Controlling
Luke 19:28-40

April 4, 2004

It comes as no surprise that Christianity is supposed to be in decline, and has been dying a slow death for many a year or century. All sorts of reasons why are being offered, but it is clear that for many people today, the problem with Christianity is that it is too specific.

It’s all tied in with a certain number of events and people in the first century A. D. in the Middle East. Jesus went specific places that we can still identify, and while the dates are a little fuzzy, it all happened in an period of real time we know. It’s hard to get people interested in a faith based too long ago to think about it. As much as everyone agonizes over the tragic and hate filled conflicts in the Middle East, who wants to base their spiritual life on a religion based in that region’s way of life. If that is the specifics of a real faith, most people are passing it up.

And then there are all the other specifics built into the system: all the liturgies, the baptisms, eucharists and communion meals. All the history of how the church argued over the nature of Christ, split up into different factions, went on Crusades (there’s that specific Middle East again!). A generic religion would be kinder and gentler.

The talk shows and newspaper features are all talking spirituality. People want to be spiritual, and one of the good things is that you don’t have to be specific to be spiritual. Details are a nuisance in spirituality because the focus is upon improving oneself and getting in touch with what is important about one’s life. No rituals, except the ones you create for yourself. It sounds good. Create your own spirituality from all sorts of sources: Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, druidic, even Christian. But if the basis of your spirituality always goes back to what’s best for you, you will always have a problem. The specific details can be rather liberating.

By in large, Jesus was not a detail person. He is the ultimate laid back guy, allowing himself to be interrupted all the time, even when rushing to heal people, he stops to help someone else. Does time matter with such a person? Was Jesus ever late? The important thing for us about Jesus is that he whatever he did he did it in real time, not some foggy mythological once upon a time. If you are going to be a child of God, you’ve got to be one in this world, in this year, in this geographical place. We have an advantage in Saskatchewan anyway; no daylight savings time here - we’ve forgotten the time.

This time Jesus was absolutely obsessed by the details. He wasn’t just walking into Jerusalem for the Passover festival, not just coming into town. There was something specific he knew he had to do. He knew what Zechariah had declared, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Jesus knew that was the way he had to enter the capital, but even then people expected something more powerful, more militant. He had to do it right. He gave his disciples all the precise details.

At the Mount of Olives he sent a pair into the village to find a specific donkey, never ridden, and they were to untie it and bring it back to Jesus. It would look like they were stealing it, but there was a password, “the Lord needs it.” It worked.

The disciples took off their cloaks and laid it over the donkey for Jesus to sit on, and then some others laid their cloaks on the road for the donkey to walk over. A bohemian red carpet, but no one seemed to miss the point.

Kings marched into cities of the Middle East on specially laid roads, perhaps only a kilometer long. Generals returned from victorious battles on magnificent steeds. It had to be another way for Jesus. The world has had enough of those grand marches and May Day parades, yet we are far from through with them. When Jesus entered Jerusalem he knew he had to be different, a different way of being king. So everything he did was intended to parody the militant way. Instead of an impressive horse he rode on the unassuming donkey, an animal of peace and burden. Instead of a new road built at great public cost to cushion the ride, his own disciples shirts off their backs made it a gentle slow saunter into the city. Instead of impressive fanfares of imperial music, Jesus’ disciples shouted and sang - and their natural voices outdid the royal musical instruments.

Each Gospel needs to be read for itself, and Luke says that “the whole multitude of the disciples” began to shout and sing. There were other people, we assume, people coincidentally walking on that road, innocent and guilty bystanders on the side of the road not really wanting to get involved. One of the best kept secrets of the Gospels is that there were more than twelve disciples: there were lots of women, there were lots of other men. Some were simply attracted by his message and way of life; others were healed and given a new life, where else could they go except with their healer? A whole multitude of them, and when they shouted, when they sang, the noise and the music sounded a different tune. To the Pharisees, the guys in authority of the faith, it was like punk rock to the ears of a classical music lover.

So this was no majestic promenade of power and legitimacy: stumbling along slowly on a donkey, walking over everybody’s clothes, a din of shouting. Undignified, inappropriate. I betcha that they started dancing down that road, no waltz or fox trot either. The Gospels never say what Jesus was doing, but I bet he was dancing too, though dancing sitting on a donkey is no easy trick. But I see you driving down Albert Street bouncing and singing to the oldies. Imagine bridesmaids dancing down the aisle, instead of somber small steps. There are choirs in lots of churches who do not walk down the aisle in straight lines. They move down the aisle. In the protests against apartheid in South Africa, they always had to dance and maybe you’ve seen Bishop Desmond Tutu dance with his people struggling to be free of the grim and humourless system that defined them as less than human.

The authorities don’t like dancing and singing. “Control your disciples, make them shut up!” shouted back the Pharisees. They were afraid of losing control, of people wanting what they did not want. “The shouting is in Ôem,” Jesus answered back and could it ever be without a wry smile, “and it’s got to come out. If you were somehow able to shut them up, these stones under your feet would start shouting.” You can’t control the Spirit.

The Pharisees never could control the Spirit. The story from now on is not so much in the narrative details, as in the reality that it is Jesus who is in control. He knows what he has to do to inaugurate a new regime, one no longer based upon power and pain, but upon humility and service and the willingness to be afflicted with other people’s pain. Each step along the way, from Temple to Upper Room, to Garden of Gethsemane, to palaces of inquisition, to Calvary, there is something different happening, intentionally, gleefully, defiantly, under control of the one who shows us how to mold a life that is not going to die on the vine.

There is a lot more to this story this coming Holy Week, and you can’t take it all in on one day. Come on Thursday night and be one of the twelve around the table who eat the last meal that keeps on lasting. Come at the dark hour of noon on Friday and be standing around when hope dies at the hands of cruelty and of those who lust for control.

I can’t make you come, of course, but if you can’t, don’t go to the movie. Sit down and read the book - the Gospel according to Luke, chapters 22 and 23. A little long for the Bible, but they won’t take that long. Don’t read chapter 24,

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