"Who Is This?"
March 16, 2008: Palm / Passion Sunday, Year A
The Rev. Caroline K. Murphy, interim senior minister
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.UnitedChurchontheGreen.org
Scripture:
"May God take these words and make from them a holy word for us today."
When they had come near Jerusalem
and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples,
saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately
you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring
them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The
Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately."
This took place to fulfill
what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, "Tell the daughter
of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a
donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
The disciples went and did
as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and
put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd
spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees
and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him
and that followed were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna
in the highest heaven!"
When he entered Jerusalem,
the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?" The
crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."
"Friends, God is still
speaking to the world. May our hearts be open to listen and respond.
Amen."
Sermon
"Who is this?"
There may no greater mystery than the question of who a person really
is. The news this week has been full of reports about what some
have been terming a governor's Shakespearian fall from grace; and
I suspect that our collective fascination with that fall has to do not
only with the irony of his being caught in the very kind of scandal
that he himself had prosecuted so vigorously, or with the glimpse it
affords us into the seamy underworld of prostitution, or with the twinge
of Schadenfreude that most of us more ordinary people can hardly help
but feel when we witness the fall of the high and mighty. All
those things have certainly been feeding into the publicity frenzy surrounding
Eliot Spitzer, but what may fascinate and trouble us the most is the
same question that must be keeping his wife and his family and perhaps
Eliot himself awake at night — the question, "Who is this, really?"
Who is this person that you thought you knew? What do I not know
about him or her? What do I not know about myself?
"Who is this?"
The same question seems to be on everyone's lips one spring morning
as a strange, exuberant little procession wends its way into Jerusalem.
Who is this person riding on a donkey at the center of it all?
What is it about this man that leads people to throw off their cloaks
and cut down the leafy branches of palm trees to lay in his path?
As Matthew tells the story, by the time the parade has reached Jerusalem,
the whole city is in a state of uproar, and the question has taken on
a pointed urgency. Who is this man who could spark such a sudden
outburst of enthusiasm? What promise, or what danger, does he
embody?
The air is filled with fragments
of answers. In fact, there seem to be as many different answers
as there are people in the crowd. Many of them have been shouting
out various names for the man riding on the donkey as they joyfully
wave their branches before him: King, son of David, the one coming
in the name of the Lord, the Anointed One, the prophet from the town
of Nazareth in Galilee, the One who will save us. The man's
very name, Jesus — Jeshua in Hebrew — means "save"; it
has the same root as the word "Hosanna." "Save us!" people
are shouting, "Hosanna!" Surely this is a savior of some kind,
or so people hope, but it may not be clear to anyone exactly what sort
of savior he is.
Other answers hover in the
air as well, not yet spoken out loud — not now, not in this moment
of celebration — but half whispered behind clenched teeth: trouble
maker, blasphemer, pretender, Sabbath breaker, false messiah.
Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, whose book about Holy Week some
of us have been reading during this Lenten season,1 may not be far off the mark in imagining
two processions leading into Jerusalem that spring morning: one the
semi-spontaneous, semi-planned, flash-mob kind of event that we read
about in the gospel accounts; the other, an imperial procession for
the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who would also have made his way
into Jerusalem for the Passover in a procession complete with mighty
steeds and swirling banners and gleaming swords. Within a few
short days, the forces represented by that procession — and by those
who are willing to collaborate with it — will come into deadly conflict
with the man riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey in this other,
rag-tag parade, with this Galilean rabbi who dares to proclaim the kingdom
of God.
Who is this man, and who are
these people throwing off their cloaks and waving their branches of
palm? What happens to them? Where do these jubilant crowds
go? How do they respond as the events of Holy Week unfold?
Crossan and Borg have also helped me see that they may not melt away
quite as quickly as we tend to imagine. In Mark's gospel, and
in Matthew's as well, they are shown listening to him eagerly as he
teaches in the Temple during the first part of Holy Week, hanging on
his every word, admiring his skill in sparring with the Temple authorities.
It is probably simplistic at best, and maybe even just plain wrong,
to imagine that the same people shouting out "Hosanna" one day are
crying, "Crucify him" just a few days later.
And yet, we cannot let either
the crowd off the hook too easily. Will none of them be there
on Friday morning, when Pilate presents a choice between releasing Jesus
or Barabbas? How many of them will find the courage, as a few
of the women will, to follow Jesus to Golgotha later that day and stand
at a distance, weeping? Where will a single voice be found —
from the crowd, or even from his closest circle of friends — to speak
out and come to Jesus' defense in his hour of need? And
what about those closest friends of Jesus? They include the companions
who will fall sleep when he asks them to keep watch with him for an
hour in the Garden of Gethsemane. They include Peter, who impetuously
promises his undying loyalty only to turn around and deny, not once
but three times, that he has ever laid eyes on Jesus. They include
Judas, who will betray him with a kiss. They include you and me,
with all our strong, unformed hopes for new life, all our confidence
in our own loyalty and goodness, all our frailty and cowardice.
Palm Sunday confronts us with
two basic questions: Who is this? Who is this Jesus riding
into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey? And who are you?
Who am I? To the latter set of questions, we can only answer —
I can only answer: a flawed human being living in a flawed society.
As for the first question, the question about Jesus, perhaps our best
answer comes from the Samaritan woman whom Jesus and some of us encountered
on our way to Jerusalem — the woman who is recorded as saying, "This
man knows everything I have ever done!" (John 4:29) and whom I hear
saying as well: "This man knows me fully: all my weaknesses, all my
failings, all my hopes and yearnings, and loves me unconditionally." 2
Sixteen years ago this spring,
I made the momentous life decision to be baptized, and I specifically
chose Palm Sunday as the day for my baptism. I chose to be baptized
on Palm Sunday because I actually love the ambiguity of this day, the
fragile and dangerous hope wafted through the air by the leafy palm
fronds, and the spontaneous boldness of those who throw off their cloaks,
even though they may not fully understand who this Jesus is or who they
themselves are. Those crowds helped me imagine that I, too, could
dare to call myself a follower of his Way, even though I might not understand
enough, believe enough, prove steadfast enough. They helped me
trust that I would be carried through whatever might come after that
Palm Sunday sixteen years ago — and after every Palm Sunday since
— not by my own goodness or strength but by the grace of God.
"Who is this?" You and I may not be able to plumb the depths of our own hearts, much less answer with words alone this central question of our faith. And yet, as the Palm Sunday procession wends its way into our meeting house this morning, and begins to lead us into Holy Week, we are so bold as to take a branch of palm into our hands, and to add our own voices to the chorus exclaiming: "Hosanna!" "Save us!" "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!" Amen.