The Big Joke; a sermon for Palm Sunday

Mark 11:1-11

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples ²and 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. ³If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?” just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.” ’ ⁴They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, ⁵some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ ⁶They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. ⁷Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. ⁸Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. ⁹Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

‘Hosanna!
   Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
¹⁰   Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

11 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.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
   be acceptable to you,
   O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Oh, that we were on fire like that crowd outside of Jerusalem!

How many of us would find ourselves in that crowd as Jesus entered the Holy City? Be honest with yourself. What excites you more, what gets more response out of you: a revival or a political rally?

Because if you look at our world today, it’s pretty obvious where the enthusiasm is. And it’s not just the secular world that’s getting more excited about politics than faith. The folk who are leading the charge are the folk who most wholeheartedly connect their faith to their politic.

But I think that most people, in their political excitement, look a lot like that crowd on the road to Jerusalem. They don’t really know what they’re excited about; they just know something really nifty is going on and they want to be a part of it.

For the most part, that’s how we react to our politics. We don’t really look deeply at the leaders of our political movements, and we don’t think all the way through the consequences of our political enthusiasm; we just make knee-jerk reactions out of frustration or a sense of righteous indignation. We get excited when somebody looks hopeful and we hurry to bandwagon and throw our coats and donations and support before the next big thing to come down the road.

And months later we find out what a goon that politician actually is. And years later we start to realize just how many people those ideas hurt. And decades later we wonder what fools actually supported those idiotic ideas.

Because our political memory is fabulously short-sighted.

The crowds who gathered to celebrate the Prophet from Nazareth didn’t have any real sense who he was. They were just getting excited because of all the hype surrounding him. They had a hope that he would fix their problems right then, right there.

‘Hosanna!
   Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
¹⁰   Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

The kingdom of our ancestor David…

The coming kingdom of our ancestor David…

Do you see what’s weird about that?

The crowds gathered were looking backward at something long past, hoping that the king they were seeing through rose-colored glasses would reappear and right the wrongs they were experiencing in the present.

And in rides Jesus on a donkey.

It doesn’t give the crowds pause. They just keep singing. Most of them probably don’t even see what he’s on. A baby donkey.

Well, that’s not a military mount. That’s not worthy of the savior.

What’s going on?

This isn’t a parade. It’s a parody. It’s like sitting in the audience of the Colbert Report and taking the monologue seriously.

Since when did God start making fun of us? Since when did God start pointing out the flaws in our plans? Since when did our best intentions become the butt of a divine joke?

It’s not fair! It’s not fair that God has gotten our hopes up and is suddenly making a mockery of them.

What kind of God does that?

There had better be some good reason for this parody. There had better be some good explanation this week for the way God is turning everything upside down.

This had better make more sense as Passover nears, because Jesus is about to ruin a perfectly good Festival Day.

There had better be some sense, now we watch Jesus’ back heading into the city on that donkey, there had better be some sense that this is…

To Be Continued…

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