Palm Sunday: Evensong
19H00
Cathedral of St. Michael
and St. George
Grahamstown, South Africa
Luke 19: 41-48
By the power of the Holy Spirit may we
humbly enter into the heart and mind of Christ, united with him in his Passion.
AMEN
Beloved, today we met
Christ!
The prince who is a pauper has arrived at Jerusalem’s gate. History’s
orchestra has commenced one of mankind’s greatest and most gruesome requiems.
This morning, the people
stood at Jerusalem’s gate awaiting the arrival of Jesus. A king though we call
him, he was adorned in lowliness—not in robes, but in rags; and, not upon a
horse, but upon a donkey. As he appeared they casted their cloaks about that
his donkey might tread softly. They waved palm branches, and resounded
“Hosanna!”
His rags: a symbol of his
solidarity with the least of those. His donkey—as opposed to the galloping
horse of war: a symbol of peace. And the palm branches of the people: a symbol
of victory, for, in their desperate eyes, a mighty warrior had finally come;
he’d come to save them from, and destroy, a ravaging and raging empire.
The chief priests have been
on his scent since his return from the desert a year ago, as he began his
ministry of prophecy and healing. But, now…now they were witnessing, in full
assurance, that Jesus was a mighty counselor. The streets were filled with
people desperate to rise up against oppression, desperate to unhinge Rome’s
vice-grip of inequality.
And as they stood in the
presence of Jesus, the chief priests demanded Jesus to quiet the people’s cries.
The proletarian insistence that Jesus take up the mantle of revolutionary
vanguard was upsetting the status quo. But, Jesus refused to hush the cries
saying, “if my disciples keep silent the rocks are going to cry out!” Jesus’
subtle way of saying, “ain’t no stopping us now.”
But now, the Savior who has
come to redeem humankind, “as he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he
wept…” And now we take our turn from triumphal to tragic. Jesus—the King, the
Mighty One, the Savior—with the shedding of a tear has begun a week of
venerable vulnerability.
“If you, even you, had only
known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your
eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment
against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you
on the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one
stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to
you.”
Jesus is playing the part.
He’s employed all of the appropriate symbols to ensconce in the hearts and
minds of the people exactly who he is and what he’s all about. His clothes. His
mode of transportation. Yet, none of it registers with the people of Jerusalem.
Jesus has come to bring peace, but the people could not see this. They did not
want their freedom by way of reconciliation. They wanted their freedom by way
of reckoning and war. And Jesus can see, clearly, their vengeful hearts—and at
once he weeps.
I wonder: if Jesus saw this city, would he weep?
In order to answer that
question we have to enter into the heart and mind of Christ. Unlike the people
that stood at Jerusalem’s gate, we have to see
Christ for who Christ is…
In chapter four of Luke’s
Gospel—the beginning of his ministry—Jesus makes it VERY clear who he is and
what he’s all about when he quotes the prophet Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
Because he has anointed me
To preach good news
To
the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim
Freedom
for the prisoners
And recovery of sight
For
the blind,
To release the oppressed,
To proclaim the year
Of
the Lord’s favour.”
Essentially, Jesus is a
community organizer. And he has come to organize the people of God that we
might build a peaceful liberation front for the poor, the prisoner, the blind,
and the oppressed. It gets no clearer than that, as to who a man is and what
he’s all about.
So, he went on to do the
things he said he was sent to do. He went on healing. And often in unlawful defiance
he healed on the Sabbath—a sign that God is not a sometimes God for some people,
but an all the time God for all people. It was a direct affront to the Genesis
creation myth. Jesus has come to say that the healing power and love of God
takes no days off.
Then, about halfway through
Luke’s gospel, in chapter twelve, we get the Parable of the Rich Fool. And such parables of financial
malfeasance only increase as the Gospel develops and Jesus’ ministry gains
momentum. There’s the Parable of the Lost
Coin, and the Parable of the Shrewd
Manager. There’s The Rich Man and
Lazarus. And by chapter 18 and 19 it seems as if his continued healing of
the poor and the economically oppressed, discouragement of financial
malfeasance, and the encouragement that we do away with our monetary
possessions—all possessions, really—is all that Jesus can talk about. There is
the Parable of the Persistent Widow—who,
without male assistance would have been inconceivably impoverished—the story of
The Rich Ruler, and The Blind Beggar who received his sight—another
character who, without his sight, would have had no work and no way of caring
for himself. And the last two stories before we meet Jesus at the Jerusalem
gate are Zacchaeus the Tax Collector, and
The Parable of the Ten Minas. Some of
these stories are about what happens to us when we hold on to and worship our
possessions. Some of these stories are about giving up our possessions in order
to truly follow Jesus. Some of these stories are about forgiveness towards
those that steal our possessions. And some of these stories are simply about
looking after those whose lives have been thrust into disparaging poverty.
So, what does Jesus see when
he looks up at Jerusalem? Besides vengeful hearts, I think that he sees the
manifestation of greed. I think that he sees the avarice of a government. And I
think that he sees sickness, and pain, and spiritual unrest, and brokenness in
the eyes the poor and needy people that have come to meet him at the gate
expecting a warrior. Imagine the backdrop of a towering empire, but in front of
your eyes, a cowering people.
Which brings me back to that question:
if Jesus saw this city, would he weep?
In a town with the largest
income inequality gap in a country that is one of the world’s forerunners in
income inequality, it seems as if the answer would have to be an unequivocal
‘yes’.
In a town with a university
that bears the name of one of the worlds largest charitable trusts, only km’s
away from homes with no running water, and streams filled with rubbish I think
that Jesus would weep. We are all aware, as evidenced in the thorough investigation
of this country’s Public Protector, of the Nkhandla Project. And in the words
of Vice-Chancellor Saleem Badat at this weekends graduation exercises, we are
all aware of politicians that have been in office too long, who use public funds
as their personal piggy-banks. We are all aware how centuries of systematic oppression along the lines of race have complicated and defamed the lives of countless numbers of black South African's.
Were Jesus’ tears a sudden
realization that perfect salvation is impossible on earth? Well, if that’s the
case, why does he say in Luke’s gospel that the Kingdom of God is within you,
that the Kingdom of God is here and now?
He says that the Kingdom of
God is within us, is here and now, because that is what he knows to be true! He
is the first fruit’s of that revelation! He weeps, therefore, because he senses
our collective unbelief in the possibility of God’s Kingdom in the here and
now. He weeps because he senses amongst of us poor and needy waiting at
Jerusalem’s gate the unbelief that there can be perfect peace. He weeps because
he senses our unbelief that there can be a spiritual transformation that will
change our material situation. He weeps because we don’t believe, in the words
of Isaiah, that the lion will lie down with the lamb. He weeps because we’ve given
up on the Kingdom!
Jesus weeps because in all
of our brokenness, and in all of our fear, and in all of our smallness we
refuse to see how we can do anything; therefore, we often do nothing.
We are children of God. And
Jesus is weeping because we refuse to see our own divinity. Jesus is weeping
because we refuse to see the divinity in each other. We refuse to acknowledge
our own worth, and the worth of our neighbors. We refuse to address the hard
questions, and make the hard sacrifices. We refuse to believe that we can do
anything to hold our public officials—the Empire at-large—accountable for its
reprehensible behavior.
This morning, many of us
stood ceremoniously waving palms—then, left church, and acrimoniously waved the
beggar away. Let us no longer be like the people in Jerusalem. We are not
Christian byway of ceremony. Ceremony simply walks with us—hand in hand—to the
edge of the shore. What make’s us true followers of Christ, what turns Christ’s
jilted tears into tears of joy, is when we decide to dive into the tumult of
life’s ocean, when we decide to bring light into the darkest depths in a sea of
despair—counting not our losses.
This week, Christ will show
us our worth. This week, Christ will be stripped, beaten, and hung, as an
example of a true sacrifice. This week, Christ will say, with his silent
procession to Calvary that, “no woman or man deserves to suffer death on the
cross; but, if I must, then I will, because you are worth it. And may this
symbol that you are worth it inspire you to see with new eyes that
everyone—friend and enemy alike—has been endowed with immeasurable value,
immeasurable worth. And may those new eyes fashion a world made for peace.”
Where will you be this
week?
Someone is going to give
their life that you might know exactly who you are!
Where will you be this
week?
Where will you be this
week?
Someone is going to offer
himself up for death that you might know exactly what you’re worth!
Where will you be this
week?
This week, be a witness to
your worth, that you might be a witness to the value and worth in others!
Sung
[Will you be] there when
they crucify [our] Lord?
[Will you be] there when
they crucify [our] Lord?
Oh, Oh, Oh…
Sometimes it causes me to
tremble,
Tremble,
Tremble.
[Will you be] there when
they crucify [our] Lord?
AMEN
