Palm Sunday 2007
Joining the Parade
The discipline of Community
Luke 19:28-40
Ps 118:1-2, 19-end
I think my favourite moment in the Monty Python corpus is the scene in the Life of Brian where Brian is trying to encourage the crowd that have gathered outside his house to think for themselves and not just blindly follow the latest and greatest fad. He says to them “you have to think for yourselves” and they all intone in unison “We have to think for ourselves” so he tried again: “you are all individuals” and they chant after him “we are all individuals” but then one little man in the crowd says “I’m not”! I love the little twist, where the one who wants to admit to being a follower of others is the only one who stands out as different!
Today is Palm Sunday and it is the day in the church calendar when we think most carefully about following the crowd. It is a strange day – there is a festive atmosphere of celebration and we choose rousing songs of praise – anything with a “hosanna” in it – but we know the cold shadow of Good Friday is looming on the horizon. And we wonder what our part is in it. After all, we are well aware that within 5 days the whole multitude of followers, as the story puts it, turns from praising God and acknowledging Jesus’ lordship to crying out for his murder. We have to ask ourselves whether we would have stood out as being any different. We’ve begun the service with a parade of palms, recalling the day that Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem. Like many events in Jesus’ life we have reconstructed our understanding of the story from melding together the different sources. You may have noticed that Luke’s version of this event has no palms mentioned, only cloaks spread on the road. Maybe the owner of Jerusalem’s biggest dry cleaning chain was behind that suggestion! It is only John that mentions palm branches – although that is something associated with the autumn festival of booths rather than the Spring Passover festival. Matthew and Mark have a bet each way, both mentioning cloaks and leafy branches. It is fairly certain this event took place at the time of a festival, and in that agriculturally based economy before the proliferation of tickertape, helium filled balloons and fireworks that we know tree branches would be a festive and colourful addition to a celebration. I’ve been present at a few occasions of crowds gathered to celebrate something, where there is such energy and good will that you could almost feel the rocks and trees joining in the cheers: the crowd gathered outside the Town Hall of Cape Town on the day Nelson Mandela was released, or the surge of people crossing the Harbour Bridge on that Reconciliation Walk in 2000. It was exciting to be part of it, and even more exciting to catch a glimpse of a famous face, or seeing the guest of honour in the case of Mandela appear in public for the first time in 27 years.
Of course there is energy of a different sort that can be found in crowds too. For many years in a row I was part of the Scripture Union CSSM team at Rosebud West on the Victorian coast. We always began our beach mission on Boxing Day and continued through till the 2nd January, so we were always there on New Year’s Eve. I used to watch with horrified fascination as everyone camping on the foreshore, even the members of the beach mission team, would line the roads to see speeding cars with drunken drivers cruising up and down the highway – this was the best entertainment on offer. And the crowd, many of them also under the influence of lots of drink, were egging them on. I guess SummerNats in Canberra may have a similar atmosphere. And then there’s the Mardi Gras parades or Festivale which also have a particular feel: some parts of the crowd in ostentatious display of glamour or crudeness, some trying to offer an alternative view of morality but many there just to watch the displays and hoping for some interesting clash of cultures.
Palm Sunday reveals to us each year that we in the church can also be a community of conflicting intentions and values. People who can on the one hand yell ‘hosanna’ and the next minute “crucify him”. But at least we are here at the parade. We can say that for the original Palm Sunday crowd too. They didn’t stay home in apathetic disinterest, but wanted to be part of welcoming this representative of a new vision. They wanted to see if he was the fulfilment of the prophecies they had heard for so long. In a nation long dominated by other powers and with no more than a puppet king there at the behest of Rome, maybe the king they had waited for was this man. There would have been some there that day who had been to Jerusalem on pilgrimage all their lives. They wanted to believe in something. Their loud praises suggest that they believed enough to overlook that Jesus was being sought by the authorities. But even though they had joined the parade, was there anyone who would stick to the end?
During the week I came across an early 20th century expressionist painting by James Ensor called Christ’s Entry which offers a challenge to our understanding of the biblical story. Ensor painted Jesus entering contemporary Brussels in a Mardi Gras parade. Ensor’s crowd is a crude, ugly, chaotic, dehumanized sea of masks, frauds, clowns, and caricatures made up of public, historical, and allegorical figures along with the artist's family and friends. It is actually quite hard to find the haloed Christ at the centre of the turbulence, and critics say the artist was in part painting a self-portrait: with the precarious, isolated visionary mostly ignored by the herdlike masses of his society. In a sense, Jesus is lost in the crowd.
In the story in Luke even Jesus seems to get caught up in the excitement. At first it seems he is well in control, sending off his disciples to find an unridden colt and giving them words in case of any potential questioning. But the followers take over, we are told they set Jesus on the colt and the crowds’ excited actions and loud voices take over. When Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees he seems to have no time or interest in arguments or discussion. I particularly like this scene in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. The complaints of the chief priest drop into the music in a deep register, ‘tell this rabble to be quiet… tell the mob who sing their song that they are fools and they are wrong’ but the crowd’s singing surges over his negative warning again with their bright “hosanna heysanna, sanna sanna ho” and Jesus’ words in the next verse “why waste your breath moaning at the crowd, nothing can be done to stop their shouting, if every tongue was stilled the noise would still continue. The rocks and stones themselves would start to sing” And these words are also drowned out by the people’s enthusiastic singing. And yet the very next verse in Luke speaks of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. He seems especially upset and frustrated that despite the enthusiasm his message of the way to peace had not really been heard. His voice had been lost in the crowd. Nor had his actions been understood. Why was it important for him to be riding an unbroken colt? Or, as some of the traditions have it, a donkey? The shift from excitement to frustration is captured in a poem by Clive Sansom, entitled The Donkey’s Owner:
THE DONKEY’S OWNER – Clive Sansom
.
Snaffled my donkey, he did --- good luck to him!
Rode him astride, feet dangling, near scraping the ground
Gave me the laugh of my life when I first saw him,
Remembering yesterday --- you know, how Pilate come
Bouncing the same road, on that horse of his
Big as a house and the armour shining
And half of Rome trotting behind him. Tight mouthed he was
Looking as if he owned the world.
Then today,
Him and my little donkey! Ha! Laugh ---?
I thought I’d kill myself when he first started.
So did the rest of them. Gave him a cheer
Like he was Caesar himself, only more hearty:
Tore off some palm twigs and followed shouting,
Whacking the donkey’s behind ........Then suddenly
We see his face.
The smile had gone, and somehow the way he sat
Was different --- like he was much older --- you know ---
Didn’t want to laugh no more.
There was a serious message in Jesus’ actions that day. There was the tradition of the Old Testament where conquering kings ride warhorses, but those leaders coming in peace ride donkeys. And what’s more, he was deliberately riding a young animal, not a proven war stallion, perhaps signalling that human efforts at peace will fail, and that he was bringing a peace that no-one as yet had mounted – a way to exist that had never been tried – Holy Spirit peace. Tapping into a source of power and love that would overcome natural divisions.
During the season of Lent we have been looking at different spiritual disciplines that can help us on the Christian journey. Today’s focus is the discipline of community. Speaking of discipline and community together may seem a strange combination. Indeed last weekend at the deacons conference we examined the latest results for our church from the National Church Life Survey, and one of our strongest characteristics is a sense of belonging. Many people in this church speak of the importance of the community as being one reason that keeps them part of this particular congregation. And perhaps that is something that doesn’t need much effort.
But each of you have shown the discipline of being here which is significant in itself: recognising that the Christian journey is not supposed to be travelled in isolation, but meeting with fellow travellers is an important part of the process. But there is also a discipline required in deliberately relating to each other, being aware that this community is not a golf club or a craft group where everyone has a common interest in focus. The church life survey indicated that our weakest area was that of integration, which we interpreted as meaning that while we enjoy being part of this community, we are not so good at welcoming those who are new amongst us or those who are different to us. But this is exactly what the church are asked to do, and what Jesus had tried to model to his disciples. Sharing Holy Spirit peace with each other meant turning the other cheek, spending time with people who seem to have nothing to offer us, standing with people who are losing, caring for those who have made terrible mistakes, doing good that will receive no applause, sharing food with the hungry or lonely, caring for other people’s children, treating those who society ignores as children of God, praying not for an easier life but for strength. When we join Jesus’ parade, we have to realise that it goes all the way to the cross. If we follow Jesus to the cross we will not be following the crowd: we’ll be giving instead of getting, pouring ourselves out instead of filling ourselves up. Should this be our attitude even when we come to church? Should we be coming not primarily to receive grace and build up our faith, but instead to give grace and let ourselves be inconvenienced so that we can help others: teach Sunday school for 10 weeks and miss sitting in the services; go on a roster that commits us to being here; going out of the way to speak to someone we don’t know instead of using the fellowship time as a catch up with our best friends? These are hard questions and it’s easy for me to ask them, because I am being paid to do all this. But there are times when I too have to ask myself if I know where this parade that I have joined is headed.
There is a tension in this high day of celebration. This is recognised in liturgies by giving us a choice of readings whether we are focusing on Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday. The happiness of the parade has to be seen beside the serious intention of Jesus. He had set his face to Jerusalem, and here he was, at the beginning of the last few days of his life. On this day laughter and weeping belong together, because “Hosanna!” will be followed by “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
If we are to join this parade we must keep Jesus’ face in focus. And his message, remembering his way of expressing community. “Pick up your cross and follow me.” Following Christ is not easy, but if we carry our crosses then at the end of the road, after the Parade, by the grace of God, Easter will come.
Christ’s Entry by James Ensor
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=932
Jeanette Mathews
30.4.07