Sermon by Rev Allister Lane on 9 April 2017
Readings were Psalm 118: 19-24 and Matthew 21:1-11
I hope you are aware of the series of public discussions titled: Keeping Faith In Politics. The deliberate double-meaning of the series title expresses the importance of resisting cynicism as well as recognising that our faith has an important contribution to make in human politics. And this second meaning of the title suggests that faith risks getting pushed out of politics.
Do you think this may be true?
Are you aware of attitudes that assume there is a division between faith and politics?
That these are distinct spheres that can not (and should not) have anything to do with the other? Where does this come from? Maybe it goes way back to that Roman Emperor in the 4th Century who embraced Christianity, and ever since Christian theology and practice has shied away from ‘real life’ issues and focused more on the ‘otherness’ of our inner spirituality. Is the assumed preference to keep our faith interior and personal, rather than external and public? And if so, how does this influence what we do and say today on Palm Sunday? Are our celebrations all rather nice? Jesus perhaps becomes tamed by thinking of him (rather woodenly) filling a convenient gap left by the prophecies. If Jesus is simply ‘inserted’, to fulfil the waiting prophetic expectations, this sucks away his meaningful agency in these events which we proclaim today.
Instead, I wonder if we dare look at these events and see that Jesus was doing something intentional to provoke and reveal a new understanding.
Let’s assume this was Jesus’ motive… well what are his options? What does a young carpenter and rabbi do? He can’t win a war against the political and military powers. Anyway, he doesn’t believe in war. How can he awaken the people to his proclamation of a new reality, a new reign, a new kingdom?
Jesus seems to engage deliberately in a political act this day, in a public parody of the political and military rule. Jesus lampoons the ruling elite through this deliberate riotous parade; this joyful ‘military procession’ right into the city of Jerusalem. He invites people to draw their attention to him – not in his power and majesty, but in a parody of such displays – so as to provoke a political interpretation about who he is and what he prepared to do.
If you look at the passage again, you’ll notice his entry into the city of Jerusalem (which is the part we typically always focus on) is just the final three verses (v8-11). The bulk of this passage describes in detail the careful arrangements Jesus makes, telling us that Jesus has planned this event in advance. Jesus has arranged the donkey and established recognisable verbal exchanges for the pick-up. Jesus knows what he is wanting to do. He is intentionally orchestrating some provocative ‘street theatre’. This is a ‘flash mob’ – and if you know anything about flash mobs they take a lot of pre-organising and preparation!
And there’s a deadly serious purpose to what he does. Jesus enacts this parody of political and military power by starting deliberately at the Mount of Olives. For this is the anticipated location from where the final battle of Jerusalem’s liberation will start from. It’s here Jesus begins his ‘final campaign’.
But let us pay careful attention also to how Jesus enacts the deliberate parody of political and military power: the provisions he sends for are not the weapons of war but simply a donkey. Jesus goes to take the city of Jerusalem unarmed and riding a donkey. The donkey is the central prop in the careful instructions he gives in the preparations for this event.
What a sight he is! Coming into the city of Jerusalem riding on this donkey, sitting so low his feet possibly drag on the ground. There is no power and majesty here. His open display of humility casts off the way of power and domination. Without pomp and wealth and weaponry, Jesus identifies himself with the poor and the vulnerable.
His is a public display, a theatrical proclamation, that disorients the status quo. He provokes a reaction to himself – about who he is and what he prepared to do.
Look at me! I want you to see that I am bringing a new reign. And by coming right into the city where political and military power exert themselves I invite you to see the world in a new way and to live in a new way.
After arriving in the city, Jesus continuous to act subversively. He ransacks the businesses in the temple; relegates the paying of taxes to Caesar; and teaches new understanding about what to expect in the future.
Why does Jesus subvert the political and military powers? Surely to disrupt the assumptions about the inappropriate influence they exercise, and to reveal a great reality than hoped for, a deeper understanding than assumed, and more radical implications than dared hoped for.
What we know from the full events of Easter is that the hopes of the crowd that day will not materialise as they imagine. But the disappointment is replaced with nothing less than the salvation of all humanity – and they were right to look at the man on the donkey. The fullness of God’s salvation is indeed located in this person, who is easily mis-recognised.
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone. (Psalm 118:22)
Seeing such subversion of power might invite us to see our world in a new way and to live in a new way.
This week we have seen the grotesque use of chemical weapons against innocent people, and the appalling consequences on the fragility of childhood. As well as being shocked and disgusted, don’t we need to act to subvert the brutality of destructive power by unmasking and critiquing such attacks on humanity? Are tomahawk missiles the most imaginative response we can make? For we are invited by the donkey-rider to follow his way proclaiming and living out the truth of his new reality, his new reign, his new kingdom.
Do you remember the on your television screen a number of years ago of that Chinese man who placed himself in the path of the tanks that were rolling into Tiananmen Square? Is that similar to the image of Jesus riding a donkey into the city of Jerusalem? Is that what it can look like to confront the political and military power of our world?
Jesus leads us in new directions. Maybe we are not always as enthusiastic as the Palm Sunday crowd. Perhaps we are uncomfortable about this kind of ‘hoo-hah’. But there can be no doubt that the ‘donkey-rider’ calls his followers to refresh our commitment in new forms, to replace the presumptuous powers of our day with God’s paradoxical power of humility and compassion, as we seek justice everywhere and for all.
The politics of Palm Sunday invites us to have our assumptions disrupted and to re-examine what our commitment to follow Jesus looks like. And one way we can all be encouraged to act is by taking part in the Keeping Faith in Politics series.
At the first event of this series that kicked off last week, the question was asked “Who will you vote for?” A pretty standard question in an election year. But it takes on a different meaning if asking about for whose sake you will vote for. Will you vote for the poor? The vulnerable? The generations to come?
Have a look at the publicity flyer for the next event…The least and the last in a world of growing inequality. Is this image another one of what it might look like to confront the political and military power of our world?
Let me challenge you: Many of us are in unmistakable positions of privilege. And even if you don’t feel that you are, almost all of us are able to vote, and we enjoy freedoms and rights many, many people throughout the world do not.
Let us examine our assumptions, our privilege, the ‘emperors’ within us. Will you take that risk? Will you feel that discomfort? Will we challenge ourselves and our leaders: political, economic and spiritual? Will we challenge each other as a Christian community in how we practice our politics?
Let us do so with grace, but also with truth, as we challenge the empire we live in and our part in it. So that we may recognise the One who awakens us to see things as they really are, and invites us to commit more fully to live into the adventure of God’s Kingdom, right here in the city, and in the midst of wherever we are.
May God give us grace, courage and hope to walk his way.
Amen.
