What happened next on Coronation Street?

            Have you seen the film yet?  It won a number of awards in recent months.  The critics adored it.  It’s a good film that proves you do not need explosions and Avatar-level CGI to make something that people want to see.

            The film begins with a well-dressed man who enters into a well-appointed room with a large microphone.  He goes through a variety of little rituals to ensure he is ready, right down to measuring exactly the distance between his mouth and the microphone.  The warning light begins to flash, and in the plummy tones that most Americans would kill for, the announcer greets the radio audience. 

            This scene is cross-cut with a man in formal wear and a top hat, ascending a back staircase, attended by his nervous wife and a few friends.  He looks uncomfortable in his own skin, let alone this moment.  He looks rattled, despite the assuring words of his wife.  He enters into a stadium full of people, all at the ready to hear his remarks. 

The BBC announcer is narrating this day’s events.  The camera cuts to a room full of radio broadcasting equipment, all beaming the announcer’s words to an international audience.  The announcer introduces the man in the top hat to the thousands of people listening literally around the world. 

The warning light on the stadium rail begins to flash.  The entire stadium has stood up, out of respect to the man in the top hat’s title and authority, and all await his remarks.  The light stops flashing and a red “on the air” light is now illumined.

The man in the top hat, introduced to the listening audience as His Royal Highness, the Prince of York, was frozen at the microphone.  Fiddling with his speech notes, looking wide-eyed at the stadium of onlookers, with his supporters wincing in anticipation of what might happen; the man opened his mouth and spoke with a tentative stammer.

Second in line to the throne, granted royal privilege and title for life, poor Prince Albert, or “Bertie” to his family, seems the most miserable man on earth.

This morning, the gospel tells of another who looks not the least like royalty.  The story of “Palm Sunday” could have used a royal planner or two.  It seems very “thrown together” and last minute.  Nobody in the inner circle, other than Jesus, has a clue that they would enter Jerusalem this way.  Other than a donkey found where Jesus told them it would be awaiting, the disciples just improvised their way through the day’s events.

If you were to lean out a window on the unplanned parade route, you would not have thought much of the scene.  What really is all the commotion about?  It’s just some prankster on a donkey.  What’s up with that?

As the major city of Israel, Jerusalem was accustomed to the spectacle of generals and other ranking Roman dignitaries making their way into town.  It was a grand parade, meant to remind the populace of who really ran things.  New Testament scholar Warren Carter notes an imperial entrance like this was meant “to demonstrate authority, to intimidate, and to ensure submission”.  In other words, Rome could be as subtle as a bull in a china shop. 

Jesus rode his way through Jerusalem’s streets, mocking imperial authority and all its vanities.  His disciples led the shouting, the people cheered and draped palm branches ahead of his path, and the donkey brayed.

Just before they arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus told his disciples what he really thought of the order of the world:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.  It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Mt 20:25-8)

What sort of king gives a speech like this? 

Furthermore, what happens when we’re caught hanging on his every word and taking it as truth?

            Palm Sunday is often treated as something “fun for the kids”.  What we began our service with this morning is more along the lines of political street theatre. What type of grown-ups are we if we do not tell our kids that this waving of palm branches is being faithful to a king who is unlike no other king or ruler they will learn about in school? If we do things right, we will raise our kids what it means to be a follower of Jesus, who was unafraid of empires and “powers that be”, speaking of God’s sovereign claim to the world.  As Holy Week unfolds, we tell a story of “colliding worlds” as the differences are drawn between the Roman empire/Jerusalem’s political and religious elite and the Reign of God with its Servant King Jesus.  (Here I reference the lectionary reflections of Karoline Lewis, cf. The Christian Century, April 5, 2011, p. 23.)  The question for Christ’s follower looms:  can we give a witness when our world collides with the one proclaimed by the gospel?

            Back in the mid-20^th century, the unthinkable happened.  A woman named Grace Thomas ran for governor of Georgia.  Not only breaking customs about women running for high office, Grace also ran on a desegregation platform.  She finished dead last.

            A few years later, she ran again in 1962.  As the Civil Rights era was gaining momentum, her platform of racial tolerance was still unthinkable.  On a campaign stop in Louisville, Georgia, she deliberately chose the town square for her remarks.  The town square was once a slave market in times past.  Telling her story, preacher Thomas Long recalls:

As she stood on the very spot where slaves had been auctioned, a hostile crowd of storekeepers and farmers gathered to hear what she would say.  “The old has passed away,” she began, “and the new has come.  This place….represents all about our past over which we must repent.  A new day is here, a day when Georgians white and black can join hands to work together”…

            The crowd stirred.  “Are you a communist?” someone shouted at her.

Grace paused in midsentence.  “No,” she said softly. “I am not.”

“Well, then,” continued the heckler, “where’d you get all those [blasted] ideas?”

Grace thought for a minute, and then she pointed to a steeple of a nearby church. “I got them over there,” she said, “in Sunday school”.  (Preaching From Memory to Hope, p. 19-20).

In telling the Palm Sunday story, the gospel writers pull no punches.  Celebrate today, but prepare yourselves for what will be described at best a harrowing experience ahead.  Don’t just skip to the “plot twist” of what happens on Easter.  Good Friday blocks the way for blithe pilgrims. 

The story that the Church recalls this week is not one of easy triumph.  The palm procession today signals the beginning of “Holy Week”, as we recall the pivotal “last week” of Jesus as he enters Jerusalem and makes his way to a destination few of his followers expected.  There is no throne waiting—only a cross.  Jesus goes to a place called Golgotha, or “the Place of the Skull”, and Jesus comes to this place by way of betrayal by one disciple to the religious leaders who mean him harm and abandonment by the rest of the disciples, including Simon Peter, who had claimed he would never do such a thing.  The euphoria of Palm Sunday will be countered by a somber last meal, the mockery of a “show trial”, and the devastating finality of the Crucifixion.  Easter is surely coming, yet Jesus makes his way there without abridging the fullness of the events about to befall him.  As we will sing this Thursday night, Jesus walked this lonesome valley./He had to walk it by himself. /Nobody else could do it for him. /He had to walk it by himself.

As Holy Week begins, could you join me in spending time in reflection and prayer, considering the life and death of Jesus?  Could you ponder what it means to follow Jesus in the midst of your life?  The story of the gospel is incomplete without the story of resurrection glory, yet we understand it better when we follow Jesus through the whole week’s journey.  We are called to be witnesses to the contrary speech of Jesus, royal though humble king, which is a difficult task, as we likewise live in a world of vain empires.  Can we learn how to speak to the stark truth of a world marked by violence and death? 

The people cried out “Hosanna”, a word with two possible meanings.  It can be a word of praise as well as the plea “save [us] now.” As we journey along with Jesus this week, may we live in the midst of this tension: proclaiming praise to Christ, the servant King, and bending low before him, knowing it is Christ alone who shall save us.

Hosanna...praise be....Hosanna....Lord, save us.....Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna.

Along the Parade Route (Luke 19:28-40)

            I love a good parade.  The marching bands, the floats, the merriment of the children as they watch the parade go by (or their giddy excitement as a handful of candy comes sailing towards them).  Back home, one of the small towns had an annual parade around the time of the county rodeo.  The parade consisted of a line of floats being pulled by tractors and pickups, a marching band, a few kids on bikes and four-wheelers, and a handful of people on horseback.  The parade was small enough that at the end of the four-block parade route, the parade circled the block and went back down the street, just in case somebody missed it. 
            Last November, Kerry and I spent Thanksgiving in New York City. We wanted to see the Macy’s Day parade, however, we soon realized that everybody else had the same idea.  The streets were packed with people, so we stayed in and watched the parade on the television.  Afterwards, we found ourselves walking along the parade route about two hours after the parade.  The city cleaning crews were busy sweeping up an entire forest’s worth of confetti on the street, and we waded past piles of litter knee high. 

            The night before, we went to the place where the famous balloons were inflated and then tethered down.  We thought it might be fun to see the balloons.  Unfortunately, everybody else had the same idea.  Before we left, I was able to see one of the balloons on its side, so I like telling people I got to see a Macy’s Day balloon up close.   Unfortunately, it was just a fleeting glimpse of the hem of Sponge Bob’s square pants….

            To understand the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, imagine the scene with me:  It’s the great metropolis, and a parade is coming down the street.  The people start craning their necks to see who is coming.  There’s a lot of commotion: people shouting and singing.  Instead of the grand procession they expected, it was a humble little affair, a group of peasants escorting some thin fellow riding a young colt. 

It was not what Jerusalem expected.  It was Passover, so the religious fervor was in the air.  More pilgrims flooded into the city daily, singing and carrying on. A passerby might have expected the noise as a sign some important Roman official was making his way through the city.  A huge entourage accompanied Pilate or a military general, reminding Jerusalem who really ran things.  The crowd of ragged looking peasants and the rather solemn looking rider did not fit in. Jesus rides into town on a very young colt, likely he struggles with dragging his feet on the ground and trying to keep the colt under control.  Pilate and the other Roman officials would be riding only the finest steeds.  

The Triumphal Entry was about as ludicrous as a New Yorker expecting to see the grand balloons, marching bands, and celebrities, and instead down the road came the parade from small town Kansas, tractors puttering down Broadway.

            The story of the “triumphal entry” only got this grand name after the fact.  In the moment, Jesus appears to be in the midst of some political and religious mischief.  The disciples sing a song of praise, paraphrasing the 118^th Psalm, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”.  Note the disciples add the rather subversive title of “king” to their psalm singing.  His followers while on the way to the Temple proclaim Jesus royalty.  Upon arrival, Jesus will claim religious authority by his “cleansing” of the Temple, chasing away those who he believes exploit the Temple’s true purpose.  As scholar N.T. Wright observes, Jesus is coming to Jerusalem with the intention to claim his royal authority, despite what the imperial and sacred authorities would say (Jesus and the Victory of God, Fortress Press, 1996, p. 490-3).

After creating the commotion that church tradition calls the “cleansing” of the Temple, Jesus stays in the Temple complex for quite some time (the next two chapters!), teaching all who gathered to hear him.  By occupying the Temple, Jesus is claiming the seat of power that the people would claim as the true power over Israel, the Temple, and Jerusalem. “It was the king [long awaited in the messianic hope of the people] who had ultimate authority over the Temple” (Wright, p. 492).

The crowd of disciples seemed so happy, so optimistic, just a few days before, singing of Jesus:

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven! 

Anyone familiar with the Christmas carols picks up on this latter phrase.  The disciples echo an earlier section of Luke as the story of Jesus’ birth is told.  The angelic host sings in the heavens above as Jesus is born.  The disciples sing as Jesus enters into his last week of life.  For Luke’s gospel, the glory of God and the peace of heaven and earth resound at both ends of the story of Jesus’ life.  Nonetheless, this story will not stay in the heights of praise.  In a few short days, the story will come crashing down.

These scenes of “triumphal entry” and “Temple teachings” fade quickly as Luke furthers the story.  The religious rulers are furious and conspire to deal away with Jesus.  One of the inner-circle disciples decides to conspire with the powers that be.  The week that began with such high praise shall end with the drama of a betrayal, a show trial, and then a summary execution.  The disciples will lose their euphoria and disappear into the night, frightened for their very lives.  Jesus will be written off as yet another zealous messianic type, consigned to death by Pilate, a Roman official who just waves the matter away.  Soon, Jesus will be put to death, abandoned by even his closest of disciples, and his corpse is left in a hastily selected tomb.

This story filled with its drama and tragic turn is our focus for this week.  Holy Week is our journey with Jesus.  By undertaking this journey, we encounter the deadliness and finitude of Good Friday.  In the days leading up to the Cross we mourn the world in its ease with resorting to violence and escalating conflict.  Holy Week reminds us that the world has yet to allow the peace and hope taught by Jesus to take abiding root. 

While we enjoy the parade of children with palm branches and the food awaiting us at each of our three services, the festivities will take a necessarily solemn character as well.  During these next few days, Christianity goes on a journey that guides us through disturbing questions about the world’s brokenness.  Jesus heals the marginalized and excluded, yet he is ‘rewarded’ with a humiliating death. 

We see in Pilate and the Temple priests the brutal consequences of humans exercising power and authority with little sense of restraint.  We move along the narrative arc of Jesus’ life and death, facing that dreadful pause of Good Friday’s aftermath and the reality that we do not skip over death when telling the gospel story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

            Along the way, if we learn how to tell the gospel story rightly, we sort out the curious “final word” of Jesus as he rides down the parade route.  As the parade is going by, the Pharisees, longtime critics of Jesus, step forward and criticize the raucous singing of the disciples.  Jesus will have none of this.  “Even if my disciples were to be silent, these stones would shout!”

            Where do Jesus’ words about the stones shall shout fit in with the rest of the week ahead of him?  If you find this language puzzling, you need to read the gospel of Luke again.  In Luke’s gospel, people cannot help but burst out into song.  (The Nativity as told by Luke is a veritable musical.)  The parables of Jesus that Luke alone records (i.e. the Prodigal Son is the most celebrated) cannot help but speak of the Kingdom of God being like the party that the father gives when the ne’er-do-well youngest son slinks back home after blowing his inheritance. 

For Luke, the heavens and the earth shimmer with stories of God’s abundant love, and Jesus eats heartily alongside the people that the religion and politics of the day had written off as expendable or without redemption. Nothing will stop the praise of God and the Kingdom that Jesus sees well on its way.  Even the inanimate stones will join in God’s praise if we would somehow fall silent or forget.

There is surely a cross looming large as the gospel draws to a close.  There will be great loss ahead, for this story is part of the world’s story where brokenness and tragedy are to be found.  Yet in this story, cross-shaped as it is, we shall find a joy that breaks forth, beckoning all to join and sing of the King who comes in all humility, with all justice and peace for which this world has been yearning. 

A Faith Vulnerable and Resolved (Mark 11:1-11; Philippians 2:5-11)

While on vacation, we were walking back to the hotel when we heard it. Bang-a-bang-bang! Thud-thud-thud! Bang-a-bang-bang! Thud-thud-thud!

Off in the distance, it sounded as if a parade was happening. It seemed an odd time of day, but whatever was going on, it was noisy!

Getting closer to the hotel, the noise grew louder. The parade seemed to be very close. Rounding the corner, I wondered what we would find: marching bands, a float, perhaps even an elephant or two.

Instead, we discovered a small pickup truck with three guys banging on overturned plastic buckets. A couple of people were dressed up in old, ragged clothes walking behind the truck and shouting something.

A young woman, also dressed up in old, ragged clothes walked up with a plastic bucket and said to us, “We’re raising money for humanitarian aid. Please give!”

What seemed like a great big commotion off in the distance was really a group of college students out raising money for charity. Off in the distance, it sounded like it was a major event with people lining the streets. Up close, it did not look like much was happening at all.

As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the parade following him was a ramshackle affair. In Jerusalem, there were parades in honor of the powerful elite. Seeing this out-of-towner perched precariously on a colt with a bunch of Galilean hayseeds waving branches paled in comparison to the big parade to which Jerusalem was accustomed, whether it was a religious festival or some Roman mucky-muck riding through in a show of power. Some people enjoyed the spectacle and joined in the fun. Others kept walking or shopping. It was Passover, the city was crowded, and this little parade seemed almost lost in the shuffle.

Note, however, that Jesus did not intend a low-key or subtle entrance into town. He chose a colt and a grand entrance to make a point. The palm procession is laden with religious symbolism. Jesus starts out from the Mount of Olives, where years ago the prophet Zechariah claimed God will appear in final judgment, standing upon the Mount of Olives and then splitting it in two as a show of divine force and authority. The young colt serves as a symbol of authority and power. No other person has rode this colt, signifying Jesus’ uniqueness as if some sort of royalty. The people following Jesus shout words that are far from political slogans. Shouting out to the Lord and giving praise to the one who shall rule like King David of old, the people proclaim Jesus endued with a higher authority. The cries of “Hosanna” are not mere acclamations. “Hosanna” means “save, please!” While everything looks ramshackle, the parade is the grand entrance to a week that shall know controversy, confrontation, betrayal, great suffering, and tragic loss. This lone figure on a young colt shall be the salvation of the world. “Hosanna” (“save, please”) resounds at the outskirts of Jerusalem just as surely as it shall take on new meaning when the story gets to Golgotha. Up close, though, it did not look like much was happening at all.

The gospel of Mark presents an image of Jesus resolved to undertake the journey into Jerusalem, which will end with his crucifixion and death. Indeed, Mark says many people joined in with the festivities of the parade, shouting and waving their branches, whereas later that same week, Jesus dies alone and abandoned on the cross. Before we get to the unexpected good news of Easter, we have to journey through the hard truths of Palm Sunday turning into Good Friday. Make no mistake: there is a cross looming over this story.

On this side of history, we look at the New Testament as ancient authority of a faith now two millennia old and the festive parade as an old familiar story, recollected through hymns and Sunday morning processions. The Palm procession is an important “plot point” along the journey to the Cross, giving Christians ancient and contemporary valuable insight into Jesus’ resolve to go through with his certain persecution and death, told in common by the four gospels as testimony to Jesus’ faithfulness before God.

Other early Christian writings, especially those called “epistles”, or letters, also speak of what lies ahead of Jesus on the way into Jerusalem. Paul, the most prominent of the New Testament epistle writers, calls the early Christians regularly before the image of the cross. The Philippians’ reading heard earlier in the worship service (Phil. 2:5-11) is part of Paul’s exhortation to the Philippian Christians to live their lives according to the ways of Christ. This particular passage of Philippians is thought to be an early Christian hymn, a song from worship. As I read this passage, I find in its poetic beauty wonderful praise of Christ’s vulnerability equal to Mark in sharing the “why” behind the Palm procession. Even though he was God, Christ took on the limitations, the weaknesses, and the vulnerability of human life. Christ had due claim to “glory, laud, and honor”, yet his kingship is found in humility, lowliness, and servanthood. Living in the midst of the Roman empire, where the ruling class kept “pax Romana” with drawn sword at the ready, the early Christians sang in their worship of the One who was greater than any emperor, whose life is lived in the richness of simple, humble fidelity to God alone. The New Testament writers would ask us to see the great faith in God, not getting caught up in the day’s sentiment or merriment. “Hosanna” (“save, please!”) ought to delight and haunt us over the next few days. 

As Jesus rides through the city, with the people raising their voices in support today and disappearing when things turn tragic, you have some decisions to make as you read the Passion story. To follow Jesus, you undertake a long, strange journey called “the way of Jesus Christ”, challenging you to take on a different sort of life. Will you follow Christ from the outskirts of the city, to the confrontations with the powers that be of religion and state, to the difficult evening of sacred meal followed by disciples who betray as well as deny Christ? Will you follow Christ to the agony of Friday and the hollow despair found on Saturday? During this most holy of weeks, ask yourself the hard question: how will these next few days challenge, inspire, and unsettle you?

This morning, a schedule of the next few days is in your bulletin. Take time in the midst of your life to make these days the center of your week. Go to work, tend the needs of your household, but reframe what you do this week by where Christ is at in the midst of Holy Week. Pray more earnestly. Read the latter parts of Mark’s gospel (chapters 11 onward). Join the gathering on Thursday evening for a common meal and a time of communion. Then on Friday, carve out some time in your day for reflection (St Peter’s invites you to the ecumenical Good Friday service). On Saturday, take the handout provided to you in the bulletin to guide your day. Read my sermon from last year’s Good Friday service and be challenged by its hard word for us. Live in the emptiness of Holy Saturday and consider how your faith summons you to solidarity with the pain of the world. Let the fullness of this week be what it was for Christ: a time of challenge as well as a time for showing the world what life with God is about: living a faith vulnerable and resolved enough to make a difference in an otherwise broken world.

I close with thoughtful words written by Yale Divinity School’s distinguished professor Dr. Margaret A. Farley. As I read Farley’s reflections on Mark 11 for this week, I find she captures the deeper meanings of the day. Of Palm Sunday and the Holy Week ahead of us, Farley writes:

“There is a time to stand before all the world in a word of truth—bearing witness to a life, a love, a dignity so great that neither death nor anything else will destroy it, or even render it silent” (Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2, Westminster/John Knox Press, 2009).

May we follow Christ. AMEN.