Palm Sunday – A Planned Protest by Jesus?
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Associate Pastor Beth Henricks
March 24, 2024
Friends, it is good to be with you on this Palm Sunday. I always love to see our kids start our service with the remembrance of waving palms as Jesus is headed into Jerusalem on a colt with people shouting hosanna, meaning we beseech you to deliver us. It is the first day of the holy week that many Christians celebrate throughout the world and has traditionally been a day of celebration of Jesus ministry .
Our scripture this morning is Mark 8:27-36 NRSV version.
27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”
28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”
29 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”
30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.
31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life[b] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?
I have been reading the Tim Alberta book, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory as well as The Last Week by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan this past month and have been reflecting on the meaning of Palm Sunday. Early on in my spiritual journey, I always had a hard time with Palm Sunday (even as I enjoyed the pageantry and joyous celebration of the traditional day in our Christian culture). How could the large crowd honoring Jesus, turn against him in one week and choose Barabbas to go free over Jesus? As I have continued to read, study, reflect and listen to Biblical scholars a different picture has appeared to me. I’d like to explore and wrestle with some of my reflections and continual openings about this important event in our Christian heritage.
The most detailed account we have of holy week appears in the gospel of Mark as it gives a day-by-day account of Jesus activities. Most Biblical scholars agree that this gospel was written about 60-70 years after Jesus’ death. That is a significant amount of time to lapse to record a detailed description of Jesus life and ministry. Many scholars also agree that Mark was the first gospel written and that Matthew and Luke utilized a lot of the material found in Mark as well as another piece of writing called the Q source.
Jesus procession into Jerusalem paralleled another procession that was occurring around the same time – one where Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor was entering Jerusalem at the time of Passover to display the power and glory of the Roman Empire. The fact that Jesus comes riding into this important city of Jerusalem on a donkey highlights the different kind of leader that he was. Jesus is painting the picture of the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Empire. God’s kingdom is so different than the oppressive kingdom of Rome.
It seems clear that Jesus planned this ahead of time as a protest and demonstration of God’s realm. It was the peasants that attended Jesus’ parade and its leader is riding in on a donkey. Jesus utilized symbolism from the Jewish scripture found in Zechariah 9:9 that Israel’s future king would be “humble, and riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” In Zechariah 9:10 it describes what kind of king this would be – he would ”cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off and he shall command peace to the nations.” We sense that there is going to be a clash between these two kingdoms. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan describe this coming clash as one that takes on the domination system of the day - with a definition of domination system from them as follows – “The phrase domination system is shorthand for the most common form of social system – a way of organizing a society – in ancient and premodern times, that is , in preindustrial agrarian societies. It names a social system marked by 3 major features: political oppression, economic exploitation, religious legitimation (meaning the leader is ordained by God).”
This domination system didn’t stop when we became an industrialized world. It has continued in various forms and iterations in many places in our world.
In Jesus time, the Jewish temple authorities collaborated with the domination system of Rome. This was the method the Roman empire deployed in areas that they took over militarily. They relied on the wealthy and influential in the society to enforce their rules, laws, and taxation. In Jerusalem that was the temple priests and authorities that were Jewish. Part of Jesus protest parade was to criticize these collaborators with the Roman domination system. It’s important to remember that many of these wealthy, influential and powerful people were not bad or evil and many did good works for others. Jesus’ criticism was more about their participation in the domination system that oppressed people politically, economically, and religiously. However, I think these temple authorities were in a difficult situation. Do they cooperate with the domination system that controlled all their lives and maybe help make the common folks lives as good as they could be while they are living in a territory that Rome overtook? Do they say to themselves, this is the way things are now and I have to accept them even though this would not be my choice? How do these folks walk the line between not angering their captors in Rome while not angering their Jewish kin?
Jesus talks a lot about the kingdom of God during his ministry. This was deadly talk as kingdom was all about political kingdom. This sounds like insurrection talk to speak about a different kingdom and king than the emperor. This kingdom that Jesus describes is one that demands sacrifice. And who did Jesus mostly deliver this message to? The poor. They know what sacrifice means. And this is the way, the path, the journey to the kingdom of God. We believe in the good news of this kingdom of God, God’s alignment against the domination system and the support of the poor, the oppressed and the folks that live in the margins. It’s interesting to read Mark 8:34 if we put ourselves in the story at the time of Jesus entrance into Jerusalem. Jesus says, “ if any of you want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” If the author of Mark is describing the events of Jesus entering Jerusalem, the cross had one meaning. The cross is a symbol of destruction of an enemy of the domination system. Anyone that challenged the authority of the Roman Empire would be put to death by the cross. And yet Jesus is telling his followers that they must follow this path that could lead to the cross. Jesus is calling his followers to defy, protest, work to change the domination system and its power. What a radical message!
Sometimes we think of Jesus entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as a peaceful and loving entrance into this city. I think it was anything but that. Jesus knew exactly what he was doing and knew this was part of his protest and sacrifice to show a different way, a different path to live and to be part of the kingdom of God.
I am a student of the Bible and spend much time studying it, being challenged on it, trying to understand it in the context of the time it was written and most importantly reflecting on its meaning in my life today. Because of this love and appreciation for the truths I embrace from the Bible, I am deeply concerned about how it’s being used today to divide us and I am heartbroken that we often pledge our allegiance to a kingdom of nation over a kingdom of God. Do we serve God or the political powers of the day?
I listened to an interview by Tim Alberta (journalist at The Atlantic) last month on this new book about the rise of Evangelical Christianity. Tim’s story resonated with me as he is a Christian and the son of a preacher in Michigan (where I am from – not the daughter of a preacher but my mom was a spiritual giant in our Nazarene church growing up). He talked about a profound moment last year when his dad who had retired from the ministry had a massive heart attack and passed away. His service was at Cornerstone church in Brighton MI where Tim grew up and his dad was the pastor for many years and he was shocked that in this most vulnerable and grief-stricken moment, some members of the church wanted to question him about some of his political statements as a journalist. He was in disbelief that his beloved church would not offer him love and care and embrace during this sad time. I knew I had to read his book as he tried to explain this change in many Christian faith communities.
Tim examines the rise of nationalism within the evangelical Christian community. He traveled the country to talk with pastors and faith leaders to hear about their congregations, the rise of political engagement of their congregants and the blurring of politics and religion. Tim writes how many of our churches are putting the kingdom of this world above the kingdom of God.
I was drawn to one pastor he interviewed named John Torres, pastor of Goodwill Evangelical Presbyterian church in Montgomery New York. Tim joined a service one Sunday morning to hear a message that Torres shared with his congregation titled “The One We Didn’t Plan”. Torres examined how earlier in the chapter of the gospel of Mark, Jesus had just done a number of miracles and the disciples were seeing how the people responded to Jesus and these miracles from God. At this point Jesus asks them who do you think I am, and Peter answers the Messiah. This is what the Jewish people had been waiting for hundreds of years. And these disciples were going to be a part of this. They probably envisioned being part of Jesus court when he was crowned the new king bringing in a new kingdom of this world. But Jesus told the disciples to not share his identify to the people because the time was not right. And he began to share more with them how he would be taken into custody by temple and Roman authorities, tortured and killed but would rise again on the third day after his death.
What! This was too much for the disciples to take in. This was not what they had imagined or signed up for when they left their homes and families to follow Jesus. They weren’t going to be elevated to a ruling status with Jesus but were going to be associated with this man that the authorities were going to put to death. What was God doing?
The narrative of Mark in some of the verses that Bob read for us describes that Peter “began to rebuke him” Surely you are wrong Jesus, this is not how this should turn out, not what we had planned. Jesus response to this rebuke is strong. He says to Peter, “Get behind me Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Interesting that this is the same language that Jesus used in the desert when he had his confrontation with Satan who offered Jesus the kingdom of this world and Jesus gave the same rebuke, get thee behind me Satan.
I think the procession into Jerusalem on this first day of Passover received a standing ovation from the people because they believed, like the disciples had believed, that Jesus was their messiah, going to be their earthly king and change the domination system that they lived under. Hosanna – a psalm of praise for their Savior. This was the savior that they had been waiting for their entire life.
But as the disciples have learned earlier in their journey with Jesus, this is not going to be the outcome they have anticipated and wanted. Jesus is going to be captured by authorities, tortured, and killed. Jesus was not talking about the installation of an earthly king but of a kingdom of God beyond our country and our world.
Friends, what worries me in this day and age is that our Christian principles, our beliefs, our actions have taken us to extreme places to support our version of this worldly kingdom and systems that run our communities. What are we putting ahead of our desire to live as Jesus lived. I have been examining my own heart and what are the things that I put ahead of following the example of Christ. How do I allow power, greed and a need for self-importance play out in my words, actions, and deeds. God’s kingdom requires taking up a cross, suffering, going against what is popular, turning upside down many of the domination systems that control our lives.
The parade and demonstration that Jesus planned on this Palm Sunday is a call for me to examine my heart, what are my motivations and how do I participate in supporting the powers that be of this world. Where is my treasure and am I following the way of Jesus?
I close with a story from a couple of weeks ago when I was subbing for Tiffany teaching our PreK – kindergarten kids. We were talking about Palm Sunday and the procession with Jesus on the donkey and his followers shouting hosanna and laying down their cloaks for him. We also talked about a different parade going on at the same time with the Governor of Rome coming in on horses, with fancy robes , many soldiers and jewels and glory. We talked about how Jesus was showing the way to a different kind of King. And Franny said to all of us that Jesus was the love king. What a beautiful expression to consider this new kind of kingdom that Jesus showed us.
Please consider the following queries as we enter our time of waiting worship.
Are we prepared to take up our cross and follow the way of Jesus?
Is my priority the kingdom of God or the kingdom of this world? Do I seek the glory of power more than the glory of God?