Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
April 5, 2009 – PALM SUNDAY
Mark 11: 1-11
A number of years ago, while touring a German museum, Henri Nouwen came across a painting which moved him quite deeply. It was titled, “Christ on a Donkey.” Here is his description of that painting: "Christ's long, slender face with a high forehead, inward-looking eyes, long hair, expresses the mystery of his suffering in a way that holds me spellbound. As he rides into Jerusalem surrounded by people shouting, 'Hosanna!' Jesus appears completely concentrated on something else. He does not look at the excited crowd. He does not wave. He sees beyond all the noise and excitement to what is ahead of him - an agonizing journey of betrayal, suffering, crucifixion and death. His unfocused eyes see what nobody around him can see, reflecting a knowledge of things to come far beyond anyone's understanding. There is a melancholy, but also a peaceful acceptance. There is insight into the fickleness of the human heart, but also immense compassion. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." I wonder if anyone in that crowd on that first Palm Sunday saw in Jesus' face what the artist sees and what Nouwen describes. I have my doubts.
About a year ago, an unnamed woman in New York City placed an ad on Craig’s List. She was quite candid about her desires. "Okay, I'm tired of beating around the bush. I'm a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25-year-old girl. I'm articulate and classy...I am looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million dollars a year. I know how that sounds, but $250,000 will not get me to Central Park West...I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY...I am putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I am being up front about it. I wouldn't be searching for these kind of guys if I weren't able to match them - in looks, sophistication, and in keeping a nice home and hearth."
She received an answer from a man who fit the bill, but it was not exactly the answer she was looking for. He wrote: "Your offer, from the perspective of a guy like me who makes more than $500,000 a year on Wall Street is, plain and simple, a terrible business deal. Here's why. What you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your good looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here's the rub. Your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity." (This was no doubt before the Wall Street meltdown.) "In fact, it's very likely that my income will increase, but it is an absolute certainty that you won't be getting any more beautiful. You're a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, but your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain: you are 25 now, and you will likely remain pretty beautiful for the next five years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. In Wall Street terms we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold. Marriage? It doesn't make good business sense to buy you, which is what you are asking, so I would rather lease..."
Well, as ridiculous as this truth-is-stranger-than fiction tale is, it might reveal something about the way we look at love, at life, at each other. So often, it seems, the world teaches us to consider what we can get from each other rather than what we can give. "I would call you a trading position more than a buy and hold." But what happens when this view of human relationships, basically defined as cost-benefit analysis, runs headlong into One who teaches laying down one's life for one's friends? You have here the classic Palm Sunday encounter.
It must have felt a lot like love. The adulation. The admiration. The adoration. To see people actually tearing off their cloaks and laying them on the street before you. To feel the gentle breeze of the freshly cut branches waved along your way. To feel the fervor of the crowd as they invest in you with their hopes and dreams. Hearing the cries of "Hosanna!" Such high expectations. But the artist knows better. And so he paints a Jesus who refuses to be caught up in the adulation of the crowd, who remains focused on the difficult journey that lies ahead, who knows, in the words of the Leonard Cohen song, "Love is not a victory march." The journey will require far more than a few shouts of "Hosanna!" and will no doubt completely fail any evaluation based on a cost-benefit analysis.
I do enjoy parades. The Apple Blossom parade in Sebastopol every Spring will be even more exciting now with a grandchild to share it with. I remember the yearly parade in the little town in Michigan where Betty and I lived for a while. It was basically the high school band and a line of tractors. But everybody had a good time and they would pass out bags of potatoes as they went by. It was great fun, and I mean who can't use a free bag of potatoes, right? When I was in college, I had a good friend from high school who attended Columbia in New York City. So I'll never forget, my freshman year, taking the train to New York and watching the Macy's parade with him on Thanksgiving Day. The bands, the floats, those famous balloons, I'd only seen it on television,,, it was very exciting to actually be there and see it in person. When it was over, I remember we went to a local restaurant and celebrated our first Thanksgiving away from home with hot turkey sandwiches and football. And isn't that always the way it is with a parade? You participate in the excitement you yell and cheer with those around you, and when it's all over you pack up and go home, have a meal. That was fun, hope we can do it next year.
Which is why today's parade is so different. It's more than a few moments of fun. When this parade is over, it really isn't over. Jesus goes by, rides on down the street, there he goes, and we are left with a decision. Do we pick up our cloaks and coats out of the street and go home? Do we choose to be just another face in the crowd? Or do we follow him down that street, down that path, wherever it may lead? Even when it's over, it isn't over.
I think back to that young stockbroker, wondering how much he can get out of a relationship before it becomes a depreciating asset. Then I look up as Jesus rides by. And I'm reminded of another story told by a chaplain at a state run mental hospital. He said, in that hospital, there was a wing in the back where they put the truly hopeless cases. The psychiatrists and other staff avoided this ward if at all possible, making only the bare minimum of calls. These patients were essentially written off as unsalvageable and not worth the time or effort. Then a woman's group from a local church began visiting patients in that hospital. No one bothered to tell them about the patients in the back ward, that they were a lost cause, so these women visited them as well, regularly bringing flowers, fresh baked cookies, cheerfulness, mercy, song and prayer. And after a while - incredibly, miraculously - some of these abandoned patients actually began to respond. Not all of them, not even a majority of them, but some of them. A few of them actually became healthy enough to move out to other wards in the hospital. These church folks were just doing what church folks do - not evaluating service or relationship in terms of what's in it for me, but simply following Jesus down that path. In their mercy, their compassion, their self-giving and their refusal to write off the barren and broken among us, they witnessed to something else, to something more, a different order, a different reality breaking in among us, intruding, and summoning all of us to a new way of life. And what do you know, in that hopeless, hopeless place, a little new life broke in. And that, I submit is Palm Sunday.
Now, if your non-church friends tell you it is absolutely crazy, they're right. It is. The whole story can actually be read as a kind of bad joke. Only a crazy man would ride into Jerusalem, during Passover, on a beast of burden, and take on the religious and political authorities - and we're talking Rome here - with nothing more than the promise of a new world, something he called the Kingdom of God. Believe me, Rome knew how to deal with such people. No one did it better or more brutally. He was crazy all right. He was about as crazy as a group of church women bringing cookies and comfort to a bunch of hopeless mental cases. About as crazy, I guess, as a bunch of teenagers and adults who are going to use their spring break to get dirty and hot and tired as they seek to help others. Crazy! And so, as he rides by, are you just part of the crowd? Or would you like to get just a little crazy too? Says evangelical activist, Jim Wallis, "The most controversial question at stake in the world, and even in the church, is whether we will follow Jesus and live under the banner of his kingdom. Jesus doesn't say, 'Watch me, think about me.' He says, 'Follow me.’ “
He rides in and confronts the power of Herod and the power of Rome with a very different kind of power. They have their weapons of war he is vulnerable and renounces violence. They have pomp and wealth, he identifies with the poor and speaks of self-giving. They speak of glory and domination he suggests a very different path to glory. He subverts all their claims, all their pretensions, all their values. The man on the donkey says he is not going to play by their rules. There is now a new game in town, played by one who changes our expectations and assumptions about just about everything. And even as we wave our branches and sing our songs, we know what they are going to do to him. They simply will not put up with him and with his challenge to all that they hold dear - to the power and privilege they claim.
No doubt about it, he was crazy. You would have to be crazy to follow such a person. So much easier to be a face in the crowd. Watch the parade go by - fold up your chair and go home. And yet, the artist was right - there is something haunting, strangely compelling about that man on the colt. We have tried so many other ways, have followed so many other paths. There he goes. I wonder...