Texts: Zechariah 9:9-17; Matthew 21:1-17
The Roman soldiers must have been nervous; occupying armies are usually nervous during religious celebrations. In first century Palestine, Passover was always a time when all the crazies came out: the Sicari with their knives to be used against the Roman invaders, religious fanatics with their new messiahs, and God knows what else. These people only exacerbated the normal problems of running an occupation: social control, especially of banditry, due to the enormous grinding poverty of the agricultural community.
Most people barely had enough to eat from day to day; Passover just made it worse because the establishment that ran the Temple fleeced the people even more, forcing them to pay exorbitant fees to change money from Greek or Roman currency to Jewish or Tyrian money, the only currency that could be used in Temple ceremonies.
Little wonder, then, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, everyone became restless and anxious: the soldiers, the Temple establishment, the people, the disciples, and even Jesus himself. He knew that to ride a donkey into Jerusalem, to enter the city in light of the old prophecies was a challenge to authority. I can’t even imagine that he didn’t understand what he was doing. Matthew tells us that he went right to the Temple, a distance of less than a hundred yards from the gate now known as the Golden Gate.
When you’re in that part of Jerusalem called the Old City, what strikes you is how really small it is. The walls reconstructed by Suleiman the Magnificent in the sixteenth century pretty nearly outlines the first century city walls. All cities back then had walls; they had walls to keep out invaders, sometimes unsuccessfully; walls for protection against bandits, a real problem in ancient times in case you thought our modern American cities were crime ridden; to control population growth because the poor from the country streamed into cities as they do today throughout the world. But walls, as the Romans learned in Britain when the Picts invaded, are only as good as your real first line defense: soldiers to staff the walls and a cooperative population. In spite of their military might, there were never enough soldiers and an occupied people are never cooperative.
The texts we have are troubling because even though they try to mute the obvious, Jesus does not come over as the image of a prince of peace. Although he did not enter Jerusalem that day to lead a revolt against Rome, he was stirring up trouble -- real trouble. Among his closest disciples was at least one Sicari, the man we know as Judas Iscariot, perhaps more. He took on the Temple establishment by overturning the tables of the money changers, a major source of income for them. And then the texts move to the next day, the morning after.
What happens the day after someone challenges authority? When actions are seen as possibly revolutionary? What do the authorities do? How do the people respond? Our situation today is obviously very different than that of the first century. But there are striking similarities. Just as the first century Judeans had limited freedom due to the rule of an empire, our freedoms have become increasingly restricted because we have become an empire and imperial pretensions lead to the use of imperial powers. Just look and compare the situation Jesus faced and what we face today. No matter what else you say about Jesus, he was no meek and mild nebbish. He took on the authorities of his time and he paid dearly as do most who do the same.
The problem with Jesus is that he forces us to look at ourselves in a way that we don’t want to. That, of course, makes the problem not with Jesus but with us. Like the people who shouted “Hosanna!” we want an instant savior. We want Easter without pain. It just doesn’t work that way. We need to examine how we live and act and what we do when faced with those who would take away our freedoms and those of others.
Faith is not just belief; faith is living faithfully. And the question we have to put to ourselves is how are we to live faithfully in today’s world. It’s more than feeding the homeless or supporting the Calico Cat, collecting money for One Great Hour of Sharing -- although that’s part of it. It means examining every single claim that authority makes on us and determining how we should respond to it. Living faithfully is exhausting, to be sure.
Fortunately, we are given some assistance along the way, respites as it were from the overwhelming burdens we feel are sometimes put upon us. One way to gain the strength we need is prayer. Jesus used it himself. Prayer is not just mouthing some words but it is an intimate conversation with God. Sometimes we talk; sometimes we listen. But it involves opening ourselves in such a way that we become vulnerable to the presence of the Holy, the Divine. When we do that, we can then move forward and face the challenges we have every day.
But prayer is not just something that we say, close with an “Amen” and then live as before. Prayer is involved in our actions, our living. When we feed the hungry, when we give to missions, when we take on authority, we are still in acts of prayer, still conversing with God and opening ourselves to discerning God’s will for our lives.
Today we celebrate Palm Sunday. Tomorrow is the day after, the day that challenges us to question the meaning of the day and to live faithfully. Today is Palm Sunday. What shall we do tomorrow?
Let us pray: We seek your guidance, O God, you who gave us Jesus, who becomes our crucified and risen Lord. We seek your guidance, O God, for tomorrow and all the days after. Amen.