Br. James Michael Dowd, OHC
Palm Sunday - Sunday, April 1, 2012
Zechariah 9:9-10
John 12:12-19
At Holy Cross Monastery we use one of the texts of the Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as we prepare for the reading of the Passion on Good Friday.
Parade Day
But the first lesson I received in parade-ology was from my dad when I was but a small boy of either seven or eight years old. That Memorial Day, he took me to the parade in town and I found myself reveling in the marching bands, one of which my older brother Joe was marching in, and the twirlers, of whom my sister Denise
was twirling with. Now this took place during the War in Vietnam and so a Memorial Day Parade was fully charged in that era. First of all, each year many thousands of soldiers died in Southeast Asia and we would get weekly “body counts” in our local paper. So, this was not a parade commemorating the war dead of some long forgotten conflict. No, this was commemorating men who died last week, maybe even yesterday.
That particular year, as my dad and I watched the parade, a hippie in full hippie regalia approached my father and I with leaflets condemning the war. My father told him to “get lost,” but true to his convictions the hippie continued to talk and I continued to listen to him. As I think back on it, the hippie couldn't been more than 18 or 19 years old, but he had me fully engaged. It was when I reached for the leaflet, that my father lost it. He started yelling at the hippie and telling him that he should show some respect for the war dead, and some respect for the flag. There may have been mention of getting a haircut...at least that's how I remembered it years later and teased my father about it. Her always denied the haircut part. With Joe and Denise having already passed by our viewing location, Dad took me by the hand and said “we're going.” And off we marched, in the opposite direction from the parade.
On the way home, Dad told me that “parades mean something.” He said that the “hippie has a right to say what he wanted to say, but not at this parade. Because it means something. Parades mean something.” Thus began my fascination with parades. And I recalled that story every time I head someone say “it's parade day.”
Parades do mean something. Every parade means something, and the parade of Palm Sunday is no different. In church we tend to call parades processions. But a parade is a parade.
An Inaugural Parade, for example, is on the surface a celebration of national unity, but is actually a celebration of the new president's power. The Macy's Parade is the greatest branding event in history created in 1924 even before the concept of branding had been created. Macy's found a way to become part of many American's holiday experience, thus increasing their holiday sales. The Soviets were infamous for their May Day Parades in which they rolled out enormous caches of weapons to prove just how powerful they were. Parades mean something.
So as I began preparing for this sermon, I thought long and hard about what this particular parade meant as passed down to us in the Gospel according to St. John. And the first thing that caught my attention was the opening verse which begins “the next day...” Now John has such a literary approach to the writing of his Gospel, that a phrase like “the next day” is not a throw-away phrase. It is meant to connect the events of the two days. And the event that John is linking the entry into Jerusalem with was a party in which Jesus, Mary, Martha, the disciples, Lazarus and others were present. What they were celebrating was the extraordinary event from six days earlier in which Lazarus had been raised from the dead. And that act, the raising of Lazarus, had set the entire community into a frenzy.
Changing water into wine, giving sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf were all well and good. And these sorts of miracles certainly attracted some disciples. But raising a man from the dead was a game changer. No one could ignore such a powerful symbol of order being turned on its head, especially those who had everything to lose.
And make no mistake about it, there were all kinds of people who had something to lose if Jesus really had the power to raise the dead. You would think that any human being would be thrilled with the proof that Jesus could raise people from the dead – could actually make life new again by simply speaking a few words. You would not have to be Jewish to think to yourself “wow – this gives my life a totally new meaning!” Jews and Romans alike should have been thrilled.
But some were not thrilled. Some, in fact, were down-right terrified. And that's because they had everything to lose. You see, the power brokers and their sycophants, in every society since the beginning of time, have held only one power over everyone else. And that is the power of death. Death, whether inflicted or accidental, due to murder or sickness, is the ultimate form of violence. And the specter of death hanging over us is the weapon used by the powers-that-be. In a non-Christian context death ends everything. It takes our bodies from us and turns them into dirt, refuse, something to bury or burn. It takes our breath, our minds, our hearts, our hopes, our loves and tramples them into a meaningless void that sucks all joy, all prayer, all peace from us and into nothingness.
This is the violence of death. And this violence of death is used by tyrants and petty tyrants the world over. From bullies found in the schools, to bullies found among terrorists, to bullies found in halls of power throughout history, the threat of death keeps us in line and makes us buy into the system. The threat of death makes us surrender to the cynical understanding of life as something that can be taken from us at any minute if we dare to step out of line and into a life of faith. When we dare to believe that we should share our wealth with the poor; when we dare to believe that we should share our food with the hungry; when we dare to believe that the health care we feel entitled to should be available to all; it is then that we begin to whisper to each other: 'hush, if we dare to share our wealth or our food or our health care there won't be enough and they'll take it from us. We will die.”
And God forbid that we dare to say out loud 'maybe we shouldn't send man-less drones over Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan that bomb innocent women and children in order to save us from the terrorist bullies. Better we out bully them or they would come to get us and we would all die.” The threat of death is the ultimate form of violence that is used by the powerful to keep us quiet.
And that was no different in Jesus' day. So when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead he set the Jewish leadership that had made an alliance with the Roman powers into an uproar. “If the people begin actually believing in this Jesus,” they said to themselves, “then we are dead. We will lose our power and the Romans will bully us into even further submission.” But what they did not realize was that they had already been bullied. In their inability to comprehend Jesus' demonstration of a new way, a non-violent way to resist, a way that buries death once and for all, they had already died. Their desperation for power made them blind to the gift of the Messiah, the gift of non-violence.
Now on the other hand, all those other powerless Jews: The poor, the hungry, the outcasts, the leprous, the lonely and the despised were able to see the ultimate victory of the Messiah before their very eyes. They had nothing but death to lose, and everything, especially life, to gain. Some of these new followers came to the celebration that began the day before, and even more joined them “the next day” to hold a parade, a parade that meant something. A parade that celebrated the ultimate victory of non-violence, the end of death as they had known it.
The Colt and the King,
a John Winch illustration for the children's story
by the same title (by Marni McGee)
And so it makes sense that Jesus would have chosen to ride into Jerusalem on young donkey. Steeped in Scripture, Jesus and his followers understood that the reference in the Prophet Zechariah, which we heard as our first reading this morning, is part of the prophecy that announces the coming reign of the Prince of Peace, that Prince who will lead captivity into captivity and death into death. The prophet tells the people to “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!”
And rejoice is the correct word. For you see, the violence addicted powers of this world rode on horses and in chariots, forcing their Empire of Death down the throats of a desperate people. But Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, who told Martha just before he raised Lazarus that he, Jesus, “was the resurrection and the life” and that those who believed in him, “even though they die, will live,” and that “everyone who lives and believes in [him] will never die.” This is an Empire in which we no longer need to believe that Caesar or the Sanhedrin, or the fear mongers in Washington who see terrorists around every corner, or the hoarders of healthcare or food need to be obeyed. This is an Empire in which our leader is life itself, resurrection itself. It is an Empire in which the non-violence of everlasting life, ever so gently like the young donkey, enters into our hearts through a celebration of life that is eternal.
If we believe in this new kind of kingdom, an empire that is not propped up with the violence of death, but with the gift of life, that means that our behavior changes. We are liberated from the power that bullies and tyrants have over us, and we are liberated from the cynicism that often accompanies a comfortable middle-class life. That cynicism that teaches us it is better to go along with the powers of this world, than to risk death.
We say this all the time at funerals: “Life changes, it does not end.” That is what we claim to believe. If that is true then we must change. We American Christians have a particular responsibility to change at this time in history. One of my favorite quotes from the great martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, was: “The Church's task in each country is to make of each country's individual history a history of salvation.” We Americans have an unprecedented amount of power, being the only super-power in our current world. In other words, we are the Empire. The right-wing in our country often says that we are a “Christian nation.” Well, I would like to challenge the right-wing, and the left-wing, and the middle to really think and pray, really pray, about what it would mean to change ourselves into a truly Christian nation, a nation in which we made our country's “individual history into a history of salvation.” A country in which we threw a giant parade that celebrated the death of death, and the birth of God's reign of Life. A parade with Jesus as the Grand Marshal and with millions of people walking together, praying together, and singing our hosannas together in a non-violent display of the New Empire, the Kingdom of God. A kingdom in which we believe in the deepest places of our hearts that our lives do not end, they simply change and that this knowledge allows us to step off into the parade of life.
So this morning, we have provided both the usual palms for our procession, but also tulips. These flowers, very common in the Hudson Valley, might well be used today if we were to organize a spontaneous parade led by the Prince of Peace right here in West Park. So, take a palm in deference to the tradition, but take a flower as well in deference to the Lord of Life that we sing our hosannas to in this time, in this place, in our lives and our country. Celebrate the life that cannot be taken from you – not from bullies and not from tyrants. Celebrate that life and as we parade through the halls of this monastery and into the church. Wave those palms and tulips with abandon, play those instruments with all your heart, and sing your hosannas at the top of your lungs. For the week that we parade into this morning is a celebration of life, not death. The violence of Holy Week – abandonment, betrayal, flogging, crucifixion, and entombment will be superseded by the non-violence of forgiveness, reunion, peace, resurrection, and the life-giving breath of the Holy Spirit. So let this parade mean something. Let it mean that we have stepped out of line and raised our voices to resist the violence of death and its powerful minions; and let us embrace the non-violence of eternal life and Jesus the Christ, its only Author.
AMEN.
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