A Short Walk Spoiled
Luke 19:28-40

April 1, 2007


It is sadly apparent that world religion’s gravest spiritual problem is a lack of a sense of humour. Everybody believes it is their God-given right to be offended by someone else’s ribbing about the contents of their faith. Cartoons of Mohammed in Denmark sparked riots in just about every corner of the globe. Evangelicals are always being offended by a new movie that portrays Jesus in any way other than their revered triumphalistic images. Is the bobble-head Jesus on the dashboard funny or a sign that you’re going to hell? A New York art gallery was forced to close an exhibit featuring a chocolate Jesus entitled “My Sweet Lord.” Faith can’t seem to take a joke.

One cannot joke about golf either, especially at this fragile time of the year when people actually start believing they can play the game outdoors on real grass and not just in one of those indoor video simulation courses. Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens applied his acerbic wit towards the game with the famous characterization and definition: “A good walk spoiled.” You will laugh or chuckle according to the level of your addiction.

Each year as we process in with palms waving, I am struck more and more with the oddness of Palm Sunday. Not everything is what it seems and some years are more odd than others, like this year of Luke. All four evangelists tell us the tale with varying detail, but Luke’s may be the barest bone.

There are no palms in Luke, just coats laid on the road, definitely a greener gesture. If we did not have the other Gospels, maybe this would be called “Coat Sunday”! No one sings “Hosanna.” There are no children mentioned running around and in fact to read the narrative literally it appears that the only people lined up to watch were the large gathering of Jesus’ disciples and the disapproving Pharisees. What kind of a Palm Sunday is this, don’t these guys read the Bible? And no matter which version you listen to, it was a short walk, barely a kilometer.

Why then Jesus did not walk into Jerusalem? One of the great early Biblical scholars was Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, died in 431, but is still revered today in the Eastern Church and still read as one of the best interpreters of exactly who Jesus is. Cyril said it right out loud, “Why did he need to ride?” Jesus walked everywhere else. He could have bought a donkey any time he wanted to. He might have been too poor, but as we see there were always people willing to help him out and sponsor him. Jesus was often bone tired after all his walking and teaching and healing, so it would not have been a waste to buy a donkey. But he didn’t, until now, and then he only rides that donkey for a kilometer or so. What is going on, Cyril asks?

Cyril does know what is going on. Jesus doesn’t need a donkey, but the situation in which he has put himself in requires a donkey. There is that obscure passage in the next to last prophetic book in the Old Testament, Zechariah 9:9, which describes the Prince of Peace entering Zion or Jerusalem, triumphant and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey. Jesus knew that’s how he had to present himself, it’s the way it was supposed to be done, and he evidently planned ahead, arranging for a young donkey colt to be picked up by his disciples.

There were always lots of processions into Jerusalem. Most of the processions were set to the tune of military power. They didn’t have tanks, but there were mighty steeds and well-armoured soldiers. Around 30 A.D. there were several major riots in Jerusalem during Passover, so Pontius Pilate would ride into the city from the Roman imperial capital of Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast with cavalry and troops emoting the brute force that was Rome. Pilate would enter from the west side of the city. That is what a king’s entourage looks like, but Jesus had in mind another look.

Here comes Jesus and his disciples, a lot more than 12 of them, walking into the city on the east side, right at the entrance to the Temple, with Jesus on the back of a colt of a donkey, not the mother which would be a bigger animal. Jesus is on such a small beast that his sandals had to be dragging in the dirt. Instead of a limousine, Jesus was processing on a small child’s tricycle. Throwing their not fancy coats on the road in front of him was not Sir Walter Raleigh in action. The scene looked more than a little ludicrous, a spoof of a real parade and procession with all the impressive animals, fine robes and splendid shining armour. And that’s what it was, a mockery of injustice.

It was certainly not a laughing matter for the Pharisees and while the disciples weren’t necessarily laughing at anyone, they were cheering and very happy. The Pharisees know that the procession is in bad taste for their interests, so they demanded that Jesus shut them up, to get respectable and dignified. Jesus shrugged his shoulders, and probably laughed just a little, “If you could shut them up, then the stones on this road would start shouting.” A lot of scholars have fretted over the metaphor of stones here - Jesus is citing a piece of the prophet Habbakuk 2:11 - perhaps in the same sense as Jesus’ assertion in John that God could make sons of Abraham out of the stones on the road if God wanted to. All of that can be part of the package, but I just think Jesus was pulling their leg one more time.

Palm Sunday is the beginning of the most serious, most passionate week in the Christian pilgrimage. Palm Sunday is a joyful event in and of itself, an anticipation on a muted level of what will be our unbridled joy next Sunday morning.

In fact, that’s what Palm Sunday is with all its foolishness and play acting, with its mockery and off beat humour - it is mocking the ways of injustice and corrupt power and institutionalization of prejudice and hate that organize all the normal parades, so that on another Sunday we can recognize how God has mocked all the forces of power and illegitimate right by defeating death itself.

That’s why we get silly with the palms and the shouting of hymns and the funny procession - because we are mocking the way everybody thinks the world should be running. And it’s running well with the blight of poverty increasing, with the obscenity of wars for territory and the power to abuse our enemies, with the greed for resources for a comfortable life that is turning our planet into a hothouse pocked by killer storms.

Is this the way it’s supposed to be? Is this reality? You do have a choice about which procession to join. On Palm Sunday we begin God’s reality, a Holy Week that will not seem holy at all, and it will be the hardest and cruelest and most disappointing of weeks. But today we begin again to reorder and turn upside down the values of this world. A short walk spoiled, yes, but the human-spawned disasters of this sad age are not the logical end, are not the only way it can ever be. Today we declare something completely new - and we begin by laughing.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan