No ... On
Sermon
Sermons on the Gospel Readings
Series III, Cycle C
Object:
I've tried to get a handle on this Holy Week thing. How can Jesus be hailed as the one coming in the name of the Lord on Palm Sunday, delight the crowds with his wisdom, only to be condemned a few days later by the crowds who shouted "Crucify him!" and then mocked him as he hung in agony on the cross?
I believe that it happened, but what influences crowds to do the right thing -- and the wrong thing? The same crowd.
There's a new statistical concept called the Information Cascade, and it just might explain things. There's a messy mathematical algorithm attached to it, but that doesn't concern us here. Just these few facts.
Statisticians and sociologists have come up with a theory that explains our herd mentality. It's called Information Cascade. It is the effect that we have on each other, an effect that can multiply a correct or incorrect response. If we all take a test in which we keep our answers from each other we have an opportunity to put down the right or wrong answer. If someone asks a question in public, however, the answer the first person gives out loud affects the answer of the second person. Regardless of how that second person might have answered on their own, their answer is influenced by the first person. If the second person agrees with the first person, then the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth person in the room is more likely to give the same answer, too.
The answer can even be affected by what other people are saying, whether we agree with them or not.
In Los Angeles they used to talk about the Tom Bradley Effect. Tom Bradley was the successful multi-term African-American mayor of Los Angeles. When he ran for governor of California the polls showed him winning by a large margin -- but he lost the election to a white opponent. What studies showed was that white voters were reluctant to admit they would prefer to vote for a white candidate instead of a black candidate so they went along with the answer they thought the pollster wanted. But, in the privacy of the polling booth, enough citizens voted their racism to throw the election the other way.
How many times have you found yourself with a group of people when someone said something outrageously racist, but then discovered that others were agreeing? Some people will say nothing, or even give the appearance they agree, because they care about what other people say. But if someone was to stand up for justice, people would go along with that, too.
Information, bad or good, cascades, creating more good or bad information. Rumors get started, and they're hard to dislodge. That's why studies show that many jurors assume that if someone is arrested they must be guilty -- after all, someone thought they were guilty enough to arrest. Where there's smoke, there's fire.
So maybe we're seeing information cascade going in two directions. When Jesus sent his disciples to get a colt he acted like a king. He instructed the disciples to tell whoever might protest when they commandeered a beast of burden that the master had need of it. Perhaps word got around -- the king is coming! And the more people shouted, the more believed, until everyone was shouting, despite the protests of the religious authorities.
The word spread through Jerusalem on this Passover season that the king was in their midst and that his answers confounded the wise and cowed the powerful and brought low the rich. Bring the jubilee!
How, then, did the cries for his crucifixion get started? We know there were those who were paid to be false witnesses -- why not a few who cried aloud for his blood? Others would follow. They always do. Soon the information was cascading and people were deriding the one who had stood so high in their estimation. Isn't it the truth that the public loves to watch the meteoric rise of a person from obscurity to fame, and they love even more the spectacular fall?
So that's how people act when they know others are watching. But how did they really feel? How would they have felt if they'd paused a moment, examined Jesus for who he is, who he claims he is, how he acts, and what he does?
The same goes for you. Close your eyes. Forget we are here together, the church of Jesus Christ, and think about what you have heard and read about this man, Jesus. Think about how you have encountered him in your life. Consider what the Lord has done for you in the high moments and the low moments.
How do you feel about Jesus? Will you hail him as your king? Or will you cast him from the throne of your life?
What's the real answer? What's the real answer you give in your heart of hearts? Not an answer you give because other people are watching. Which side are you on?
Let's go back to the familiar scene of Jesus entering Jerusalem in triumph, which we associate with Palm Sunday. Picture the triumphant entry in your mind. What do you see?
Maybe you see the donkey. Maybe you see animals and children -- actors know to avoid them. They take away the focus. People can't help but look at animals and children. There are plenty of animals in the familiar nativity scene -- fortunately there's also a baby, or we'd never hear about Jesus.
Yet oddly enough in this scene the donkey doesn't overshadow Jesus. The donkey is essential to the story. If you were there you'd be surprised to find out that people are not surprised by a king riding a donkey. They rather expect it. What does this mean?
It means they knew their Bible. Especially their Zechariah. He was one of the most popular prophets of the day, and he'd been involved in a little Information Cascade over 500 years before. The people of God had been taken away into exile, into Babylon, their temple destroyed. They saw their nation destroyed -- but even though they were taken away from the land, they did not lose their identity. They learned to be faithful without land, without a temple, without a king -- because they still had a God who was not tied to a land, to a building, or to any human conception of power.
Nevertheless, they remembered the glory of their temple, and when the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians and the people were sent back home, their dreams came true. At last, they were going to rebuild their temple. Soon. But first they needed to get settled again, to till the land, build houses, and raise families. The restoration of the temple was put off a month, a year, then many years.
Sixteen years went by with no work done. They had no king. They were depressed. Then God called out two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, who called the people back to this great task and worked side by side with them to begin the restoration. It would be a long project that would ultimately take centuries to complete, but it was starting that mattered. Zechariah's words were part of the Information Cascade that got the people out of their tracks and back to work until suddenly everyone was involved.
Zechariah was a very popular prophet. His words were so well known that people could quote them from memory. In addition to encouraging the people to get back to work on the temple, he also spoke about a coming king, an eternal king. And Zechariah is quoted by the gospel writers more than any other Hebrew prophet in their accounts of Holy Week.
Here's what Zechariah said about the coming king, and this is why it was no surprise to the people that he rode on a donkey:
"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 9:9).
The conqueror comes, not on a war horse, but a donkey. He is a bringer of true peace. Everything is unfolding as God intends.
That's a lot harder than it looks.
Look at the donkey. Hallelujah. The people see their Savior, their meal ticket, their way out of their misery. They see the one who has all the answers. Hooray!
It probably looks different from on top of the donkey. We have no way of getting inside the mind of Jesus; yet he told us enough in his gospel discourses for us to guess what he saw looking out from on top of the donkey. Beyond the cheering crowds and the waving palm branches, sure signs that they saw him as a conqueror.
Jesus saw controversy, Gethsemane, and Golgotha.
No ... on.
There are times when we must grit our teeth and go just a little longer. The curtain will lift, there will be a silver rain, and a quick sunrise. There will be a dawn. Weeping may tarry for the night but joy will come with the morning ... on.
The temptation is to stop just a little short. The resistance gets greatest the further we go. There are barriers right before we reach glory. In The Divine Comedy, the poet, Dante, places a wall of burning glass right before the Earthly Paradise. He must walk through the fire before the glory. Every athlete knows there's a place in every contest where we struggle to go on. That's why the Greeks called it the agon, the word from which we get agony. There's a barrier before us that we must plod through before we get to glory. No ... on.
Regardless of what happens, say no to despair. Go on.
From where will we find this strength? How can we keep going when for now we see through a glass darkly, when we live with hope and to all appearances our hope is unfounded because the way is so dark.
The play, Waiting for Godot, by a then-obscure writer, Samuel Beckett, was first produced in France in 1953. It was soon famous worldwide, despite the fact that in its two acts nothing seemed to happen. In Act 1, two tramps met on a road to wait for a man named Godot. They mark time by discussing the scriptures, art, and their situation. At the end of the first act, a boy comes to tell them that Godot will not come today but will surely come tomorrow. The same thing happens at the end of the second act.
Though the play, which seemed to many to mirror the emptiness of the postwar years, seemed infused with despair (as well as a great deal of laughter) most of those who watched were nevertheless filled with a strange sense of hope. No matter how senseless the situation, we go on.
Hope. It's what we have.
On Palm Sunday, we see beyond the cross to the king -- but which king do we proclaim? How self-serving is our image of Jesus? Certainly those who proclaimed Jesus the king on that first Palm Sunday had their own ideas of who he is.
Jesus has been seen differently in every age, and oddly enough Jesus ends up looking just like us. The Jesus I know, we hear, would never stand for us. But the Jesus we follow uncomfortably refuses to fit under any political or theological placard. He is the Lord, not our follower. We cannot simply pick and choose those parts of the gospel that confirm our pet notions. We must follow.
Proclaim Jesus as Lord -- but not as convenient, easy, or clearly on our side. Follow, to find out if you're on his side. Don't wait to see which way the Information Cascade is flowing. Go against the tide. Stand up, whether you are standing with the crowd or not. Don't wait to see what others are saying or doing. Make up your own mind -- for Jesus, for the cross, and for the resurrection glory.
It's going to be a rough week -- but in the end it will be glorious. Amen.
I believe that it happened, but what influences crowds to do the right thing -- and the wrong thing? The same crowd.
There's a new statistical concept called the Information Cascade, and it just might explain things. There's a messy mathematical algorithm attached to it, but that doesn't concern us here. Just these few facts.
Statisticians and sociologists have come up with a theory that explains our herd mentality. It's called Information Cascade. It is the effect that we have on each other, an effect that can multiply a correct or incorrect response. If we all take a test in which we keep our answers from each other we have an opportunity to put down the right or wrong answer. If someone asks a question in public, however, the answer the first person gives out loud affects the answer of the second person. Regardless of how that second person might have answered on their own, their answer is influenced by the first person. If the second person agrees with the first person, then the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth person in the room is more likely to give the same answer, too.
The answer can even be affected by what other people are saying, whether we agree with them or not.
In Los Angeles they used to talk about the Tom Bradley Effect. Tom Bradley was the successful multi-term African-American mayor of Los Angeles. When he ran for governor of California the polls showed him winning by a large margin -- but he lost the election to a white opponent. What studies showed was that white voters were reluctant to admit they would prefer to vote for a white candidate instead of a black candidate so they went along with the answer they thought the pollster wanted. But, in the privacy of the polling booth, enough citizens voted their racism to throw the election the other way.
How many times have you found yourself with a group of people when someone said something outrageously racist, but then discovered that others were agreeing? Some people will say nothing, or even give the appearance they agree, because they care about what other people say. But if someone was to stand up for justice, people would go along with that, too.
Information, bad or good, cascades, creating more good or bad information. Rumors get started, and they're hard to dislodge. That's why studies show that many jurors assume that if someone is arrested they must be guilty -- after all, someone thought they were guilty enough to arrest. Where there's smoke, there's fire.
So maybe we're seeing information cascade going in two directions. When Jesus sent his disciples to get a colt he acted like a king. He instructed the disciples to tell whoever might protest when they commandeered a beast of burden that the master had need of it. Perhaps word got around -- the king is coming! And the more people shouted, the more believed, until everyone was shouting, despite the protests of the religious authorities.
The word spread through Jerusalem on this Passover season that the king was in their midst and that his answers confounded the wise and cowed the powerful and brought low the rich. Bring the jubilee!
How, then, did the cries for his crucifixion get started? We know there were those who were paid to be false witnesses -- why not a few who cried aloud for his blood? Others would follow. They always do. Soon the information was cascading and people were deriding the one who had stood so high in their estimation. Isn't it the truth that the public loves to watch the meteoric rise of a person from obscurity to fame, and they love even more the spectacular fall?
So that's how people act when they know others are watching. But how did they really feel? How would they have felt if they'd paused a moment, examined Jesus for who he is, who he claims he is, how he acts, and what he does?
The same goes for you. Close your eyes. Forget we are here together, the church of Jesus Christ, and think about what you have heard and read about this man, Jesus. Think about how you have encountered him in your life. Consider what the Lord has done for you in the high moments and the low moments.
How do you feel about Jesus? Will you hail him as your king? Or will you cast him from the throne of your life?
What's the real answer? What's the real answer you give in your heart of hearts? Not an answer you give because other people are watching. Which side are you on?
Let's go back to the familiar scene of Jesus entering Jerusalem in triumph, which we associate with Palm Sunday. Picture the triumphant entry in your mind. What do you see?
Maybe you see the donkey. Maybe you see animals and children -- actors know to avoid them. They take away the focus. People can't help but look at animals and children. There are plenty of animals in the familiar nativity scene -- fortunately there's also a baby, or we'd never hear about Jesus.
Yet oddly enough in this scene the donkey doesn't overshadow Jesus. The donkey is essential to the story. If you were there you'd be surprised to find out that people are not surprised by a king riding a donkey. They rather expect it. What does this mean?
It means they knew their Bible. Especially their Zechariah. He was one of the most popular prophets of the day, and he'd been involved in a little Information Cascade over 500 years before. The people of God had been taken away into exile, into Babylon, their temple destroyed. They saw their nation destroyed -- but even though they were taken away from the land, they did not lose their identity. They learned to be faithful without land, without a temple, without a king -- because they still had a God who was not tied to a land, to a building, or to any human conception of power.
Nevertheless, they remembered the glory of their temple, and when the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians and the people were sent back home, their dreams came true. At last, they were going to rebuild their temple. Soon. But first they needed to get settled again, to till the land, build houses, and raise families. The restoration of the temple was put off a month, a year, then many years.
Sixteen years went by with no work done. They had no king. They were depressed. Then God called out two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, who called the people back to this great task and worked side by side with them to begin the restoration. It would be a long project that would ultimately take centuries to complete, but it was starting that mattered. Zechariah's words were part of the Information Cascade that got the people out of their tracks and back to work until suddenly everyone was involved.
Zechariah was a very popular prophet. His words were so well known that people could quote them from memory. In addition to encouraging the people to get back to work on the temple, he also spoke about a coming king, an eternal king. And Zechariah is quoted by the gospel writers more than any other Hebrew prophet in their accounts of Holy Week.
Here's what Zechariah said about the coming king, and this is why it was no surprise to the people that he rode on a donkey:
"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 9:9).
The conqueror comes, not on a war horse, but a donkey. He is a bringer of true peace. Everything is unfolding as God intends.
That's a lot harder than it looks.
Look at the donkey. Hallelujah. The people see their Savior, their meal ticket, their way out of their misery. They see the one who has all the answers. Hooray!
It probably looks different from on top of the donkey. We have no way of getting inside the mind of Jesus; yet he told us enough in his gospel discourses for us to guess what he saw looking out from on top of the donkey. Beyond the cheering crowds and the waving palm branches, sure signs that they saw him as a conqueror.
Jesus saw controversy, Gethsemane, and Golgotha.
No ... on.
There are times when we must grit our teeth and go just a little longer. The curtain will lift, there will be a silver rain, and a quick sunrise. There will be a dawn. Weeping may tarry for the night but joy will come with the morning ... on.
The temptation is to stop just a little short. The resistance gets greatest the further we go. There are barriers right before we reach glory. In The Divine Comedy, the poet, Dante, places a wall of burning glass right before the Earthly Paradise. He must walk through the fire before the glory. Every athlete knows there's a place in every contest where we struggle to go on. That's why the Greeks called it the agon, the word from which we get agony. There's a barrier before us that we must plod through before we get to glory. No ... on.
Regardless of what happens, say no to despair. Go on.
From where will we find this strength? How can we keep going when for now we see through a glass darkly, when we live with hope and to all appearances our hope is unfounded because the way is so dark.
The play, Waiting for Godot, by a then-obscure writer, Samuel Beckett, was first produced in France in 1953. It was soon famous worldwide, despite the fact that in its two acts nothing seemed to happen. In Act 1, two tramps met on a road to wait for a man named Godot. They mark time by discussing the scriptures, art, and their situation. At the end of the first act, a boy comes to tell them that Godot will not come today but will surely come tomorrow. The same thing happens at the end of the second act.
Though the play, which seemed to many to mirror the emptiness of the postwar years, seemed infused with despair (as well as a great deal of laughter) most of those who watched were nevertheless filled with a strange sense of hope. No matter how senseless the situation, we go on.
Hope. It's what we have.
On Palm Sunday, we see beyond the cross to the king -- but which king do we proclaim? How self-serving is our image of Jesus? Certainly those who proclaimed Jesus the king on that first Palm Sunday had their own ideas of who he is.
Jesus has been seen differently in every age, and oddly enough Jesus ends up looking just like us. The Jesus I know, we hear, would never stand for us. But the Jesus we follow uncomfortably refuses to fit under any political or theological placard. He is the Lord, not our follower. We cannot simply pick and choose those parts of the gospel that confirm our pet notions. We must follow.
Proclaim Jesus as Lord -- but not as convenient, easy, or clearly on our side. Follow, to find out if you're on his side. Don't wait to see which way the Information Cascade is flowing. Go against the tide. Stand up, whether you are standing with the crowd or not. Don't wait to see what others are saying or doing. Make up your own mind -- for Jesus, for the cross, and for the resurrection glory.
It's going to be a rough week -- but in the end it will be glorious. Amen.
