Fools on Parade
March 25, 2018
Palm Sunday
Revelation 5:1–14; Mark 11:1–11
Brookside Community Church
“Hosanna, loud hosanna, the little children sang.”
—Jennette Threlfall (1873)
“And a little child shall lead them.”
—Isaiah 11:6
“… to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring!”
—John Mason Neale, alt.
The things that shape us
It is great to see children today, leading us in worship! It has been a week filled with children leading us. It’s like the words of the prophet Isaiah come to life! The children are leading us.
Before we read our next passage for today, I want to invite you for just a moment to close you eyes and engage your God-inspired imagination. Bring to mind, if you can, an image of your favorite personal hero. It can even be a group of heroes if you wish. They can be super heroes, or they can be ordinary heroes. Think to yourself: Why is this person my hero? What makes them special? What admirable qualities do they have?
Imagine them coming down the road and inviting you to join along behind them. Now ask yourself: where are we going? Why are we going there? What kind of place will it be? Is it a place of meaning and purpose? Maybe this hero of yours has done some extraordinary things, working for good and standing up in the face evil. Would it be risky of you to follow along? Is it a risk you are willing to take?
Watch as your hero begins to draw in others to join with you. The world is watching, and your journey has now become a parade. What kind of people have joined with you? Are they people you feel a strong sense of connection with? What is it about this group that connects you all? Is it your hero? Is it the cause? Is it the attention? Maybe some have joined just to be a part of the “in-crowd.”
Maybe not you though. Maybe you want to make the biggest impact and tell the world about this hero of yours, or at least the cause your hero represents. What props do you use to help others identify with them? What is their message? What is their cause? What kind of clothes are you wearing? What signs do you hold up? Are they signs or symbols that have special meaning? What message do you expect to convey to the onlookers? What kind of response to you expect from the crowd? What anthems are playing or songs are you singing?
How do you feel? What is going through your mind? Perhaps you feel like a celebrity, being on display as part of this celebration. Perhaps you feel confused, having to face the truth that others might not think of your hero or your cause the way you do. Perhaps you feel afraid, because you know that your hero is unwelcome in the community you are parading through.
Ask yourself again, where is this hero taking you? Is it a place of meaning and purpose? If so, what is its meaning and its purpose?
Mark 11:1–11
Now, open your eyes. I’d like to invite you to continue asking some of these questions as you hear the following passage read from Mark 11:1–11.
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” ’ They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting:
Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
Float building on the Way
As most of us know, Lent is a time for preparing for Easter. We have our Lenten calendars and our Easter advertisements. We are busy making phone calls so there will be enough food for our Easter breakfast. Some of us are busy stuffing plastic Easter Eggs with candies that we probably should not eat, and filling Easter baskets. Some of us take our family shopping for their special Easter clothing. Maybe you are in the choir and practicing tirelessly to be at your best when we sing our Easter songs. But we all know it is also supposed to be a spiritual time of preparation. It is a time of repentance and reflection. A time for looking deep within ourselves and discovering who we really are.
What I want to know is what kind of float are you making for the parade? What kind of costumes or clothing or symbols or signs will you use? What does your message say?
“Parade? What parade?” you might ask.
A number of years ago, Rodney Clapp wrote a book called A Peculiar People. In it, he made the claim that “All good worship, or liturgy, includes a parade.” Every Sunday, many church services include a processional that marches into the midst of assembled Christians. Perhaps someone is carrying the light. Maybe some folks are wearing special robes with special colors, bearing a crucifix or holding a cross high so that everyone can see the symbols and be reminded of the story our faith tells.
During the season of Lent, we have been tasked to see this processional not only as an occasional celebration, but as one episode of a longer journey leading us along “the Way.” And we should ask ourselves, Where does this “Way” lead us? (The Way was what early Christians called themselves.) Is it a place we are willing to go? Is it a procession we are willing to join? Do we understand its meaning? Its purpose? What does it tell us about the world as it is and as it really is supposed to be?
How worship shapes us
Today, we are celebrating Palm Sunday. Here we are, waving our palm fronds and singing our Hosannas. It is the procession of processionals, a reenactment of a key part of the Jesus story. It is also worship, and that means it shapes us into a particular kind of people.
Rodney Clapp puts it this way:
To be human is to worship, to adore, to admire and give our allegiances to powers greater than [ourselves], powers that grant our life meaning and purpose, substance and form. Worship presents the world as it is…and as it is really supposed to be. It calls us to the imitation of heroes or gods whose ways would set the world right. At worship we consecrate our lives: what we worship or ultimately adore is what we live and die for. And at worship we celebrate our lives: what we worship is the source and sustainer of our existence. Thus worship shapes us, it forms us as a people.
How do we expect Palm Sunday to shape us?
Today, as we celebrate Palm Sunday and prepare ourselves for Easter, we are participating in a parade that is meant to shape us into a particular kind of people. What kind of people will that be?
At the start of the week of Passover, that first Palm Sunday in the spring over 2000 years ago, two processions entered Jerusalem.
One was an imperial procession…
the other a procession of peacemaking fools.
From the west end, Pontius Pilate entered Jerusalem as the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. In provinces like Judea, the processions like this were meant to convey the message of imperial omnipotence. It included soldiers wearing laurel-wreaths on their heads as they sang. It included the spoils of war and a collection of conquered slaves. It also included that standard Roman instrument of public ridicule, the cross. Crosses, remember, were meant to threaten occupied peoples, reminding them what awaits those who refuse to submit to the Roman authorities.
From the east, Jesus entered in on a colt (or a donkey, depending on which text we are reading) with his cheering followers shouting hosannas. Beginning in a poor town in Galilee, about a hundred miles north, they had been marching, shouting, aiming all along for Jerusalem. They were heading directly to the temple, into a place of conflict. Now, they have arrived. No weapons. No armies. Here is our hero, not on a chariot or on a war horse, but on a peace donkey. There are no captured prisoners or spoils from war. There are no threats of torture to frighten the onlookers and keep them in their place. Rather, there is one who is knowingly leading a journey that will end with his own crucifixion.
From the eyes of those indoctrinated by the violence of worldly powers, this looks like a procession of fools with a false hope, for at least two reasons. As Theodore Koontz puts it,
“First it proclaims a victory before it was won — Jesus, the one who was proclaimed messiah on Palm Sunday, was arrested and crucified within the week; and second, because Jesus was not the kind of messiah the people wanted. He did not break the power of Rome and restore the glory of the Davidic kingdom. Yet the Christian Gospel claims that he is king, messiah, that he is victorious, powerful. How can this be?”
These two processions, these two parades, illustrate the central conflict that will take place during Holy Week. If Rodney Clapp is right, that to be human is to worship, than we will be shaped by one or the other. Which one do we wish to be shaped by? Palm Sunday is our time to remind ourselves which of these is at the heart of the Christian story.
The parade of the Lamb
This peasant on a donkey is surrounded by what appears to be a crowd of fools: peasant workers, women, slaves, former lepers and all kinds of social outcasts. It is a curiously disarming vision. In the face of Rome’s ideology of victory (recall, Victoria was a Roman goddess), this entire procession looks almost incongruous. This isn’t a symbol of overwhelming military strength, but it appears to be little more than foolishness. The Apostle Paul would say as much in his first letter to the church in Corinth: “The message of the cross is foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:18).
They did not look like they were aiming to seize the reins of power in order to remake human history. Instead, if they have a message at all, it is that the power that makes for peace is not one of might but one of mercy, not one of power but one of fearless vulnerability.
Recall that central imagery from the book of Revelation? John is there, in the Spirit, engaged in heavenly liturgy. It is a scene of worship. John sees a sealed scroll, presumably a scroll which contains the truths about the salvation of the world in the right hand of the One seated on the throne. But the irony is, the One on the throne, for some reason, doesn’t even have the authority to open it. Then John begins to weep, since no one is found worthy of opening it. (It is almost as if John has lost faith in God. Israel had been waiting for God to bring salvation, but they only experienced more ridicule, violence, and bloodshed.) Then, one of the twenty-four elders who surrounded the heavenly throne tells John not to weep: “The Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered. He can open the scroll and its seven seals” (Rev 5:5).
Note, by the way, that both the imagery of the Lion of Judah and the Root of David are titles meant to express a kind of warrior strength. Based on the imagery thus far, there is every reason to believe that the opening of this scroll is going to result in a military battle against the enemies of God. Yet, John looks up and, instead of seeing a Lion, he sees a Lamb. And instead of the throne of a conquering king, he sees an altar.
This image, central to the book of Revelation, is a jarring image! While John and the whole of Israel were waiting on a strong messianic leader to conquer their enemies, we find a Lamb who has been slaughtered by them.
It is as if all of the sudden, the veil over John’s eyes have been removed (a apocalypse) and he finally sees the truth at the heart of the universe: That God’s salvation comes to us not on a war horse, but on a peace donkey; not in the form of a conquering army, but in the form of a slain Lamb; not with fear, but with fearless vulnerability.
Here we are, at the start of Holy Week, on Palm Sunday, marching on our way toward Easter. Which parade will we join? What will our processional be?
This morning, I want to ask what will your parade float look like. What is the meaning of your processional? Where is it heading? How will your participation in it shape you?
All of our Hosannas are meant to be an echoing of the song of heaven, “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain…”
For those of us who follow Christ, we are entering a processional hoping that it shapes us to be more like Jesus. I pray that we will be going, not as conquerers who are looking to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies, but as those who are willing to risk even our very lives on behalf of God’s love for the world. Fearless vulnerability.
It may look like foolish to some. We may find ourselves surrounded by the marginalized and outcast, the lost and the lonely, the broke and the hurting, those who at one time couldn’t vote, or attend church services, or get married—maybe even children.
And yet this foolishness, this fearless vulnerability of the Lamb marching in the Lamb’s parade, we recognize to be the wisdom and the strength of God.
I pray we go as followers of the Lamb, marching in the Lamb’s parade — despite how foolish it might look to the world.
If we decide to follow Jesus on this Way toward Jerusalem, we might stop this spiral of violence, this “rally ‘round the family with a pocket full of shells,” and start to see that the way to bring peace is through vulnerability.
We might start to hear the voice of the victims telling us what peace looks like.
If we decide to follow Jesus on the way into Jerusalem, this will be a triumphant entry. But we will not be entering as warriors. We are going as lovers and healers and peacemakers on behalf of God’s dream for the world, the one that was revealed to us and initiated in Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God.
Hosanna in the highest, blessed is the one that comes in the name of the Lord.
— Amen.
