Crowds of Common Folk

April 5, 2020 – Palm Sunday

St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Matthew 21:1-17

The crowds went ahead of him, and the crowds followed after him. The king enters the city, “humble, and mounted on a donkey” (v. 5). Except he wasn’t the king, at least not in the way the people of that time were familiar with. Jesus enters the city with a crowd cheering him on, cutting palms and laying them on the path ahead of him – the original red-carpet treatment. But the crowd that went ahead and followed behind were not the people of the city. “When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’ (v. 10). To many people he was still unknown.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was meant to evoke the entry of a triumphant military ruler into that city. It was the custom for Pontius Pilate to make a similarly militaristic triumphal entry to Jerusalem — with war horse, chariot, and weapons — each year in the days before Passover to remind the pilgrims that Rome was in charge. Such a demonstration would have been especially poignant since Passover was explicitly a celebration of the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt.[1]

Indeed, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem underscores the dissonance of Pilate entering the city like a conquering king – Rome has taken the place of Egypt, and the Emperor is the new Pharaoh. When the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee enters the city, he comes surrounded not by soldiers and symbols of military might, but by common folk and humble symbols of peace, and the promise of hope for the downtrodden. Jesus carries no weapons, nor does he ride on a stallion or a chariot. He rides the most unmilitary mount imaginable: a female donkey with her little colt trotting along beside her.[2] The Prince of Peace, or the king of violence, and the hearts of the people of Jerusalem are the prize.

The people who accompany Jesus are not the powerful; they possess no formal authority to change their world, nor does their leader seek the same kind of power exercised by the religious and military rulers. Instead, they have come because they have seen and heard of a new way of life, an alternative to the oppression, exclusion, and injustice that they face every day. They have come because they have witnessed the kingdom of God in the life of Jesus. They have come not to conquer with violence, but with love.

For us, this crowd calls to mind the many stories of common folk who have recognized that we are able to accomplish more together than we can alone. We remember the women and men who provided safe passage on the Underground Railroad for slaves seeking freedom. We remember Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church in Germany in the 1930s, who took a definitive stance that their loyalty was to Jesus as Lord, not to Hitler and the Nazis. We remember young people in South Africa who stood against apartheid and formed the African National Congress Youth League in 1944 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela. We remember the 250,000 women, men, and children from diverse racial, ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds who gathered on the National Mall on August 28, 1963, who heard the dream of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and took a stand for justice and human dignity.[3] The basic hope of these crowds was the same: peace, a better world, and an alternative to the broken systems that have failed us.[4]

Today we might think of the common folk that work in healthcare, working unseen against an invisible enemy, heroically laboring together to care for people sickened by the coronavirus. We might think of the common folk who work each day at the grocery stores, ensuring that the shelves are stocked and the contact surfaces are disinfected. We might think of the common folk working alone in schools, sending online lessons and leading Zoom meetings with students to ensure their continuing education during this national emergency. And we might count ourselves in the crowds of common folk staying home, dutifully not gathering in groups, trying to prevent a too-rapid spread of COVID-19.

These crowds of common folk in our time are not gathered at the gates of the city, cheering the military parade of the conquering hero. We are too busy doing the work of God’s Kingdom, healing, helping, caring, loving, and protecting the vulnerable. We are working from home, teaching our children, calling and video-conferencing with family, friends, and co-workers.

We remember the story of common folk entering Jerusalem with Jesus, folk like you and me, so that we may find the courage to walk with Jesus in our time and proclaim a world of peace, justice, and love. We will need courage. We will need courage to follow Jesus because he will do dangerous things and upset the people in power. He will turn over the tables and drive the profiteers out of the temple.

There are money-changers in the temple in our time too. There are people who are buying and selling to make a profit off this crisis. There are those who sold their stocks while telling the rest of us that everything would be fine. There are those who raise the price of ventilators and personal protective equipment needed by hospitals because they can get more money from someone else. There are those who are looking out for their own interests first, when they should be serving the needs of the people.

It will take courage to challenge the den of robbers, especially for common folk like us. It will take courage to drive out those who are selling and buying, profiting off the misery of those suffering from this disease or trying to care for them. It will take courage to keep battling this pandemic. But we are not only common folk, we are followers of the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.

We follow Jesus who comes in peace bringing hope for the downtrodden. We follow Jesus who turned over the tables. We follow Jesus who cured the blind and the lame. We follow Jesus who walked up Calvary to Golgotha. We follow Jesus who walked in the garden early in the morning. We may be staying at home rather than marching into the city, but we are watching what is coming down the road. We will survive this crisis and continue the work of justice, peace, and love. We shout “Hosanna!”, and when people ask us what we’re shouting about, we can tell them that we have witnessed the Kingdom of God in the life of Jesus, the one who comes in the name of the Lord. “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

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[1] John Dominic Crossan, “Study Guide” accompanying the DVD series First Light: Jesus and the Kingdom © 2009.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Veronice Miles, “Pastoral Perspective” on Matthew 21:1-11 in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor general editors, Year A, Volume 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), p. 154, 156.

[4] Carl Gregg, Lectionary Commentary: “Jesus, a Donkey, and Jon Stewart’s Rally for Sanity” (for Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011), April 8, 2011 6:02 pm, from: http://www.patheos.com/.