FROM PARTY TO PASSION

April 2, 2023
Palm Sunday
Matthew 21:1-11; Matthew 26
Rev. Denise Clark-Jones

How many Palm Sundays have you experienced? Probably far more than Maundy Thursdays and Good Fridays, if you were brought up in a Protestant community of faith. When I was a child, I knew of Good Friday only as a religious day for Roman Catholics. All I knew was the Catholics didn’t eat fish on Friday, so the school cafeterias always served fish sticks that day. I didn’t attend a Maundy Thursday service until I was in junior high school, when a progressive pastor introduced the fledgling Presbyterian congregation, he started to the worship service. That was a fairly long time ago, but evangelical Christian churches still barely acknowledge Maundy Thursday and Good Friday; and in Mainline Protestant churches, attendance is low on these two days of Holy Week. Going to church on Sundays is seen as much as a sacrifice of our time as we can manage, never mind that the observance of Holy Week is all about the sacrifice Christ made for us. Instead, in our secular culture, Palm Sunday and Easter are seen as joyful harbingers of Spring like the original pagan festival celebrating the spring equinox and the pagan goddess, Eostre. From my childhood memories, Easter was the mark for traditional fashionistas that you could begin wearing white. And woe to any female who wore white after Labor Day, which of course has nothing to do with Easter.

Today we read the gospel of Matthew’s account of the day Jesus entered the holy city of Jerusalem to celebrate his final Passover. We should remember that while we are looking ahead to Easter, our Jewish neighbors are celebrating Passover beginning sundown this Wednesday and continuing until sundown on Thursday, April 13. The first two nights of Passover are celebrated with a Seder, a special feast introduced with a liturgy remembering the Hebrew scriptures ‘account of the exodus of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt. This is what Jesus was doing in the Upper Room with his disciples on Maundy Thursday.

I have read accounts of elderly Jews who remember their parents keeping them inside on Good Friday to protect them from marauding gangs of boys and young men looking for Jews to beat up for “killing Christ.” Sadly, anti-Semitism has reared its ugly head again thanks to politicians, who for their own political agendas, encourage white supremacists and other anti-Semites to threaten and attack Jews in this country.

The Jewish Anti-Defamation League has reported an average of seven anti-Semitic incidents per day in 2021. The normalization of anti-Semitism which began during the last Presidential administration, and now celebrities have publicly voiced anti-Semitic and white supremacist rhetoric.  It is normal practice for synagogues to hire security for worship services.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and National Director, of the Anti-Defamation League, explained in an interview on the PBS Newshour: “We should keep in mind that antisemitic acts were going down in the United States for almost 15 years, and then ,in 2016, they started to move up. And we’re now at the point where we have nearly triple the number of incidents today that we did in 2015. It’s typically the canary in the coal mine. And so, as things are beginning to unravel more broadly, the Jewish community is often the target of scapegoating and victimized in that way.”

The interviewer, Judy Woodruff observed: “And, similarly, as you’re mentioning, there were also a similar number of attacks with — on Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans. You had Jews being beaten and brutalized in broad daylight, say, in the middle of Times Square or Los Angeles or the Strip in Las Vegas, where people who were simply identified as Jewish came under assault and attack. That was new.”

Greenblat replied: “We know, for example, that when we saw elected officials and people in positions of authority after the outbreak of COVID denigrating China, attacking its policies, making wild claims about their intentionality, of the regime in Beijing to spreading COVID around the world, we saw attacks on Asian Americans here at home.” 1

The American Melting Pot is now a myth. I remember one Christmas, I believe it was 1999 when my father and his Jewish wife and two Jewish children spent a few days during the holidays with my family in Hershey, Pennsylvania. We went to Chocolate World to tour the Hershey factory. At the entrance to the factory, there were entertainers dressed in Hershey chocolate candy costumes singing Christmas jingles. My three-year-old half-sister danced with them, singing “I Hanukkah, I Hanukkah.”  It was cute and funny then, but today I would be a bit worried. Now, even though major manufacturers of children’s clothing sell t-shirts, sweatshirts, and pajamas printed with menorahs and dreidels around Christmas time, I would not think of giving my two-year-old granddaughter, being raised in the Jewish faith, any kind of publicly identifying mark. Anti-Semitism is the horrible consequence of Christian Triumphalism, which gloats that only Christians, more specifically white, fundamentalist Christians, are the true children of God. So much for the humility of Christ.

When Matthew’s gospel describes “priests and the scribes” wanting to silence Jesus, we could substitute words like “bishops, executive presbyters, and stated clerks.” The crowd that cheered Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on that first “Palm Sunday” were Jews. The early church’s congregations were predominantly Jews, like Jesus. The author of Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience. What some of the Jewish priests and scribes objected to was not Jesus’ theology, but his threat to their own power. These enemies of Christ did not seek his death because of their faith, but because they were human and susceptible to the same temptations, we all are.

Here’s where the bittersweetness of Palm Sunday is most evident. The welcoming crowd did want to welcome a Messiah, but they wanted a Messiah who would release them from the political and economic oppression by the Roman Empire, not a spiritual release from sin which would bring them “shalom,” peace with God. They wanted a messiah to come and save them, but their image of a savior was not the humble itinerant rabbi who preached about the kingdom of God. The healing miracles Jesus performed were the root of their amazement of his power – a power they hoped would be turned against their Roman occupiers. As the psalmist warned, the Palm Sunday crowd “put their trust in princes and nations.” (Ps. 146:3) They wanted a King of the Jews like David or a rebel warrior like Judas Maccabeus, whose successful revolt against the Romans is celebrated at Hanukah.

The Roman occupation of the Jewish province, of Judea, was particularly oppressive and brutal. It is what happens when power is concentrated in one authoritarian leader, such as the Roman Caesar. Any group which poses a perceived threat to a particular leader and those who profit from that leadership must be eliminated, or rendered powerless. In the case of the Jewish leaders opposing Jesus, they were also concerned about losing their power in the Jewish community of a rabbi whose message of the closeness of God and God’s kingdom on earth made their intermediary roles unnecessary. The perks of their status were in jeopardy.

The author of Matthew goes to great lengths to demonstrate that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of scripture. In his account of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, Jesus is doing the improbable, if not impossible – he is riding on a donkey and a colt. Unlike the other two accounts of Jesus’ final entrance into Jerusalem in Mark and Luke, in Matthew Jesus instructs his disciples: “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. ³If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ Then we read: “ ⁶The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; ⁷they brought the donkey and the colt and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.”

Matthew was trying to tap into his audience’s knowledge of Hebrew Scripture. He was trying to present Jesus as the great king promised Israel after the exile in Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” This is an example of the literary device known as parallelism, which was used widely in the poetry and prose of the Hebrew Scriptures. Parallelism is repeating a phrase, using slightly different language, for emphasis. Did the author of Matthew’s author not understand this? It seems unlikely. In keeping with the rest of Matthew’s gospel in which the Hebrew scriptures were repeatedly referenced to show the continuity of Jesus’ message with that of what we call the Old Testament, Matthew emphasizes what Jesus himself explained in chapter 5: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”(v.17)

Jesus entered Jerusalem on Sunday on a young colt that had never been used in war. Unlike the image we have of a donkey, in the ancient Middle East the donkey was associated with kingship. We read in scripture that King Solomon rode to his coronation on the back of a donkey. (1 Kings 1:33) Horses were used by the Roman military, they carried light-level Roman soldiers into battle. When Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a donkey and a colt on Palm Sunday, the message was: Here is a king, but not a king preparing for war. This is a king preparing for peace.

In an article written by Roman Catholic priest, Fr. John Dear, Roman politics is contrasted with Jesus’ politics.  He acknowledges: “We have our own definition of a gospel, which has been formed by our Christian education. However, its original meaning had to do with a human god. In Jesus’ time, when the Roman army conquered another land in the name of their god Caesar, they killed all the men, raped the women, and destroyed all the homes. Then the soldiers would come back parading through the Roman towns and cities announcing “the Gospel according to Caesar.”  Ancient Roman politics revolved around subjugating others through power, manipulation, and violence. This is not different from the powerful nations since the Roman Empire fell. But it was not the politics of Jesus.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus rode the young horse and the donkey, and a large crowd spread their cloaks on the ground and waved their palm branches while crying:  “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!” (Matt. 21:9) The Hebrew word, “Hosanna,” means “save now” or help!” It is used in 2 Samuel (14:4) where a mother pleads with King David for the life of her son. King David grants her request. The Jewish Annotated New Testament states that the cloaks and branches were meant “to connect Jesus to the kingship of Israel.”4 The throwing down of cloaks and branches was a custom when a king arrived among the people. The term “Son of David” expressed their hope for a new political ruler, not a spiritual leader, a savior, who would bring us closer to God and into God’s kingdom on earth.

Today is not only known as Palm Sunday, it is also referred to as Passion Sunday because the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection begins on the day he entered Jerusalem to face the cross. The Palm Sunday crowd didn’t get Jesus. Their enthusiasm expressed during the parade was quickly quashed in just a few days by Christ’s humiliating arrest and crucifixion by the Roman officials.

In both the long passage of Matthew 26-27 and the short passage of just 27, Matthew’s account of the betrayal, arrest, conviction, and crucifixion of Jesus, is the only story that shows Judas’ remorse and contains Judas’ suicide. This is why I added the scripture passage from Matthew 26.

The events that move from Palm Sunday to Easter highlight the best and worst in humanity, in ourselves. Along with the bitter betrayals, Matthew tells us there were people who performed courageous and generous acts in the period right before and after his crucifixion. We have the story of the woman who anointed Jesus for his burial with oil worth a year’s wages for most workers. We have the women who followed Jesus all the way to Jerusalem and gave him food for the journey. Three of these women were followed Jesus to the foot of his cross. We have Joseph of Arimathea, who took Jesus’ body, prepared it for burial, and provided the tomb in which he was buried.

The events commemorated during Holy Week remind us of our own human sin as evidenced in our failure to commit to and defend the righteousness and justice of God and our failure to put love and compassion before our ego-centered and worldly desires. When our sparse congregation on Good Friday sings the old hymn, “Were You There,” it is an admission of our continued failure to stand up against evil in the world, the promise we make at our baptism. But we can make the choice to follow Jesus, in times of division, conflict and our own personal dark valleys. When Jesus prepared his disciples for his departure from this earth, he promised them, and us, the power of the Holy Spirit to inspire and embolden us to follow him. He gave us a foretaste of the heavenly banquet and the model for our discipleship to bring food to the empty tables of the world with the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. He gives us food for our own spiritual journey.

Come to the table and come follow Jesus this Holy Week that you may be equipped to follow him all the days of your lives.

Amen. May it be so!

1. PBS News Hour, April 29, 2022. Judy Woodruff interview with Jonathan Greenblatt, Anti-Defamation League CEO          https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/antisemitic-incidents-hit-a-record-          high-in-2021-whats-behind-the-rise-in-hate.

2. Jewish Annotated New Testament Oxford University Press, Inc. New York. 2011
3. Ericksen, Adam. “The Politics of Palm Sunday.” Sojourners Magazine. April 10, 2024.
4. Gale, Aaron M. “The Gospel According to Matthew,” The Jewish Annotated New Testament. Oxford Press. New York. 2011. (Kindle Edition)

© Rev. Denise Clark-Jones, 2023, All Rights Reserved
Westminster Presbyterian Church | 1420 W. Moss Ave. | Peoria, Illinois 61606
WestminsterPeoria.org | 309.673.8501

“What goes through your mind as you sit in the sanctuary and look around?

As I sit in my pew and look up at the cross with the wonderful light illuminating it, I am reminded of why I am at Westminster on this particular day. The cross reminds me that Christ died for me and, in a sense, I am to do the same in my daily life. The brightness of the cross illustrates for me the brightness of living my life in the way of Christ.”