On Showing Some Independence

The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

(Matthew 21:9)

 

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on Palm/Passion, March 16, 2008

Volume 2 Number 37

First United Methodist Church, 605 West 6^th, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653

 

Each Sunday of Lent, as a catalyst to lead us to Lenten-oriented truths, I’ve featured frames from Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace, one particular genre of Dennis which I call Dennis in the Corner.  In these frames we see Dennis being punished for his wrong-doing, sitting facing the corner, alone with his thoughts. 

 

I hope you’ve found Dennis’ forced Time-outs In the Corner to be a worthy Lenten exercise, suggestive of that spiritual corner of our lives into which Lent directs us, a space of forty days where our liturgies lead us to acknowledge our sins, to confess and repent, to seek redemption, and to respond with faith in God’s grace and love, so that we might emerge from that corner to live in the Easter spirit of resurrection and life. 

 

I’ve printed three frames for you today which I think are instructive with respect to Palm Sunday.  In the first we see Dennis In the Corner, waving an American flag as he looks back at mom and dad to say, “Come on you guys!  It’s July 4^th!  I was just trying to show some independence!”

 

In the second, Dennis is In the Corner again, but this time clearly emotional as he hugs his Teddy Bear, and says to mom, “Did you HAVE to shake me in front of the toughest kid in the neighborhood?” 

 

And in the third frame Dennis swivels in his chair, not yet daring to rise up, and says, “I think I’m done here, mom.  I don’t feel guilty anymore.”

 

When I saw that flag in Dennis’ hand, I thought of Palm Sunday.  The events of Palm Sunday in Jesus’ life are driven by patriotism, by nationalistic fervor.  The story has the texture of a political rally, swooning crowds displaying their eagerness to displace the current administration, occupation by Caesar’s Rome, the “toughest guy in the neighborhood,” to quote Dennis.  In Jesus they glimpse a possible messiah, one who might restore the glory of the now legendary 1,000 year old rule of David and Solomon. The palms had been a symbol of the last period of Jewish independence, the Hasmonean dynasty, which had ended only 35 years before the birth of Christ.  This period was fresh on the minds of these Jews under Roman occupation. So, what is Palm Sunday but the Jews waving flags, “trying to show some independence?” 

 

Word spread as Jesus approached Jerusalem from the east, from the Mount of Olives and across the Kidron Valley.  An impromptu parade gathered to welcome the Messiah into the Holy City’s Eastern Gate.  To be sure, we hear these shouts of Hosanna in a religious and praise context.  They seem rather to have spoken them in a purely political context.  Hosanna was a plea for deliverance meaning, literally, “Save us, please.”  This was a momentary resurgence of national pride, a feeling that though God had punished the nation, shaking them in front of the toughest guy in the neighborhood (Rome), they were finished with feeling guilty, ready to rise up from the corner of Roman occupation to which God’s providence had banished them. 

 

Yes, it was a day of great joy when through the gates of Jerusalem came this One who, riding a donkey, seemed to be the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy, the Anointed One. Threshold places in our lives – by which I mean, places of significant change -- whether for a life, for a marriage, for a church, of for a nation -- are always places of energy and passion, so much so that this passion often erupts in what seems to be inappropriate outlets.  The Jews recognize that high energy of the threshold with the mezuzah, a little rectangular box placed at doorways and gates to remind the Jews that in whatever change of life one thing does not change. “The Lord your God is One Lord, and you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and might.” 

 

This was a high voltage day, and the Eastern Gate was a threshold bubbling with energy.  Luke’s gospel tells us that a few of the Pharisees in the crowd were frightened at what seemed an inappropriate outlet for this energy, and demanded that Jesus urge his followers to be more respectful of traditions, more oriented to the past.  They said, it seems with utmost respect, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.”  And Jesus replied those famous words, “If they were silent, the stones themselves would shout out.”  Jesus was teaching that the desires being expressed by the people were quite beyond his control, and even beyond his intent.  It wasn’t political change he came to enact, nor had he ever pretended that it was so.  Rather, it was spiritual change he sought, a change of the heart, the establishment of a kingdom not of this world. 

I think that of all the threshold moments in history, here was one of the grandest, such that the Golden Gate on the Eastern Wall of the Holy City is now sealed, and has been since 1541 when the Suleiman the Magnificent sealed the gate to prevent the Messiah from coming back, placing an Arab cemetery just in front of the gate, thinking that a Jewish Messiah would not defile himself by passing through a cemetery to come to the gate.

 

You may have noted that today is called Palm/Passion Sunday in our liturgy.  This is to recognize that before the week was over these cries of Hosanna would fade.  Jesus would be crucified.  Why?  Evidently, Jesus didn’t fit their notion of an acceptable leader in the political context to which their eyes were opened.  He wasn’t much of a king.  For a Messiah, he didn’t act like they expected a Messiah should act.  They were looking for a political, perhaps even a military, solution to their existence, a leader of a revolt.  It was nationalistic fervor that whipped up the crowds, leading them to badly misread him and his intentions.  When they said, “Blessed is the One  who comes in the name of the Lord,” they didn’t mean the same thing you likely meant in our morning liturgy.  They were crying for revolt against Rome, waiting for the word to bear arms and begin the insurrection.

 

Stuart Hample compiled a book of children’s letters during the Clinton administration called Dear Mr. President.  One letter to President Clinton read, “Dear President Clinton, You better not brake your promesis or my father will get mad and believe me you do not want that to happen.”  Demitrius. 

 

Now, the interesting this about that letter is that the child spelled “break,” B R A K E.  Do not “brake” your promises.   This was the attitude of the people, I think, regarding Jesus.  We accept you today, but you better not put the BRAKE to your promises!  You do not want that to happen!  It has been reasonably suggested that this was a primary motivating factor in Judas’ betrayal, that he was forcing the hand of the Lord whom he perceived had “braked” his promises.

 

The Passover Seder, which during this week after Palm Sunday, on Thursday night, Jesus was led as he gathered his disciples for the Last Supper, has for centuries concluded with the Hallel, Psalm 113- 118.  The last of those psalms, Psalm 118, is the Conqueror’s Psalm:  “There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous.  I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.  The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.  This is the LORD’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.  This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we beseech you O Lord.  O Lord, we beseech you, give us success.  Blessed is the one who comes it the name of the LORD.  We bless you from the house of the Lord.  Bind the festal procession with branches up to the horns of the altar.  You are my God and I will give thanks to you.” 

 

With these words we end the Seder, followed only by holding up the fourth cup of wine and saying, “Next Year in Jerusalem!”  The Jews have ended the Seder with these psalms for the better part of 3,000 years.  Jesus was about to use them in the Seder on Thursday night, and perhaps that’s why they were fresh on his mind when he used them during Holy Week (Matthew in 21:42) “Have you never read in the scriptures, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?  This was the Lord’s doing and it is amazing in our eyes?’” He went on to say, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruit of the kingdom.”  When the Pharisees heard it, they realized he was talking about them, and they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds.”  

 

Palm Sunday is followed by Passion Week.  I am a bit saddened for Christians who leap in a single bound from the celebration of Palm Sunday to the greater celebration of Easter.  This week is not about celebration.  Not yet.  That comes later.  This week is about the suffering love of God who in Christ endured death for the salvation of his church.  So our Holy Week is filled with opportunities to engage the story of Christ’s Passion, and I encourage you to take advantage of some or all of these -- Passover Seder, Holy Thursday Communion, or Good Friday Tenebrae.  May this Holy Week be a time for us to remember both the joy of the palms, and the sorrow of the Passion.