But add to that the political context of Roman occupation. In their book, The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus’ Final Week in Jerusalem, John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg remind us that King Herod and Pontius Pilate are in town for a political rally: to display Roman imperial power and flex political muscle. Why? Because the Roman authorities are worried that a riot might break out as these religious pilgrims gather to remember that old, old story of the Exodus: that story about how the bonds of Pharaoh’s oppression were loosed and the captives went free. If people start to see the connections between Pharaoh and Caesar, they might just start telling old Caesar to let God’s people go (again!)
This weekend as Jews celebrate Passover, Christians will again celebrate Palm Sunday. While this is our second Holy Week in a row during the pandemic, the story remains the same even when the palms are "to go." In that story we are told by the gospel writers that Jesus enters the holy city on a donkey and that people wave their branches and shout, "hosanna, hosanna." The question needs to be asked: what exactly is Jesus up to? Are they singing “We Shall Overcome?” Is Jesus reminding his people that Passover isn’t just a remembering of the past, but a challenge to all misuses of power and authority in every time and place?
Politicians fear angry mobs, although on occasions when it serves their purposes, they also stir them up. When they want to squelch peaceful protests, however, they call them "angry mobs" and insist that they are just "keeping the peace.” The truth, however, is that the Pax Romana was less about pax and more about holding onto Romana power. Jesus comes to bring lasting shalom with justice that exposes the Pax Romana for what it really is.
There is a temptation for Christians (especially North American Christians) to turn Palm Sunday into a parade. When we do that, the liturgical move to the Passion always feels jarring. But this is not a Thanksgiving Day parade; this is more like a march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Understanding that dynamic makes it clearer what Jesus is up to. Borg and Crossan remind us that Jesus' procession into Jerusalem is not the main event that will be covered by the press on this day, but a kind of counter-protest to the Roman propaganda machine.
Over the years that I served as a parish priest, we always did the dramatic reading of the Passion Narrative on Palm Sunday and then again on Good Friday. In addition to the assigned roles, there is the part of the crowd which is "played" by everyone in attendance. Usually at least one person (and sometimes more than one) would confess to me at the door: "I didn’t say my lines. I don’t like to do that. I refuse to shout out, crucify him, crucify him.”
I used to think that the same crowd that greets Jesus with palm branches shouting, “Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” and the crowd that shouts, “crucify him” a few days later were one and the same, that both crowds were comprised of the same people. Our dramatic reading of the Passion reinforces this interpretation.
In addition, there are some very good Biblical commentaries that suggest that people are fickle: one minute we are looking for a messiah and the next we are wanting to kill him for not being the kind of messiah we wanted. And it’s not bad theology, actually. We do sometimes set up our heroes in order to tear them down. There is a verse in a rather old Good Friday hymn (by old I mean going back about four hundred years) that I think is very much in synch with that reading of who “the crowd” is. It goes like this:
Who
was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone
thee.
'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied
thee:
I crucified thee.
(The Hymnal 1982, page 158,
words by Johann Heermann (1585- 1647)
There is wisdom in understanding the Passion Narrative in this way and confessing our own complicity with the evil that rejects Jesus. It keeps us focused on confessing our own sin and our own complicity with evil rather than scapegoating others. It reminds us that we, too, are capable of getting sucked into a mob mentality. And in that sense it is good for us to shout out, “crucify him” because it has the potential to keep us honest and resist the temptation to project our own capacity for evil outwards. Throughout Church History, there is a great deal of evidence that the ones who have been blamed are “the Jews.” Not the individuals who conspired together in a specific context under a specific set of circumstances, but just “the Jews.” They killed Jesus. Singing Hymn 158 or participating in the Passion Reading as written challenges that approach. And that's a good thing. Moreover, as we enter into the events of this holy week it forces us to confront that part of us that wants our God, our Messiah, to fix everything, to be the Messiah we want him to be. And when Jesus disappoints us, we kill him. I crucified thee.
So maybe that is right. We are indeed a fickle bunch. And if we are not careful, we can contribute
to the polarization and demonization that are part of the human condition that lead to so much violence and fear in this world, where the innocent suffer
and die. We want to stand on the side of justice. But if we aren’t careful we
can become what William Sloan Coffin used to call “good haters.”
What I have learned from Borg and Crossan and my travels to Bethphage, however, is that there were almost certainly two events on that Palm Sunday in Jerusalem and therefore two different crowds. The more I've lived with this and watched the news in our own time, the more I've come to believe this is right. There is the pro-Rome rally and there is a a peaceful counter-demonstration on the other side of town. King Herod (the guy literally claims to be “the king of the Jews” without any irony) is in town for all the festivities. And of course Pontius Pilate is there too. In other words, these politicians are there for a big event and no doubt in the midst of all kinds of official festivities, the ones with the brass bands and the marching centurions.
The suggestion is that our procession, the one that begins in Bethphage on a donkey, is a counter-demonstration made up primarily of outsiders from the hills of Galilee who have finally arrived in Jerusalem. While they have been adding numbers along The Way, they are (at least when compared to the official parades) a much smaller group. In this reading of the text, they totally get it that when they claim Jesus as King of the Jews and as the Son of David, they are directly challenging Herod’s authority - and ultimately Caesar's authority. That’s not a “spiritual” claim. It’s not an otherworldly claim. It’s a direct challenge to the rulers of this world and the claims of the Roman Empire. When they say that Jesus is the true one, the awaited one, it’s a rallying cry. Jesus is Lord; not Caesar. Hosanna in the highest heaven. We shall overcome! Deep in my heart, I do believe…
In this reading, essentially what is about to unfold as we remember the last days of Jesus’ life is that these two crowds are about to collide. And as always happens, the stronger force will win. The powerful will crush the weak. They will silence the demonstrators by executing their leader. They’ll use force to scare them into running and hiding. Well, at least that is their goal. And that is what they will believe that they will have accomplished by Friday afternoon. And yet as it turns out, that isn’t the end of the story.
In the film version of The Hunger Games, Donald Sutherland plays President Snow. In that film, at one point President Snow says this:
Why do we have a winner?
Hope….hope is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective; a
lot of hope is dangerous.
Jesus comes into Jerusalem to offer a lot of hope, enough hope to cast out fear. But make no mistake about it: that is a very dangerous thing.
It can even get you killed. A lot of hope makes the powers-that-be incredibly nervous, and the political and religious
elites will respond swiftly and severely. They always do. Pontius Pilate in this reading is not
nearly so innocent as he may appear. He’s an astute politician, a first-century President
Snow who knows how dangerous too much hope can be. And so, before you know it,
there is an angry mob that has been stirred up, a mob that cries out for the
death of an innocent man even as a guilty man is set free.
If this reading is correct (and I'm convinced it is) then a whole new set
of questions emerge for us as we live our lives in this time and place. With which
crowd do we choose to associate? Where do we choose to stand in this world,
in the midst of deeply contested narratives about who is lord of our lives and the legitimate ruler of
this world? Do we stand in an angry mob or with those who are willing to lose
their lives to find them, for the sake of the Gospel? What do we render unto
Caesar? And what do we render unto God?
In this reading, the “crowd of protesters” that choose
to stand with Jesus (over and against all that hurts or destroys the creatures
of God) becomes a visible witness to an alternative way to be in this world, a counter-cultural
community over and against an angry mob comprised of those who allow themselves
to be manipulated by those who have the most to lose whenever too much hope is
unleashed. They are called to be light, and yeast, and salt.
Yet even here, truth be told, it is probably best to be humble about where we stand. Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we stand with the Communion of Saints, a great cloud of witnesses, and we rightly shout out, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” And sometimes we get sucked into the ways of this world and we find ourselves a part of the mob that shouts, “crucify him.” The Good News here, though, is that Jesus dies for the sins of the whole world: not only for the band of faithful disciples but for the sins of the whole lot. Our protesters and the angry mob; Peter and those women who came all the way from Galilee, but also Judas and Barabbas and Pontius Pilate and even Herod. The righteous and the unrighteous. The saints and the sinners. The whole world.
There is a prayer from the Reform Jewish Prayerbook, for Shabbat, that I have prayed with a kind of holy envy for many years now. I first came across it at the retirement of Rabbi Seth Bernstein, when I was still the rector of St. Francis in Holden. It made a powerful impact on me, and I think it is relevant to the reading of Palm Sunday I've offered above. It may feel especially appropriate as we are again trying to respond to gun violence in our nation, as people who are called to beat swords into plowshares. It goes like this:
DISTURB US, Adonai, ruffle us from our complacency. Make us
dissatisfied. Dissatisfied with the peace of ignorance, the quietude which
arises from a shunning of the horror, the defeat, the bitterness and the
poverty, physical and spiritual, of humans. Shock us, Adonai, deny to us the
false Shabbat which gives us the delusions of satisfaction amid a world of war
and hatred; Wake us O God, and shake us from the sweet and sad poignancies
rendered by half forgotten melodies and rubric prayers of yesteryears; Make us
know that the border of the sanctuary is not the border of living and the walls
of Your temples are not shelters from the winds of truth, justice and reality. Disturb
us, O God, and vex us; let not Your Shabbat be a day of torpor and slumber; let
it be a time to be stirred and spurred to action.
Baruch atah, Adonai, m'kadeish Ha
Shabbat
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