Which parade?
Commentary
Object:
This Palm Sunday afternoon, I will be joining a festive Walk for Affordable Housing organized by a local nonprofit. It seems particularly appropriate to do this on Palm Sunday, a day of processions and celebrations at churches across the country, but also a day on which we encounter the stark story of Jesus' Passion and death. Joyful processions meet stark suffering and the march to Golgotha. Palm Sunday invites us to notice where we find ourselves in the story of Holy Week and to discern where in this story God calls us to be.
Isaiah 50:4-9a
This third Servant Song in Isaiah, like the passage from Philippians that follows, appears every Palm Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary. Only the gospel readings change through the three-year lectionary cycle. Beginning today and continuing through Holy Week, our readings from the Hebrew scriptures support the stories of Jesus' Passion in striking ways and it is easy to read Jesus backward into much older texts. Here in Isaiah, the prophet who seeks to comfort and encourage an exiled people is met with scorn and abuse, but takes his strength and finds his integrity in God even as others do their best to shame him. While the parallels with Jesus' active embrace of suffering are clear, it is worth contemplating the time and place of the original writer. Chapters 40-55 in Isaiah comprise the section scholars generally call Second Isaiah, from the sixth century BCE. It comes from the time of the Babylonian exile but during the rise of Cyrus of Persia, under whose reign the exile came to an end and who allowed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. Despite the current sufferings of the people, the prophet foresees a hopeful future and the return of the exiles to their homeland. Yet for preaching this message of hope, the prophet receives scorn and abuse. The dynamic here is a bit different from the politics of empire that surrounded Jesus' suffering and crucifixion. Here, it is the people themselves who do not wish to have their hopes raised, who do not wish to hear that Cyrus is God's anointed coming to free them from their oppression (Isaiah 45:1). For a discouraged, oppressed people, an invitation to hope brings the prospect of further disappointment. It is easier to disparage the hopeful messenger than to risk thinking anything will ever change. While Jesus' message was embraced by many, which alarmed the authorities, in Isaiah the prophet stands alone with God, preaching hope to a people so beaten down that they would rather reject him and his message than dare to believe circumstances could ever change.
Philippians 2:5-11
Like the Third Servant Song from Isaiah, this passage from Philippians is read every year on Palm Sunday. This passage too can be called a song. Scholars generally agree that Paul is quoting an early Christian hymn in these seven verses. It amazes me to realize that just a couple of decades after Jesus' death and resurrection the early church was formed enough to share common hymns exalting Jesus, such that Paul could quote them in his letters. While there may be some allusions to Second Isaiah's images of the slave or suffering servant, this hymn clearly represents vital new understandings of God's saving action through Jesus. It is likely that in verse 10, the words "every knee should bend" reflected the action of the singing congregation who bowed or knelt in praise of Jesus. The transformation of Jesus from obedient slave in verses 5-8 to Lord and master in verses 9-11 represents a cosmic turnaround and triumph. For Paul, this triumph it integral to his message of putting on the mind of Christ and embracing humility in Christian life.
Matthew 26:14--27:66
In addition to this passage recounting the events of the Last Supper through Jesus' burial, many churches will also read Matthew 21:1-11 today: the passage that tells of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Depending on local custom and how the worship service is organized, preachers may choose to preach on Matthew 21 and leave the Passion gospel to be read at the end of the service and interpreted during the services of Holy Week, or to preach on the totality of Palm Sunday/Passion. Some congregations will have strong Holy Week traditions and attendance and others not. So much happens and is read on this day that preaching can be a particular challenge.
It is worth noting that even in churches with a strong tradition and attendance at Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services, Palm Sunday is the only time this week that we will hear Matthew's version of the Passion. For Holy Week, and through much of the season of Easter, we will hear accounts from the gospel of John. In Matthew, as in the other synoptic gospels, Jesus' celebrated entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday ends at the temple, where he drives out the moneychangers (Matthew 21:12-13), a part of the story seldom read on Palm Sunday. For the next several days leading up to the Passover, Jesus teaches and heals in the temple, telling parables and challenging the Sadducees and Pharisees, who eventually plot to arrest and kill him (Matthew 21-26). His teaching in the temple includes prophecies of the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple (Matthew 24), and it is worth remembering that Matthew's gospel was written after these apocalyptic events occurred and likely in the midst of conflict within surviving Jewish communities about how to proceed after such devastation. The author of Matthew tells the story of Jesus to Jewish followers of Jesus who may have had some divisions within their ranks, and who certainly were divided from the surviving Pharisee-led Jewish community. Unique among the gospel writers, Matthew is trying to make sense of both Jesus and Judaism in light of the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman armies.
In John's gospel, written at a later date and after the expulsion of Christians from the synagogue, Jesus drives the moneychangers out of the temple soon after his baptism -- at the beginning, not the end, of his ministry (John 2:13-22) -- and it is his raising of Lazarus and the ensuing enthusiasm of the crowd that draw the censure of the Jewish authorities (John 11:45-53).
The Jesus that we encounter in Matthew's account of Palm Sunday and Holy Week is no innocent, shrinking violet. He rides boldly into the very center of life in Jerusalem and, in the case of the moneylenders, literally upends it. Though his disciples resist it, he knows the consequences his actions will bring and he attempts to prepare his followers for his betrayal, arrest, and death.
Application
The third Monday in April is observed as Patriots' Day in Massachusetts. It is the day of the Boston Marathon and the day the Red Sox return to Fenway Park, but it has its origins in the first shots fired in the Revolutionary War during the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. We live near these historic towns and a couple of years ago on a warm, sunny day after a long, snowy winter, my husband and I took our three-year-old to see our town's Patriots' Day parade. We were looking forward to bands and floats and the general excitement of watching our daughter's first parade with her, but the reality turned out to be a bit different. Emergency service vehicles -- fire trucks, police cars, ambulances -- made up a good portion of the parade, and while they were fun to watch, they also turned on their sirens and blew their air horns with painful regularity, making us and those near us wince and cover our ears. Then there were the fife and drum corps, accompanied by people in Revolution-era dress carrying Revolution-era muskets that they would stop, prime, and fire at unpredictable intervals. For a small child it was scary and sometimes painful. Though some of the parade was enjoyable, it was not an experience we've cared to repeat.
Holy Week brings us two very different parades -- Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and his march to Golgotha on Good Friday. Of the many possible sermon themes for the day, these two processions may help to frame some reflections. As I had forgotten and rediscovered again at that Patriots' Day parade, parades are almost always in some way a display of power. Military muscle and public safety are on display; politicians walk or wave from cars. Even the fun things like floats and bands and clowns on silly bicycles show the power of an organized group to achieve something no individual could do alone. Parades may show off the powers that be, or in the case of protest marches show up the powers that be, but somehow they are a clear sign of power in this world. On Palm Sunday, the joyful enthusiasm of the crowd for Jesus entering Jerusalem was a threat to the powers of Jerusalem. Even though Jesus' choice of a donkey was a symbol of entering in peace (riding a horse would have been a symbol of war), in the delicate balance of the politics of that day it was a scary event. The Romans had before and would again violently put down any sign of serious uprising. The Jewish leaders understandably were scared of unrest Jesus could foment. Throughout Matthew's account, fear of a riot drives the decisions of those responsible for Jesus' arrest and death (Matthew 26:3-5; 27:24).
From the joyful procession that Jesus led into Jerusalem, the solemn procession to Golgotha on Good Friday is driven by soldiers, who march Jesus to his place of execution and compel a bystander to carry the cross for him. The Stations of the Cross tradition gives a much fuller picture of this last journey than Matthew's simple account of the walk to Golgotha. Here, the power of the state to shame and destroy is on display. It is a public parade of humiliation designed not only to execute Jesus, but to keep all who see it in their place. A parade led by joy, a parade driven by fear -- where do we spend most of our days? Which parade are we marching in?
A few years ago, I was privileged to join a church mission trip to El Salvador. I was nervous about going, afraid that a country that had suffered so much in recent history would still bear great trauma and open wounds. I went expecting Good Friday, but instead encountered people who knew Easter deeply and practiced Easter life as they rebuilt their country and raised their families. The assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980 can provide a modern-day retelling of the politics of oppression and injustice that surrounded Jesus' death. In Jesus, in Romero, in so many places if we will only look, we see God's triumph over death and all the powers of evil. The powers of this world continue to do their worst, as any newspaper will tell us. But on the other side of death comes resurrection, and there, just maybe, the need for parades is done. Or maybe there are no longer marchers and watchers, but one great procession, perhaps even a dance, approaching the throne of God.
Isaiah 50:4-9a
This third Servant Song in Isaiah, like the passage from Philippians that follows, appears every Palm Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary. Only the gospel readings change through the three-year lectionary cycle. Beginning today and continuing through Holy Week, our readings from the Hebrew scriptures support the stories of Jesus' Passion in striking ways and it is easy to read Jesus backward into much older texts. Here in Isaiah, the prophet who seeks to comfort and encourage an exiled people is met with scorn and abuse, but takes his strength and finds his integrity in God even as others do their best to shame him. While the parallels with Jesus' active embrace of suffering are clear, it is worth contemplating the time and place of the original writer. Chapters 40-55 in Isaiah comprise the section scholars generally call Second Isaiah, from the sixth century BCE. It comes from the time of the Babylonian exile but during the rise of Cyrus of Persia, under whose reign the exile came to an end and who allowed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. Despite the current sufferings of the people, the prophet foresees a hopeful future and the return of the exiles to their homeland. Yet for preaching this message of hope, the prophet receives scorn and abuse. The dynamic here is a bit different from the politics of empire that surrounded Jesus' suffering and crucifixion. Here, it is the people themselves who do not wish to have their hopes raised, who do not wish to hear that Cyrus is God's anointed coming to free them from their oppression (Isaiah 45:1). For a discouraged, oppressed people, an invitation to hope brings the prospect of further disappointment. It is easier to disparage the hopeful messenger than to risk thinking anything will ever change. While Jesus' message was embraced by many, which alarmed the authorities, in Isaiah the prophet stands alone with God, preaching hope to a people so beaten down that they would rather reject him and his message than dare to believe circumstances could ever change.
Philippians 2:5-11
Like the Third Servant Song from Isaiah, this passage from Philippians is read every year on Palm Sunday. This passage too can be called a song. Scholars generally agree that Paul is quoting an early Christian hymn in these seven verses. It amazes me to realize that just a couple of decades after Jesus' death and resurrection the early church was formed enough to share common hymns exalting Jesus, such that Paul could quote them in his letters. While there may be some allusions to Second Isaiah's images of the slave or suffering servant, this hymn clearly represents vital new understandings of God's saving action through Jesus. It is likely that in verse 10, the words "every knee should bend" reflected the action of the singing congregation who bowed or knelt in praise of Jesus. The transformation of Jesus from obedient slave in verses 5-8 to Lord and master in verses 9-11 represents a cosmic turnaround and triumph. For Paul, this triumph it integral to his message of putting on the mind of Christ and embracing humility in Christian life.
Matthew 26:14--27:66
In addition to this passage recounting the events of the Last Supper through Jesus' burial, many churches will also read Matthew 21:1-11 today: the passage that tells of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Depending on local custom and how the worship service is organized, preachers may choose to preach on Matthew 21 and leave the Passion gospel to be read at the end of the service and interpreted during the services of Holy Week, or to preach on the totality of Palm Sunday/Passion. Some congregations will have strong Holy Week traditions and attendance and others not. So much happens and is read on this day that preaching can be a particular challenge.
It is worth noting that even in churches with a strong tradition and attendance at Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services, Palm Sunday is the only time this week that we will hear Matthew's version of the Passion. For Holy Week, and through much of the season of Easter, we will hear accounts from the gospel of John. In Matthew, as in the other synoptic gospels, Jesus' celebrated entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday ends at the temple, where he drives out the moneychangers (Matthew 21:12-13), a part of the story seldom read on Palm Sunday. For the next several days leading up to the Passover, Jesus teaches and heals in the temple, telling parables and challenging the Sadducees and Pharisees, who eventually plot to arrest and kill him (Matthew 21-26). His teaching in the temple includes prophecies of the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple (Matthew 24), and it is worth remembering that Matthew's gospel was written after these apocalyptic events occurred and likely in the midst of conflict within surviving Jewish communities about how to proceed after such devastation. The author of Matthew tells the story of Jesus to Jewish followers of Jesus who may have had some divisions within their ranks, and who certainly were divided from the surviving Pharisee-led Jewish community. Unique among the gospel writers, Matthew is trying to make sense of both Jesus and Judaism in light of the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman armies.
In John's gospel, written at a later date and after the expulsion of Christians from the synagogue, Jesus drives the moneychangers out of the temple soon after his baptism -- at the beginning, not the end, of his ministry (John 2:13-22) -- and it is his raising of Lazarus and the ensuing enthusiasm of the crowd that draw the censure of the Jewish authorities (John 11:45-53).
The Jesus that we encounter in Matthew's account of Palm Sunday and Holy Week is no innocent, shrinking violet. He rides boldly into the very center of life in Jerusalem and, in the case of the moneylenders, literally upends it. Though his disciples resist it, he knows the consequences his actions will bring and he attempts to prepare his followers for his betrayal, arrest, and death.
Application
The third Monday in April is observed as Patriots' Day in Massachusetts. It is the day of the Boston Marathon and the day the Red Sox return to Fenway Park, but it has its origins in the first shots fired in the Revolutionary War during the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. We live near these historic towns and a couple of years ago on a warm, sunny day after a long, snowy winter, my husband and I took our three-year-old to see our town's Patriots' Day parade. We were looking forward to bands and floats and the general excitement of watching our daughter's first parade with her, but the reality turned out to be a bit different. Emergency service vehicles -- fire trucks, police cars, ambulances -- made up a good portion of the parade, and while they were fun to watch, they also turned on their sirens and blew their air horns with painful regularity, making us and those near us wince and cover our ears. Then there were the fife and drum corps, accompanied by people in Revolution-era dress carrying Revolution-era muskets that they would stop, prime, and fire at unpredictable intervals. For a small child it was scary and sometimes painful. Though some of the parade was enjoyable, it was not an experience we've cared to repeat.
Holy Week brings us two very different parades -- Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and his march to Golgotha on Good Friday. Of the many possible sermon themes for the day, these two processions may help to frame some reflections. As I had forgotten and rediscovered again at that Patriots' Day parade, parades are almost always in some way a display of power. Military muscle and public safety are on display; politicians walk or wave from cars. Even the fun things like floats and bands and clowns on silly bicycles show the power of an organized group to achieve something no individual could do alone. Parades may show off the powers that be, or in the case of protest marches show up the powers that be, but somehow they are a clear sign of power in this world. On Palm Sunday, the joyful enthusiasm of the crowd for Jesus entering Jerusalem was a threat to the powers of Jerusalem. Even though Jesus' choice of a donkey was a symbol of entering in peace (riding a horse would have been a symbol of war), in the delicate balance of the politics of that day it was a scary event. The Romans had before and would again violently put down any sign of serious uprising. The Jewish leaders understandably were scared of unrest Jesus could foment. Throughout Matthew's account, fear of a riot drives the decisions of those responsible for Jesus' arrest and death (Matthew 26:3-5; 27:24).
From the joyful procession that Jesus led into Jerusalem, the solemn procession to Golgotha on Good Friday is driven by soldiers, who march Jesus to his place of execution and compel a bystander to carry the cross for him. The Stations of the Cross tradition gives a much fuller picture of this last journey than Matthew's simple account of the walk to Golgotha. Here, the power of the state to shame and destroy is on display. It is a public parade of humiliation designed not only to execute Jesus, but to keep all who see it in their place. A parade led by joy, a parade driven by fear -- where do we spend most of our days? Which parade are we marching in?
A few years ago, I was privileged to join a church mission trip to El Salvador. I was nervous about going, afraid that a country that had suffered so much in recent history would still bear great trauma and open wounds. I went expecting Good Friday, but instead encountered people who knew Easter deeply and practiced Easter life as they rebuilt their country and raised their families. The assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980 can provide a modern-day retelling of the politics of oppression and injustice that surrounded Jesus' death. In Jesus, in Romero, in so many places if we will only look, we see God's triumph over death and all the powers of evil. The powers of this world continue to do their worst, as any newspaper will tell us. But on the other side of death comes resurrection, and there, just maybe, the need for parades is done. Or maybe there are no longer marchers and watchers, but one great procession, perhaps even a dance, approaching the throne of God.
