Scripture: Luke 19: 29-42; Romans 12:9-18
I admit that the sermon title for this morning—“Palm Sunday 2005”—indicates a certain lack of imagination. My excuse for this is that this was pretty much my state of mind as I began thinking about the sermon for this morning. Here we are. Palm Sunday 2005. What is it that should be said, what is it that I need to say, on this occasion?
Well, there’s the Biblical story. We do need to remember that story about Jesus riding into Jerusalem a few days before his death surrounded by cheers and cries of praise. Whatever we end up thinking about that story, however we may relate to the story, there are just certain times in the life of the church when we just need to tell the stories of our faith—read them, listen to them, reflect upon them. Of course we may do that in various ways just about any time, but Palm Sunday is one of those times when it’s pretty much a given.
So, the Biblical story about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, the triumphal entry it is usually called. Let me begin with that and with a struggle I have with the story every year, though actually my struggle may be less with the Biblical story and more with the term triumphal, which is a word that does not appear in the Bible. Well, it may appear in many Bibles, but it does not appear in the ancient texts. It is in many Bibles because modern editors put it there, in those little headings that explain to us what it is we’re about to read and that may make it easier to find certain things we’re looking for. The triumphal entry is a familiar way of referring to the story, but it is not one that has been easy for me to get my mind or my heart around.
There are certain things within the story itself, the whole story of the last week of Jesus’ life, that would suggest that the notion of a triumphal entry is at the very least an ambiguous expression. It is part of a larger story, after all, and in the context of the larger story, the entry into Jerusalem is, as we now know, the first in a cascading chain of events that leads quickly to Jesus’ arrest, torture, and execution.
Of course we can see why the people in the story might have been celebrating, since they didn’t know what was coming, but for those of us who come after, it’s hard to see how the term triumphal could be used in anything but an ironic sense. Even those in the story who celebrated, it turns out, most likely were celebrating for the wrong reason, since they were expecting someone else, a conquering hero, some kind of political or military messiah. At least that’s what we have assumed was in their minds, since if they had seen Jesus as the sacrificial leader he turned out to be, presumably they wouldn’t have been celebrating. So all in all it’s a pretty bleak picture. Jesus riding to his death surrounded by meaningless cheers based on misunderstandings and false expectations. A bleak picture and, for me, a sad story, not just because it is about to turn violent but because Jesus, though surrounded so far as we can tell, by the people who loved him best, seems so very alone. It is a story filled with irony and sadness.
That thought is nothing new. It’s built into the story, and it’s part of lots of preaching on Palm Sunday to struggle in some way with the disconnect between the party aspect of the parade itself and the very serious, gruesome events that are about to follow. In fact it has gradually become the practice in many parts of the Christian church to observe this day not as Palm Sunday but as Passion Sunday, so that we tell the whole story and acknowledge the disconnect and don’t just slide conveniently from Palm Sunday to Easter, skipping over all that negativity in between. There’s this contrast in the story itself and the irony of the Palm Sunday celebration in light of the horrors about to happen in the story.
There’s also the irony of any Christian churchly celebrations in the face of a world that is still filled with war and violence. Yesterday, you may know was the second anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. How do we deal with the celebratory aspects of the Christian faith in light not only of the Biblical passion of Christ and his crucifixion but in light of the crucifixions that are still part of our world. This is not a political statement. I’m not simply being a critic of the Bush administration here, though I realize that in this group I could do that relatively safely. I am suggesting though that there are crucifixions in our lives, with or without the US invasion, and we need to deal with the disconnect that is very much potentially there too between our faith and the world we live in. There is a kind of irony and sadness in the Biblical story because the celebration of Palm Sunday seems misinformed and misguided. There can also be an irony and a sadness in the way we observe our holy days, and they will be misinformed and misguided if we don’t take account of the crucifixions we live with everyday. The war in Iraq is just one of them. But it is an appropriate symbol for us today, since the anniversary was yesterday.
In this regard I need to talk a little theology with you. There is a very strong strand of Christian theology that says that the violent suffering of Jesus is the core of the Christian message. It is what Jesus had to endure to atone for the sins of humanity. It is a holy violence, required by God, commanded by God, carried out against God’s own son, and the forgiveness of God, the love of God is dependent on this sacrifice of Jesus. Because Jesus made this payment for our sins, and because God was willing to have Jesus suffer this punishment in place of us, we are free from the burden of our sin and able to know forgiveness and eternal life. The punishment which by rights is ours Christ takes upon himself. He bears our burdens. And in this light there is maybe not so much irony in the celebration of Palm Sunday or the idea of a “good” Friday. Christ triumphs because he is about to accomplish this sacrifice. Palm Sunday, the passion, the crucifixion all are part of the saving events that Christ endures for us.
I have expressed myself on this line of thought before. It suggests to me an image of a God who requires punishment, who is vengeful, who needs for there to be suffering in order for some sense of divine justice to be fulfilled. This is a god very far from any God I know. I don’t believe God commands violence. I don’t believe God withholds love until sin is punished. I don’t believe bloodshed accomplishes much of anything in the long run, and certainly does not accomplish forgiveness or salvation. I don’t believe the cross, any cross, in any form, glorifies God or is the will of God.
And that leads me to a related but slightly different thought. I find the language that speaks of Christ taking the burden of our sins, taking the weight of human suffering onto himself, troubling, or at the best misleading. I’m not sure he intended to do that. I’m not sure I want him to do that. The burdens of our brokenness—and there definitely are burdens to be borne, not in the form of punishment for sin but in the woundedness of our humanity—the burdens of our brokenness belong to us, not to Jesus. They are for us to bear, not Christ. Our salvation will not lie in having Christ bear our burdens for us, but will come through the human sharing of the burdens of our humanity. Even where we focus our attention matters. We celebrate Palm Sunday unjustly if we focus all our attention on Jesus, on his suffering, and make the suffering of people who aren’t Jesus even less visible than it already is.
There is a magazine, as many of you know, that shares our name: Sojourners. I would say they copied it from us, but they had it first. Although there is no direct connection between us and the people who publish the magazine (and do a great deal more than publish a magazine), there is a kind of spiritual connection between them and us. We share a number of concerns and beliefs. Not a perfect match but a good match. In any case, there was an article in Sojourners Magazine not too long ago that was essentially a review of the movie Hotel Rwanda, a very positive review, although what the writer was saying was less that this was a well made movie and more that it was a movie that should be required viewing for Christians. In fact he fell into comparing Hotel Rwanda, which you may know is set in Rwanda in 1994 during a time of genocide and portrays both the horrors of the killing and some efforts to save people from the killing—he fell to comparing this movie to The Passion of the Christ. The latter had been heavily promoted as a must see among many Christian churches. The former, so far as the author knew, had received no such promotion at all. Which lead the reviewer to ask some questions: Which film would Jesus most want us to see, and why? Why did so many churches urge people to see Gibson’s film, and why did so few (if any) promote Hotel Rwanda? What do our answers to that question say about us? In what sense could Hotel Rwanda actually be titled The Passion of the Christ? What kind of repentance does each film evoke in Western Christians? What kind of response does each film call for?
My point in quoting this movie review is not to claim that this film is some kind of religious experience, not to suggest that all Christians ought to go see it, not even to praise it as a good movie. It is simply that it does raise some important questions. Not so much which film would Christ want us to see but whose suffering does Christ want us to pay attention to? His own, or his brothers and sisters and ours? In Luke’s story Jesus weeps himself over the city of Jerusalem and later in the midst of his suffering tells people not to weep for him but for themselves and their children.
I actually struggled some with my own reactions to the film Hotel Rwanda. It was a harrowing story and it was vividly told and I was affected by it. On the other hand, I was quickly aware that I could also keep a safe distance. It was a movie. It was based on real events but they had happened ten years ago. The story it told, that precise, particular story was over. And so I could feel whatever I was going to feel—sorrow, blame, guilt, shame—but in the end walk away from it. I could wonder, try to remember, what I had known, thought, or done while the genocide was going on—but then whenever I wanted I could just stop wondering and get back to life as I know it. I could feel bad for a while, and then not. There is no moral high ground here that one can claim just for having seen the movie, any more than there is a moral high ground for having seen the Passion of the Christ, or for that matter a moral high ground in just celebrating Palm Sunday.
Sometimes our very theologies about Jesus help to keep us feeling safe. He came to suffer in place of us, bear our burdens, die for our sins, make everything all right. But he didn’t, because the crucifixions didn’t end with him. And because he suffered with us, not in place of us, and in his person spoke of a God who suffers with us, not in place of us. I will say again: Christians should not be in the business of justifying suffering, either directly or by implication. There is no glory in the cross, not the cross of Jesus, not any cross humans have to bear.
But there is love, love that is sometimes only possible when we take the cross into ourselves, whatever form it comes in, when we take it into ourselves and don’t look away and don’t change the subject and don’t find some way to keep a safe distance. For some of us, and these are not my words but words that I subscribe to, “Jesus is the face of God encountered in everyday life, where the brokenness of the world can no longer be ignored.” (Barbara Brown Taylor, God in Pain, p. 104) Sometimes it is a brokenness we find out there that can no longer be ignored. Sometimes the pain we need to face and not turn away from is a pain that is inside us. In either case the facing of crosses, the not turning away, is an act of love. I am not against loving Jesus, but when he weeps over Jerusalem and tells the daughters of Jerusalem not to weep for him but for themselves and their children, I believe he is inviting us not to linger at the foot of his cross but to let that cross lead us to other crosses, to see the woundedness around us and within us, to weep over a world at war, to accept the pain of others and make it our own, to acknowledge the crosses in our lives and, as God gives us the ability, not to turn away. Amen.
Jim Bundy
March 20, 2005