Journey's Weekly Homilies

Palm Sunday, Year B
April 13, 2003
homily by Sam

Isaiah 50:4-7
Philippeans 2
Mark 11:1-10

Someone once said, "I will express all facets of my being.  Despite state or local laws.  We have seen an example of that this weekend.  I'm not talking about the demonstration at Waterfront Park yesterday although I could be.  I'm not talking about the vital health products that this community is assembling today to send to Iraqi civilinas although the description still fits.  I speak of the demonstration that occurred on the last week of Jesus' life, a march that we have just repeated.

"I will express all aspects of my being despite state or local laws."  Today I will tell a story of the power of words.  I will explain the significance of the procession that led Jesus to the gates of the city of Jerusalem.  And I will talk about why such things matter to me.

The scene is South Africa in the early 1970's.  A young boy just learning to read walks down the streets with his father who is illiterate.  Today will be that boy's first  memory of apartheid.

For twenty years blacks have been banished to squalid townships, commuting for hours to work in white home and businesses.  Songs of protest and mass marches have failed to move the temples of power.  Nelson Mandela is ten years into a life sentence in South Africa's most brutal prison.  Other black leaders have been imprisoned or killed.  At the funeral of every martyr throngs of people
sing in protest, "Senzeni Na, Sono Sethu?"  "What have we done? What is our sing?"  That will become the anthem of their movement.

The young boy, oblivious to all of this, walks down the street, proud of his newfound reading skills.  He sees graffiti on the wall and slowly reads, "Free Mandela Or Bombs!"  His father, horrified, grabs him and scolds him.  The boy can read but does not know the meaning of the words.  The father cannot read the words but understands their meaning.  Some words are too powerful to speak.

Today we begin a week of stories and actions that express the core truths of our faith.  Like that young boy we say the words, sing the songs, and perform the rituals barely understanding the power of what we do.

Today we reenact the march on Jerusalem singing, "Be here among us!"  But do we really know why that got a man killed?  And do we understand what it will cost us if we follow after?
 
By the time Jesus reaches the gates of Jerusalem his legend has grown and he brings with him throngs of peasants who acclaim him as king and lord in in the memory of the great King David.  Jesus has used stories, symbolic healings, and disputes with the political and religious elite to confront the temple state that exploits them.  Today Jesus orchestrates his approach to Jerusalem.  He knows everything that will happen and he goes to his fate with eyes open.

Jesus does not demand a stately, powerful horse befitting a king or a successful military hero.  Instead he chooses a small colt.  The fact that this colt has never been ridden suggests that the animal has been set aside for this specific purpose, consecrated to this use.  Jesus promises to return the animal, highlighting the difference between himself and the Roman conquerers who confiscate peasant property and do not return it.  Jesus will be a different kind of lord than this.

The approach to Jerusalem is ominous.  It is the Passover and the city is teeming with pilgrims, many of them peasants like Jesus.  They have been driven to destitution by political and religious taxes.  Their wealth has been siphoned off to Jerusalem.  And here they are surrounding the gates of the city.  Are they here to  worship or to express their grievances?

The peasants acclaim Jesus not with palm branches as with the heroes from an earlier rebellion but with simple straw cut from the fields.  This is a poor people's movement marching on the wealth and gandeur of the nation.  The peasants lay down straw and coats to honor Jesus so that even the feet of his horse do not need to touch the ground.  They acclaim Jeus in the memory of David, the Shepherd king.  They cry out 'hosannah', which means, 'God save us'. 

This is a call for liberation, exactly what the religious and political leaders fear.  They have packed the city with armed men in case of this kind of uprising.  And now they call an emergency meeting to decide what to do with Jesus.  They need to arrest and kill him without inciting riots among his followers.  They will devise a plan to arrest Jesus in secret and systematically degrade him so that even his closest friends will not rally to his defense.

The prophet Zechariah has told of a day when Jerusalem will be occupied by foreign tyrants and God will rescue the nation by attacking them from the Mount of Olives.  Today Jesus scouts the temple and then retreats to the Mount of Olives to plan his next move.  Tomorrow he will throw the money changers out of the temple.  The next day he will return to preach against the false teachers.

Like every demonstration the march on Jerusalem establishes solidarity among angry and discouraged people.  It is also a show of strength to those in power.  Jesus and his followers are saying, "We will not be silent and we will not go away.  You will have to kill us all."  Like mobs of blacks singing "Senzeni Na" to the faces of their oppressors under apartheid.

Our Jesus does not lead a peasant revolt like Fidel Castro in Cuba.  He could if he wanted to but he is not that kind of Lord.  Unlike the masters that currently rule over the people Jesus serves only God and the justice that God calls for.  He declares that he is ready to die rather than be silent.  Now thousands rally around his example.  That is what we remember today.

The older I get the more committed I become to the work of peace, yet the less confident I am that I will see peace in my lifetime.  I continue to serve this cause because the longer I live the less important everything else becomes.  Silence and passivity in the face of injustice feels more and more like a kind of death, a death that Jesus refused.

Singing "Senzeni Na" did not end apartheid.  But it changed people.  And through forty years of songs and marches those people wore down the power and wealth of an empire without the use of violence.

Today we begin a week of stories, songs, and actions that celebrate the essence of Jesus' life.  Our songs and demonstrations in memory of Jesus wil not curb the money and power that drives our own leaders to conquer nations.  But they do break the silence.  The collective voicer and actons fo the American churches has been heard in the peace movement.  And that has given our leaders pause.

This week as we follow Jesus to Jerusalem may we sing with every ounce of our being.  Let us lay our lives beneath his feet today.  Let us join him in a prayer for peace at his last meal, mourn at the foot of the cross, and rejoice on Easter that the tomb is empty and he goes before us still.