Sermon: The Two Processions

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
April 9, 2006; Palm/Passion Sunday, Year B
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

Gospel: The Liturgy of the Palms (Mark 11:1-11) The Passion According to Mark (15:1-39)

______________________________________

On Palm Sunday there were two processions in Jerusalem.

On the east side of town, Jesus finished a two week walking journey from Galilee by arranging to ride a colt for the last short entrance into the Holy City. It was an ominous choice. According to the prophet Zechariah, a king would one day come to Jerusalem, "humble and riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey." (9:9) The rabbinical tradition said that the new king would enter from the east, from Bethphage. Bystanders recognizing what was happening cried, "Hosanna," meaning, "Save us." They didn't need to speak the rest of their intent -- "Save us, ...from the Romans." They waved palm branches, the symbol the successful Macabbean Revolt which had expelled the Greeks from Israel less than two hundred years before. With an act reserved for royalty, they spread their outer garments on the path of Jesus' procession. And all of this occurred under the view of the towers of the Antonia Fortress, the Roman military headquarters in Jerusalem. Jesus could not have chosen a more unambiguous way to say, "I am the Messiah." The Romans were sure to notice. Their Sadducee allies among the Jewish collaborators would have understood the message. A king, riding on a donkey. The rest of the Zechariah prophecy describes this king. "He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations." (9:10) A king of peace enters. 1

From the west side of Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate the Roman governor finished his trip from his splendid capital on the coast in order to be present for the Jewish Passover observance when this city of around forty thousand swelled with two-hundred thousand pilgrims or more. Pilate brought Roman troops with him to oversee this potentially explosive festival celebrating the Jewish people's liberation from an earlier empire. Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan describe the imperial procession this way: "calvary on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold. ...Pilate's procession displayed not only imperial power, but also Roman imperial theology. According to this theology, the emperor was not simply the ruler of Rome, but the Son of God."

Rome's interest was to enforce what scholars like to call a domination system. A domination system features power in the hands of a few, economic exploitation of the many, all legitimized by a compliant religion. In Jerusalem, the temple authorities headed by the high priest working with aristocratic families operated the domination system in collusion with Rome. They are the ones Mark's gospel calls "the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes." Largely through land foreclosure because of debt and the Temple monopoly with its taxes these officials became very wealthy. Rome used them to collect the imperial share of the wealth and to keep the peace among the Jews.

Jesus moved among another crowd than these elite. Until his entrance into Jerusalem, his was a ministry among the peasants. He proclaimed a different political reality, a kingdom of God. He invited people to journey along a new path, to return from exile in order to trust that this kingdom of God had drawn near. He healed the sick. He freely announced God's forgiveness, challenging the Temple monopoly. He touched the outcast and marginal. He taught his followers to forgive debts and to pray for the forgiveness of all debts. And on Palm Sunday, he organized a political demonstration symbolically announcing the coming of the long-awaited Messianic King of Peace. He did that openly in the sight of the Roman army headquarters. It was the kind of act that would not be overlooked. It could only result in his death. Rome did not allow rival kings or kingdoms. The fear of death is what Rome used to quell any disturbance to its absolute power. That's what an imperial procession was intended to communicate. Death to anyone who challenges Roman domination.

On this Sunday of the two processions, we hear the story of death. We hear how the one procession crying "Hosanna" was so quickly manipulated into the violent shouts of "Crucify him!" Then the members of the other procession efficiently did what they marched here to do. They maintained the order of the system of domination by which they controlled. Jesus' protest on behalf of an alternative kingdom was snuffed out by crucifixion. He walked purposefully into this destiny. Obviously, he believed in something more than Rome and its empire of death.

Borg and Crossan offer this challenge to us: "Two processions entered Jerusalem on that day. The same question, the same alternative, faces those who would be faithful to Jesus today. Which procession are we in? Which procession do we want to be in? This is the question of Palm Sunday and of the week that is about to unfold." 2
_________________
1. Marcus J. Borg & John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week, p. 3
2. Ibid, p. 30