Sermons

Mar 16 - The Rev. Brian C. Taylor - Palm Sunday

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Palm Sunday 2008 A choice between two kingdoms
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor
Matthew 21:1-11

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was just prior to the Jewish festival of Passover, when thousands of pilgrims flocked into the city from all over Israel and the wider region. Because sometimes things got tense, extra Roman guards were deployed for the festival. Imagine them coming noisily into the crowded streets on horseback, stirring up dust, banners flapping, armor clanking, drums beating: a public display of imperial power, a threat of violence.

And on the opposite side of the city, perhaps the same day, a different kind of procession came through the Mount of Olives, the traditional place of Jewish kings. We often think of this as a spontaneous eruption of affection for Jesus, but I think it was a provocative demonstration deliberately planned by Jesus and his friends.

Jesus knew the scene in the city during the festival; he’d been there for Passover before. He knew how the Romans would make their triumphal entry. And so while the soldiers did their thing, Jesus and his disciples styled their procession as a mockery: soft garments were spread on the ground, children waved palm branches, a man in a homespun robe sat on a donkey, for God’s sake.

And in doing all this, they also evoked for the crowd a precise passage from the prophet Zechariah: Your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey. The crowd understood the connection with this scripture. This promised king, they knew, would come in humility and mercy, to bring about peace and justice. That’s why the common people loved this demonstration, and why the people of power became alarmed.

Two processions, two alternatives. One maintained a kingdom of power and violence. The other ushered in a kingdom of peace, humility and mercy. The kingdom of Rome and the kingdom of God.

Then, the next morning – and this is the part that we skip over during Holy Week, I’m not sure why – Jesus went into the Temple, and turned over the money-changers’ tables. As he did so, Jesus quoted two passages of Hebrew scripture: this is a house of prayer; and you have turned it into a den of robbers. These passages were originally written about Israel being called to welcome marginalized groups and outsiders, and about condemning the oppression of aliens, orphans, and widows.

By contrast, the Temple system that had developed by Jesus’ time required expensive pilgrimages from distant places, expensive sacrifices, and, back home, expensive tithes: all in exchange for the purity that they said God required. So Jesus undertook another deliberate action, this time in the Temple, in order to indict this system of economic exploitation that served hundreds of privileged urban religious bureaucrats. The crowds knew what he was doing in this action, too, and they understood his use of these scriptures.

And so when Jesus had finally decided that “his hour had come,” he made his public debut on the stage of Jerusalem with two premeditated, provocative actions, both obviously evoking the prophets from the past. One action proclaimed an alternative kingdom of peace, humility and brotherhood to the kingdom of power and violence. The other action indicted economic exploitation. It is no wonder that the Roman command and the Temple elite worked together to execute him within a few days.

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2,000 years later, Jesus still enters into the cities of the world. He still offers an alternative kingdom. You and I live in a culture that is wonderful, in many ways. I am grateful that I live in this time and place. But it has its dark side, characterized by raw power and scorn for the weak, war and the threat of war, and economic exploitation for selfish personal gain. Such are the kingdoms of the world. Our nation is no different from Rome in this regard.

We have a choice, as did the people of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. We can choose to accept the inevitability of this kingdom of the world, justify it to ourselves, and contribute to its continuation. Or we can choose to believe in and do everything we possibly can to usher in Jesus’ alternative kingdom based on the biblical values of peace, economic justice, mercy for the marginalized, hospitality for the alien among us, and reconciliation between all.

We can be citizens of the kingdom of this world, or we can be citizens of Jesus’ kingdom of God. The choice was set before Jerusalem in 33 AD, and it is set before us today.