea Maritima, to the West. His reason for coming back to Jerusalem that same day was to maintain order. He needed to keep a lid on the Jewish high jinx of Passover. At the time of Jesus every Jew was required to return to Jerusalem to eat the Passover meal. You can imagine the chaos. Some 200,000 pilgrims, descending on the city usually a fifth of the size. Vendors, with their food, drink and trinkets cram the narrow streets. People are in high spirits. The place is packed to bursting with devout Jews. This week they will retell the story of liberation from slavery and oppression. To this day, the Jewish celebration of Passover, or Pesach, lifts up the event of the Exodus. This is the story of the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, an oppressive empire of an earlier time. During this festival week the Roman occupying forces are armed to the hilt. They have taken the stubbornly monotheistic Jewish people captive in their own land. In a show of power and authority, Governor Pontius Pilate enters the city on a war horse, leading a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. Meanwhile to the East, descending from the mount of the Olives, Jesus rides into town on an awkward mother donkey. She veers this way and that while her little foal comes trotting alongside, struggling to keep up, braying pitifully for his milk. The ragtag group, that Matthew calls “the crowd”, have been following him these past few weeks. Some have come all the way from Galilee, 75 miles. Others have been picked up along the way, including the surroundings of Jerusalem. These people are peasants who have been forced from their small parcels of land by the occupier. Many survive by means of day labor, in the city, slaving on Rome’s massive projects. Others have resorted to begging. They have already been humiliated. Their self-worth and dignity is at an all time low. They desperately need relief from these conditions. They have grown to love Jesus and they place their hope for liberation in him. The residents of Jerusalem who happen to live along the route taken by Jesus scratch their heads at the sight and ask “Who is this?” The supporters proudly claim “This is the prophet, Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.” But there is a problem for Jesus. Even as the crowds live in fear and trembling of the occupying forces, their hopes depend the same kind of power and strength. They do not know anything else. They are nostalgic for the kingdom of Israel ruled by David a thousand years ago. This is what the coming of “the Lord” means to them. They want a king who will overthrow the Roman government. They do not understand what Jesus is about. They are about to the tragically disappointed. Over the past few weeks, members of our Lenten book group, here at Wollaston Congregational Church, studied the book “Christ Actually” by James Carroll. In the Introduction to that book, we read about the German pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We learned in that in 1945 while Bonhoeffer was confined to a prison cell by the Nazis, for his part in a plot to assassinate Hitler, he wrote to a friend, saying: “What keeps gnawing at me is the question … who is Christ actually for us today?” [1] The experiment of cultural Christianity in Europe had failed. The Jewish holocaust of the 20th century made this clear. In spite of being the dominant religion throughout Europe during the Nazi era, the Church had failed to prevent the genocide of 6 million European Jews. Christian leaders, both Catholic and Protestant, had been either complicit, silent or impotent as this atrocity took place. We might say that Bonhoeffer was tragically disappointed in the Christian religion. But he wasn’t disappointed in Jesus. Instead, he looked forward to a time of a religion-less Christianity. This kind of Christianity would involve following or imitating Jesus, rather than worshiping him. According to Bonhoeffer this would not “create constitutions by decrees, [but would bring] human beings into relationship with one another.” [2] Here at Wollaston Congregational Church, we may look back on our heyday when we almost made 1,000 members. We may remember having significant influence in the community. The church was the place to make connections, and build a professional network. I think that the Church in America at that time had certain parallels with the heyday of the Church in Europe. The culture and the church were bound tightly together, it was difficult to distinguish faith in God from faith in country. This still applies in many churches in the United States. But, now, here at Wollaston Congregational Church we have been disarmed. These days we don’t have much political clout. We don’t have the movers and shakers of Quincy among our membership. We don’t have support from powerful organizations with deep pockets. Here as in this church, what you see is what you get. But we should remember we look more like the original palm parade than the church of the past. It is as though the Christian faith, in this church and others, has been gently simmering on the stove. The distractions and temptations to power and influence have been gradually evaporating away. Here in this church we find people of various walks of life. We belong to a number of different generations. We do not all have the same country of origin, we do not all belong to the same race. We do not all have the same type of family configuration. Some have been coming to this church their whole lives. There are others who came along more recently, perhaps from other faith traditions. And there are those for whom church is brand new. But, we have something in common. We know our need. Through this past Lent we have been exploring that need. We learned that Jesus is the living water. And we drank deeply with a thirst to be known by name, to be loved and to belong, to find meaning for our lives in the Christian story. We had a thirst for reconciliation and forgiveness, and for the restoration to community of all God’s children. We learned that Jesus is the light of the world. And we began to embrace our journey toward the light of inclusion. We demonstrated our desire to set aside anxiety about right belief and sin, so that we can open ourselves to a clearer vision of who Jesus is. And with hope in the resurrection and what it might mean for our lives, we have joined this humble procession toward Jerusalem. With fear and trembling, we know we will desert Jesus at his darkest hour. Even so, we pray that God will give us the strength to witness to the coming events of this week. And so, with these thoughts, I return to those Palm Sunday parades of my early life. My one disappointment concerned the distribution of the palms. We did not receive these lovely long palm leaves that could be waved in the breeze along with the singing of hosannas. Instead we were given pre-fabricated palm crosses. I tried unfolding mine, but it didn’t make a whole palm leaf. It was cut short and collapsed along the folds. I think that makes a metaphor for growing from a childhood view of Palm Sunday to an adult version of the event. This week we journey with the followers of Jesus from the waving of the palms on Sunday, to his crucifixion on the cross on Friday. By Friday, the palms, waved in the hopes of a speedy rescue from the Roman oppressor have fallen to the ground. They have been bruised and trodden down. Perhaps they are swept up, along with other Passover festival detritus, into trash heaps to be burned. God is not coming speedily to rescue us from the pain and oppression of this world. Instead, in the person of Jesus, God walks ahead of us, toward the cross, bruised and beaten down. If there is hatred to be accepted, if there is violence coming, Jesus will take it upon himself. The people will look on and ask “who is this?” And some will reply, “this is Jesus of Nazareth, he is a prophet.” May all the people say, Amen. [1] James Carroll, Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age, (Penguin Group, New York, 2014), 3-4 [2] Ibid, 248
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