Palm Sunday Sermon at St. Mark's, Richmond, 2008

No one in their right mind would have taken the scene of Jesus riding on a donkey on that last day of the annual feast of Sukkoth any more seriously 2,000 years ago than we do today watching a 13 year old Sunday school girl riding on a donkey into St. Mark’s at the annual Christmas pageant.

Sukkoth, or Tabernacles [think “Tents“] was an annual Feast for God’s sake!! A religious festival much like what we’d call Oktoberfest when the Jews would remember “the good ole days” of 1,500 years before when their ancestors lived in tents during their 40 years of wandering in the desert before the big day they entered “The Promised Land.”

AND, on the other hand it was a time when they looked forward to the end of time when the Great King Messiah would come and deliver them from fear and want and everybody would be happy “every man dwelling under his own vine and fig tree, living in shalom happily ever after.” And that’s the reason that during the annual Festival they all built temporary “booths” decorated with vines and fig and palm branches and paraded into Jerusalem and the Temple and seven times around the altar waving palm and myrtle and willow branches in one hand and a lemon-like citron in the other singing “Hosanna Hosanna in the Highest, Blessed is the King who will one day come in the Name of the Lord!” as the choir boys sang the verses of the rest of the Psalm and feasted for seven days.

It was a religious thing: a “spiritual” thing. It was the way things would be when the King Messiah came at the end of time-- you know, after you’re dead, and gone to heaven; not really, here and now.

We understand this.

“Christ our Passover Lamb is all-prepared for us, so let’s get on with the Feasting!” Sounds nice. Sounds “religious,” or as we alcoholics and post-modern types tend to say [‘cause we want no part of religion,] “it’s ‘spiritual’ an ‘in my heart feasting on god‘s affection for me”--

It’s the way things will be at the Heavenly Banquet at Jesus’ Second Coming, at the end of Time--- you know, when you’re dead, in heaven; not really, here and now!

Sure, at Sukkoth 2,000 years ago Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, “just like the Scriptures said the King Messiah would,”

And sure, the children sang “Hosanna, GOD SAVE THE KING, Blessed in He who comes in the Name of the LORD,” and sure the people sang the same thing. The kids were the Temple choir, singing the Psalms that were supposed to be sung each year on that special occasion. [It’s so nice that the children can participate! So precious!]

We understand that. We do it too. See, here we are singing “Hosanna, loud hosanna, the little children sang” right along with our children, and we read the same Psalm today they sang at so long, long ago. That’s they hymn and Psalm the Prayer Book says we’re supposed to use every Palm Sunday.

It’s the way we religiously (or “spiritually“) appropriate Jesus’ “Entrance into Jerusalem” into our “spiritual” lives, NOT into our everyday go-to-work-come-home-eat-sleep-go-to-work lives.


But Jerusalem was NOT a “spiritual reality” for Jesus and the people of his time. It was a real capital city, with the Real House of God, real government based in Rome, with real laws-- civil and religious, a real economy based on “vines and fig-trees,” a real King, a real High Priest, a real Jesus and,

and,

a REAL DONKEY!

To Jesus, what he was doing was real-izing, the “King-on-a-Donkey” scripture, here, now, in front of the real House of God in the real capital city of the real King-Messiah’s Nation with real priests, real civil authorities, a new real economy, new Law, new Worship, a New World Order, in his real, everyday go-to-work-come-home-eat-sleep-go-to-work. And to call attention to just how real, he rode a real donkey and said that it was all so real that if the children and his disciples didn’t shout “Hosanna! God save the King! Blessed is he who comes!” the stones of the Temple would!

Jesus was not announcing a new “spiritual” life for each of his admirers to use to become a better person and make their lives as full as possible.

NO! He was demonstrating that the end of the world as the world had known it up til that very day had finally happened and the beginning of a new world Order, Economy, and Law, a world turned upside down, inside out! Was now beginning!

It was the end of the world as it was known and the establishment of God’s Life Present Tenting in the midst of us, God among us” right here, and now! in a world that all along been a false world, promulgating a lie and trying to live in it, though most who were in it were dead, walking around just waiting to be buried, a world of the dead, where even the fig economy was cursed in Jesus eyes.

Well, sorry, but as we see it, our vines and fig trees, our economy, the peace and freedom our government gives, our worship, our Feast Days, our money changing, our marriages, our divorces, our religious practices, our spiritual lives, our courts of justice: civil and religious, our rich and poor, our slaves and free have all been grinding along very nicely for years and we can’t see that changes to anything “outside” our way of thinking and living is needed.

We do admire you Jesus for your “spiritual and ethical teachings,” Hey, we live in a pluralistic society and admire and respect the spiritual teachings of all religions, Hey, we even respect your right to preach anything you want, and Listen Jesus, speaking for myself of course, I will even accept it as a spiritual practice to help me in my spiritual life (remember I am not religious but “spiritual”),

But I’m sorry I can’t believe what you say for life here and now in this post-modern, post-holocaust, post-Viet Nam, post Christian world as I know it.

Just a few days later, the same good people who were singing “God save His King” as Jesus entered Jerusalem cried “kill him” and everyone-- friends, family, and fellow parishioners who had worshipped with him in the temple and synagogues called for his death and left him to die alone.

On the cross however, Jesus did not see the world before him as his “spiritual” life or what was happening as a “spiritual” thing.

He prayed, not “spiritually”-- privately, silently in his heart, but Publicly, appropriating the scriptures to himself in his here and now, screaming “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” His prayer was neither “spiritual,” or “religious;” it was a real cry of existential angst and despair.

A friend of mine, who the world says is dead, once said, “Christ has many admirers but few followers.”

Admirers of Christ love “spirituality,” privately, in their hearts, others love and have great affection of “religion“-- or church. Why? Because the first is inside one’s self, private, non active in the here and now so as not to offend or be offended by others. The latter super-natural, not of this world, .

But Christ’s followers follow here and now, wherever he leads, to the crosses, to firing squads, to imprisonment, to humiliation, and on, past death, resurrection, and live with him at the right hand of the throne of Grace, in his new creation here and now and they feast on food of which even his admirers (who crave and pray for bread) are unaware--- .

Do you admire Jesus or follow him?

Is what we do this day a “spiritual” drama,

a religious festival,

or is it “just another ordinary miracle today” here in the Kingdom of God?

By the way,

Christ The Passover Lamb has been all prepared for us, so Let’s get on with the Feast!

Amen.