Hero's Welcome

March 28, 2021, Palm Sunday
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Mark 11:1-11[1]

You want a hero? Well, I’ve got one for you. How about a Messiah? How about the return of King David? Let’s have a big parade! We’ll show those Romans that they can’t shove us around anymore!

Why is he riding a colt? I don’t know. Maybe he couldn’t find a horse. Anyway, join the cheer: Hosanna! Save us now! “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!”[2]

Shush? Why shush? Oh, the soldiers; I see them. Right, we’d better look busy.

The crowd, gathered for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is quoting Psalm 118, which happens to be the Old Testament chapter most quoted in the New Testament. It appears here, when the people shout Hosanna! “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”[3] We know this one, right? We hear it all the time in our communion liturgy. But this verse is not the most quoted verse of Psalm 118. The verse of Psalm 118 that gets quoted the most in the New Testament comes from earlier in the Psalm. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”[4] The New Testament writers mention that passage, or refer to Jesus as rejected, eleven times. I wonder if the crowd didn’t make the connection because they didn’t want to make the connection.

The people who cheer on Jesus as he enters Jerusalem picture him as the kind of hero they want him to be. “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” The people want a conquering hero. “With the Lord on my side I do not fear”[5] is another verse from the same Psalm. At this stirring moment, the crowd is caught up in the excitement of new possibilities. Reality, and rejection, will set in soon. But for now, this could be IT. This could be the moment when things finally start going our way.

In our day, celebrities are often confused with heroes. We’re all drawn to celebrity, and it’s easy to get caught up in the pomp and circumstance of a parade. Look, there he is! Hey! Did you see that? He saw me. Jesus waved at ME! It’s a little silly, and I’m sure that the soldiers looking on thought this little demonstration was foolish. It’s just another prophet riding on a donkey, after all. He’s no threat to the empire. Only a fool would worry about this guy. Jesus may have been a celebrity, but more, so much more is happening here.

The way we often define a hero is the one who faces danger or overcomes adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. The classic hero is a warrior who lives and dies in the pursuit of honor. The hero fights the dragon to save the village, or rescues the captive from the villain. In this sense, Jesus should have entered Jerusalem on a horse, ridden straight to the Governor’s palace, defeated the soldiers, and driven the Romans away from the city. That is not the hero story of Jesus, however.

A hero might be thought of as one who buys the groceries for their elderly neighbor. While that might be a wonderful thing, and might even save that person from starving, that’s altruism, not heroism. Jesus may have fed the five-thousand with loaves and fishes, and taught us to give food to the hungry, but Jesus was doing a lot more than teaching us how to be nice.

Another version of the hero comes from Joseph Campbell, defined in The Hero With a Thousand Faces. “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”[6] This concept of a hero suggests an archetype of the “hero’s journey” common in mythology and stories across all cultures. This version fits more closely with the journey of Jesus from the cross through the grave to resurrection, but it doesn’t mesh with the rest of what we know of Jesus.

Is the Jesus story a celebrity sighting, the tale of a knight in shining armor, the heart-warming anecdote of a kind person, or a fantastic journey? It doesn’t fit any of those boxes. Jesus might be a hero, but that is not the whole story. Jesus came to break the power of sin and death, to transform human hearts and human societies, and that just won’t fit in the boxes we make.

Jesus enters Jerusalem, and the crowd greets him with a hero’s welcome. Things quickly start to change. The next day Jesus will return to the temple, this time in a rage as he’ll turn over the tables of the moneychangers. He will spend the rest of the week stirring up trouble and making the authorities angry, all the while keeping the crowd “spellbound by his teaching.”[7] At one point Jesus will poke fun at the scribes as the crowds “listen to him with delight.”[8]

It is great entertainment to watch people do dangerous things, and brazenly taunt the powerful. But when the entertainer crosses the line, and the authorities take measures to remove him from the stage, we quickly distance ourselves. It’s all fun and games until someone gets arrested. At the end, even those closest to Jesus will fear to be associated with him. In Gethsemane, after the betrayal by Judas, “All of them deserted him and fled.”[9] Even Peter, bold enough to follow at a distance, would deny him three times before Friday morning.

At the festival, the crowd finally turns on him. Encouraged by the chief priests, they ask for the release of Barabbas, a rebel who took part in a recent insurrection. This is the kind of hero they’re looking for – a warrior, one who is not afraid to take up arms against the Romans. The prophet, yeah, he was entertaining, but he’ll never change anything. And he messed up people’s property over at the temple. Sure, crucify him!

But remember the Psalm. Jesus himself quoted it just a couple of days ago. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”[10] It is in fact the rejection and all that follows, not the “hero’s welcome,” that will shake the world to its foundations and make Jesus the Cornerstone for a whole new reality.

You need a hero? I’ll do you one better. Here is the Son of God, about to be betrayed, abandoned, abused, and executed, riding into the city of his doom aware of what he will face. The crowds are restless. It looks like the evil side will win. I’m on the edge of my seat.  Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Mark 11:10.

[3] Psalm 118: 26.

[4] Psalm 118:22.

[5] Psalm 118:6.

[6] Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Princeton University Press, 1949, 1968), 30.

[7] Mark 11:18.

[8] Mark 12:37.

[9] Mark 14:50.

[10] Mark 12:10.

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/.