By The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven, Sabbatical Priest (This sermon is also available in video.)
“Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her. May I speak in the name of the Living God.” Amen.
We tend to think of women in the ancient world as powerless, downtrodden and invisible. It’s true that many kinds of power were not available to women because of their sex. But the woman we see in the gospel this morning is anything but powerless. Like Jesus, she is dramatic—reckless with what is most precious, pouring out something of great value which cannot be replaced. Why? She sees Jesus, loves him—gets him, gets who he is and what he’s about to do. Her heart breaks before her alabaster jar does. In a gesture that cannot be explained in rational terms she gives all that she has away, pouring out her love her treasure on Jesus. And he says: you’ll be remembered for this.
The disciples are offended. What lunacy! In what kind of world does THIS make sense! Why has the ointment been wasted? Why wasn’t it used for the poor? It’s criminal! What a waste! Women are so emotional. They’re so sensitive. They’re so over the top. But Jesus understands passion. Jesus understands wildly expansive, expensive acts of love. Jesus understands the meaning of pouring out something infinitely precious in an act of love. It is what he is about to do.
The disciples don’t understand him either. He’s as reckless as SHE is! For gosh sakes everyone is beginning to follow you! You’re reaching the crowds! Did you hear those ‘Hosannas!’ today? It means ‘O save us,’ Jesus! They are waiting for you to ACT! Call on them and they’ll rise up! Don’t throw it all away! But Jesus wasn’t about overturning Rome. There’d only be a new ‘Rome’ to take its place. Oppressors like the poor we will always have with us. Jesus was about overthrowing everything that gets in the way of God but the time of curing surface symptoms was over. He was going after sin and death itself.
Jesus approaches the walled city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday the way he approaches the walled cities of our own hearts: Making a claim to be a king. Reminding the people of Zechariah’s prophesy: Lo, your king will come to you, lowly, riding on a donkey. It’s prophetic performance art and the crowd loves it—throwing their coats on this path and plucking palm branches to wave in the air. We’re all so glad he’s here! Victory is ours! Hosanna in the highest! We say it at every Eucharist: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
But the path doesn’t lead where we thought it would. He doesn’t do what we thought he’d do. What did he mean: this is my body? This is my blood over the bread and wine at supper? What did he mean letting Judas betray him like that, letting the guards take him, waiting for it to happen, really. This is NOT what we had in mind! What on earth is he doing? He doesn’t mean to break our enemies but to break our hearts, to break them open until we want to break open the alabaster jars that hold our treasure and pour it out in extravagant love in his name on the world God so loves. We didn’t sign on for this! What a reckless, crazy thing to do! No way! No way! We don’t want to die! We don’t want this God’s agenda! We don’t want transformation! We don’t want life at this price.
Crucify him! Crucify him! The light is hurting my eyes.
The Palm Sunday story sets up a contrast between the love people expressed which cloaked their secret hopes and the tragic betrayal that came when those hopes were not made real.
The people greeted Jesus in the streets of Jerusalem hailing him as the new king with shouts of "Hosanna." What they hoped for bore little to no resemblance to what they actually got, and within a week, the love and adoration would unravel to chaos and death.
Literature and entertainment media give us various images of kings and queens that depict as close as we can come to reality all the way to satire, and then to simple fantasy. When the movie staring Helen Mirren came out with her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II we saw a dignified and almost tragic figure trapped in the tight confinement of her role. From controlled expressions to actions dictated by tradition, place and decorum, we saw a woman of deep conviction and love for her country trying to deal with the mystifying world outside her palace walls clamoring for her to be something she didn't know how to be.
In another entertainment venue we see a depiction of Henry VIII in a show called "The Tudors." Here we have political complexities mingled deliciously with soap opera energy and beauty.
Further down the ladder we have Mel Brooks in his comedy "History of the World -- Part II" making outrageous and silly decisions, capriciously saying, "It's good to be King."
The list of images goes on and on, but I wonder what was the image the people of Jerusalem had in mind when Jesus approached? No doubt a warrior to lead an uprising against Rome seeking independence. But how could they have expected someone who preached healing and peace to be their instrument of war? People of all times have a tendency to hear what they want to hear, and somehow put their words in the mouths of those they choose as leaders. Quite often the same energy that places people on pedestals will be used to tear them down.
The events of that Holy Week will be recounted through liturgies and sermons this week. But today I'd like to spend some time on the side of the road with the people meeting Jesus at the gate of Jerusalem. They laid down garments and once those ran out, found palms. I mused about this for some time in a stream of consciousness and wondered if what they did made much sense. Why throw your clothes on the road? It's a waste of good clothes that'll only get dirty and might get ruined. They should have started with the palms which are much better suited to the purpose, clean up easier and are bio-degradable. If they were trying to impress Jesus what else might they have given? As I mused about what I would like to give I came up with a very different list.
First I'd give my ears to listen to what Jesus was actually saying and try to refrain from putting into his mouth the words I'd like to hear from him.
Then I'd give him my eyes. I'm a visual kind of person. I like to see someone when they talk so I can read their body language. I'd try to see his face and expressions and how they matched the words I heard. Some of what he said is strange to my ears, so my eyes would have to check it out too. Was there a wink in his eye or a smile no one else caught, you know the kind that says he's pulling your leg and not even he can keep a straight face. But I have to see the face that says the words so I can tell for myself. How about you? I'd give him my eyes.
Then perhaps my head. I might give that if my ears and eyes told me it's ok. To think about what I heard and saw. To weigh these things, and see how they made sense to me. I'd think about what he said and if I could live with it or do without it. Or if I need to do with it and can't live without it. My head might tell me. But my head doesn't always get it right.
I'd need to give my heart. My heart is always right, but it's the thing that I try to hold onto. That's the puzzle though. Unless you give it, you don't know who's going to take care of it. We have to trust. I like my heart and I don't like when it hurts, but I trust Jesus. I think I'd put my heart out there.
They called him a king. That's not what he called himself. They didn't use their ears. They wanted him to be something he's wasn't. When we don't see who someone is, we miss out on who they are. They did that to Jesus, and I wonder how often I do that, or how often others who proclaim him as king still do it.
After these rambling and strange musings, I continued and began to wonder why he rode the donkey into town in the first place. He knew what they were up to. But he went anyway. He wasn't going to let false expectations stop him from going where he needed to go. Jerusalem, death and resurrection. Long trip down a short road. He walked through their hopes and fears. He led the way but they missed the point. Funny how people can see different things in the same place. But they got him. Or thought they did. I guess he got them in the end. That's what he wanted in the first place. To get them. He did it through their false ears, their blind eyes, their muddled heads and their stone hearts.
That's not what a king would do, but it's what God would do and does. Reaches into us where we are, through what is false and what is good and lets us know that he is life and love and peace in his own way. Part of Holy Week is to meditate, muse if you will, on the gifts God gives us through promise and action. It's also a time to muse about who it is that we follow and the gifts we offer in order to do so.
We finished a series of study and worship with St. Andrew's and Holy Communion this past week, and this week we'll combine in some of the services. In a segment I taught on the early church and the issues leading up the creation of the Nicene Creed, I talked about "competing Christianities." The teachings had gotten very far apart to where Christians in one place couldn't even recognize the Jesus described by other Christians. Since part of the purpose of this series was to see how ancient issues get played out in today's world, it's not hard to see that Christians today preach very different "Jesuses." All the more reason Palm Sunday is so important to recognize who it is that we welcome into our hearts. Take time to listen, to see, to think and to love. Oh, and don't throw your clothes in the street. It's really a waste, it's a short sighted decision on the spur of the moment. Rather, give yourself. Amen.
One of the earliest Gospel stories in the Lenten season is the temptation of Jesus in the desert by the Devil. In that story, the Devil tempts Jesus to make bread out of stone, he takes Jesus up to the top of a mountain and tempts him to jump off so the angels will catch him to prove how much God will take care of him and protect him, and then he takes him to the top of the temple offers him power over all the cities below if Jesus will worship him.
Each of these tests Jesus passes because he knows who he is and is confidant in the authority he possesses. He's confidant of his relationship with God and knows that his service to God is unique. He answers that we don't live by bread alone, but that are nourished by God's love. He knows that God's love for him is unconditional and doesn't need to be tested. He knows that his authority is from God and that power is a false god for those who don't know how to claim the authority within.
Three years later Jesus enters Jerusalem in the humble way described centuries earlier by the prophet Zechariah, namely on a donkey. It's a sign of humility and it was a message to those who knew what to look for. Yet as he was entering the city gates, people gathered about him with their own expectations and their own desires for him. Much like his experience in the desert they were tempting him to claim power. They offered him, very much like the devil, a crown. But also like the devil, that crown came with a price tag. The devil's price was for Jesus to compromise himself and his integrity -- his very humanity and divinity by worshiping the devil. Evil was the price tag for power.
Similarly, there was a price tag for the crown offered by the people waving the palm branches. They wanted him to lead them against the Romans. They had an agenda all set for him to walk into. The message they were sending was very clear and the price tag was do their will. And in exchange they would follow him. But deeper than the price tag they charged was another price that reached into his very soul. Again, the temptation to put aside his own mission of love and justice for power. The temptation to compromise the very ideals and values that he preached his whole ministry. Sadly, this was the moment his own disciples were waiting for. This was their dream too. To take the city by storm, set themselves up in power and usher in a golden age. Or so they thought.
Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah, not out of false humility, but sincere humility. He rejected their notions of power and was again secure in his own authority to witness God's love and forgiveness of the deepest of sins, even the ones they were committing by looking at him and seeing a king they made in their own image rather than the God who made them in his.
This act of humility was bearing their sins. Knowing that the deepest part of those people, even his own disciples misunderstood him. They decided to project their wishes on him and expected him to comply, the way they would carve an image out of stone and pray to it, putting on it all their wishes. Their sin was to make him like one of their gods, not knowing that the One true God was in their very midst and they still didn't see or understand. The One who once healed the blind was confronted with the blindness of all of them.
The events of Holy Week re-enact the Passion story. Our Confirmation Class just read the familiar passages and our services play them out liturgically in scripture, song, symbol and re-enactment. The drama is as deep and ancient as any between God and humanity. The struggle between the God who made us and the desire humans have as lesser gods.
From the Garden of Eden to this very day, we see God in the actions of humility and want to take him hostage to serve our needs for power even at the cost of justice and peace. Humanity is insatiable in the need for power and it's always to fill an emptiness, to reach a height, to quench a thirst that is ultimately impossible. Ironically we seek to be gods because we don't know how to be in relationship with God.
God became human to show us how. To demonstrate through love, justice and forgiveness how to build that relationship with the divine. The drama of Holy Week is the reminder of how humanity failed. But it's also the story of God's love even through the failure. God's love through the misunderstandings, the betrayal, even the murder. God's love which knows no bounds.
Our nation and our church still fight these same battles over power rather than authority. Sacrificing dignity and integrity at the expense of the poor and powerless. The nails we've passed out these last few years after communion serve as reminders of our human failings when we place our faith in those to whom we offer power, rather than faith in God whose authority is love.
Perhaps one of God's temptations from the Devil is to leave us in the midst of our own failings. Let us destroy ourselves by our own greed and fear of each other, and start over. Yet it seems God did not yield to this temptation either. The love of God demonstrated so often in his life and ministry culminates in the knowledge that not even death can separate us from God's love. The overwhelming power of God's love reaches out to us as strong as ever.
The witness of the Biblical characters show time and again that God's love is genuine and constant no matter what. I don't care who we are or what we think we may have done to lose God's love. We're no worse than some of those characters in the Bible, and if you haven't read about them, it's high time you do. They're in there for a reason. It's so that we cannot say that God's promise is false. God loves us so much that he came to Earth and bore our sins, and loves us through our failings and that's the Good News of the Gospel.
Wars, politics, bigotry, fear and cruelty are human inventions. God's love calls us out of those temptations to claim our full humanity and the divinity in each of us. We've abdicated them long enough. When we gather on the road that Jesus travels, may we not be blinded by the false gods we create out of our own fears and needs, but open our eyes fully to see the God who calls us, and loves us. Amen.
By The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven, Sabbatical Priest
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