A reflection for Palm Sunday, 2024

Gospel Reading: Matthew 21.1-11.

If there is one Sunday a year when you cannot avoid political speech in a sermon, it’s this one. The temptation for many preachers is to avoid anything that sounds remotely political in this time of profoundly divisive identity politics. The temptation is to use one understanding of the separation of church and state as an excuse to avoid political speech, although it’s clear that those in power nearly always need the prophetic tradition to hold them to account for their governance. For Matthew, author of today’s Gospel reading, that would all have sounded nonsensical. For religion and politics were of a piece – you could not separate them if you tried. It was your civic duty to worship the gods appropriately. And when the Emperor calls himself “the Son of God” and there is a cult devoted to his worship – which is the most popular religion in the empire for obvious reasons – then there is no possible separation of religion and state.

Unless you’re the stubborn people of Judaea.

Who Rome simply could not bend to its will, and therefore granted them a special dispensation, freeing them from their civic obligation to make offerings to the gods. Which makes for a very tenuous state of co-existence that is always just one insurrection away from blowing up. And the Passover Festival was the most likely time for things to blow up.

The population of Jerusalem, which was probably about 20,000 or so, swelled to over 200,000 during Passover, because everybody came to celebrate the most important festival of the year. The streets were packed, blood ran freely from the thousands of lambs being slaughtered in the temple grounds, and the scent of rebellion carried in the air along with the iron-rich scent of the sacrifices. And there were always some wannabe messiahs making their way to the City of David, hoping to provide the spark that would ignite the overthrow of their oppressors. So, the Roman Governor always drafted in additional troops to maintain the ‘Pax Romana’ during Passover, and tensions ran high. So, it was not only the blood of lambs that ran in the streets at Passover.

Needless to say, the ruling elite in Jerusalem were keen to avoid the kind of trouble that drew swift and harsh reprisals from their Roman overlords. So, they did their best to quieten the messianic enthusiasm which always threatened their tenuous relationship with Rome, while also trying to appear supportive of the messianic hopes of the people. A very fine line to walk indeed. And Matthew tells us that Jesus is making his way into this powder-keg.

Some of the historical record indicates that while Jesus was approaching Jerusalem from the East, the Roman governor would have been approaching Jerusalem from the West. Having left his coastal residence, where he enjoyed the cool breezes off the Mediterranean, as opposed to the heat and smell of the city, Pilate led a parade of Roman military might towards Jerusalem. Cavalry on horseback, legionnaires marching to the beat of drums, the bright color of banners, and the flashing gold of the Eagle standards of the legions. The triumphal entry of the local representative of an all-powerful empire, coming to remind this conquered people who their masters were.

All of which suggests, when we read Matthew’s account of Jesus’ own entry into Jerusalem that we may have misnamed it by calling it a “triumphal entry.” Because the procession coming from the East is very different from the one approaching from the West. Instead of the beat of drums, the clank of weapons and high stepping stallions, there’s a solitary guy sitting on a skittish donkey foal, its mother beside it to help keep it calm amidst the noise of the crowd. No banners. No standards. No visible weaponry. Just crowds of country folk, coming down from Galilee, singing the psalms of ascent, and waving palm branches. Some throwing their cloaks on the road as the donkeys pass. If we could send a drone high above the city and film the two processions, the one from the east is comical in comparison to the one coming from the west.

And yet.

For the onlookers, this is high political theatre on both sides of Jerusalem. Because that ridiculous, powerless and explicitly vulnerable figure at the head of the procession coming from the East is enacting high drama. For Jesus knows exactly what he’s doing, and Matthew makes sure his audience understands that. When Jesus gives his disciples explicit instructions about where to go get his ride, he’s thinking of the prophet Zechariah. Matthew wants us to understand that Jesus is fulfilling the word of the prophet, because he gives it to us:

“Say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming to you;

gentle and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”

And as Jesus approaches Jerusalem on the back of the foal he has sent his disciples to get, the crowds understand what it means. And they begin to re-enact another scene from about two centuries earlier, when Simon Maccabees finally brought peace to Jerusalem signaling the end of the Maccabean revolt against Syria, as recorded in First Maccabees 13:51:

“On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred and seventy-first

year, the Jews entered the citadel with shouts of praise, the waving of palm branches,

the playing of harps and cymbals and lyres, and the singing of hymns and canticles,

because a great enemy of Israel had been crushed.”

Matthew says that the people believe that here is the long-awaited king of Israel, coming to drive out the pagan invaders and liberate his people, and so they respond to his approach by waving palm branches and crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Most High; hosanna in the highest!” And when he enters Jerusalem, Matthew tells us, “The whole city was shook.” They were alarmed, saying, ‘Who is this?’ Because we might think that everyone knew who this remarkable character was, but the unwashed masses from Galilee have to inform the urban population that this strange figure on donkey-back is “Jesus, from Nazareth – one of ours.”

And this isn’t the first time Jesus’ arrival has caused a commotion in Jerusalem. The last time was at his birth, when Herod and all of Jerusalem were disturbed by the arrival of strangers from the East, asking “where the King of the Jews had been born.” Now the city is disturbed by the political theatre taking place in their midst, and its implications for what will happen when the Governor and the might of Rome arrives shortly, from the other direction. Yet Matthew gives his readers a small clue that all may not be as it appears at first glance. Because when he quotes the prophet Zechariah, he misses out a line. For between “Say to the daughter of Zion” and “behold your king is coming to you,” the prophet says, “Shout in triumph!”

But Matthew cuts that part out.

Because this is not the triumphal entry that we so often call it. Yes, Jesus has come to be acknowledged as king. He intentionally enacts Zechariah’s prophecy. He is the long-awaited Son of David, the one come to set his people free.

He’s just not going to do it in the way that they expect.

He’s going to take our concepts of power and authority and flip them upside-down. He will not be enthroned in the Governor’s palace with a crown of gold after a violent revolt. He will be enthroned on a Roman cross on the city garbage heap wearing a crown of thorns. Because the reign of God will not be established through the power of the sword. Instead, the long-awaited king’s side will be pierced by a spear after he is executed.

So where does all this leave us? Perhaps with the reminder that the reign of God is nothing like the power of the state. And it’s a dangerous thing when Christians align ourselves too closely with the state, believing we can impose our vision for life on those who don’t share it. We’ve got a long history of doing that, and it rarely ends well for those on the receiving end. Nor, ultimately, for the church either. The kingdom that Jesus brought was not the result of a violent overthrow of the existing government, but instead, Jesus says, it’s like a mustard seed, or like the yeast someone uses while making bread, or any other small and seemingly insignificant thing that grows from within and slowly spreads as people experience its goodness. Rather than it being imposed from the top down.

In some ways little has changed in the last two thousand years. The temptation for the church is to join the procession coming from the West. To align ourselves with those who we believe will enable us to impose our will on others. But however well-meaning and earnest we may be, we usually end up only enacting God’s presumed wrath against perceived evildoers, and not enacting God’s actual mercy for those who are suffering in our midst. If that’s the temptation to the church, the invitation to the church is to join the procession coming from the East. To fall in behind the long-awaited king whose power is his love. Self-giving, self-sacrificing love that does not impose its will on others, but instead, like mustard seed and yeast, acts with kindness, gentleness, and humility. And in doing so that kingdom begins to spread from within, not from above.

 For that is the way of Jesus. May we walk that way together.

 Amen.

Image: “Palm Sunday” by Evans Yegon