UCC Church of Charlotte

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Sermon for Palm Sunday, April 5, 2009
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Sunday, April 5, 2009 8:47:12 AM
From:
Phil Hobson   
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To:
Phil Hobson 


Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 
Mark 11:1-11

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.
    
Jesus rides into Jerusalem, like a conquering hero, like King David did.  And he is greeted as a hero, as the great warrior king returned from battle.  And the people wave branches and they throw their cloaks down, like they did before the kings of old, who were too important to touch the dirt, too important to have the dust of the earth on them.
    
And the song of praise on their lips:

        Hosanna! 
        Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
        Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! 
        Hosanna in the highest!

is the cry of the people for a victor king, one who, like David, would unite the people and vanquish their foes and lead them into an age like that of the first kingdom if Israel and the first Temple and the heyday of their hopes.
    
But Mark, who is so in a hurry to get us to the action, slows the story down.  Jesus rides the donkey from the Mount of Olives, overlooking the city of Jerusalem, overlooking the great temple mound, the great construction projects of Herod the Great, the one who would have killed the infant Jesus thirty some odd years ago.  He rides through the cheering crowds who long to kick Rome out, long to worship God in a Temple undefiled by Caesar’s symbols, long to restore the fortunes of the people of the covenant.  He rides into Jerusalem, and his victorious procession comes to the Temple.
    
And Mark, the one who wants everything to happen “and then...”, “and suddenly...”, “immediately....”; Mark says,
        And he entered Jerusalem, and went into the temple; and when he had looked round at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. 
    
The Gospel of hurry up says that because it was late, Jesus went back to Bethany.  That’s where his ride on the donkey started.
    
What Jesus is going to do needs witnesses.  It is a public demonstration, an “out in the open” display of contempt for the practice of religion as it is being done in the Temple.  It requires an audience.  He is not working in secret.  He is going to overturn the tables in broad daylight, not sneak around and draw graffiti.
    
And since it was late, and people were closing up shop, he went back to where he was staying, and he came in the next day.
    
The way this makes sense is that Jesus, like the prophets before him, is trying to mess up the status quo.  He is trying to wake people up to what is happening, and how it is not what God had in mind.
    
And it must take place in Jerusalem.
    
Jerusalem, home to the Temple.  Not the Temple built by Solomon.  That was destroyed years ago when the land was invaded and the people taken into exile.  The Temple that was rebuilt when they returned, and then expanded and added onto by Herod the Great, ruler of Israel in Rome’s name.
    
Jerusalem, home to the high priests of the Temple.  Not chosen as they had been in the old days, but the wealthy families of Jerusalem, who were placed in charge of the Temple by Rome’s king, and who fight bitterly among themselves for control of the priesthood, so that they stay out of the rest of politics.
    
Jerusalem, home to the palace where the king reigns, not in the name of God, but in the name of Caesar.
    
Jerusalem, the center of life for those who seek to follow God, but a place run not by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but by perspiration and conscription by the Roman legions.
    
Jerusalem, the place of hope and the presence of God, and the place that showed the cruelty and violence of the empires of man.
    
Is it any wonder that Jesus weeps over the city?
    
Matthew and Luke report Jesus saying:

        O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!
    
Here is the human condition writ large.  Here is the image of our problems.  Saying we are of God, wanting to be of God, but so weighed down by the ways of the world that we have little room to maneuver, little room to breathe in that inspiration and the hope and that Good News.
    
Created for faith, but burdened by everything else.
    
Made for the glory of God, but being used as a place for human power, for empire alone.
    
To play this out in Jerusalem is to pay it out for all the world to see what the world does to the faithful.
    
This image of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (over the world, over the human condition, over the ways we are weighed down), came up as I was taking recently to one of our church members who is a mentor in the KidsHope USA program.  Her kid was dealing with some heartbreaking stuff.  Now, mind you, this is a first grader, but there is enough there to make one weep.
    
And I asked the question, “I wonder why God keeps calling us to ministries that break our hearts?”
    
And as I was asking the question, it occurred to me that God might be responding, “Welcome to my world.”
    
And there is much to break our hearts in this world.  I believe that the reason Jesus wept over Jerusalem is because he could see it clearly.
    
We often think of Palm Sunday as the triumphal entry, and we want to skip over to Easter, and avoid all the difficulties and pain between them.  But Jesus is going to take on the ways of the world, and he is going to take on the systems of violence, and he is going to do so without resorting to the ways of the world or to violence.  He is going to hold tight instead to his faith, to the trust in God that is able to meet all situations, to the hope in God that is able to survive even death.
    
And by this we will see again that the ways of the world have nothing on God.  And that Easter does await on the other side.
    
Thanks be to God.
    
Amen.