“Who is He?”: A Palm Sunday Reflection
By Rev. Marietta Macy, PJN Co-Moderator
(To watch Rev. Macy preach this sermon, click here.)
And so the epic of holy week begins, with parades and palms! The Mount of Olives, where this story from scripture today takes place, is one of my favorite places in all Palestine. You can still walk down the same road that Jesus took, passing first the ancient sites of Bethpage and Bethany if you want. The hill is steep and now that it is paved, a bit slippery if it’s raining. There is a man with a sure footed colt (aka donkey) who you’ll see greeting pilgrims from around the world with a big smile occasionally. The one lane road winds down the hill, dotted with chapels and churches memorializing the different sacred stories occurring here- Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, comparing God to mother hen gathering her chicks. Then on down the hill to the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed the night he was arrested. The olive trees there are over 2,000 years old, so it is reasonable to believe that some of them where growing there already when Jesus visited; the oldest olive tree in Palestine is believed to be around 5,000 year old. If only they could talk right? Can you imagine the stories they would tell?
As Christians we remember today as Palm Sunday, but it’s vital to our story we remember that the Jewish rabbi Jesus was entering the city of Jerusalem to celebrate the festival of Passover. Jews were coming from all over Palestine to worship in the temple and mark the sacred season with celebrations remembering God’s hand in their freedom from captivity in Egypt, even as they found themselves within the grip of another empire- Rome.
As Jewish families were busy with the preparations for Passover, extra housecleaning, baking special dishes, making sure the guest rooms were full of blankets for family coming to stay in Jerusalem – the Romans were busy with their own preparations. Jesus’ procession wasn’t the only one entering Jerusalem at this time. While he was entering Jerusalem from the east down the Mount of Olives. On the opposite side of the city, Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea, was entering from the west. It was a standard practice for the Roman governor and his troops to come to Jerusalem for major Jewish feasts like the Passover, not out of respect for the religious practices of the Jews, but to be in Jerusalem in case there was trouble. Sending legions of troops into the city, with a full military parade, so everyone was clear who really had the power here, who really was in control. This was a very public warning and reminder that their occupier can and will crush physically any rebellion or hint of unrest that may come from a sacred festival of freedom. Two different visions for life in the world are entering Jerusalem – the Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of man.
Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem not only positioned him as the long awaited heir to King David, but in direct opposition to Pontius Pilate and the Roman figures of power and control. Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem leading peasants. Pontius Pilot rode a war horse leading a cavalry. One was a procession of average people inspired to act, the other an imperial march ordered to move. One threw down cloaks and branches, the other carried weapons and armor. One demonstrated political protest, the other political brutality. One disarmed and nonviolent, the other came armed and trained for violence. Contrast after contrast to remind us that Jesus is the king of peace and he stands in sharp opposition to the pride, arrogance, power, oppression, and violence of the empires that rules the world.
Rome would have and did see this humble, makeshift parade with palm waving as a threat. Anyone that could inspire a mass group of people to gather, especially in joy and celebration, is incredibly dangerous to a system that derives its control from complete control of a population, including breaking their spirits. Seeing the crowds gather to welcome Jesus, with this spectacle and these symbols, outright mocked the empire, in addition to affirming Jesus’ identity. With this simple procession he set all of Jerusalem on fire with whispers and shouts of, “Who is this?”
And Rome was asking the same question. He had hit the tyrants where it hurt in a way nothing else can. By receiving this unasked for devotion and love from a people they thought they had conquered. With the added mocking nature of these typically kingly symbols, the satirical scene he created worked like modern comedians or their predecessors, the jesters and fools kept to entertain kings. They have a particular ability to critique power and point out its weaknesses in ways that no one else can and instead of being the “fool” themselves, end up pointing out to everyone what a real fool the king is. Whether intentional on Jesus’ part or not, it was a political and religious statement by him and the people – that as we know from the rest of the events of this holy week yet to be marked, was not well received by the authorities. These authorities included both Roman and Jewish leaders.
Understanding the power dynamics of the time are important so we don’t intentionally or unintentionally share the anti-Semitic trope that “the Jews” kill Jesus and poor Pilot just innocently gets to wash his hands of it all and let them. The Jewish people lived under Roman rule as they were the occupying power in the region at that time. Their abilities to exercise any kind of punishment or judicial system was completely overseen by the Romans. There is no death sentence they could carry out without Roman approval and arms. Jewish leaders walked a tightrope held by Rome to maintain some tenuous control in their communities and some cooperated with their oppressors to grasp a bit of power.
Like so many today, the Jewish priests sided with the empire over their own people and turn Jesus over to the Romans as a nullifying sacrifice. His miracles and messages of love and inclusivity shake the tenuous grip they have on power – so love of power and love of power found each other within the dominant and oppressed and together made Jesus their blood sacrifice. Not on the altar of God, but in spite of it, in spite of all Jesus was sent to teach.
What we see play out here with Jesus (regardless of his divinity) is an example of the layered, simmering violence that was always about to erupt, and is always about to erupt when people live under the rule of a prejudice, greedy, oppressive state without full freedom and autonomy the way God intends for all people. This is part of what makes Jesus’ humanness so special: that he wasn’t. Even when God herself comes to earth in human form, she is still ground into the dirt under the heel of empire and human greed. Not-special Jesus, human Jesus is sentenced to death by crucifixion, one of possibly millions that the Roman Empire alone killed. But that’s not where the story ends and this is where who Jesus is becomes very special. God breaking through our brutal, human evil to resurrect themselves is revolutionary and teaches us that when a system of power chooses to enforce false peace through violent means, God calls us- as the body of Christ now on earth- to interrupt that system. There will always be new life created by God growing up through the destruction, it never ends. And Jesus’ example shows us how we are meant to participate and co-create with God.
Coming up soon is the anniversary of Rev. Deitrich Bonhoeffer’s martyrdom at the hands of Nazi Germany. Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran theologian (and youth pastor in his early career). Having studied in both Europe and America, he could have easily sought asylum here but chose instead to return to Germany on the eve of war to participate in the German church’s resistance to the rise of the Nazi party. Two days after Hitler’s installation as Chancellor Bonhoeffer spoke out against him and the Nazi influence on the German church, publicly on the radio, branding him as an enemy of the state. He continued his theological and political resistance until he was arrested and ultimately executed on April 9, 1945 at the age of 39. In one of his many poignant sermons he reasoned, “If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.” He went on to say, “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”
It’s one of his most quoted passages and I’ve found it personally impactful for years, but our friend and colleague of the Presbyterians Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb has had me rethinking since my most recent conversation with him in Palestine in December. Mitri shared with us that he’s sick to death of people quoting Bonhoeffer- without ever doing what he says. Not being willing to take those risks, but sanctify those who have is not just hypocrisy, it’s deadly. When religion gets used as a tool to pacify the masses and control populations, we’re working on behalf of the Romans not God.
Jesus’ protest on the Mount of Olives, Bonhoffer’s in Germany, and ours today are righteous responses to unjust powers and principalities that believe they can supplant the universal laws of human decency to further their own greed. It honors God when their people remind each other there is another way to all live together. Where everyone can live in abundance, with their needs met, with the freedom and means to explore the beauty of creation, their passions and interests. Who Jesus is, teaches us there was a life before kings and empires and presidents, wars, prisons, and walls, and there will be a life after… if we choose to believe the truth of it. When we live like we know in our bones who Jesus is, new life will grow.
May this Holy Week story remind us anew that our master is not Caesar, not an emperor, not a Pharaoh, not even a President. Our only ruler is God. This heavenly King, who the church is meant to physically embody, so closely identifies with the plight of the poor, the thirsty, the sick, the imprisoned- that to ignore any of them is to ignore the very God we promise to serve. Jesus who entered the holiest of holy cities on a donkey is the King of the prison, of the soup kitchen, the free clinic, the hospital ward. This is a King whose reign is evaluated, not in monuments and palaces, but in the humble places where the world is in need… on the streets of Bloomington or a refugee camp, in the school lunch line or a UN food distribution line, behind bars with hostages and political prisoners.
God’s power and Majesty is so far beyond what we can imagine, but the Easter story – the one that begins with protest – invites us into that space where we can be begin to comprehend some of it. If we want the life of abundance that was offered by a brown skinned, Palestinian, Jewish rabbi, living under Roman occupation, we’re going to have to be brave enough to imagine a new world and recognize the power of empire for the lie that it is, outright mock it even as the people did on the Mount of Olives all those years ago. God’s already shown us it’s possible, who Jesus is shows us it’s possible. Amen.