All Glory, Laud, and Honor

And so we came to Bethpage...to the Palm Sunday Church.

I will be positively unbearable next Palm Sunday when I insist on pronouncing it Beth-Phagee, "the house of the little fig." Hopefully I will be able to resist that temptation!

Stephen gave a rather brilliant meditation/reflection about Empire as we gathered at the church where the ecumenical Christian community of Jerusalem gathers each year on Palm Sunday to receive their palms and make the journey to the old city of Jerusalem. He reminded us of John Dominic Crossan's point that Pontius Pilate would ride into the city on a horse during major festivals. In other words, riding in on a donkey is a parody; Jesus is mocking the powers-that-be. Challenging the authorities in such ways can get you killed of course; which is the whole point.


I remember as a child, sitting in the Hawley United Methodist Church and wondering each Holy Week why anyone would want to kill "nice Jesus." Liturgically, every year I get a variation on the same question from parishioners about the shift from the "triumphant" liturgy of the Palms to the Passion Narrative. It feels so abrupt. In fact, the RSV has a heading on the Palm Sunday story that speaks of Jesus "triumphant entry into Jerusalem." But Stephen's reflections offer another way to think about the liturgy that I think is compelling: imperial power in every time and place is about domination and violence and control. In contrast, Jesus proclaims another reality: the Kingdom of God which is about servanthood, non-violence, and openness to God's Spirit. When we bifurcate politics and religion we tend to see Jesus riding into the city as a "spiritual/heavenly" king who has nothing to do with the kingdoms of this world. But in fact he is directly challenging imperial power; exposing it as a lie by offering an alternative reality that is intended for earth, as it is in heaven: peace with justice.

"Save us, King of Israel," the crowds cry out as they lay down their palm branches. So, too, we cry out: in Port-au-Prince, in Jerusalem, in Washington, D.C. But as Jesus rides into the city preaching non-violence, servanthood, and justice the imperial powers kick into what they do best. They silence all voices of dissent; all voices that challenge their power. Jesus doesn't enter the city triumphantly; he isn't in some victory parade. Rather, he's leading a movement and what follows is predictable: the authorities galvinize and respond with overwhelming force and violence. They crucify him.

What then does it mean to follow this Jesus not just into the city of Jerusalem but in the places where we live and work? What does it mean for us to unmask the powers and confront them? Peace--not only in Jerusalem but all over the world, will not come with soft words or trimphalism but through servanthood, sacrifice, and the way of non-violence. And yet we make a huge mistake if we don't see that as extraordinarily costly.

We are nearing the end of our time here and tracing the footsteps of Jesus takes us deeper still into the heart of the Paschal mystery: through the events of Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That is what is left for us to explore as our time here begins to come to an end.