The Contender
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Violence has fragmented our world again this week. It seems almost pandemic. Thousands of Lebanese defied a ban on public protest after the horrid assassination of their former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. Last Wednesday, 39 bodies of Iraq's trained rapid response units were found. Some had been savagely beheaded, others shot. Every day this week there were reports of suicide bombings. In Baghdad, the Associated Press reported that American troops "fired on a car rushing Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to freedom on Friday after a month in captivity, killing the Italian intelligence officer who helped negotiate her release and wounding the reporter in another friendly-fire tragedy at a U.S. checkpoint." "Renditioning" is now the U.S. code word for clandestine kidnappings and torture. Reuters News shocked Americans who thought we were making progress against terrorists at home when it reported that 35 people on the U.S. government terrorist watch list received government approval to buy guns legally in the U.S. last year! (In my state of Virginia, it is actually legal to sit in a pew while packing heat!)
Violence is the tool of desperate people who hurt and divide others when they cannot get their way by any other means. Take your own pulse for violence. Have you ever put money into a soda machine, gotten ripped off, and then kicked the thing, hoping it would finally dislodge the drink you were thirsting for? Violence is the acting out of our frustration with a major lost illusion: that if only this or that would happen, things would work out, we could get it right. That illusion, which we grieve letting go is, simply put, the belief that we can save ourselves.
As if the violence-drenched world we live in is not enough, this past week television show producers loaded our virtual basket with yet one more violence-prone reality TV show titled The Contender. It's a Sylvester Stallone narrated series about professional boxers and their self-punishing drive to be prize-winning champs. The show follows a resurgence in boxing mania in the media after Ken Burns' PBS documentary on Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, and Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning film, Million Dollar Baby. The sport of boxing is now turning the heads of people in our pews that have never shown the slightest interest in watching one person beat out the brains of another. Has the reality of everyday violence in our world made us more immune to violence, more tolerant of it? It appears so.
Jesus, the New Contender
On Palm Sunday, then, what do we do with Jesus who rides humbly into Jerusalem, a violent place that Matthew tells us kills its prophets and stones those who sent them? (15:1; 23:37). Unlike previous victors, such as Alexander the Great who, in 332 B.C. rode into Jerusalem on a magnificent war horse, Jesus enters as an unassuming, lowly servant. The crowds cry "Hosanna!" a Greek translation of the Hebrew hosian'na, which means "Save us." Yet it comes out of their mouths like a secular cheer, "God save the Queen!" They don't really mean it. After the cheers died down, Jesus' presence in the city has everyone scurrying about in turmoil asking, "Who is this man?" (v. 10). Actually the Greek is much more dramatic, implying that his entry shook the foundations of the city, as an earthquake might. From the day of Jesus' birth, Matthew has foreshadowed that this man would shake up the world, and shake up our hopes and dreams along with it. When Herod heard the news of Jesus' birth the entire region was stirred up about it (2:3). What was it about his coming to Jerusalem that was so disturbing? Do his nonviolent, peace-loving ways contend with our illusions that "might makes right," that if we are just clever enough, rich enough, politically savvy enough, militarily strong enough, we can save ourselves? Absolutely!
Contending with Reality
Americans live by the dream that hard work and success can save us. Sadly, many people will do anything to make that happen. Jesus comes to Jerusalem fearlessly to contend with our self-made efforts to save ourselves, which only result in a sense of frustration and defeat. The story of Najai Turpin is a case in point.
Najai Turpin was a 23-year-old semi-finalist in The Contender, the new reality show that aired this past week. Turpin was the producer's Rocky Balboa character. He was from Philadelphia and also had Rocky's winning smile that turned female heads. On Valentine's Day, just weeks before the show aired, Najai Turpin committed suicide after a night of partying and a conversation with the mother of his two-year-old. Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post wrote reflectively, "In the reality TV world that Najai Turpin entered ... he lived in an eight-bedroom Southern California loft.... In the real world, Turpin lived with his younger sister in a North Philadelphia housing project where, 'if you spit, you spittin' in someone else's yard,' as a neighbor, Anthony Williams, put it.... In the reality TV world, Turpin spent several weeks training in a state-of-the-art gym with 15 boxers promised 'an opportunity of a lifetime': a chance to win $1 million during the show's live finale, a fight at Caesars Palace. In the real world, Turpin trained with his friends in a one-ring gym where a painting of a fighter who was murdered last year hangs on the back wall." The Washington Post (March 7, 2005) reported that Turpin's fellow friend and fighter, Frank Walker, commented, "They took him out of reality and put him in a reality show. They took a real person and made him into a character." Producer Mark Burnett (also known for The Survivor and The Apprentice) maintained that the show had nothing to do with Turpin's suicide and that in the television series, "we are showing the reality of this guy's life."
Dan Steinberg wrote that Turpin had his own American dream: the belief that he could "fight my way out of the ghetto." Turpin grew up in a housing project; his mother died when he was eighteen and his father remained distant. Turpin single-handedly worked as a cook to support his two younger siblings. His dream was to become a prize-winning boxer with a big house where all of his siblings, nieces, and nephews could live with him. Steinberg wrote he was obsessed with "giving his daughter a better life" (Washington Post, March 7, 2005). Turpin's tragedy causes us to question the illusion of the American dream perpetuated by reality shows that drive young people to believe that they are nothing if not a winner; nothing if not Number One. An act of violence, a shot to his temple with a semiautomatic weapon, was Turpin's way out when his dreams failed him.
Contending with Lost Illusions
Jesus' entry into Jerusalem symbolized his readiness to contend with the brokenness of humanity, especially people like Najai Turpin. Preachers can easily extend this theme by incorporating into worship a reading of Nehemiah 1:1-4; 2:11-18. The text fits Matthew's Palm Sunday reading like a hand in a glove. The prophet Nehemiah, dismayed by the sight of Jerusalem in ruins, examines the city walls. Riding a donkey in and out of all the burned and collapsed gates of the city, Nehemiah commits to rebuild the city in the same way that Jesus' entry into Jerusalem proclaimed his determination to contend with everything that threatens to break the human spirit and separate us from the core of faith which is radical dependence upon God. Jesus does not back down, no matter how much his arrival begins to upset people. He is dead set on standing with people like Najai Turpin and all who know the loss of the illusion that we can save ourselves.
On Palm Sunday we celebrate that Christ willfully contended with the violent-prone hearts and minds of humanity by entering Jerusalem and giving his life for us. His determination to enter the city presents us with a radical challenge to let go of any and all illusions we have that somehow we can come up with our own workable plan of salvation. Throughout his ministry he was faithful to his vision of the kingdom of God where every person has value and worth, where there are no winners and losers, no oppressors and oppressed. Matthew invites us to ask, "Who is the man?" Who is this man who threatens our notions that equate success and salvation? What might happen to our world if we invited him to ride into every American's illusion of success through wealth and fame, as well as every terrorist's illusion of power and control through suicide bombings and assassinations? Jesus Christ is the new contender, the real contender with sin and our fear of death that fragments us. Throughout his ministry he goes complete rounds with sin, hatred, prejudice, and injustice. He puts his finger on pride and self-deception; he heals people of the pain and loneliness of being less than physically whole, and finally in the crucifixion, he contends with our own combative reactions to life's disappointments and lost illusions. His entrance into Jerusalem forces us to receive him on his own terms. Who is the man, Jesus? He is the one who comes in peace, in the name of the Lord, asking us to abandon all other failed efforts and false illusions, and trust him to lead us home.
Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday with challenging and costly good news. Jesus appeared on the horizon, riding on a donkey, covering the distance between God and us. On Good Friday, God's Friday, many of us will look for some private corner where we can quietly take it all in, a place where we may be moved to tears of shame, as well as gratitude.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: The reading for the Palm Sunday procession this year means that Jesus enters Jerusalem as a different kind of king -- at least for hearers who are familiar with the story's background. Riding on a donkey wasn't always a sign of humility: In 1 Kings 1:33 the aged King David makes a point of having his son Solomon placed on David's own mule to ride to his anointing as king. But that was centuries in the past, before Solomon and other rulers made the use of war horses common practice in Judah (1 Kings 4:26 and 10:26-29, though the numbers are probably exaggerated; note the implicit criticism of this in Deuteronomy 17:16). Jesus' entry into the Holy City is described in terms of a text from a much later time, Zechariah 9:9-10.
Matthew, however, doesn't quote the full text from Zechariah: probably what is given is intended to direct us back to the prophetic writing. And what we find there is an intriguing paradox. It is not just humility that's emphasized -- though that certainly is there. "Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (Zechariah 9:9b). The humble one is triumphant and victorious. And the next verse will speak of him destroying weapons systems, commanding peace, and exercising dominion over the earth. Obviously humility is not to be equated here with being ineffectual!
Clearly he is a conqueror and a king very different from what people in the Roman Empire of the first century, or just about anyplace in the world in the twenty-first century, has in mind. But the readings for this Sunday go even deeper. Philippians 2:5-11, which is always the Second Lesson for the Sunday of the Passion, says that Christ is very different kind of God from what people expect of a deity.
"Though he was in the form of God ... [he] emptied (ekenosen) himself." This divine kenosis does not mean that he ceased to be God. On the other hand, it means something more profound than just that he didn't make use of all his divine powers. There was a genuine self-limitation involved in the Incarnation -- and, as the incarnate one, in becoming "obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Furthermore, this should not be seen simply as a temporary stratagem used by God to achieve some goal. If the cross-resurrection event really is the fullest revelation of God then kenosis is an important part of that disclosure. As Gordon D. Fee has put it in Paul's Letter to the Philippians (Eerdmans, 1995, p. 196), "in 'pouring himself out' and 'humbling himself to death on the cross' Christ Jesus has revealed the character of God himself."
This has important implications for, among other things, the way we understand God to act in the world. A number of theologians involved in the science-theology dialogue have spoken of a kenotic view of divine action, meaning that while God does indeed act all the time in the world through natural processes, God limits this action to what can be accomplished in accord with the laws which God has built into those processes. (One collection of essays on this theme is John Polkinghorne [ed.], The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis [Eerdmans, 2001].) Thus God acts like a parent who does not intervene at every opportunity to help children do things but limits her or his actions so that the children can learn to do things themselves, and thus mature and learn to live in the world as adults. It is because of the kenotic character of God's action that the processes of the world display regularities, so that we're able to understand how things happen and have some control of our lives.
Of course it's easy to see that there's another side to such divine limitation: God does not usually intervene in the world in miraculous ways to keep tsunamis from occurring or cancer cells from multiplying. This explanation doesn't keep us from asking the "Why?" question, and the answers we get are not always satisfying. Job didn't get the kind of explanation he wanted. But as we enter upon Holy Week we're reminded again that God is present with us in the sufferings that we encounter, present as a fellow sufferer who wasn't saved from death on the cross by a miracle.
It might be worth noting that while Zechariah probably isn't the favorite Old Testament book of very many people, it comes into its own in Holy Week. Besides the citation for Palm Sunday Zechariah is quoted in Matthew 27:9-10, Matthew 26:31, Mark 14:27, John 19:37 and perhaps alluded to in Matthew 27:51 (cf. Zechariah 14:5).
Chris Ewing responds: "Violence is the acting out of our frustration with a major lost illusion." With this telling phrase Mary Boyd Click holds the mirror to a very great deal of what is happening all around us. What if we were to look at world events, at our own foreign (and domestic!) policy, and at the ways in which we choose to respond to events, through this lens? How would that change our choices?
A number of seminal thinkers in recent years have been wrestling with the problem of violence in human society, on its ubiquity and unhelpfulness. From Walter Wink reflecting on the Powers and the domination system they represent to psychologist Marshall Rosenberg working to foster "Nonviolent Communication" at levels from the interpersonal to the global, to grass-roots anti-bullying efforts in schools, there is a growing movement to understand and to counter this pervasive phenomenon.
One of the most important thinkers on violence is the Roman Catholic French anthropologist Rene Girard. He understands Jesus, in his sinless and patently undeserved death, to have unmasked the sacrificial violence that is the foundation of human culture. When tensions build in a community, hypothesizes Girard, ratcheting up mimetically as we mirror each other's desires, harmony is restored when a randomly identified victim is sacrificed. Originally this would have been an actual murder (Girard finds it very significant that the founding act of human society recorded in the Bible is the jealousy-motivated murder of Abel by Cain); in later development the sacrifice can be substitutionary (as in the biblical sacrificial system) or symbolic. Regardless, the community tensions are displaced onto this victim, who may have had little or nothing to do with the problem (one is reminded of the Judaic practice of identifying a scapegoat and sending it away with the sins of the people); once this sacrificial object is killed the problem is deemed solved, and for a time there is harmony. In Girard's thinking, all of biblical religion is a journey toward exposing and thereby disempowering this mechanism, for it can only function effectively while we remain unconscious of it. The death of Christ is the definitive point at which this unveiling occurs (hence the rending of the veil in the temple of sacrifice!). Christ's crucifixion is the hinge in time after which it becomes increasingly impossible to blindly continue to maintain community by sacrificing one of its members. In the short term this unveiling tends to increase rather than decrease the level of violence, because the old control mechanism becomes increasingly ineffectual, allowing violence to spiral contagiously without resolving anything. Though violence can still destroy, and still mesmerize, it has, wherever the gospel has had an influence, lost its power to create. The only way forward, then, is through conversion: people must come to recognize the inefficacy of sacrifice, and to focus their mimetic tendencies not on each other's desires but on Christ. We must release a world made intelligible by divine wrath, and enter a world made intelligible by divine empathy. This is arguably one of the gulfs between the religious left and the religious right today, although it is seldom identified. (An accessible and often riveting presentation of Girardian thinking on violence is Gil Bailie's book Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads.)
While theologians, philosophers, mediation specialists, and parenting experts all work to present us with alternatives to the dangerous illusion that violence saves, we continue to see violence spiraling all around us. For this reason alone we need to return again and again to the cross of Christ, with its unique power to strip us of this and many other illusions, and to show us, not a better self-salvation project, but a better hope altogether, a trust in the compassionate heart of God.
Carlos Wilton responds: "The whole city is in turmoil." Los Angeles, April 1992. A suburban jury acquits the police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King. That night, Los Angeles burns.
"The whole city is in turmoil." Moscow, August 1991. A circle of conservative generals and politicians mounts a coup d'etat, removing President Boris Yeltsin from power. Standing on a tank, Yeltsin proclaims his defiance, taking his case to the people. The generals back down.
"The whole city is in turmoil." Beirut, Lebanon, March 2005. Competing factions rush into the streets. Some cheer the President of Syria, as though he were a savior. Others hoist signs calling for the Syrians to leave. How the situation will be resolved is yet to be seen.
"The whole city is in turmoil." Matthew 21:10. The city is Jerusalem, circa 30 A.D. A charismatic young preacher from the provinces enters the city, riding on a donkey. His supporters stage an impromptu demonstration, waving palms as a symbol of Jewish nationalism. The authorities' crackdown is swift and ruthless. The preacher is executed. His followers flee.
Turmoil. That's the word Matthew uses to describe Jerusalem, that day Jesus rides through the city gates. Yet as we recall the incident in our mind's eye -- as we've read it or heard it told -- we often see it differently.
"Everyone loves a parade" -- and a parade is exactly the mental image of Palm Sunday most of us carry around in our heads. A glorious, ticker tape parade, down Jerusalem's equivalent of Fifth Avenue. We envision Jesus triumphant, riding in like a conquering hero. The sun shines on his face, the children dance and sing, the adults rejoice.
Yet it was not so rosy a scene. Jesus is riding into an emotionally and politically charged city -- as emotional and political as L.A. the day after the Rodney King verdict, or Moscow the night of Yeltsin's counter-revolution, or Beirut in these days of struggle for that nation's future.
Tension is at a fever pitch. Never has King Herod's popularity been shakier. Never has Governor Pilate seemed more detached, preoccupied with the intrigues of faraway Rome. Never has the people's appetite for revolution been more ravenous.
Into these seething streets rides Jesus of Nazareth. He is mounted on a donkey -- the beast that the prophet Zechariah of old predicted would bear the Messiah. The people are shouting "Hosanna" -- "save us!" It is the traditional cry of the Jewish people to their king.
The palm branches and the shouts of "Hosanna! Save us!" could have meant only one thing to the people of Jerusalem: political liberation. A century and a half earlier, Judas Maccabaeus ("Judas the Hammer," his name means) had overthrown the governing authorities and re-established true worship in the Temple. At the time, the people celebrated with a joyous procession, at which they waved palm branches and shouted "Hosanna!"
Freedom, however, was short-lived. It wasn't long before Roman legions arrived, crushing all hopes of Judean independence. Yet the heady memory of liberty lingers on. For many in Jerusalem, the hope that a freedom fighter like Judas Maccabaeus will arise in their generation is a potent one. If such a hero were to present himself, this is exactly how he would begin his bid for power: with a triumphant procession into the city, palm branches and clothing strewn in his path.
Is this what Jesus intends, by his triumphal entry? Not likely. Such an agenda would be inconsistent with everything he stands for, everything he has taught about turning the other cheek, and taking the lowest place at the banquet. Yet Jesus allows himself to be swept along, riding this wave of nationalistic fervor. Just why, exactly, is a mystery to this day.
In times of turmoil, we are tempted to look to violence to save us. Walter Wink, in an influential paper, "The Myth of Redemptive Violence," has exposed the roots of this powerful, idolatrous belief:
The belief that violence 'saves' is so successful because it doesn't seem to be mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It's what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god. What people overlook, then, is the religious character of violence. It demands from its devotees an absolute obedience-unto-death. This Myth of Redemptive Violence is the real myth of the modern world. It, and not Judaism or Christianity or Islam, is the dominant religion in our society today.
Wink's paper may be found online at:
http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/exploratory/articles/wink99.doc
Rather than living out the Myth of Redemptive Violence, Jesus will choose a very different course. He will give himself into the hands of violent men. He will allow himself to be crushed in the ponderous machinery of human pride. And then, having been beaten and bruised and bled to death, this Jesus will rise again, to show them that nothing is impossible with God.
Related Illustrations
From Carlos Wilton:
The executioner's nature is found in embryo in almost every contemporary man.
-- Dostoyevsky, Memoirs from the House of the Dead
***
Each of us has underneath our ordinary personality, which we show to the public, a cellar in which we hide the refuse and rubbish which we would rather not see ourselves or let others see. And below that is a deeper hold in which there are dragons and demons, a truly hellish place, full of violence and hatred and viciousness. Sometimes these lower levels break out, and it is to this lowest level of humans that public executions appeal.
In the cross this level of our being has thrust itself up out of its deepest underground cellar so that we humans may see what is in all of us and take heed. The cross is crucial because it shows what possibilities for evil lie hidden in human beings. It is the concretion of human evil in one time and place. Whenever we look upon the cross, which was simply a more fiendish kind of gibbet, we see what humankind can do, has done, and still does to some human beings. It can make us face the worst in ourselves and in others, that part of us which can sanction a cross or go to watch a crucifixion. The cross is the symbol, alive and vivid, of the evil that is in us, of evil itself....
We don't want to face our own darkness; it is too painful. The atrocity stories which follow in the wake of every war, every one, involve both sides and are as incredible as the cross, and are usually performed by men and women who never before had done such things. Scratch the surface of a human being and the demons of hate and revenge, avarice and bestiality and sheer destructiveness break forth. The cross stands before us to remind us of this depth of ourselves so that we can never forget....
This destructiveness within us can seldom be transformed until we squarely face it in ourselves. This confrontation often leads us into the pit. The empty cross is planted there to remind us that suffering is real but not the end, that victory still is possible if we strive on.
-- Morton T. Kelsey, "The Cross and the Cellar," from The Cross: Meditations on the Seven Last Words of Christ (New York: Paulist Press, 1980)
***
Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn't murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn't murder lies; it doesn't establish truth.... Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn't murder hate. It may increase hate. It is always a descending spiral leading nowhere. This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn't solve any problems.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
***
Every war already carries within it the war which will answer it. Every war is answered by a new war, until everything, everything is smashed.
-- Kathe Kollwitz
From Chris Ewing:
In a March 2004 Toronto Globe and Mail article reprinted in the Ontario Police Association, science writer William Illsey Atkinson noted that MRI studies are demonstrating that violent video games physiologically change the functioning of the brain. "When a player participates in simulated violence, his heart rate and blood pressure rise and brain cells that normally counsel empathy are shut down. Not only that, the images are burned into his long-term memory."
"Jack's conscious mind may think it knows the difference between Manhunt and reality," notes Atkinson, "but the bulk of his brain hasn't a clue.... The images he sees -- in fact, creates -- are being burned into the same portion of his brain that holds real memories of horrific scenes. Jack is being changed, and he is totally unaware of the fact."
Inadvertently born from the use of hand-held video games to keep research subjects from getting restless while undergoing an MRI, video-game neurology is a new discipline that systematically examines how electronic games affect the human brain. The evidence is troubling. To a degree more profound than violence witnessed on a movie or TV screen, the participatory (even if simulated) violence of a video game actually changes the brain in ways that "increase the likelihood of an excessively aggressive response to a neutral stimulus such as being jostled in a lineup."
The new discipline of video-game neurology has provided a number of insights. Several of particular importance are outlined in Atkinson's article. "First, the normal brain's natural state may be not conflict but co-operation. Second, most sociopathy may be the product of a malfunctioning brain. And third, perhaps it's time for society to curtail whatever games change functioning brains into malfunctioning ones."
-- William Illsey Atkinson, "Video Mind Games," Toronto Globe and Mail, March 13, 2004
From Mary Boyd Click:
I am told that at Burke Presbyterian Church in Burke, Virginia, there is a big wooden cross suspended from the ceiling. The horizontal arms of the cross are not straight, but they bend out toward you, announcing the love of God that reaches out to draw us close, to bridge the gap in our relationship through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Will Willimon writes, "God stretches out his arms on the cross, as costly embrace, drawing all unto himself, all. God comes to us, because we could not come to him. God reaches out across the great gap, the gap of our cowardice, our sin, our unworthiness, our fear; name it what you will; the great gap, the chasm. God reaches out, determined to bring us close."
***
We don't often hear the full text of Reinhold Niebuhr's much-quoted "Serenity Prayer." Here is the entire prayer:
God, grant me the
Serenity to accept the things
I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can; and
Wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship
As the pathway to peace.
Taking as He did,
This sinful world as it is
not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make
all things right
If I surrender to His will,
That I may be reasonably happy
in this life,
And supremely happy
With Him forever in the next.
-- Reinhold Niebuhr, as cited by Ken Gire, ed., Between Heaven and Earth: Prayer and Reflections That Celebrate an Intimate God (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), p. 93
***
SALVATION IS NOT simply a personal experience, a "me-and-Jesus" thing.... Growth into salvation affects us personally, socially, and politically. Conversion in each [of these] areas helps us to develop a balanced spirituality necessary for living in God's intended shalom.... The "personal conversion" is the one we normally associate with the word "conversion." It is an experience when the realness of God breaks in upon our lives, generating a sense of God's love, care, and providence.... The next conversion is in the "social" dimension, involving genuine interest in other people, love for our neighbors.... Social conversion requires openness, listening to others, as well as entrusting ourselves to them. A lifestyle reflective of our positive faith is the outcome of social conversion. "Political conversion" means not just a change of heart but a real change in one's outlook regarding how society is organized; how wealth, power, privileges, rights, and responsibilities are distributed at every level -- local, national, and global.
-- From Climbing the Sycamore Tree, by Ann Hagman
***
A Narrative/Illustration:
Writer Raymond Carver has a talent for weaving symbolic Christian imagery into his short stories. In his book, Where I'm Calling From (Vintage Contemporaries, 1989, p. 376), one story titled "A Small Good Thing" begins with a tragedy. A young couple's only son is hit by a car on his seventh birthday. It happened on a Friday morning at the bus stop while his mother was at the bakery ordering a birthday cake with his name "Scotty" written on top. She and her husband spent three long days in the hospital while her son lay in a coma. They took periodic breaks. One would go home and shower and the other stayed by his bedside. Each time they went home, late at night, the telephone rang and an angry voice at the other end said "Scotty? Have you forgotten about Scotty?" And then the caller hung up. It seemed a cruel trick. After Scotty died Howard and Ann went home utterly spent and brokenhearted. The telephone rang. The voice said "Scotty, I've got him ready for you. Did you forget about him?" And then the caller hung up. Suddenly Ann knew who it must be. The baker.
So Ann and Howard got into their car and raced down to the bakery at 3 o'clock in the morning. Ann pounded furiously on the door. When the baker came to the door, Ann said with clinched fists, "Howard, this is the man who has been calling us." And she let loose a string of expletives. The baker grabbed a rolling pin to defend himself and said, "Look, I don't want to argue with you lady. You want your three day old cake, you can have it." Ann started yelling more obscenities at him for calling their home so late. Finally she confessed, "My son is dead! He was hit by a car. We've been waiting with him until he died. But of course you bakers aren't supposed to know that." Then feeling nauseous she leaned against the wooden table sprinkled with flour and began to cry, "It isn't fair! It isn't fair!" The baker invited them to sit down and cleared a space for them at the table. He brought them some coffee and began to talk apologetically. "Look, I don't have any children myself," he said, "But please, if you can find it in your heart, please forgive me."
After a silence he said to them "You probably need something to eat." So he got some of his warm cinnamon rolls just out of the oven and put them on the table. (Hot cross buns?) He said to them, "Eating is a small good thing at a time like this." So the three of them ate rolls and drank coffee and talked. The baker talked about his loneliness, his sense of doubt in his childless middle years. Ann and Howard shared more of their sense of loss over Scotty. The baker brought out more bread. A dark fresh loaf this time, one that they said, tasted like daylight. The three of them talked on into dawn, and not one of them thought of leaving.
The story is a beautiful illustration of how a revelation of common sorrow and a sharing of it can lead to reconciliation and communion. On Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, many will unite around the table and break the bread, the body of Christ, and give thanks that this dark loaf of life's bitterness which we take into ourselves in the name of Jesus Christ, can be transformed by God's love and somehow begin to taste a little bit like daylight.
Worship Resources
By Julie Strope
Theme: All of us have a plan of salvation. It is either of our own making or one that God has fashioned for us in Jesus Christ. Palm Sunday is a time when Jesus contended with our illusions of salvation, which really never satisfy and end in death for us rather than new life. As our illusions are recognized, we intentionally turn somewhere for hope. The dread of most heroes is that parade day turn into confusion and violence. Palm Sunday carries us along rejoicing while our illusions are soon banished with Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Hope must rise again -- Easter!
CALL TO WORSHIP (based on Psalm 118)
Leader: It's Palm Sunday. Welcome to this place of worship. Give thanks to God for everlasting love.
People: In distress, we call to God and God sets us free!
Leader: Though we are afraid, we will trust God to be close to us.
People: We feel lively and we will tell others about God's continual care. With excitement, today, we begin a festival of new life! We know this space is sanctuary and here we enjoy God and one another. We know the ancient story and say with our ancestors, "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of God!"
Leader: We will remember the past, celebrate the present, and hope for a satisfying future.
PRAYER OF ADORATION
Living God, we've come without our Palm Sunday donkeys and our horses; we've parked our cars outside. But we want to participate in the story of Jesus being honored by friends. We're here -- body, mind, spirit, and voice; we eagerly sing and pray, listen and speak. We intone our thanks and whisper our petitions. Today, we rejoice, knowing Friday will bring somber tears. So, Hosanna! Amen!
HYMN SUGGESTIONS
"All Glory, Laud And Honor"
"Hosanna, Loud Hosanna"
"Morning Has Broken"
"Ride On! Ride On In Majesty!"
Psalm 118: "This Is The Day The Lord Hath Made." Available in The Presbyterian Hymnal, 1990, 230; tune: NUN DANKET ALL'UND BRINGET HER'
"At the Name Of Jesus" (Philippians 2); tune: KING'S WESTON, TPH, 1990, 148
CALL TO CONFESSION
Leader: Each of us makes our own reality. In these minutes, we look at our own attitudes, our own expectations, and our own intentions. Before God and one another, we name categories of behavior that separate us from one another and from the Holy. Then, we silently name our personal shortcomings.
CORPORATE CONFESSION (unison)
God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow,
We participate in promoting dreams of success and of affluence while many individuals and tribes suffer with starvation, disease, and homelessness.
We condone brutality to humans and animals by calling these activities "sports."
We speak half-truths when we say you have made all Creation yet do not welcome those different from ourselves nor protect the earth.
We resent loss of dominance and our sense of powerfulness.
How inconsistent we are!
Wipe us clean from contamination and illusion.
Open our eyes to people and merchandise which belittles your image in us and in all creatures.
Give us the determination to be peacemakers and hospitality-bearers each step of each day. Amen.
CONGREGATIONAL CHORAL RESPONSE
"Down To Earth, As A Dove," stanza 3; PERSONENT HODIE
Christ the Lord comes to feed hungry people in need;
In the house there is bread: Jesus in a stable,
In the church a table. Let us sing, sing, sing,
Dance and spring, spring, spring, Christ is here, ever near!
Gloria in excelsis.
WORD OF GRACE
Leader: It is good news that God hears our confessions and guides us to wholesome thoughts and behaviors. It is good news that Jesus is the Christ, our hero, our Savior -- good news that after the parade and after death is resurrection.
AN AFFIRMATION (based on Philippians 2)
We know that Jesus is the Christ, bearing the nature of God.
He was a powerful and humble teacher;
he walked a path of obedience to God all the way to death.
Heaven and earth shall honor God
by proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ.
Christ lives in us making us strong
so we can be compassionate with one another
and live as disciples in a non-predictable and
sometimes violent global village.
Every day we, too, belong to God! Amen!
INTERCESSORY PRAYERS
Energy of the Universe,
We want to party and relax; we want to rest in security. But world news demands our anxious attention. As in the time of Jesus, we see that Jerusalem is a violent city: cousins kill one another; tribes violate other groups' children. Not only in Palestine and Israel, but in America and Mexico, in Ireland and in Africa.... We see that humanity is not close to being peacemakers and merciful neighbors. Remove our illusions about a peaceable kingdom and give us courage to work toward a just global culture.
Creating God,
We can do nothing without your active presence in world affairs.
We know that societies must order themselves and we have taken for granted the Ten Commandments as our foundation for ethics and morals. As they are banished from the public eye, move among us again till heroes and heroines arise to stand for justice and peace, hope, and vitality for all peoples.
God of fiascos and failures,
Not only is world culture chaotic, but the planet's weather patterns are amiss. We are aware of how quickly human life and endeavors are tattered when the winds and rains overflow their normal boundaries. We thought we could control Nature, but tsunamis and earthquakes, droughts and floods shake up our thinking. Bring forth leaders who honor Creation and strive to allow it to serve all creatures.
God of panic and hope,
And look at us! We sit in these pews week after week, reading the stories of Jesus, hearing how God has been active in history. Our bodies ache here and there; our minds are busy with family and health concerns; our souls yearn for strength to live authentically in these amazing times. Heal us from head to toe. Mend our dreams. Be fully present with us as we interact with people whom we value as friends and as non-friends. Give us vitality as we move through time to eternity.
God of fig trees and donkeys,
How like sterile fig trees and obstinate donkeys we can be!
Open our eyes to fruitfulness; open our ears to your guiding voice. At home and at work, in the playground and in the classroom, in public forums and church circles, empower us to explore ways to live in the real world as effective followers of Jesus who stood against usury and unfairness; help us to embody the teachings of Jesus as we engage one another about ways to align ourselves with justice; create through us beauty and hospitality wherever we are. Amen.
OFFERTORY STATEMENT
We are grateful people who share our resources for ministry here and around the world. Most of all, we determine again, to give our selves to God. Again, we decide to walk in difficult places with Christ, as good neighbors and as bearers of peace.
DOXOLOGY
"O Day Of Radiant Gladness," stanza 3; ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVOGELEIN
That light our hope sustaining, We walk the pilgrim way,
At length our rest attaining, Our endless Sabbath day.
We sing to You our praises, O Father, Spirit, Son;
The church its voice upraises To You, blest Three in One.
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
God of all,
Thank you for the resources that are available to us.
Stretch these to provide for ministry in this place.
Multiply our moneys and talents to serve you around this globe.
Amen.
BENEDICTION / CHARGE
You've been in sanctuary for this past hour
while we've noted the violence of the world.
We've experienced peacefulness and beauty
with our eyes and ears.
We've heard stories of divine grace and guidance.
Now we leave this comfortable space --
breathing air that sustains all life;
walking on soil that feeds us and others;
carrying the Holy One's love for all the world;
holding in our hands the dream of kindness for all creatures;
remembering scriptures that give us power to enact peace.
As the calendar moves us toward Good Friday,
recall the whole story of Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection and feel hopeful.
Amen!
A Children's Sermon
God's blueprints
Object: a picture of a house and a set of blueprints
Based on Matthew 26:14--27:66
But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say it must happen in this way? (v. 26:54)
Good morning, boys and girls. Did everyone get a palm today? (let them answer) Today many Christians will think about the entire passion of Jesus. This means they will think about everything that happened to Jesus in the days before he died. The whole story will be told including the great parade where Jesus entered Jerusalem and the people waved palm branches and felt the presence of God in their lives. People will remember the last night Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples, how Judas betrayed him, and how Jesus was arrested in the garden. They will remember when the Jewish and Roman leaders sentenced Jesus to die. Soon they will think about when Jesus climbed up the long hill to Calvary and when he died on the cross.
How did all of this happen to Jesus? Was it just bad luck? (let them answer) Were the Jewish and Roman leaders just a lot smarter than Jesus and his disciples? (let them answer)
I brought along a picture of a house. It is a beautiful picture and the people who live in this house have it hung above their fireplace. But the house wasn't built by following a picture of it.
Let me show you something else. These are called blueprints and they are the plans for this house. Every person who worked on the building of this house read these blueprints. One person drew up the plans but many people helped build the house. The plans say how big the basement should be and what the kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms should look like. These are really important drawings and the builders check here if they have a problem.
God had a plan. He told the plan to the teachers, rabbis, prophets, and scribes. The whole plan was in the scriptures and said that the Son of God would die on a cross at the hands of some very mean people. It would not be an easy death and the people close to the Son of God would run away in fear that it could happen to them, too.
Jesus followed the plan. It wasn't easy. The night before Jesus died on the cross, he asked God to think about the plan and whether he wanted to change it and let Jesus live longer. But God the Father decided not to change it so that people like you and me could be forgiven for our sins and welcomed into God's kingdom. God had a great plan and Jesus fulfilled it, just as the Bible said would happen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, March 20, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503. 1 18
Violence is the tool of desperate people who hurt and divide others when they cannot get their way by any other means. Take your own pulse for violence. Have you ever put money into a soda machine, gotten ripped off, and then kicked the thing, hoping it would finally dislodge the drink you were thirsting for? Violence is the acting out of our frustration with a major lost illusion: that if only this or that would happen, things would work out, we could get it right. That illusion, which we grieve letting go is, simply put, the belief that we can save ourselves.
As if the violence-drenched world we live in is not enough, this past week television show producers loaded our virtual basket with yet one more violence-prone reality TV show titled The Contender. It's a Sylvester Stallone narrated series about professional boxers and their self-punishing drive to be prize-winning champs. The show follows a resurgence in boxing mania in the media after Ken Burns' PBS documentary on Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, and Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning film, Million Dollar Baby. The sport of boxing is now turning the heads of people in our pews that have never shown the slightest interest in watching one person beat out the brains of another. Has the reality of everyday violence in our world made us more immune to violence, more tolerant of it? It appears so.
Jesus, the New Contender
On Palm Sunday, then, what do we do with Jesus who rides humbly into Jerusalem, a violent place that Matthew tells us kills its prophets and stones those who sent them? (15:1; 23:37). Unlike previous victors, such as Alexander the Great who, in 332 B.C. rode into Jerusalem on a magnificent war horse, Jesus enters as an unassuming, lowly servant. The crowds cry "Hosanna!" a Greek translation of the Hebrew hosian'na, which means "Save us." Yet it comes out of their mouths like a secular cheer, "God save the Queen!" They don't really mean it. After the cheers died down, Jesus' presence in the city has everyone scurrying about in turmoil asking, "Who is this man?" (v. 10). Actually the Greek is much more dramatic, implying that his entry shook the foundations of the city, as an earthquake might. From the day of Jesus' birth, Matthew has foreshadowed that this man would shake up the world, and shake up our hopes and dreams along with it. When Herod heard the news of Jesus' birth the entire region was stirred up about it (2:3). What was it about his coming to Jerusalem that was so disturbing? Do his nonviolent, peace-loving ways contend with our illusions that "might makes right," that if we are just clever enough, rich enough, politically savvy enough, militarily strong enough, we can save ourselves? Absolutely!
Contending with Reality
Americans live by the dream that hard work and success can save us. Sadly, many people will do anything to make that happen. Jesus comes to Jerusalem fearlessly to contend with our self-made efforts to save ourselves, which only result in a sense of frustration and defeat. The story of Najai Turpin is a case in point.
Najai Turpin was a 23-year-old semi-finalist in The Contender, the new reality show that aired this past week. Turpin was the producer's Rocky Balboa character. He was from Philadelphia and also had Rocky's winning smile that turned female heads. On Valentine's Day, just weeks before the show aired, Najai Turpin committed suicide after a night of partying and a conversation with the mother of his two-year-old. Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post wrote reflectively, "In the reality TV world that Najai Turpin entered ... he lived in an eight-bedroom Southern California loft.... In the real world, Turpin lived with his younger sister in a North Philadelphia housing project where, 'if you spit, you spittin' in someone else's yard,' as a neighbor, Anthony Williams, put it.... In the reality TV world, Turpin spent several weeks training in a state-of-the-art gym with 15 boxers promised 'an opportunity of a lifetime': a chance to win $1 million during the show's live finale, a fight at Caesars Palace. In the real world, Turpin trained with his friends in a one-ring gym where a painting of a fighter who was murdered last year hangs on the back wall." The Washington Post (March 7, 2005) reported that Turpin's fellow friend and fighter, Frank Walker, commented, "They took him out of reality and put him in a reality show. They took a real person and made him into a character." Producer Mark Burnett (also known for The Survivor and The Apprentice) maintained that the show had nothing to do with Turpin's suicide and that in the television series, "we are showing the reality of this guy's life."
Dan Steinberg wrote that Turpin had his own American dream: the belief that he could "fight my way out of the ghetto." Turpin grew up in a housing project; his mother died when he was eighteen and his father remained distant. Turpin single-handedly worked as a cook to support his two younger siblings. His dream was to become a prize-winning boxer with a big house where all of his siblings, nieces, and nephews could live with him. Steinberg wrote he was obsessed with "giving his daughter a better life" (Washington Post, March 7, 2005). Turpin's tragedy causes us to question the illusion of the American dream perpetuated by reality shows that drive young people to believe that they are nothing if not a winner; nothing if not Number One. An act of violence, a shot to his temple with a semiautomatic weapon, was Turpin's way out when his dreams failed him.
Contending with Lost Illusions
Jesus' entry into Jerusalem symbolized his readiness to contend with the brokenness of humanity, especially people like Najai Turpin. Preachers can easily extend this theme by incorporating into worship a reading of Nehemiah 1:1-4; 2:11-18. The text fits Matthew's Palm Sunday reading like a hand in a glove. The prophet Nehemiah, dismayed by the sight of Jerusalem in ruins, examines the city walls. Riding a donkey in and out of all the burned and collapsed gates of the city, Nehemiah commits to rebuild the city in the same way that Jesus' entry into Jerusalem proclaimed his determination to contend with everything that threatens to break the human spirit and separate us from the core of faith which is radical dependence upon God. Jesus does not back down, no matter how much his arrival begins to upset people. He is dead set on standing with people like Najai Turpin and all who know the loss of the illusion that we can save ourselves.
On Palm Sunday we celebrate that Christ willfully contended with the violent-prone hearts and minds of humanity by entering Jerusalem and giving his life for us. His determination to enter the city presents us with a radical challenge to let go of any and all illusions we have that somehow we can come up with our own workable plan of salvation. Throughout his ministry he was faithful to his vision of the kingdom of God where every person has value and worth, where there are no winners and losers, no oppressors and oppressed. Matthew invites us to ask, "Who is the man?" Who is this man who threatens our notions that equate success and salvation? What might happen to our world if we invited him to ride into every American's illusion of success through wealth and fame, as well as every terrorist's illusion of power and control through suicide bombings and assassinations? Jesus Christ is the new contender, the real contender with sin and our fear of death that fragments us. Throughout his ministry he goes complete rounds with sin, hatred, prejudice, and injustice. He puts his finger on pride and self-deception; he heals people of the pain and loneliness of being less than physically whole, and finally in the crucifixion, he contends with our own combative reactions to life's disappointments and lost illusions. His entrance into Jerusalem forces us to receive him on his own terms. Who is the man, Jesus? He is the one who comes in peace, in the name of the Lord, asking us to abandon all other failed efforts and false illusions, and trust him to lead us home.
Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday with challenging and costly good news. Jesus appeared on the horizon, riding on a donkey, covering the distance between God and us. On Good Friday, God's Friday, many of us will look for some private corner where we can quietly take it all in, a place where we may be moved to tears of shame, as well as gratitude.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: The reading for the Palm Sunday procession this year means that Jesus enters Jerusalem as a different kind of king -- at least for hearers who are familiar with the story's background. Riding on a donkey wasn't always a sign of humility: In 1 Kings 1:33 the aged King David makes a point of having his son Solomon placed on David's own mule to ride to his anointing as king. But that was centuries in the past, before Solomon and other rulers made the use of war horses common practice in Judah (1 Kings 4:26 and 10:26-29, though the numbers are probably exaggerated; note the implicit criticism of this in Deuteronomy 17:16). Jesus' entry into the Holy City is described in terms of a text from a much later time, Zechariah 9:9-10.
Matthew, however, doesn't quote the full text from Zechariah: probably what is given is intended to direct us back to the prophetic writing. And what we find there is an intriguing paradox. It is not just humility that's emphasized -- though that certainly is there. "Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (Zechariah 9:9b). The humble one is triumphant and victorious. And the next verse will speak of him destroying weapons systems, commanding peace, and exercising dominion over the earth. Obviously humility is not to be equated here with being ineffectual!
Clearly he is a conqueror and a king very different from what people in the Roman Empire of the first century, or just about anyplace in the world in the twenty-first century, has in mind. But the readings for this Sunday go even deeper. Philippians 2:5-11, which is always the Second Lesson for the Sunday of the Passion, says that Christ is very different kind of God from what people expect of a deity.
"Though he was in the form of God ... [he] emptied (ekenosen) himself." This divine kenosis does not mean that he ceased to be God. On the other hand, it means something more profound than just that he didn't make use of all his divine powers. There was a genuine self-limitation involved in the Incarnation -- and, as the incarnate one, in becoming "obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Furthermore, this should not be seen simply as a temporary stratagem used by God to achieve some goal. If the cross-resurrection event really is the fullest revelation of God then kenosis is an important part of that disclosure. As Gordon D. Fee has put it in Paul's Letter to the Philippians (Eerdmans, 1995, p. 196), "in 'pouring himself out' and 'humbling himself to death on the cross' Christ Jesus has revealed the character of God himself."
This has important implications for, among other things, the way we understand God to act in the world. A number of theologians involved in the science-theology dialogue have spoken of a kenotic view of divine action, meaning that while God does indeed act all the time in the world through natural processes, God limits this action to what can be accomplished in accord with the laws which God has built into those processes. (One collection of essays on this theme is John Polkinghorne [ed.], The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis [Eerdmans, 2001].) Thus God acts like a parent who does not intervene at every opportunity to help children do things but limits her or his actions so that the children can learn to do things themselves, and thus mature and learn to live in the world as adults. It is because of the kenotic character of God's action that the processes of the world display regularities, so that we're able to understand how things happen and have some control of our lives.
Of course it's easy to see that there's another side to such divine limitation: God does not usually intervene in the world in miraculous ways to keep tsunamis from occurring or cancer cells from multiplying. This explanation doesn't keep us from asking the "Why?" question, and the answers we get are not always satisfying. Job didn't get the kind of explanation he wanted. But as we enter upon Holy Week we're reminded again that God is present with us in the sufferings that we encounter, present as a fellow sufferer who wasn't saved from death on the cross by a miracle.
It might be worth noting that while Zechariah probably isn't the favorite Old Testament book of very many people, it comes into its own in Holy Week. Besides the citation for Palm Sunday Zechariah is quoted in Matthew 27:9-10, Matthew 26:31, Mark 14:27, John 19:37 and perhaps alluded to in Matthew 27:51 (cf. Zechariah 14:5).
Chris Ewing responds: "Violence is the acting out of our frustration with a major lost illusion." With this telling phrase Mary Boyd Click holds the mirror to a very great deal of what is happening all around us. What if we were to look at world events, at our own foreign (and domestic!) policy, and at the ways in which we choose to respond to events, through this lens? How would that change our choices?
A number of seminal thinkers in recent years have been wrestling with the problem of violence in human society, on its ubiquity and unhelpfulness. From Walter Wink reflecting on the Powers and the domination system they represent to psychologist Marshall Rosenberg working to foster "Nonviolent Communication" at levels from the interpersonal to the global, to grass-roots anti-bullying efforts in schools, there is a growing movement to understand and to counter this pervasive phenomenon.
One of the most important thinkers on violence is the Roman Catholic French anthropologist Rene Girard. He understands Jesus, in his sinless and patently undeserved death, to have unmasked the sacrificial violence that is the foundation of human culture. When tensions build in a community, hypothesizes Girard, ratcheting up mimetically as we mirror each other's desires, harmony is restored when a randomly identified victim is sacrificed. Originally this would have been an actual murder (Girard finds it very significant that the founding act of human society recorded in the Bible is the jealousy-motivated murder of Abel by Cain); in later development the sacrifice can be substitutionary (as in the biblical sacrificial system) or symbolic. Regardless, the community tensions are displaced onto this victim, who may have had little or nothing to do with the problem (one is reminded of the Judaic practice of identifying a scapegoat and sending it away with the sins of the people); once this sacrificial object is killed the problem is deemed solved, and for a time there is harmony. In Girard's thinking, all of biblical religion is a journey toward exposing and thereby disempowering this mechanism, for it can only function effectively while we remain unconscious of it. The death of Christ is the definitive point at which this unveiling occurs (hence the rending of the veil in the temple of sacrifice!). Christ's crucifixion is the hinge in time after which it becomes increasingly impossible to blindly continue to maintain community by sacrificing one of its members. In the short term this unveiling tends to increase rather than decrease the level of violence, because the old control mechanism becomes increasingly ineffectual, allowing violence to spiral contagiously without resolving anything. Though violence can still destroy, and still mesmerize, it has, wherever the gospel has had an influence, lost its power to create. The only way forward, then, is through conversion: people must come to recognize the inefficacy of sacrifice, and to focus their mimetic tendencies not on each other's desires but on Christ. We must release a world made intelligible by divine wrath, and enter a world made intelligible by divine empathy. This is arguably one of the gulfs between the religious left and the religious right today, although it is seldom identified. (An accessible and often riveting presentation of Girardian thinking on violence is Gil Bailie's book Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads.)
While theologians, philosophers, mediation specialists, and parenting experts all work to present us with alternatives to the dangerous illusion that violence saves, we continue to see violence spiraling all around us. For this reason alone we need to return again and again to the cross of Christ, with its unique power to strip us of this and many other illusions, and to show us, not a better self-salvation project, but a better hope altogether, a trust in the compassionate heart of God.
Carlos Wilton responds: "The whole city is in turmoil." Los Angeles, April 1992. A suburban jury acquits the police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King. That night, Los Angeles burns.
"The whole city is in turmoil." Moscow, August 1991. A circle of conservative generals and politicians mounts a coup d'etat, removing President Boris Yeltsin from power. Standing on a tank, Yeltsin proclaims his defiance, taking his case to the people. The generals back down.
"The whole city is in turmoil." Beirut, Lebanon, March 2005. Competing factions rush into the streets. Some cheer the President of Syria, as though he were a savior. Others hoist signs calling for the Syrians to leave. How the situation will be resolved is yet to be seen.
"The whole city is in turmoil." Matthew 21:10. The city is Jerusalem, circa 30 A.D. A charismatic young preacher from the provinces enters the city, riding on a donkey. His supporters stage an impromptu demonstration, waving palms as a symbol of Jewish nationalism. The authorities' crackdown is swift and ruthless. The preacher is executed. His followers flee.
Turmoil. That's the word Matthew uses to describe Jerusalem, that day Jesus rides through the city gates. Yet as we recall the incident in our mind's eye -- as we've read it or heard it told -- we often see it differently.
"Everyone loves a parade" -- and a parade is exactly the mental image of Palm Sunday most of us carry around in our heads. A glorious, ticker tape parade, down Jerusalem's equivalent of Fifth Avenue. We envision Jesus triumphant, riding in like a conquering hero. The sun shines on his face, the children dance and sing, the adults rejoice.
Yet it was not so rosy a scene. Jesus is riding into an emotionally and politically charged city -- as emotional and political as L.A. the day after the Rodney King verdict, or Moscow the night of Yeltsin's counter-revolution, or Beirut in these days of struggle for that nation's future.
Tension is at a fever pitch. Never has King Herod's popularity been shakier. Never has Governor Pilate seemed more detached, preoccupied with the intrigues of faraway Rome. Never has the people's appetite for revolution been more ravenous.
Into these seething streets rides Jesus of Nazareth. He is mounted on a donkey -- the beast that the prophet Zechariah of old predicted would bear the Messiah. The people are shouting "Hosanna" -- "save us!" It is the traditional cry of the Jewish people to their king.
The palm branches and the shouts of "Hosanna! Save us!" could have meant only one thing to the people of Jerusalem: political liberation. A century and a half earlier, Judas Maccabaeus ("Judas the Hammer," his name means) had overthrown the governing authorities and re-established true worship in the Temple. At the time, the people celebrated with a joyous procession, at which they waved palm branches and shouted "Hosanna!"
Freedom, however, was short-lived. It wasn't long before Roman legions arrived, crushing all hopes of Judean independence. Yet the heady memory of liberty lingers on. For many in Jerusalem, the hope that a freedom fighter like Judas Maccabaeus will arise in their generation is a potent one. If such a hero were to present himself, this is exactly how he would begin his bid for power: with a triumphant procession into the city, palm branches and clothing strewn in his path.
Is this what Jesus intends, by his triumphal entry? Not likely. Such an agenda would be inconsistent with everything he stands for, everything he has taught about turning the other cheek, and taking the lowest place at the banquet. Yet Jesus allows himself to be swept along, riding this wave of nationalistic fervor. Just why, exactly, is a mystery to this day.
In times of turmoil, we are tempted to look to violence to save us. Walter Wink, in an influential paper, "The Myth of Redemptive Violence," has exposed the roots of this powerful, idolatrous belief:
The belief that violence 'saves' is so successful because it doesn't seem to be mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It's what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god. What people overlook, then, is the religious character of violence. It demands from its devotees an absolute obedience-unto-death. This Myth of Redemptive Violence is the real myth of the modern world. It, and not Judaism or Christianity or Islam, is the dominant religion in our society today.
Wink's paper may be found online at:
http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/exploratory/articles/wink99.doc
Rather than living out the Myth of Redemptive Violence, Jesus will choose a very different course. He will give himself into the hands of violent men. He will allow himself to be crushed in the ponderous machinery of human pride. And then, having been beaten and bruised and bled to death, this Jesus will rise again, to show them that nothing is impossible with God.
Related Illustrations
From Carlos Wilton:
The executioner's nature is found in embryo in almost every contemporary man.
-- Dostoyevsky, Memoirs from the House of the Dead
***
Each of us has underneath our ordinary personality, which we show to the public, a cellar in which we hide the refuse and rubbish which we would rather not see ourselves or let others see. And below that is a deeper hold in which there are dragons and demons, a truly hellish place, full of violence and hatred and viciousness. Sometimes these lower levels break out, and it is to this lowest level of humans that public executions appeal.
In the cross this level of our being has thrust itself up out of its deepest underground cellar so that we humans may see what is in all of us and take heed. The cross is crucial because it shows what possibilities for evil lie hidden in human beings. It is the concretion of human evil in one time and place. Whenever we look upon the cross, which was simply a more fiendish kind of gibbet, we see what humankind can do, has done, and still does to some human beings. It can make us face the worst in ourselves and in others, that part of us which can sanction a cross or go to watch a crucifixion. The cross is the symbol, alive and vivid, of the evil that is in us, of evil itself....
We don't want to face our own darkness; it is too painful. The atrocity stories which follow in the wake of every war, every one, involve both sides and are as incredible as the cross, and are usually performed by men and women who never before had done such things. Scratch the surface of a human being and the demons of hate and revenge, avarice and bestiality and sheer destructiveness break forth. The cross stands before us to remind us of this depth of ourselves so that we can never forget....
This destructiveness within us can seldom be transformed until we squarely face it in ourselves. This confrontation often leads us into the pit. The empty cross is planted there to remind us that suffering is real but not the end, that victory still is possible if we strive on.
-- Morton T. Kelsey, "The Cross and the Cellar," from The Cross: Meditations on the Seven Last Words of Christ (New York: Paulist Press, 1980)
***
Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn't murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn't murder lies; it doesn't establish truth.... Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn't murder hate. It may increase hate. It is always a descending spiral leading nowhere. This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn't solve any problems.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
***
Every war already carries within it the war which will answer it. Every war is answered by a new war, until everything, everything is smashed.
-- Kathe Kollwitz
From Chris Ewing:
In a March 2004 Toronto Globe and Mail article reprinted in the Ontario Police Association, science writer William Illsey Atkinson noted that MRI studies are demonstrating that violent video games physiologically change the functioning of the brain. "When a player participates in simulated violence, his heart rate and blood pressure rise and brain cells that normally counsel empathy are shut down. Not only that, the images are burned into his long-term memory."
"Jack's conscious mind may think it knows the difference between Manhunt and reality," notes Atkinson, "but the bulk of his brain hasn't a clue.... The images he sees -- in fact, creates -- are being burned into the same portion of his brain that holds real memories of horrific scenes. Jack is being changed, and he is totally unaware of the fact."
Inadvertently born from the use of hand-held video games to keep research subjects from getting restless while undergoing an MRI, video-game neurology is a new discipline that systematically examines how electronic games affect the human brain. The evidence is troubling. To a degree more profound than violence witnessed on a movie or TV screen, the participatory (even if simulated) violence of a video game actually changes the brain in ways that "increase the likelihood of an excessively aggressive response to a neutral stimulus such as being jostled in a lineup."
The new discipline of video-game neurology has provided a number of insights. Several of particular importance are outlined in Atkinson's article. "First, the normal brain's natural state may be not conflict but co-operation. Second, most sociopathy may be the product of a malfunctioning brain. And third, perhaps it's time for society to curtail whatever games change functioning brains into malfunctioning ones."
-- William Illsey Atkinson, "Video Mind Games," Toronto Globe and Mail, March 13, 2004
From Mary Boyd Click:
I am told that at Burke Presbyterian Church in Burke, Virginia, there is a big wooden cross suspended from the ceiling. The horizontal arms of the cross are not straight, but they bend out toward you, announcing the love of God that reaches out to draw us close, to bridge the gap in our relationship through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Will Willimon writes, "God stretches out his arms on the cross, as costly embrace, drawing all unto himself, all. God comes to us, because we could not come to him. God reaches out across the great gap, the gap of our cowardice, our sin, our unworthiness, our fear; name it what you will; the great gap, the chasm. God reaches out, determined to bring us close."
***
We don't often hear the full text of Reinhold Niebuhr's much-quoted "Serenity Prayer." Here is the entire prayer:
God, grant me the
Serenity to accept the things
I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can; and
Wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship
As the pathway to peace.
Taking as He did,
This sinful world as it is
not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make
all things right
If I surrender to His will,
That I may be reasonably happy
in this life,
And supremely happy
With Him forever in the next.
-- Reinhold Niebuhr, as cited by Ken Gire, ed., Between Heaven and Earth: Prayer and Reflections That Celebrate an Intimate God (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), p. 93
***
SALVATION IS NOT simply a personal experience, a "me-and-Jesus" thing.... Growth into salvation affects us personally, socially, and politically. Conversion in each [of these] areas helps us to develop a balanced spirituality necessary for living in God's intended shalom.... The "personal conversion" is the one we normally associate with the word "conversion." It is an experience when the realness of God breaks in upon our lives, generating a sense of God's love, care, and providence.... The next conversion is in the "social" dimension, involving genuine interest in other people, love for our neighbors.... Social conversion requires openness, listening to others, as well as entrusting ourselves to them. A lifestyle reflective of our positive faith is the outcome of social conversion. "Political conversion" means not just a change of heart but a real change in one's outlook regarding how society is organized; how wealth, power, privileges, rights, and responsibilities are distributed at every level -- local, national, and global.
-- From Climbing the Sycamore Tree, by Ann Hagman
***
A Narrative/Illustration:
Writer Raymond Carver has a talent for weaving symbolic Christian imagery into his short stories. In his book, Where I'm Calling From (Vintage Contemporaries, 1989, p. 376), one story titled "A Small Good Thing" begins with a tragedy. A young couple's only son is hit by a car on his seventh birthday. It happened on a Friday morning at the bus stop while his mother was at the bakery ordering a birthday cake with his name "Scotty" written on top. She and her husband spent three long days in the hospital while her son lay in a coma. They took periodic breaks. One would go home and shower and the other stayed by his bedside. Each time they went home, late at night, the telephone rang and an angry voice at the other end said "Scotty? Have you forgotten about Scotty?" And then the caller hung up. It seemed a cruel trick. After Scotty died Howard and Ann went home utterly spent and brokenhearted. The telephone rang. The voice said "Scotty, I've got him ready for you. Did you forget about him?" And then the caller hung up. Suddenly Ann knew who it must be. The baker.
So Ann and Howard got into their car and raced down to the bakery at 3 o'clock in the morning. Ann pounded furiously on the door. When the baker came to the door, Ann said with clinched fists, "Howard, this is the man who has been calling us." And she let loose a string of expletives. The baker grabbed a rolling pin to defend himself and said, "Look, I don't want to argue with you lady. You want your three day old cake, you can have it." Ann started yelling more obscenities at him for calling their home so late. Finally she confessed, "My son is dead! He was hit by a car. We've been waiting with him until he died. But of course you bakers aren't supposed to know that." Then feeling nauseous she leaned against the wooden table sprinkled with flour and began to cry, "It isn't fair! It isn't fair!" The baker invited them to sit down and cleared a space for them at the table. He brought them some coffee and began to talk apologetically. "Look, I don't have any children myself," he said, "But please, if you can find it in your heart, please forgive me."
After a silence he said to them "You probably need something to eat." So he got some of his warm cinnamon rolls just out of the oven and put them on the table. (Hot cross buns?) He said to them, "Eating is a small good thing at a time like this." So the three of them ate rolls and drank coffee and talked. The baker talked about his loneliness, his sense of doubt in his childless middle years. Ann and Howard shared more of their sense of loss over Scotty. The baker brought out more bread. A dark fresh loaf this time, one that they said, tasted like daylight. The three of them talked on into dawn, and not one of them thought of leaving.
The story is a beautiful illustration of how a revelation of common sorrow and a sharing of it can lead to reconciliation and communion. On Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, many will unite around the table and break the bread, the body of Christ, and give thanks that this dark loaf of life's bitterness which we take into ourselves in the name of Jesus Christ, can be transformed by God's love and somehow begin to taste a little bit like daylight.
Worship Resources
By Julie Strope
Theme: All of us have a plan of salvation. It is either of our own making or one that God has fashioned for us in Jesus Christ. Palm Sunday is a time when Jesus contended with our illusions of salvation, which really never satisfy and end in death for us rather than new life. As our illusions are recognized, we intentionally turn somewhere for hope. The dread of most heroes is that parade day turn into confusion and violence. Palm Sunday carries us along rejoicing while our illusions are soon banished with Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Hope must rise again -- Easter!
CALL TO WORSHIP (based on Psalm 118)
Leader: It's Palm Sunday. Welcome to this place of worship. Give thanks to God for everlasting love.
People: In distress, we call to God and God sets us free!
Leader: Though we are afraid, we will trust God to be close to us.
People: We feel lively and we will tell others about God's continual care. With excitement, today, we begin a festival of new life! We know this space is sanctuary and here we enjoy God and one another. We know the ancient story and say with our ancestors, "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of God!"
Leader: We will remember the past, celebrate the present, and hope for a satisfying future.
PRAYER OF ADORATION
Living God, we've come without our Palm Sunday donkeys and our horses; we've parked our cars outside. But we want to participate in the story of Jesus being honored by friends. We're here -- body, mind, spirit, and voice; we eagerly sing and pray, listen and speak. We intone our thanks and whisper our petitions. Today, we rejoice, knowing Friday will bring somber tears. So, Hosanna! Amen!
HYMN SUGGESTIONS
"All Glory, Laud And Honor"
"Hosanna, Loud Hosanna"
"Morning Has Broken"
"Ride On! Ride On In Majesty!"
Psalm 118: "This Is The Day The Lord Hath Made." Available in The Presbyterian Hymnal, 1990, 230; tune: NUN DANKET ALL'UND BRINGET HER'
"At the Name Of Jesus" (Philippians 2); tune: KING'S WESTON, TPH, 1990, 148
CALL TO CONFESSION
Leader: Each of us makes our own reality. In these minutes, we look at our own attitudes, our own expectations, and our own intentions. Before God and one another, we name categories of behavior that separate us from one another and from the Holy. Then, we silently name our personal shortcomings.
CORPORATE CONFESSION (unison)
God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow,
We participate in promoting dreams of success and of affluence while many individuals and tribes suffer with starvation, disease, and homelessness.
We condone brutality to humans and animals by calling these activities "sports."
We speak half-truths when we say you have made all Creation yet do not welcome those different from ourselves nor protect the earth.
We resent loss of dominance and our sense of powerfulness.
How inconsistent we are!
Wipe us clean from contamination and illusion.
Open our eyes to people and merchandise which belittles your image in us and in all creatures.
Give us the determination to be peacemakers and hospitality-bearers each step of each day. Amen.
CONGREGATIONAL CHORAL RESPONSE
"Down To Earth, As A Dove," stanza 3; PERSONENT HODIE
Christ the Lord comes to feed hungry people in need;
In the house there is bread: Jesus in a stable,
In the church a table. Let us sing, sing, sing,
Dance and spring, spring, spring, Christ is here, ever near!
Gloria in excelsis.
WORD OF GRACE
Leader: It is good news that God hears our confessions and guides us to wholesome thoughts and behaviors. It is good news that Jesus is the Christ, our hero, our Savior -- good news that after the parade and after death is resurrection.
AN AFFIRMATION (based on Philippians 2)
We know that Jesus is the Christ, bearing the nature of God.
He was a powerful and humble teacher;
he walked a path of obedience to God all the way to death.
Heaven and earth shall honor God
by proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ.
Christ lives in us making us strong
so we can be compassionate with one another
and live as disciples in a non-predictable and
sometimes violent global village.
Every day we, too, belong to God! Amen!
INTERCESSORY PRAYERS
Energy of the Universe,
We want to party and relax; we want to rest in security. But world news demands our anxious attention. As in the time of Jesus, we see that Jerusalem is a violent city: cousins kill one another; tribes violate other groups' children. Not only in Palestine and Israel, but in America and Mexico, in Ireland and in Africa.... We see that humanity is not close to being peacemakers and merciful neighbors. Remove our illusions about a peaceable kingdom and give us courage to work toward a just global culture.
Creating God,
We can do nothing without your active presence in world affairs.
We know that societies must order themselves and we have taken for granted the Ten Commandments as our foundation for ethics and morals. As they are banished from the public eye, move among us again till heroes and heroines arise to stand for justice and peace, hope, and vitality for all peoples.
God of fiascos and failures,
Not only is world culture chaotic, but the planet's weather patterns are amiss. We are aware of how quickly human life and endeavors are tattered when the winds and rains overflow their normal boundaries. We thought we could control Nature, but tsunamis and earthquakes, droughts and floods shake up our thinking. Bring forth leaders who honor Creation and strive to allow it to serve all creatures.
God of panic and hope,
And look at us! We sit in these pews week after week, reading the stories of Jesus, hearing how God has been active in history. Our bodies ache here and there; our minds are busy with family and health concerns; our souls yearn for strength to live authentically in these amazing times. Heal us from head to toe. Mend our dreams. Be fully present with us as we interact with people whom we value as friends and as non-friends. Give us vitality as we move through time to eternity.
God of fig trees and donkeys,
How like sterile fig trees and obstinate donkeys we can be!
Open our eyes to fruitfulness; open our ears to your guiding voice. At home and at work, in the playground and in the classroom, in public forums and church circles, empower us to explore ways to live in the real world as effective followers of Jesus who stood against usury and unfairness; help us to embody the teachings of Jesus as we engage one another about ways to align ourselves with justice; create through us beauty and hospitality wherever we are. Amen.
OFFERTORY STATEMENT
We are grateful people who share our resources for ministry here and around the world. Most of all, we determine again, to give our selves to God. Again, we decide to walk in difficult places with Christ, as good neighbors and as bearers of peace.
DOXOLOGY
"O Day Of Radiant Gladness," stanza 3; ES FLOG EIN KLEINS WALDVOGELEIN
That light our hope sustaining, We walk the pilgrim way,
At length our rest attaining, Our endless Sabbath day.
We sing to You our praises, O Father, Spirit, Son;
The church its voice upraises To You, blest Three in One.
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
God of all,
Thank you for the resources that are available to us.
Stretch these to provide for ministry in this place.
Multiply our moneys and talents to serve you around this globe.
Amen.
BENEDICTION / CHARGE
You've been in sanctuary for this past hour
while we've noted the violence of the world.
We've experienced peacefulness and beauty
with our eyes and ears.
We've heard stories of divine grace and guidance.
Now we leave this comfortable space --
breathing air that sustains all life;
walking on soil that feeds us and others;
carrying the Holy One's love for all the world;
holding in our hands the dream of kindness for all creatures;
remembering scriptures that give us power to enact peace.
As the calendar moves us toward Good Friday,
recall the whole story of Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection and feel hopeful.
Amen!
A Children's Sermon
God's blueprints
Object: a picture of a house and a set of blueprints
Based on Matthew 26:14--27:66
But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say it must happen in this way? (v. 26:54)
Good morning, boys and girls. Did everyone get a palm today? (let them answer) Today many Christians will think about the entire passion of Jesus. This means they will think about everything that happened to Jesus in the days before he died. The whole story will be told including the great parade where Jesus entered Jerusalem and the people waved palm branches and felt the presence of God in their lives. People will remember the last night Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples, how Judas betrayed him, and how Jesus was arrested in the garden. They will remember when the Jewish and Roman leaders sentenced Jesus to die. Soon they will think about when Jesus climbed up the long hill to Calvary and when he died on the cross.
How did all of this happen to Jesus? Was it just bad luck? (let them answer) Were the Jewish and Roman leaders just a lot smarter than Jesus and his disciples? (let them answer)
I brought along a picture of a house. It is a beautiful picture and the people who live in this house have it hung above their fireplace. But the house wasn't built by following a picture of it.
Let me show you something else. These are called blueprints and they are the plans for this house. Every person who worked on the building of this house read these blueprints. One person drew up the plans but many people helped build the house. The plans say how big the basement should be and what the kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms should look like. These are really important drawings and the builders check here if they have a problem.
God had a plan. He told the plan to the teachers, rabbis, prophets, and scribes. The whole plan was in the scriptures and said that the Son of God would die on a cross at the hands of some very mean people. It would not be an easy death and the people close to the Son of God would run away in fear that it could happen to them, too.
Jesus followed the plan. It wasn't easy. The night before Jesus died on the cross, he asked God to think about the plan and whether he wanted to change it and let Jesus live longer. But God the Father decided not to change it so that people like you and me could be forgiven for our sins and welcomed into God's kingdom. God had a great plan and Jesus fulfilled it, just as the Bible said would happen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, March 20, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503. 1 18
