|
|
A Sermon by Cynthia Bauleke
A Sermon by Cynthia Bauleke
Meeting
Jesus Again for the First Time . . .
Luke 19:28-40
- Palm Sunday - April 4, 2004 “Hosanna! Save us
now!” It was an impatient crowd which greeted Jesus on that first Palm Sunday,
perhaps as impatient as we can be at times. Pilgrims descending upon the city to
celebrate Passover. One by one, two by two, whole villages emerge into the city;
waves and waves of pilgrims from all over to celebrate the holy days of
Passover, commemorating their deliverance out of bondage in Egypt. Once again they
are subject to foreign rule. Only now, instead of being held captive in a
foreign land, they are living as an occupied people, oppressed under the giant
thumb of the Roman Empire. Amongst this
throbbing maze of humanity are the Galileans, the friends of Jesus. They are
easy to recognize, these disciples from Galilee, a little ragged, they wear
their hair long, yet their eyes sparkle with amazement and they are shouting in
the streets. In the midst of them, riding on a donkey, in the heat of the sun,
and the light of the day, is Jesus. It’s a kind of street theatre, a drama which
turns the message into an obvious picture for those who see it. Someone
remembers the words of the prophet Zechariah:
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud! For your sovereign comes to
you. Triumphant and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, on the
foal of a donkey.” The shouts reach a crescendo:
“Here he comes! Blessed is the One who comes in the name of our God!” But there is always someone to
spoil a parade. The Pharisees approach Jesus to rain on this parade: “Teacher,
order your disciples to stop.”
“I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” The contrasts are compelling.
The Pharisees so sullen; the crowd, who for once seem to get it, ecstatic; the
disciples, who have waited for this moment, are jubilant; and Jesus sits quietly
on a donkey. But it is perhaps the next line after the story which touches our
hearts most with its poignancy: “When he drew near
and saw the city, Jesus weeps.” As Jerusalem comes into view, the city which
holds such joy and such sorrow, Jesus weeps. And so our journey
through holy week begins, as this man rides a donkey into the middle of town. No
tanks. No guns. No weapons. Only humility and an abiding sorrow, and the crowds
cheer Jesus on - creating an ambiguity of joyous festivity, with the shadow of
death and the sound of silence approaching. Our journey, or at least the journey
of the faithful few who dare follow through this week, will take us into the
darkness of betrayal in Gethsemane, to a most common and crude death, with the
indignity of being nailed to a wooden cross amongst thieves on Calvery, then to
a cave of a tomb, before we ever get to Easter resurrection. It is a journey
which takes us beyond our comfort into places of darkness and evil. It is a
journey with complexities which are difficult to understand. According to
Marcus Borg in Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, it would help
broaden our understanding of Jesus if we examine the stories of the Old
Testament. Both Jesus and the early church were rooted in Judaism, and the
sacred traditions of Israel - the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament - shaped their
seeing, thinking, and speaking. For Borg there are three macro stories of the
Old Testament, which are the heart of the scripture, the primary stories which
shape the religious imagination. The first is the
primal narrative of Israel, the exodus story. “We were Pharaoh’s slaves, but
Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and great and awesome
wonders.” After wandering for forty years in the wilderness, God brings the
Israelites to the promised land. Each year, even today, the story is remembered
and celebrated at the Passover festival as the Jewish people enact it as if
they, themselves were freed from bondage and have come forth out of Egypt, for
this story continues to shape the identity of God’s people. It is a story of
bondage, of liberation, of a journey, and a destination. According to the
exodus story, we still live in Egypt, metaphorically, we still live in bondage.
We are slaves of alien gods, with cultural-political dimensions as well as very
personal psychological-spiritual facets. This story invites us to ask, “To what
are we in bondage?” For most of us there are many things. There are the cultural
messages of how we should look, how we should act, and what we should own, if we
are to enjoy the good life. Then there are the voices from our past, and
addictions of various kinds, which hold us in bondage from the inside as well as
the forces from the outside. The solution to
the problem of bondage is liberation. In the story of the exodus, liberation
begins at night, in the darkness before the dawn. As the Israelites leave Egypt
and all which is familiar. It means passage through the waters of the sea to the
other side. It means wandering in the wilderness to find a place of freedom and
liberation. It is a journey toward God, it is a journey with God. Like the exodus
story, the story of exile is grounded in an historical experience of the
Israelite people. When Jerusalem and its temple were conquered and destroyed by
the Babylonians in 587 BCE, Jewish survivors were marched into exile in Babylon,
eight hundred miles away. There they lived as refugees, oppressed and far from
home for some fifty years – babies were born and people died. The story of exile
became a metaphor for the Hebrew people’s relationship with God. To know what
this might have meant we only have to look at the millions of refugees in our
world today. To be in exile is to be separated from all that is familiar and
dear. It usually involves powerlessness and marginality, oppression and
victimization. Like the metaphor of bondage in the exodus story, it too has
psychological as well as cultural-political dimensions. Exile is marked by grief
and a longing for home, it is an estrangement and alienation – it is being
separate from God. The solution for thepain of exile is to journey home again,
to find our way to God. The third story,
rather than being a historical event, is an institution of ancient Israel – it
is the Priestly story – grounded in the institution of the temple, the
priesthood, and sacrifices of ancient Israel. In this story, it is the priest
who makes us right with God by offering sacrifices on our behalf. It is not
primarily a story of bondage or exile, but rather a story of sin, guilt,
sacrifice and forgiveness. The priestly story assumes we are impure, unclean. In
this story we are sinners who have broken God’s laws, we are guilty before God,
and in need of forgiveness which is accessed through the priests of God. Each of these
stories addresses a different dimension of the human condition. All three of
these stories come together in the life of Jesus in this holy week. Borg
identifies three main understandings of the death and resurrection of Jesus in
Christian theology. First, Christ triumphs over the powers that hold humans
bondage, bringing liberation. Second, Jesus is a sacrifice for sin that makes
God’s forgiveness possible, fulfilling the Priestly story. And third, Jesus is
the incarnation of the path of return from exile, by revealing God in love and
compassion, by being the light which beckons us home from exile, and by
resurrection is the embodiment of the way of returning to God. Borg goes on to
explain the importance of balancing these three macro stories in our
understanding of Jesus. Each provides important aspects to understand faith’s
journey. Too often in the history of the Christian church, the priestly story
has dominated our understanding of Jesus. The simple and radical meaning of the
Priestly story – God accepts us, just as we are, is true. Yet when the priestly
story becomes the dominant story, or the only story, for imaging Jesus, it has
serious limitations that lead to distortions in the Christian life. It leads to
a passivity – as if God has already done all that needs to be done – nothing is
expected of us. It can lead to a passivity toward culture as well, for the
priestly story is a politically domesticating story, where as the stories of
bondage in Egypt and exile in Babylon are subversive stories. In the priestly
story God’s forgiveness becomes conditional – with God only forgiving those who
believe that Jesus was the sacrifice. Taken metaphorically the priestly story
can be very powerful. Taken literally, it is an obstacle to the Christian
message. The priestly story
speaks to the hearts of those of us who deal with guilt in our lives, bringing
us the forgiveness for which we long. Yet for people for whom guilt is not an
issue, the priestly story holds little meaning. Yet these people may have strong
feelings of bondage, or of alienation and estrangement which are addressed in
the stories of exile and exodus. To expect that the
priestly story should speak to all, would be like saying Moses should have gone
into Egypt and said to the Hebrew slaves, “My children, your sins are forgiven.”
Can you imagine their response? “What does that have to do with us? Our problem
isn’t that we are sinners, you idiot. Our problem is that we are slaves,
oppressed by Pharaoh! We don’t need forgiveness, we need liberation!” And so it
is for some of us, it may be bondage or victimization we deal with in our lives
rather than sin or guilt. Which is why we need all three stories. All are stories of
suffering, all are stories of being distanced from God. All make powerful
affirmations about the human condition and about God. All are stories of hope.
And all of are stories of journey. The exodus and exile stories are of journeys
leading from Egypt and Babylon into the wilderness, journeys of liberation and
homecoming, journeys toward God, journeys with God. The priestly story is also a
journey story, it is the story of how God accepts us just as we are, wherever we
are on our journey. Each story addresses a different dimension of the human
condition. Some of us need to be liberated; some of us long to come home; and
some of us need to be accepted. No matter what it is that we need, all of us are
on a journey of transformation which brings us into relationship with God. Jesus
leads us through the tension and despair of this holy week. When the journey is
over, we will be left with Jesus – dead – in a tomb - in preparation for the
miracle of resurrection on Easter morn. The temptation,
perhaps for Jesus, and certainly for us, is to stay in Galilee and not go to the
city with its danger and noise and ambiguity. The church’s greatest temptation
has always been to withdraw from the world and become a sanctuary from life, to
turn inward and focus on our own needs instead of the world’s. Yet we cannot
observe this day without hearing the call to follow Jesus, to be profoundly and
intentionally in the world, with doors and windows, arms and heart open. Knowing
that we are called to be the hands and feet and heart of Christ, with and for
those who are marginalized and excluded and persecuted and oppressed. Our task
in this time, in this place, is to live intentionally in the world with
compassion. Each Holy Week,
John Buchanan of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, recommends reading
these words by George MacLeod, the founder of the Iona Community in Scotland:
“I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the marketplace
as well as the steeple of the church . . Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral
between two candles but on a cross between two thieves, on the town garbage
heap, at a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write his name in Hebrew
and Latin and Greek . . . at the kind of place where cynics talk smut and
thieves curse and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died and that is
what he died about, and that is where church people ought to be and what church
people ought to be about.” Jesus entered the
city like a king, come to claim his throne. And for a moment, with the people
shouting and waving palm branches and little children singing and the forces of
economic exploitation and political expediency retreating before his strong
anger, for a wonderful moment it seems like he might do it, might seize power,
ascend the throne and reign over his kingdom. But at the last moment he
declines. Instead of claiming a throne, he sits down and receives the sick and
the marginalized. Instead of a court of powerful generals and politicians, he
chooses the singing of children. Instead of power,
he chooses love. Instead of the accoutrements of worldly authority, he chooses
the authority of compassion. He declines a throne and instead chooses to reign
in the hearts of women and men and children who will accept him and follow him
and live like him in the world. The journey is
before us, the choice is ours. Blessed is the one
who comes in the name of our God. Amen. |