“The Things That Make for Peace” – March 24, 2013 Sermon
March 24, 2013
Scripture: Luke 19: 28-44
Jesus went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”
Sermon: The Things That Make for Peace
by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Did you enjoy the parade with the children earlier? Did any of you ever participate in a parade like that when you were a child? Did you ever take the parade outside, into the street? Now for many churches, there are not many opportunities to be theatrical. We may be a little different here, what with the live Nativity you all did several years ago, and the dramatized scripture readings we do sometimes, but for most churches, such drama is rare. And when it happens, it often happens in the time leading up to Easter. How many churches, on Maundy Thursday have at least a visual representation of the Last Supper, with readers gathered around the table? How many perform a footwashing rite, emulating Jesus at his last dinner with friends in the Gospel of John? How many churches offer the chance on Good Friday to figuratively walk Jesus’ path with stations of the cross, or the chance to experience a little bit of the passion drama – carrying a large cross through town, or on a simpler level – to hammer some nails, to taste the vinegar, to____ , as we will this Friday? Why do we do it? What is the point of such imaginative engagement? It’s like we are pretending to be there, isn’t it?
And there is something about being there, even if its just in our imaginations, that helps to make these events live inside of us. It helps to erase those almost 2000 years of distance between us and Jesus, between us and the disciples, between us and the crowd gathered on that road to Jerusalem. Think back… have you ever acted out a bit of scripture? Do you remember what part you played? One woman from this church told me she never knew who Elizabeth was in the Christmas story until she played the role. Now she knows all about her, and will probably never forget her. And forgetting is more the norm when it comes to scripture, hearing passages read in worship year after year, or at least every three years. There is something about “being there” more vividly in whatever way we can that makes a big impression on us. And it’s part of Christian tradition. The palm processions, dramatic readings of the passion story and carrying crosses has been going on since the mid-fourth century. In fact at one time the sense of “being there” through enactments was so convincing that the ritual passing of the peace was banned during holy week in case a kiss of greeting turned out to be the kiss of Judas, in case someone in the congregation might betray Jesus all over again.
Now this immediacy, this sense of being there is wonderful when its the Christmas story, right? Angels and shepherds and magi and a sweet, perfect babe to rejoice over. And the palm parade is fun too, isn’t it? The branches and garments and cheering. It’s enjoyable to “be there.” But the rest of Holy Week, maybe not so much. Sometimes I am grateful for those centuries of distance from this story. Sometimes I just want the abbreviated, G-rated children’s version of the Passion story. Sometimes I want to skip from Palm Sunday right into Easter with just the vaguest awareness of what happens in between. And that’s an option for you all. At least this year, when the focus today is on the Palm story. Some years I have and will focus on the Passion story on the week before Easter. But I hope that you don’t. If you can’t come here, perhaps you can spend some time with scripture, reading the passion narratives in the gospels. If you’re not sure what they are, or would like me to e-mail passages to you, let me know. There is a sign up sheet downstairs. I have something I put together for a Lenten bible study we did a few years ago, with each part of the story described by each of the four gospels. I would be happy to share with you. You can see a movie depicting events, you can come to the concert later today. But I hope you find some way to experience the passion such that when the old spiritual asks, “were you there when they crucified my Lord?” we understand that not only were we really there with him, but that he is really and truly here with us now, all these centuries later.
I have said before that part of the beauty and wonder of scripture is the way passages echo each other. Now I have talked about the re-enactments of Christmas, and the dramas of Easter. And you know in this very passage, we have echoes from Luke’s birth narrative. In his description of Jesus birth, Luke says the angels were singing out to the shepherds, “Glory to god in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.” And here we have the crowd of disciples throwing their cloaks on the ground and calling out, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” It’s similar, but not the same. At his birth it was glory to God in heaven and peace on earth. On entering Jerusalem it is peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven. Earth isn’t mentioned at all.
Rev. Amy Allen wonders if this represents a different understanding of Jesus’ kingship. As much as we, along with all those who dreamed of Jesus being the king of Israel, want a reign of peace, the reality was that Jerusalem wasn’t capable then of living into the real peace of Jesus’ kingdom. Is this still true today? In chapter 12 of Luke, Jesus says, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” It wasn’t that Jesus wanted division, he just knew that his reign couldn’t come about without it. Because the world he lived in (the world we live in?) was already divided, and those divisions would become more apparent as he preached and healed and challenged the systems that oppressed the many for the convenience and well-being of the few. The Roman Empire held its power like so many empires do with strategies of divide and conquer – pitting the struggling groups against one another while the elite stay out of the fray. So remember that it was Rome that was in power. The Pharisees and Sadducees and scribes and Jesus-followers were all pitted against one another, but it was all to the benefit of Rome. Remember that when you read or hear the stories about how Pilate didn’t want to kill Jesus, and only did so to satisfy the blood lust of the crowd of Jews. It was all for the benefit of Rome. Jesus was killed to keep the peace – the enforced “peace” that gets people to just shut up and accept the divisions of a society in which only a few thrive while the rest are forced to deal with lack – lack of food, lack of safety, lack of health, lack of opportunity.
Jesus won’t quiet his disciples, won’t spare the Pharisees from seeing the divisions. He sort of says he can’t spare them or anyone else. If the disciples didn’t chant the challenge to the way things were, the stones would cry out. This is the start of a new kind of kingdom, one not of this world, but a kingdom sanctioned by God. This good news of this inbreaking kingdom cannot be quieted for the sake of a shallow peace based on order and obedience. Frederich Buechner writes how “despair and hope… travel the road to Jerusalem together, as together they travel every road we take.” He quotes the verse “and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” This, he says, is our Palm Sunday hope, and our only hope. What Jesus hopes, but laments cannot happen in Jerusalem at that time, is that Pilate will take him by one hand and Caiaphas by the other, and the Roman soldiers will throw down their spears and the Sanhedrin will bow their heads. Jesus weeps on that donkey. He says, “If you had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” He says, “you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” By imagining ourselves there, I wonder, can we recognize the things that make for peace? Can we somehow get Pilate and Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin and Roman soldiers to stop this madness?
Thomas Long, in an article for Christian Century on this Palm passage from Luke also references Luke’s Christmas message. He tells how he moved right after Christmas, and didn’t get around to unpacking the non-essential boxes for a few months. So it was in Lent that he opened a box and came across a bunch of Christmas cards, and right on top was a card showing the night sky over Bethlehem ablaze with stars and angels. Inside were the familiar words from Luke: “Glory to God in the highest! Peace on earth! Good will to all people!” And he was struck by how this lovely sentiment is shown so clearly in Holy Week to be a costly mission. He talks about how easy it is to just bask in the warm fuzzies of the lovely sentiment, or even to be touched deeply by the dream of peace and glory and good will to all people. But, he wonders, what does it take to make them more than warm feelings and dreams? He recalls a story of a man who wrote a great deal about the genocide in Rwanda who was reading a newspaper outside of the Holocaust Museum. As he read the article about the murder of Tutsis, which included photos of corpses floating down the river, people were leaving the museum with buttons proclaiming “Remember,” and “Never Again.” And I trust that when those people bought those buttons it was with sincere intention to remember, and in the fervant hope that the genocide that happened in Nazi Germany would never happen again. But it was happening, it was happening right then in Rwanda. And it happened again in Darfur, in Guatemala, in North Korea.
It is not just a sentiment, not just dreams, not just good intentions that make for peace. Long proposes that instead of hearing those joyful songs and chants of glory and peace as wishes, we need to hear them as commands, as marching orders. They were commands that Jesus followed right to his death. How far will we go to follow them? Will we go into Jerusalem? Will we go to the Temple? Will we go to the Upper Room for the Passover meal? Will we go wait in the courtyard with Peter? Will we walk to the hill called the Skull? Can we see ourselves in all the roles, so that we recognize on a deep level what does and does not make for peace? What is it like to be the excited, then fearful, disciples? The anxious Pharisee? The donkey clip-clopping into the City? What does it feel like to be Pilate, Herod, the leader of the Sanhedrin? Would you feel with the heart of Mary – whether mother Mary or the Magdalene? Can you imagine yourself even as the new King Jesus, riding on that little colt, riding in not to conquer, but to keep doing what he’s been doing all along – teaching, healing, welcoming, restoring, forgiving, reconciling?
Religion professor Alyce McKenzie writes about the palm and passion story as a great screenplay, and the elements that make it so good. She says it has first and foremost a compelling protagonist in Jesus – the humble Messiah riding on the donkey, so clear and intent on his mission to bring about God’s reign of love without violence. He is compelling in his prophetic powers as he sends the disciples off to get the colt, and later when he sends them to set up for the Passover meal. The second great element is the believable supporting cast. We have the disciples who finally “get it,” understand who Jesus is and honor him, shouting Hosanna and throwing cloaks to line the path. We have the Pharisees who try to subdue Jesus’ followers, providing Jesus the cue for such a great comeback – “if they were silent the stones would cry out!” The third great element is the dramatic tension – hinted at in the exchange with the Pharisees, and only increasing as we move deeper into Jerusalem. Jesus lamenting as he foretells the destruction of Jerusalem; Jesus overturning the tables of the money-changers in the Temple; the betrayal of Judas, the drama in the garden, then the arrest and trial. It’s a great story, she say, except for the ending. What she wouldn’t give to change the ending. Every year she despairs again that he dies, he actually dies. How she longed to rewrite the ending of that script. Imagine if the Harry Potter series ended with Harry killed by Voldemort. It would be all wrong, wouldn’t it? And yet here it is, all the drama builds, and he dies. But she says finally it hit her that it wasn’t up to her to rewrite the ending, because God has already taken care of that with the Resurrection. And yet in that paradoxical way that so often reflects truth, it is her job, and it is our job, to rewrite the ending. It is our job, with God’s help, not just to imagine but to live a different kind of ending, one in which we do indeed recognize the things that make for peace and bring them to bear on our world. It is our job recognize that Christ really and truly is here with us now, that this is the time of our visitation from God. May it be so.
