Sermon - Palm Sunday

Preached on March 24 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC

Scripture: Luke 19:28-40

After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Sermon: Silent No More

Palm Sunday! Finally, the day when Jesus takes his message to the big time. No more traveling around the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum, Cana, and his hometown of Nazareth. Now he enters Jerusalem, the city founded by King David, seat of the great Temple, at the time of Passover. Jerusalem is to Israel like Rome to the Roman Empire, like New York City and Washington D.C. combined. It is the seat of power, wealth, and influence.

And what an entrance Jesus makes. The gospel of Luke tells of a multitude of disciples praising God with loud voices, and laying their cloaks on the road. (Did you notice that this gospel says nothing about palms? Matthew, Luke, and John tell us about people cutting palms from the trees in addition to the cloaks, but this year we’re meditating on Luke’s account, so, just cloaks. But that’s not going to stop us from having palms. And that’s fine.) Anyway, what an entrance: Jesus riding in and a multitude of disciples shouting “blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

A few weeks ago, in Confirmation class, we were discussing the story of this holy week, and Noah Jackson made a really good point about the story of Palm Sunday. He pointed back to the part of the passage that describes the preparation for this great entrance: all the details about sending the disciples ahead to find the colt, untying it, what they are supposed to say if someone asks them why they’re taking the colt. And Noah pointed out that it’s really interesting how the owners just let them take their colt. Why did they do that? What’s going on here? Why are there seven verses about the preparation and only five about the actual entrance, which is the only part we really remember?

There’s a reason for all of the details, because it is important to know that Jesus has carefully planned the kind of entrance that he will make into Jerusalem for the Passover festival. It is all planned out, and he knows exactly where to get the colt. You can see it’s kind of like a pre-arranged signal that he’s made with the owners, and Jesus tells the two disciples the code words they will need. Go get the colt, and if anyone asks you, say “the Lord needs it.” So the owners of the colt ask “why are you taking this?” and they say “the Lord needs it.”

“Right – no problem.”

Why did Jesus make such a careful plan? Great question. If you look at some of the paintings of this scene over the centuries, you might get the wrong impression about this parade. You might think that Jesus wanted to make sure that he looked regal, riding into town on a mount on a carpeted path. But a colt tells a different story. You can’t ride a colt – it’s just a little thing - his feet were probably dragging on the ground. Of course the colt has never been ridden, who would ride such an animal? It’s not an impressive sight that Jesus creates.

The point of all his preparation becomes clear if you understand what life was like back then. Everyone knew that when kings conquered cities, they would arrange an elaborate parade into the city to show everyone who was in charge. The ruler would ride down into the city on a big war horse in the middle of a big military parade of cavalry and foot soldiers with their flags and weapons and armor, and other soldiers would force the townspeople out into the street to see the parade and make them put cloaks and branches down on the street. This is how rulers kept their people in line: a show of force, a reminder. They didn’t have television or newspapers; they had parades. This is how they kept the peace.

In fact, the parade for Jesus probably wasn’t the only parade on that day. Pontius Pilate, who was the Roman governor of Israel, probably rode into the city from his headquarters on the Mediterranean Sea because he needed to keep an eye on the Passover crowds.  He needed to remind the crowds to behave themselves, and not get any ideas from the Passover story about Moses standing up to Pharaoh (can you imagine being the oppressive Roman empire and knowing that the people in Jerusalem were going to celebrate a story about their ancestors being freed from oppression? You want them to just tell the story and think about the past, not to get any ideas about how it actually relates to the present). So Pilate reminds the crowds to behave by marching into Jerusalem with a big parade of Roman soldiers, saying Hail Caesar! And they will crucify a few dissenters to convince the crowds not to make trouble. Parades and crucifixions are their ways of keeping the peace.

A year ago, on April 15, 2012, Kim Jong Un, the new ruling power of North Korea, made his first public speech since assuming the title of Supreme Leader after his father’s death in December.  The setting for his first major public appearance was the largest military parade in the nation’s history: hundreds of thousands of troops marching, armaments, missiles towed by trucks.  Never mind that the country is impoverished, hungry, and kept in line by the threat of prison camps for political dissidents, where tens of thousands are put to hard labor. Never mind: the military is strong. They will keep the peace.  That’s the Roman parade.

Next to all of that, Jesus probably looked a little silly, feet dragging on the ground, no elaborate regalia, no flags, no ranks of soldiers. Not the image of a king you would expect, because his parade is a deliberate contradiction of abusive power. His parade is a satire, a commentary, is a send-up of pomp and circumstance.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus is shining a light on the acts of injustice and brute power that have come to pass for authority and leadership.  Jesus comes to rule, not by power and strength, but to expose the harm of abusive power and strength.  Jesus comes to show us that real power and strength are the power of sacrificial love given on behalf of the oppressed, the strength of honest speech to expose and transform evil.

The whole parade says “you think that power is the mark of a king, and a way to make peace! Ha! The kingdom of God does not conquer by force, does not hold power over others, does not keep peace at the point of a sword. God rules this world, and any claim to rule by Caesar or his local governors is illegitimate.”

It’s a dangerous message. No wonder some of the Pharisees who are among the multitude of his disciples get a little nervous. “Teacher,” they say, “tell them to stop” all this shouting! Be quiet. Don’t stir up trouble. Just let things stay as they are.

But silence is a friend to injustice.

Silence is the ally of abuse.

Silence is the cover that hangs over the victims of this world.

And that is why, in God’s world, silence will not last.

“Be quiet?” Jesus asks, “If they were quiet, the very stones would shout out.”

In 2002, Time Magazine named three women as Persons of the Year for their role as whistleblowers about the corruption and negligence at Enron, Worldcom, and the FBI. People had been cheated, lost their retirement funds, lost their jobs, and been made unsafe because the practices had gone on in silence. But they could be silent no more.

There were convictions this past week for the rape of a 16 year old girl in Steubenville, Ohio - a case that has become a national outrage, partly because what was done to this girl was observed and known by many others who were at the parties that night, and we wonder why no one intervened to help her? Why didn’t anyone stop it?

We could say that it was because the crowd was young, making bad decisions, susceptible to peer pressure. Except that we must then remember that it was adults at Penn State who kept quiet about rape and assault for years, and it was adults who chose to keep the peace in churches by covering up child abuse by priests and ministers.

Silence. But the silence won’t last.

The tough news about Palm Sunday is that the evil exposed by the Palm parade isn’t just Pilate, or Rome, or Kim Jong Un. It might be right around us: where we work, where we live - our friends, our country.

And we can understand why we might also say to Jesus “tell them to be quiet! It’s going to be trouble to expose all these problems right here in Jerusalem, with Pilate right here too!”

It’s going to be trouble to speak up at work and risk losing your job. It’s going to be trouble to rebuke your friends when they are saying and doing harmful, terrible things and they say to you “don’t worry about it.” It’s going to be trouble to disrupt your whole family and maybe the whole town by telling the truth about what has happened.

Do we keep silent to keep our jobs, to maintain friendships by just not talking about certain things, to “keep the peace.” Are we the ones saying “blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord,” or are we saying “be quiet!”?

It isn’t easy to break the silence. Jesus knows where this parade ends.  This parade is the beginning of his direct challenge to the powers that have ravaged God’s kingdom of justice and peace. And so the parade is also the beginning of his suffering, which will lead in this week to his arrest, his rushed trial and his death.

That’s where this parade leads.

Now, you know that that isn’t the end of this story. You know what next Sunday is. But remember that the only way to the victory of Easter is to break the silence, whatever the cost. Break the silence, and in doing so, you won’t be alone, because the stones, the very foundation of God’s world, will shout out with you. This Palm parade has opened a way for us to follow, and even if the route is hard, it ends in the redemptive life of God.