WWJR? (Luke 19.28-40)
“WWJR (What would Jesus ride)?” (Luke 19.28-40)
Eastminster United Presbyterian Church, Palm Sunday C/March 20, 2016
Tom James
Imagine the scene in any great American city. You have city residents, the poor and the wealthy and the many in between. You have city officials, and police officers, and first responders. Perhaps, in an unlikely confluence of events, you have the visit of a high national official, a representative, an agent of American power, perhaps the President, coming to the city with great fanfare, and you also have Jesus, coming through the back door, as it were, amid fervent hopes for change. Jesus comes not with blaring trumpets and scurrying secret service agents, and motorcades, but he comes with… Well, what does he come with? In the gospel, he comes on a colt—in some versions on a donkey—but what does he come with in our imagined scenario today? What would Jesus ride?
Well. I’ve lived in Metro Detroit over the last several years, and, if Jesus were to come riding into that area, all I can say is that he better not be driving a Camry!
But the question is not a trivial one. Because it is not a trivial matter that Jesus rides a colt, or a donkey, in the biblical story of Palm Sunday. By the way, did you notice that there are no palms in Luke’s version? Perhaps this year we ought to call it “cloak Sunday,” because it was their outer garments that the hopeful lay in Jesus’ path in our text for today. But all versions of the story are careful to point out that Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a humble animal, perhaps a rather small, stubborn one, an unruly and untrained one.
We shouldn’t miss the larger context. This is the time of the Passover, a time in which the nationalistic fears and hopes of Israel would be stoked, and the empire would be on guard. Pilate came to town also, the agent of empire, to firmly place a heavy lid on the proceedings. New Testament scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan describe this unlikely confluence of events like this:
“One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession. From the east, Jesus rode a donkey down from the Mount of Olives, cheered by his followers. Jesus was from the peasant village of Nazareth, his message was about the kingdom of God, and his followers from the peasant class…
On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea, and Samaria, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. Jesus’ procession proclaimed the kingdom of God; Pilate’s proclaimed the power of empire. The two processions embody the central conflict of the week that led to Jesus’s crucifixion. (p. 2)
Imagine the imperial procession’s arrival in the city. A visual panoply of imperial power: cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagle mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold. Sounds; the marching of feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the beating of drums. the swirling of dust. The eyes of the silent onlookers, some curious, some awed, some resentful.”[1]
The contradiction between these two scenes, in the same city, at roughly the same time, is not to be missed. One, you might say, a kind of forced entry, an awesome expression of imperial power. The other, a drawn entry: Jesus has come because he has been drawn there by his sense of mission, by his own passion, and by the hopes of his people. Jesus comes as a kind of popular or even populist leader, you might say, riding a colt, or a donkey, but also riding the crest of a wave of national enthusiasm, being welcomed with shouts that give voice to excited resistance, a counter-parade on the opposite end of the city, and of the people, as Pilate.
In the middle of the twentieth century, during World War II, there was a pastor in France named André Trocmé. He served a church in a town called Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in south-central France. Trocmé and his wife became famous for sheltering refugees, especially Jews. To his congregation, he told stories about Jesus’ life, drawing from Scripture. In one of them, he characterizes the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem as an animal possessed of the “spirit of contradiction.”[2]
Given Trocmé’s life, it is not hard to see what he meant. The “spirit of contradiction” is easy to observe in a stubborn animal like a donkey: sometimes, it doesn’t want to do what the rider wants. And if it doesn’t want to do something, it is not going to do it. Of course, if we are the rider, we aren’t necessarily going to like that. But it is easy to understand and appreciate the “spirit of contradiction” when you are living under the brutal occupation of an empire. Stubbornness, resistance, take on a new value in the face of oppression, and violence. Trocmé’s own life was the embodiment of a “spirit of contradiction.” Like a donkey, his actions subverted the will of those who thought they should be in charge. Like a donkey, he refused to play along in the rider’s game—in this case, the game of genocide.
Jesus, Trocmé tells his congregation, rides symbol of resistance. He, too, refuses to play the imperial game. But what would such resistance look like for us? What, to return to our original question, would Jesus ride? I actually have no idea. But maybe the question can be reformulated slightly: how would Jesus arrive? Who would he show up with? And who would welcome him? And, maybe much more importantly, how would we respond to him?
Whenever we remember Palm Sunday, or “cloak Sunday,” we should not forget that it is part of Holy Week. Jesus says, as he comes through the city gate, that if the people do not lift up a shout for him then the rocks themselves will cry out. It is a theme from Old Testament Scripture—when the people are under threat and under the heel of tyranny, the landscape itself cries out for liberation. The trees of the field clap their hands, the rocks roar with songs of deliverance.
But we know what happens next. Jesus passes through the crowds and into the heart of Jerusalem. He leaves the peasants and makes his way toward the halls of power. And the closer he gets, from the outer gate to the inner courts where Pilate broods and frets over the security of the city and over his reputation as one who either can or cannot keep the people in line, the less shouting of joy is heard, and the more frequently are heard murmurs and whispers of threats and intimidation.
We know what happens next.
So, when we ask what it would be like for Jesus to come to our home town, we have to ask where in the city we find ourselves—near the city gate, if you will, with those who praise him and shout “Hosanna!”? Or in the halls of power, hushed, with vested interests in normalcy and routine? Are we sheltering the weak and the vulnerable, the refugees, the poor, the overlooked, the grieving, the ill, the dying? Is that what we busy ourselves with as we wait for Christ to come? Are we risking our comfort and security that we might be neighbors to those who need us? Or are we holding on to comfort and security for dear life, hiding behind the shields and swords of prestige, reputation, or privilege?
As I say, I have no idea what Jesus would drive. Or whether he would drive at all. But he does indeed come into our city. As it was when he entered Jerusalem to shouts of praise, he comes bringing wholeness to us. He comes bringing words of hope and of healing.
The tragedy of Jesus’ entrance into any human city, of course, is that those words and that hope are continually snuffed out. No matter how much the needy welcome him, the human community as a whole has a way of crucifying him. Even if we are among his admiring throng, somehow we keep getting caught up in the imperial system. We keep getting ourselves invested in the way things are. We keep resisting him, choosing Pilate and his gilded shields and swords. We keep holding on to our comfort and security and privilege and saying “no” to a commonwealth in which those things are shared. And, as always, it is Jesus and his people who keep paying the price. This is the truth that confronts us during holy week. And, so, into the heart of the city we go.
In the name of God, our creator and redeemer. Amen.
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