April 2, 2023

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Matthew 21:1-11

The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Hosanna, which means “pray, save us.” We pray to God and ask that we might be saved. That we might be saved by the coming of this Son of David, this Blessed one.

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?”

Who might this person be? What is all the fuss about? As the lyric states in Jesus Christ Superstar, “What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening.”

The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Jesus from Nazareth. An unimportant person in an unimportant place. And yet there is all this busyness about his entry into the city. What is that all about?

Palm Sunday marks the triumphal entry of a king, but such grand gatherings seem a distant thought when we have been locked away for three years, cooped up during the pandemic but now hopefully venturing out once again.

To be honest, I have generally been puzzled by the Liturgy of the Palms, the riding in on a donkey, the cheering crowds. To begin Holy Week in celebration, to treat it like a churchly parade. It has never made much sense given the twists and turns of the week. To start off so very high, then to fall down so low into the grave itself, and then back up again. I know I answered my own question here, but it still makes me wonder. What is this week all about?

There are choices to be made in our recollections. A choice to recall the donkey and the colt, animals appropriated for the occasion of this ceremonial journey. A choice to call to mind the people gathered along the route into Jerusalem, along the steep hillside on the outskirts of the city. People waving branches, placing their cloaks on the ground. The steep path from the Mount of Olives, leading down, down, down into a valley and up, up, up toward to the Temple Mount. High, then low, then upwards and onward. A literal landscape along with the narrative landscape.

Remember the people in the story. People in Jesus’ time are described as cutting branches from trees and laying them down. Were they palms? Maybe. Were they some other tree, like pine or cedar or something else common in the Middle East? Perhaps. Years ago, I remember seeing rosemary bushes everywhere in Jerusalem. Perhaps the triumphal entry was accompanied by the sweet smell of rosemary.

The gathering of people welcoming Jesus into the city was an expectant group of eager souls. They wanted to be free. They wanted to be free of the occupying forces of Rome. They wanted to be free of their collaborating leader, King Herod. They likely also wanted to be free of their religious leaders. Men who dictated strict compliance with expensive rituals and sacrifices. Men who enforced behavioral expectations of personal purity. The people called out to this new prophet on a donkey, this humble king astride a colt. The people were wishing at last to be free.

What did they plan on doing, once they were free? I imagine the idea of being free from their various oppressors was in and of itself a goal. But then what? What were they all going to do? Try to go back to a golden age long cherished or maybe move onward to a new age of new ways. Perhaps there were differences of opinion along the way to a shared goal of freedom. We can only speculate.

I realize I am dwelling on the practicalities of a two-thousand-year-old wish, but that mindset is not unique to the ancient world. Seeking to be free, but then what? What would we do if that wish were granted?

What would we want? What do we want today after three years of waiting and watching and worrying? A return to where we left off, assuming that is possible? Maybe a reset, getting back to basics, back to the fundamentals. When I played sports, we often talked in terms of those basics. In football, you needed the proper stance. Arms like this, legs like that. When I played rugby, an alien sport for most, we focused on fundamentals as well, but they were different lessons.

For example, in football, you are concerned with how many yards you have carried the ball. It is a pitched battle, like trench warfare. In rugby, no one cares how many yards, how many meters you travel. You are always one well-placed kick away from losing every inch of all that seemingly hard-earned distance. So, distance travelled is not important. You could fight all day moving the ball around, but the only measure of success was the score. So why waste your time worrying about the wrong thing. Why indeed.

Now, you just have to figure out the right thing. But what is that? What does it look like? What does it sound like? Is the right thing even possible in this fallen world of ours?

The triumphal entry into Holy Week anticipates great suffering and loss. A meal together that shapes up to be the Last Supper. Then the betrayal by Judas, a friend and follower. The arrest and the questioning, the torture and the trial. The pronouncement of judgement and the long painful walk to Golgotha. Peter denying that he even knows Jesus. The disciples in hiding except for the women, like Mary Magdalene. The brave, brave women.

The king astride the donkey becomes a prisoner, the high arc of jubilation that begins the week comes crashing down low by the loss of a good man. This is the other way of thinking about the first Sunday of Holy Week, the Liturgy of the Passion, the Liturgy of Suffering.

Palm Sunday generally focuses on the celebration of people waiting for Jesus. One might then jump over the other less jovial aspects of Holy Week and pop back in on Easter Sunday once the coast is clear. Once the dark and dreary aspects of Jesus’ final days are resolved. Out of sight and often out of mind.

I do not think Christianity is best served by focusing exclusively on either end of that spectrum, only the joys or only the sorrows. One is all candy and the Easter bunny without a second thought as to how one gets there, while the other is sack cloth and ashes without a ray of sunshine. Christianity has struggled to maintain a balance between these two opposite viewpoints. Neither perspective is entirely healthy.

No one is so blessed as to only receive happy tidings. We might try to present ourselves to the world in airbrushed serenity and Instagram ready perfection, but that is an unlikely image let alone a realistic life. Life is too short to be fake.

And while these days it may seem like we are harvesting a bumper crop of bad news, there is much for which we can be thankful. In our lives and out in the world. Some people are doing wonderful things. Not everyone, but many. Those who are out serving and helping, at times at the risk of their own health.

During the pandemic, many people flocked online to offer small acts of kindness. Those who read story books to children. Those who recited sonnets for those stuck at home. Those who were singing and joking and entertaining us for free while we were stuck, while we were alone. And especially those who were offering sober and rational information to the people, making sure that those in need were fed, making sure that those who were sick could find help.

Again, not everyone did that. And sadly, not everyone is doing that now, of course. Not everyone is being their best selves. Some are still trying to look good rather than to do good. Helping themselves rather than being concerned with others. Turning any bit of information, any news story, any matter large or small flickering across the viewing screen into something to be angry about. Something to be outraged over. Something that we will keep watching and tuning into because it feeds a small, dark fire burning inside our hearts.

If you are wondering how to differentiate between those two groups of people, the ones doing good things and the ones twisting the world around into uncomfortable knots, imagine you are on a certain hillside long ago. Imagine you are there amidst the rosemary. Amidst the people. Amidst the cheering crowd.

You heard that a great man is coming, that he is going to walk by you in a minute or so. What are you thinking? Do you think to yourself, what will this man do for me? Or, what will this man be able to do for others? Is he here to save me? Is he here to help people? Help everyone.

The way we draw that circle of concern, tightly around oneself or wide enough to take in the world, that is the way of figuring what should come next. The way to move forward after a difficult few years. And the right path forward every day.

What about the selfish people in the crowd? When those people would in time learn that Jesus was not there to free them from the Romans, he would no longer be of interest to them. Why did I put my cloak down into the dust for that? He was not there to give me what I wanted, to give me what I think I needed.

He was not there for that. He was not even there for you or for me. He was there for us. All of us. Not some of us, those who know the secret handshake. Not the high ones or the rich ones or even the right ones. He was there for everyone, no exceptions.

When we think about Jesus entering into the city, many had the expectation that he was there to make everything suddenly better. To become the king they wanted. Someone like the emperor or like King Herod. Someone who would be in charge, in control. Who would have our Christmas list in hand ready to dole out the blessings. Jesus take the wheel, as the saying goes. Which, honestly, is the worst driving advice ever.

Instead, Jesus became the leader they really needed, that we really need. Someone who would give of himself and not lead for himself. Who would die as a man of peace even at the expense of his own life. Jesus is a stark, even an extreme, example of selflessness. And he is an example in a world filled with so much selfishness. So much self-righteous. So much me, me, me.

When I think about Jesus riding into Jerusalem, I think about two lessons we can learn from him. Two lessons we can draw from his example. When I think of Jesus and all he would go through in the coming days, when I remember what he did and what he said, I think about his courage and his dignity. Courage and dignity.

Courage is the ability to do something that frightens you. You know that something scary, something perilous is about to happen. But you have to get through it, you have to wade through in order to get to the other side.

Jesus knew that his ride into the city was the beginning of a time of great suffering, leading to his death. He knew it. He knew it before he got onto the donkey. He knew it before he travelled to Jerusalem. But he needed to do it. He needed to fulfill his destiny, his mission. And he needed to go through all that suffering along the way, because that was his only path. As the saying goes, the only way out is through.

And then there is dignity. Dignity is acting in a way deserving of respect. Now that may at first glance seem like acting to get attention, acting to make people like you. And yet it need not be acting for an audience, but instead living our lives with respect for the people around us and respect for ourselves. It is embodying the values that we hold dear, in every step that we take.

In Greek philosophy, there were thought experiments about being a virtuous person. For example, if you could seem like a virtuous person to all the world, but in fact you could do whatever you liked however not virtuous, would you do it? Become the best seeming person on the outside but be entirely empty inside?

What if instead, you were asked to be a virtuous person, even if the whole world would hate you for it? Even if the whole world thought you were the worst person imaginable? Would you do it? Would you choose to be a virtuous person, doing and caring about all the right things, but the whole world thinks that you are a villain?

Are we called upon to do good things, to be virtuous people, just because someone will then look upon us with admiration? That means it is not good to be good. It is good to be seen being good.

Like Jesus, it is important for us to face the world with courage and dignity. We need courage because there are dangers we must face, there are challenges we must overcome. Courage is not about ignoring those dangers and challenges, it is not about deluding ourselves that they do not exist. Courage helps us to move forward with full knowledge of our circumstances and with due care for ourselves and others. Courage keeps us moving onward even as we pass through unprecedented times.

Dignity is about how we do so. How we speak, how we act. Dignity reminds us of how we should embrace the values we hold dear in our speech and our actions. Maybe that means with head held high, in a clear strong voice. Maybe it is with warm regard for others, with soft and comforting words. Maybe it is strength, maybe it is compassion, maybe it is kindness, maybe it is all of these.

Dignity is another way of being brave and it is a way of helping others. Helping them by offering an example of someone forging on ahead even when there are good reasons to hesitate, to pause. Doing the things that need to be done and keeping calm so that others may follow that example.

And I realize, I know that it is hard to do so. It is hard to have courage and to be brave when one is worrying about what is going to happen, not knowing what is going on.

The courageous person realizes there is something to fear and yet they keep on going. To do so with dignity is to harden our resolve, to hold fast to what we think is true, and to offer our best selves to those around us and to the world itself.

Jesus rode into Holy Week like a king, knowing that he was to face suffering and even death. His example of courage and dignity have survived thousands of years as a symbol of what it means to persevere in the face of suffering, under the very shadow of death itself.

I would not expect us all to ride on with majesty in such circumstances. But I hope and I pray that we will come through to the other side of this long period of worry with heads held high, with compassion in our hearts, and with great kindness to offer those who struggle and those who need our help.

Courage and dignity will help us and they will help everyone around us. And doing so together will make it easier for us all to be brave and to ride on together. So ends the sermon.