"Success?" April 09, 2017

Isaiah 50: 4-11 Matthew 21: 1-11 Over the last 2000 years we have celebrated several bizarre things on Palm Sunday. Until 1983, Presbyterians in N America only worshipped on Palm Sunday & Easter. Palm Sunday was often like a Children’s Junior Church celebrating that the children welcomed the Messiah before Easter. When Godspel and Jesus Christ Superstar were produced, churches began singing “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” and “Hey Sanna Hosanna, Sanna Sanna Hey, Sanna Hey Sanna Hosanna!” At times Palm Sunday was a Spring Pageant like the annual Christmas Pageant. I recall as a child, having a donkey walk up the aisle, except with palm branches carpeting the slate floor, the poor donkey spread eagle, with his legs between the pews, and the ushers could not get him to rise until worship was over when they could dismantle the pews from the floor. Knowing Easter follows Palm Sunday, the last several Choir Rehearsals, the Director has had the Sopranos and Altos sing their Highest Note, then demonstrated that the Basses and Tenors have to go higher. Suddenly, when Mel Gibson’s film hit the box-offices, Churches embraced “Passion,” as if a celebration of suffering and blood. The greatest Sin, for all our sins. One year we built a Cross in worship nailing to the timbers all our prayers, and placing into the soft hollow of each persons’ hand a square cut nail. But Palm Sunday is not a celebration of suffering, or donkeys, or children, or of how high or how jazzy you can go. Palm Sunday begins with the question of Isaiah 50: In a world of the US backing the Rebels; Russia and Iran backing Assad, ISIS terrorizing everyone… with competing Empires, Nations, Dictators, Terrorists, how can there be justice for all the world? Last September, those working in mission in S Sudan gathered as we do, annually. In 2011 after 25 years of Civil War, that Nation claimed independence. Two years later, their own government fostered Tribal violence and War, that has been retaliation for four years. Listening to a briefing from our State Department, at the resignation of our Missionary to South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia, deafening silence fell. Finally I asked “So where is the hope?” The State Department Official looked up and responded, “The only hope is Jesus Christ.” Isaiah was High Priest at the Temple, who came to recognize that Israel had no power, no power to change, or to insist on justice. The added agony of giving your back to smiters, others spitting in your face, pulling out your beard, is in wanting retaliation, wanting vengeance. But the way to “justice for the whole world” the only way is in protecting those without power, giving up all right to control. As densely populated as Jerusalem is, the biggest the City has ever been is only 1.5 miles square, with concentric perimeter walls 30 feet high. Jerusalem under Rome was not a place of affluence, all around you is poverty. Beggars, pickpockets, children in need. It is Spring, the Jewish celebration of “Passover” the implicit message being emancipation from slavery and oppression. Where originally the Passover was about freedom from Pharaoh of Egypt, now the same oppression and fear was felt regarding Caesar and Rome. When Israel had been conquered by the Babylonians, the scroll of Daniel describes the Babylonians attempted to seduce the Israelites away from their culture by offering them other foods and comforts. After the Babylonians, came the Persians, then the Medes, then Greeks, finally Romans. Romans demanded that all the people publicly worship the statues of Rome’s Gods. The Romans forced the Jewish people to eat pork. The Romans did not allow the people of Israel to circumcise their sons as set apart from the world. Religiously, everyone able went to Jerusalem to sacrifice at the Temple. Instead of sitting in pews, imagine a season of carnival. The closest to this we have today is Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Thousands of thousands of strangers, added to the city’s narrow streets. Shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm. Everywhere people pushing and shoving. Merchants hocking their goods, “3 Matzos for a $1. Special for you 4 /buck.” Tired, dirty people, who have walked for days. Shepherds carrying lambs for sale. Herds of sheep pushing into the crowds. Smells of food cooking. Dirty streets, dusty donkeys, camels spitting and baying. Pilgrims chanting prayers. Soldiers pushing through crowds, using horse and chariot to herd people, just because they could. The city was a madhouse with rising anxiety, but it was also the biggest shopping season of the year, a great week for making money and for money changers’ profit. Reputation of Jesus the Rabbi had been spreading. The more he told people not to say a word, the more they did. Stories of his having fed 4000 hungry people! There was rumor of his having done the same else where for 5000 with a few fish & bread. Yesterday, he raised Lazarus from the dead, dead and buried 4 days! Jesus healed 10 Lepers, Lepers unclean with leprosy whose skin was now clean and soft! This morning on the way to Jerusalem two more men, blind men, were given sight! Everyone wanted a miracle! Everyone wanted Jesus to pay attention to them… Messiah, Son of David, Have mercy on ME! Add to the anxiety, imagine the age old stone walls of the city, thirty feet tall, built with only seven gates, and for crowd control three of these have been walled up. Gates so narrow that when Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany tried to enter, the gate had to be widened for his automobile. Four Gates in or out of the City, for all the people, Roman Guards. Armies, Pilgrims. One of these four leads to the Garbage dump of Golgotha. To demonstrate the power of Rome’s cruelty, to make people fear, the Romans crucified people at Golgotha 200 / daily. Leaving the corpses to rot upon the crosses for days afterward. This morning, on the opposite side of the city of Jerusalem riding toward the place of Crucifixion, Pontius Pilate held a Parade, to demonstrate his power as Conqueror, with battalion following battalion of Rome’s Legions, armored Centurions marching, behind these were mounted Calvary, then Chariots, and in the power position of the parade came Pilate on a Warhorse. The marching footsteps, the hoof-beats, the clanking armor, all intended to make you fear and get out of the way, all paraded as a sign of the power of Rome. Pilate made a speech about the Enforced Roman Peace! From the third gate, came religious zealots, Rebels, terrorists looking for revolution. Where better for a Revolution than from the Temple at City Jerusalem at Passover. These rebels came with rocks, waving sticks. Screaming Anarchy. So from one direction people with sticks and stones screaming Anarchy. From another, armies with Chariots and Swords and Speeches about Pax Romana! From the third, crosses of crucifixion and death, cries of agony and suffering. In other words the city was a powder-keg inside a compressed space. It was chaos. We are told there were four to five million people pushed into that walled city. There is only one other entrance in or out of the City, and from the fourth direction here comes all the children of the City singing! Crowds of Disciples not carrying weapons but palm branches! And in the midst of them all, was Jesus, seated upon the colt of a donkey, the symbol of peace and humility. Jesus did not cure anyone. Jesus did not give anyone a miracle. Jesus did not say a single word. In Passover, all the elements of the ritual are symbolic and there is no Palm Branch. As much as when we were children we tried to make Palm Branches swords, Palm Branches are supple and bend and yield. There is however a Jewish Ritual where you did take palm branches from trees... Except, Sukkoth, instead of being about Power and Emancipation and Liberation, was a remembrance of the Blessings of God. That all over Creation, God provided for us. In the Wilderness Wanderings God always provided for the needs of the people and trusting our only hope is Jesus Christ is Justice.