Luke 19:29-46

I know that a few folks from this congregation went to the big Hands Off protests last weekend. I didn’t. I don’t always avoid protest and rallies, but I don’t particularly like them. Even for fun joyous events like the Pride Parade I need to gird myself up a little.  I get nervous about losing the people I’m with.  I worry about what if I need the bathroom.  Just the idea of standing for hours or walking for miles make my stomach sink.  The crowds make me anxious.   

I could go on.  It’s just not my thing. I continue to reflect on what I’m called to in the work of discipleship and resisting injustice and usually chaotic crowds aren’t it. But Jesus walked right into this kind of a scene with intention and with boldness.  Rode into it, actually.  On a donkey.

Even after years in ministry, after celebrating Palm Sunday every year.  Reading the stories from various Gospels in worship dozens of times over my life, I still learn and hear new things in the narrative.  One awareness that this year brought me was the movement in the story in Luke. Jesus’ movement from the countryside, to the back of a donkey into Jerusalem and straight into the action at the temple. 

Maybe this is not new to you, that this is actually one story. It’s all of a piece, a planned non-violent action strategy.  A drama of anti-empire march straight into a table turning pro-life action – as is an actual life-affirming meaning – designed to build on each other and work together. 

When I think about this story, or many parts of the passion story in the days before Jesus’ death, what I often hear are the strains of Jesus Christ Superstar:

Ho-sanna, hey-sanna, sanna, sanna ho

Sanna, hey-sanna, hosanna.

Hey JC, JC, won’t you smile at me

Sanna ho-sanna, hey Superstar

This was an absolute favorite when I was in high school and while I love the movie version, it’s the original broadway recording that I especially love.

But guess what – in Luke, there are no hosannas. There are also no palms! The palms and the cries of hosanna are in the gospels. In Luke’s version of this story the crowd of disciples offers cries of praise and admiration. Praises that echo the song of the angels at the beginning of Luke, when they were directed toward a lowly infant in a manger. Here the praise is directed toward a humble rabbi riding on a young donkey on a dusty road. They throw down their coats to create a pathway.

I just heard – probably on Instagram so take it with a grain of salt – that our current president is planning to spend millions on a military parade for his birthday. A man who thinks of himself as a king and is also very used to red carpets and gold adornments and luxury limos. That’s not so dissimilar to what Caesar and his empire might have looked like.

Jesus rode into Jerusalem in a way that directly contradicted the kind of kingly action that people had come to anticipate and expect.  The saving of military conquest or zealous and violent rebellion. He rode in on a borrowed donkey instead of a war-horse, accompanied by his motley crew of disciples instead of a battalion.  He was hailed with the coats off of their own backs, not shields and armor.  This was and is a reign of non-violent love.  

The Pharisees asked Jesus to quiet the crowd – to cool it, maybe don’t make such a big scene – but he would not. He was intentional in pointing out that it is not right to praise and honor a leader like Caesar. Nor even leaders like themselves, but to show a way to healing, liberation and peace. If they were to be quiet, the earth itself would cry out. 

The praise is practically still ringing in the air as Jesus enters the temple and begins to turn over the tables and throw out the crooks who are taking advantage of people coming to worship.  With this captive audience they can charge anything to exchange foreign currency, for animals to sacrifice. 

The ideas about market growth and the destructive forces of our capitalist economy from the book we read for our recent book study have continued to live in my mind and heart in these past weeks and were very present as I thought about Jesus in the temple. The authors, Sheri Hostetler and Sarah Augustine talk about the ways that our economic practices are driven by the need for constant and exponential growth, a growth that can only be fed by exploitation and consumption.

It’s also a system that will lead inevitably to destruction – in the near term of lands and waterways and the peoples who depend on them, and in the long term to the whole creation. We live in a closed system. A mutually dependent system. And our economy of exploitation is ruining it. 

Jesus rode into the city, a non-violent, servant leader to show an alternative kind of leadership than that of the empire, and now he’s stirring it up in the temple, calling out the exploitation of the religious establishment. As Jesus’ disciples, we follow him into Jerusalem and into the temple…and back out into the street again. 

Like marches, public actions – I’m talking about sit-ins or public worship or events like recent boycott Chevron protests (Chevron is a public supporter of Israel) – make me anxious and uncomfortable.  What if I don’t know anyone? What if I get in trouble? What will happen? 

For a long time I used my non-citizenship as an excuse (at least to myself) not to participate. I could jeopardize my residence status. And honestly, these days more than ever, that fear may have had some validity. But it’s been a few years since that’s been relevant to me and I’ve learned a few things from working with Mennonite Action – not least of which is that we are in this together – here in our worship spaces and out in the street and in our politicians offices.

I try to remind myself of the words like we read in our Lesson for All Ages earlier:

The morning is quiet. The sun rises and we prepare to march. 

We pray for strength. We work together. We come from all over…to march. 

We follow our leaders. We walk together. We sing. 

(We March, by Shane Evans)

Mennonites have historically been called the “quiet in the land.” I don’t remember if this is a name we gave ourselves or if we were christened in this way because of the humble and retiring nature of our communities for so long. But I do not think Jesus is calling on our silence. Indeed if we are silent the rocks themselves will cry. It is time to be the loud in the land. With our songs and with our praise and with our protest. 

So, trusting that I can inhabit my discomfort and fragility and push through it, trusting that I can lean on others, sing, pray, gather strength, I am going to do with others have done before me and join the Table Turning action. This Saturday along with other faith communities (I know that some Kirkland Methodists will be there) and community and faith leaders I will show up at the Federal Immigration Detention Center in Tacoma.

Along with other I will declare that God’s love knows no borders. That detainees be released. That the institution of detention be shut down.

I trust that as I join with our communities, I can build some resilience against the fragility, anxiety and discomfort I feel and forget about needing or expecting safe space and instead show up for and create a brave space.   Time to go into uncomfortable spaces and situations to throw my coat on the ground before Jesus and my neighbor, to turn tables and call for healing and change. 

Together, may we follow Jesus on the path to justice and the way to a lasting peace.

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