Looking Around
Mark 11:1-11

April 5, 2009


Inquiring minds want to know: what’s a Palm Sunday parade doing smiling and cheering in a week called “Passion”?

Passion, of course, is an older use of the language, no code word for a feeling of tremendous and devoted enthusiasm at which one attacks a certain task or way of life. Passion today has come to hint strongly at a creative mind and heart, but until now Passion was plain ol’ suffering, pain, and inner desires that manipulate and control us. Mel Gibson was closer to being right about Passion than the gentler pre-Easter march into Jerusalem.

We may be dying to get outside after this winter for a nice walk, to regain some freedom after being cooped up, but history is all too full of these walks away from security towards a cruel death. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political observer who wrote the first great description and denunciation of the American slavery system in the 1830’s, Democracy in America, interviewed a member of the Choctaw Nation who in 1831 were being forced by government decree to move to the new territory of Oklahoma on what would be known as the Trail of Tears. He asked a Choctaw leader why they were going, and the reply was simply, “To be free.” Others said they would rather risk death walking to a strange land than continue to live in virtual slavery under unjust laws.

A march from slavery to freedom is the best kind. Palm Sunday celebrates a strange march we still have difficulty figuring out, and a significant part of the Christian Church in North America has virtually eliminated the Palms for the Passion. There is something formal and rehearsed about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, barely more than a kilometer’s journey from the Mount of Olives, a ceremonial procession actually. Was Jesus headed for death or for life?

The long march had begun long before way north in Galilee, over 130 kilometers walk from Jesus’ hometown of Capernaum to Jerusalem. Stopping at various points along the way, Jericho was the last port of call mentioned where Jesus healed blind Bar Timaeus. Coming through the villages of Bethphage and Bethany, he stopped at the Mount of Olives overlooking the city and the Temple. They had arrived, only a kilometer or less away from the gate into the city. But this long march was not mere transportation: it was a pilgrimage and even more an odyssey.

However, something undone had to be done, so stopping in his tracks, he went backwards. Jesus knew he couldn’t just walk right in, sit right down, and be there. This was an extraordinary moment, and not a little dangerous, that required something extraordinary, what might be called a liturgical response. Jesus opted for tradition with a kind of liturgical dance, a formal, role-playing, ridiculously weird-looking awkward jumping around that somehow retained a somber beauty and dignity while he rode on a donkey.

He sent two of the disciples into Bethany on an important chore. Don’t they always send them out two by two: animals in the ark, disciples evangelizing, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses? I suppose number one is supposed to keep an eye on number two, so that he or she does not wander from the company line. Who knows what the animals were doing - the Bible never says!

As is the case in many Biblical stories, the two disciples are not named. Tom Long makes the wry suggestion that the job fell to James and John who only a few verses earlier were asking Jesus to place them in senior cabinet positions once he came into the full power of his kingdom, in other words, once he kicked the Romans out of Palestine. Perfect men to be assigned to donkey duty. Imagine the conversation they had on the way to Bethany! You think people grumble in our church about how things are not right and nobody recognizes all the work I do, when did you ever have to go - Biblical language now - fetch your master’s ass?

Just think about it - if you were the donkey fetcher you had to go find this special donkey, never ridden before, and know that everybody around you would immediately think you were stealing it. They hang you for less than that. You would explain to your hostile inquisitors that the Master needed the donkey. Right. Except that it worked, and Jesus had his donkey and the parade began. Coats were thrown on top of the donkey for a soft ride for Jesus. Leafy branches and some more garments were spread out on the road for a soft walk for the animal. People in front and behind were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Hosanna, save us! Save us, recreate us, make us new, make this old world into a new world.

A donkey is not meant for a parade, except as something to ridicule and laugh at. A real parade, a real king, a real saviour requires a fine looking horse, but Jesus sent them to borrow a donkey. If he had asked them to snatch a steed, they would have fought for the opportunity. They were pretty well embarrassed by all the trouble it took to secure a donkey that surely did not cooperate. But Jesus did not intend to be a king in the popular image of a conquering military hero. His was a different way, his glory was no glory as far as we flashy human beings are concerned, and with his transportation, the medium is the message.

The motley crew arrived, entered Jerusalem’s gate and went into the temple. He could have done this a few hours earlier, but a point had to be made, so he marched in. But after looking around at everything, perhaps accented by “wows!” from his disciples from the outback, it was getting late. The parade crowd had left as quickly as it appeared, so quietly he went back out of the city to stay the night in Bethany.

The next day they came back in - no marching, no bands, no palms - and nobody paying them any attention. What was the purpose of Palm Sunday and all the hoopla if you weren’t going to use it? Looking around, gawking at the sights, can be done any other time, but not during Holy Week.

We know what’s about to happen as the week progresses. Jesus throws a fit in the temple, driving out the merchants and money changers. He tells a number of parables, argues with the scribes and Sadducees, getting into more trouble, celebrates the Passover Seder with his disciples one last memorable time. The all-too-human side of things catches up with him, and he is arrested, tried, crucified, dies and is buried like a common criminal. When those two disciples had to sneak around like donkey thieves to do their teacher’s bidding, they should have figured out what shape this glory was going to be taking.

Jesus was headed for death, and nothing had really gone right. Even Palm Sunday was a disappointment from the stubborn donkey to the rather ordinary, even bored “looking around” at its end. The church is like that, bungling and stumbling along, never performing the liturgy perfectly, seldom really solving a social or political problem, getting mired down in family disputes, and often left wondering what are we supposed to do now? And that’s in the bigger, so-called successful churches! But we know we have to enter the city one more time.

This is what is meant by the incarnation, God is with us. Jesus was marching headlong into an ignominious death, nothing glorious as in a battle, but he would defeat death in a way the greatest generals and warriors could never come close to imagining. Jesus didn’t do it with spectacular skill, genius, and excellence. He was dragged down like you and me by the bungling incompetence and degradation of humanity’s sin. You and I are good at that! Jesus faced what we face and was able to transform common death into uncommon life. That is what awaits you and me throughout this week - lots of donkey fetching and never quite getting it right. The people crowding around the donkey waving their branches did anticipate what would really happen. Hosanna! Save us, and he has.

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