Rev. Tessie Mandeville
April 01, 2007
Christ Covenant MCC
Decatur, GA 30033

And so it begins. The last week of Jesus’ life and the last week of our Lenten journey. There’s no Easter in the lessons today. Nor will there be all week because there are no shortcuts to resurrection.

Jesus has been on a journey through the wilderness. We have been on our own journeys through the wilderness this Lenten season. Today is Palm Sunday. It’s the day we sing “Hosanna!” and wave our palms. These palms mark the beginning of Holy Week. Resurrection is just around the corner but the toughest part of the journey is sill ahead and it all begins with a celebration. We then move on to the betrayal of Maundy Thursday, the horror of Good Friday and the silence of Holy Saturday. We know that the shouts of “Hosanna!” will soon turn to shouts of “Crucify him!” and they will come from the same people. We know the exuberance of the crowd following Jesus into Jerusalem will become mass hysteria and violence. This is why we save today’s palms and burn them for our ashes next year.

Those of us living today have an advantage that the crowd didn’t have. We know the ending to this story. We are post-resurrection people and we see this story through post-resurrection eyes. But the crowd was a group of people going to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, the feast that commemorates the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. Their context was exodus and political freedom—not resurrection. The crowd had been following Jesus. They had watched him touch and heal people. They had watched him feed the hungry. They had watched him criticize the social hierarchy of their time by talking with and including women. The shouts of “Hosanna!” that we hear in the gospels indicate that they believed Jesus to be the Messiah, from the line of King David.

The throngs of people that followed Jesus believed that he was going to be their king, but even more so, they believed that Jesus was going to be their political Messiah and liberate them by power and force. The people longed for liberation because they were an oppressed people under the Roman Empire. They wanted a king and judge who would do away with their enemies and establish the kingdom once and for all. They wanted the kingdom of God to appear immediately, in a sense of nationalistic triumphalism.

What concerns me most about Palm Sunday is the sense of Christian triumphalism that comes along with it in many churches. I grew up as a Fundamentalist Christian with this sense of triumphalism. It brings me pain still today when I recall this. For fundamentalist Christians, Palm Sunday is all about Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem. It’s about his sacrifice for our sins. It’s about him saving us and becoming the only way of salvation in this world. It’s this sense of Christian triumphalism that for centuries has led to anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism in our churches and in our world.

But the thing is, I believe his entry into Jerusalem was “anti-triumphal;” it was even “anti-triumphalism.” As he rode into Jerusalem during the Passover, to celebrate the Jewish festival, which was his heritage, he took a prophetic stand against the power of empire and the theology that reinforces it. The Jesus who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey rejected imperialism and triumphalism and said, “There is another path—the path of humility and peace.” I believe this radical Jesus still stands today against all forms of religion that have been used throughout the centuries to support imperial violence and injustice.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus came out of the wilderness and started his journey to the cross. Imagine their surprise when Jesus came riding into town on a donkey, instead of a powerful horse, with weapons at his side! This wasn’t what the people had in mind. This peaceful Messiah riding on a donkey was not on their agenda.

And his death a few days later will shatter the last remnants of misunderstanding about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Soren Kierkegaard, the Dutch Philosopher and Theologian says, “It is well known that Christ consistently used the expression ‘follower.’  He never asks for admirers, worshippers, or adherents.  No, he calls disciples.  It is not adherents of a teaching but followers of a life Christ is looking for.”

There were a lot of fans in the crowd on that first Palm Sunday. They cheered, they waved palm branches, they shouted. But when they learned the demands of discipleship, they switched teams. By Friday, they were shouting, "Crucify him, crucify him!"

Kierkegaard goes on to say that, “Admirers are only too willing to serve Christ as long as proper caution is exercised, lest one personally come in contact with danger.”

But here’s the thing: Jesus came in contact with danger. When he “set his face toward Jerusalem” it put him on a direct collision course with Rome. It ultimately ended in his crucifixion. The people at the first Palm Sunday, and all of us still today, are people who have to come to terms with the fact that this is a Messiah who suffers and dies. This is a Messiah whose life included the cross.

The call of Lent is not only to spend 40 days in the wilderness. The call of Lent is also to follow the path to the cross—just like Jesus did. That is where we are called to go this week. It is where we are called to go at other times in our lives too.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood this. Just as Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem, Dr. King set his face toward Memphis. Both men knew that going to these cities would most likely mean they would be killed. Both men were incarnations of God’s justice which subverted the status quo of society—political oppression, racism, misogyny. They found themselves at the center of the crucifixion story.

"Many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and others marginalized in churches and [societies] know the reality at the center of this crucifixion story [too]. [We know firsthand that] suffering and rejection accompany faithfulness especially when it expresses alternative identities and practices."

You see, it’s easier to be fans rather than followers. Being fans doesn’t demand a whole lot from us. It doesn’t require us to reorder our lives. It doesn’t require us to renounce systemic oppression and injustice. Being fans doesn’t put us in danger or make us uncomfortable. It doesn’t require us to reconstruct our lives based on the principals of an inclusive theology that is at the heart of the gospel. Being fans means we can be detached and therefore safe.

But followers aspire with all their strength to be what they admire. That doesn’t mean that we always get it right. Our sacred scriptures tell us that every single disciple of Jesus’ turned back—even his most intimate friends who ate with him, who traveled with him and did ministry with him. As he got closer to the cross, they all stopped following him. Probably for many reasons—fear, confusion, pain, grief and loss.

I love how Maya Angelou talks about her Christian journey:

“I’m trying to be a Christian.  I’m working at it, and I’m amazed when people walk up to me and say, ‘I’m a Christian.’  I think, ‘Already?  Wow!’…Trying to be a Christian is like trying to be a Jew or Muslim or Buddhist or Shintoist or Confucian.  It’s not something you have and you sit back, ‘Whooo, I have that now!’  No, you work at it all day long, and in the evening when you check yourself out you think, ‘hmmm, I only blew it 89 times today, hmmm, pretty good. I hope tomorrow it’ll be 88, or less.” 

I guess there is a little bit of Easter in this story after all because what we know about the disciples is that they all started following Jesus again. Our task is not to always get it right but to keep following.

Jesus was looking, and is still looking, for people who will follow the Wild One. Who will not give up and completely turn back. And just like Jesus’ journey, sometimes our journeys take us places we would rather not go. Sometimes they call us to endure things we’d rather not endure. Sometimes they take us all the way to the cross.

And so it begins. The last week of Jesus’ life and the last week of our Lenten journey. I encourage us all to go through it, go every step of the way, on that long journey to the cross.  Follow Jesus into Jerusalem, through the betrayal, the trial, the abandonment, the pain and the execution. For only when we can follow Jesus all the way to the cross, and accompany him to the tomb, can we even begin to grasp the power of the Resurrection that awaits. Let it be. Amen.

Warren Carter, Out In Scripture