(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on March 25, 2018, Palm Sunday)
Someone to Do It for Us
When life becomes difficult and
we cannot do it on our own, it is only natural that we want someone else to do
it for us.
I remember the first few times
that I drove a car. Both my
parents were with me. Before
taking on the road, I drove around the empty parking lot up at Godwin. No problems there. I cruised around the perimeter. I practiced parking. I felt rather accomplished for a
beginner. I could do this. Then my dad and I swapped seats, and he
drove us down Pump and Patterson to the entrance of West Creek Parkway. It was a weekend morning, and there was
hardly any traffic on the road.
The speed limit there, I think, was 35 at the time. My dad pulled over and we switched
seats.
And suddenly my feeling of
accomplishment faded. There on the
open road, everything changed.
Thirty-five felt like 80.
Each car that passed me felt like a wreck waiting to happen. My knuckles white on the steering
wheel, I looked for the nearest place to pull over. I tried to give the wheel back to my dad. He said he’d be happy to take it, if
that’s what I really wanted. But
he also said, “Jonathan, I can’t do this for you. If I take the wheel from you now, you’ll never learn. Driving is difficult at first, but you
have to go through the difficulty.
I can’t go through that for you.
But I will be beside you the whole way through.”
Fast-forward about five years
from that time, and I found myself again in a similar place. This time, though, it wasn’t
driving. It was relationships. I had just gone through my first
breakup, and I was at a loss. Not
only had I lost a close relationship, I had also lost things to do and places
to go and dreams to chase. I felt
like I could not do life anymore.
And like before, I wanted to pull
over to the side and get someone else to do this for me. I remember countless hours spent talking
to supportive friends. On the
phone. In coffee shops. At the park. I would ask pointless questions. I would speculate on the unknowable gaps of the past. I was looking for answers—but there are
no answers for a broken heart. And
my friends, I think, knew this.
They could not give me what I wanted. They could not make satisfactory sense of things, nor could
they magically restore what was lost.
They could only share the long night or the lonely day. They could only sit with me in my
brokenness. And that’s what
they did.
The “Triumphal” Entry
The word “hosanna” means, “Save
us, we pray!” (cf. Ps 118:25). It
is not difficult to guess, then, what the crowd in Jerusalem expected from
Jesus.
They who were powerless expected
a man of great power. They who
were subjects to a foreign empire expected freedom. They who were going through a difficult time expected someone
who could do what they could not.
This passage is called the “triumphal entry” for a reason. The crowd gives Jesus a reception fit
for a triumphant king, expectant that he will prevail over all their
difficulties.
But in only a handful of days,
the crowd around Jesus is not celebrating him but instead crying out for his
crucifixion. Why? I think it’s because they realize that
they’ve been had. This is not the
man of might and muscle that they’d expected. This is not a man who will triumph over their enemies. This man is useless. So they exchange their trust, putting
it not in Jesus but in the people who boasted the most power: the religious
authorities.
A Piece of “Street Theater”
To me, the most curious thing
about today’s story is that Jesus seems to know all about the hero’s reception
that he will receive in Jerusalem.
Most of today’s scripture is about Jesus planning for the event (vv.
1-7). Only a few verses actually
describe the entry itself (vv. 8-11).
This suggests to me the significance of the arrangements that Jesus
makes. He knows exactly how he
wants to make his entry. As one
commentator artfully puts it, “He is carefully orchestrating a piece of ‘street
theater.”[1]
And it is quite the
performance. For when the crowd
gives Jesus a reception resembling a triumphant military procession, he turns
it upside down (not unlike the overturning he will do shortly after in the
temple). Riding on a beast of
burden, his feet perhaps dragging on the dirt path, Jesus comes not as one who
lords it over others, but as one who humbly refuses the way of domination. He comes not with prestige and power,
but as one who identifies with the poor and lowly. He comes not as a triumphant conqueror, but as one who is
vulnerable and without force.[2]
By Our Side The Whole Way Through
When life becomes difficult and
we cannot do it on our own, it is only natural that we want someone else to do
it for us. It is only natural for
us to cry out, like that crowd in Jerusalem, “Hosanna! Save us!”
I have a feeling, though, that
God has no more power over the problems of this world than my parents had over
my driving or my friends had over my relationship. Which is not to
say that God has no power, but rather
that it is an altogether different kind of power than we desire. It is not a power that changes things
from without but a power that changes us from within. It is as simple as staying by our side while we journey
through difficulties. Which is
also what we call love. (Which is,
rumor has it, the strongest power of all, stronger even than death.)
How do we know that someone is
for us? Is on our side? Cares about us deeply? It is not the immediate attempt to fix
things. Such an attempt betrays
domination, however benevolent. We
know someone is for us if they are by our side the whole way through. If they share our journey, our joy when
we rejoice, our suffering when we suffer.
And that is what we see in Christ
today. He is not for us in the
false way of quick fixes and overriding force. He does not come with the power to immediately change our
lives and the world. Such power
would not be love but domination.
Christ comes to be with us.
To share our journey. Even
to cry out with us in the darkness when we feel God-forsaken.
In Christ, God is for us—even
more than we are for ourselves.
Prayer
Confounding Christ,
When we wish
For a hero
Of power,
You disappoint.
Because you are for us
Even more than we know,
Beside us
In all things.
Overturn our hearts,
That we might be for the world
As you are for us:
Not as one who has solutions and control,
But as a steadfast companion in hard times. Amen.
[1] Charles
Campbell, “Mark 11:1-11: Homiletical Perspective,” pp. 153, 155, 157, in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised
Common Lectionary, Year B, Volume 2 (eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara
Brown Taylor; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008). “Street theater” is an image taken from
Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A
Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,
1998), 294.
[2] Campbell,
157.
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