| March 16, 2008 | Emmanuel Episcopal Church in the City of Boston |
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| Palm Sunday , Year A | The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz, Priest in Charge |
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| Isaiah 50:4-9a “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.”
Philippians 2:5-11 “He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death.” |
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| O God of mercy, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will. Amen. | |||
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Mind the Gap |
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I once had a friend who was an emcee for his bluegrass band. Ezzie was his name. At a break in the music, mid-set, Ezzie would introduce the musicians. When he got to one of the members of the band, his introduction went like this. “You’ve hearda people who are so dumb they don’t know nothin. Well this guy is so dumb he don’t even suspect nothin.” That is what I think of whenever I think about reading scripture with a hermeneutic of suspicion. That is, reading scripture while looking through an interpretive lens of skepticism or wariness. When I got to seminary, one of the first things I learned was that just being suspicious of scripture wasn’t enough. I had to also suspect something about the Church’s scheduled selections of scripture – the lectionary -- the schedule of when and how certain stories are read in liturgical settings. So I always suspect something, for instance, when I see skipped verses in an assigned reading. For example, when the scripture lesson appointed for the day is something like Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, I go immediately to verses 31 through 35 – the verses that are not included and begin to wonder why. Over the years I’ve often found myself preaching about those gaps and the missing material. It dawned on me this past week that we have a gap in our readings today that is so big I almost missed it entirely. It’s not a gap of a few verses. No, it’s a gap of nearly one-fourth of the entire Gospel of Matthew. It’s the gap between Jesus’ humble ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, which Chris read as we began our service this morning, and Jesus’ prayer time in the Garden of Gethsemane right before his arrest which is where our Passion Narrative begins. You’ll be relieved to know that I’m not proposing that we read the missing verses right now. Indeed, the Passion Narrative was already quite long – beautifully read – but quite long. What I am proposing, is that the gap – the gaping hole really -- plays a critical role in our experience of the story of Jesus. And I’m proposing that we should mind the gap, to borrow a caution from the London Underground.1 The Jesus story, in our collective experience, begins with a cooing infant, includes many nice feeding and healing stories, seeking and finding stories, storm-calming and comforting stories, a humble ride on a donkey with shouts of hosanna and blessing from the crowds, a last supper with his closest friends, a hymn and some prayers, and then bam! arrest, conviction and an execution with hardly so much as a mumbling word. “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” as the song goes, hung out to dry, either for no good reason or worse, because God somehow required this to happen to reconcile accounts. For reinforcement of Jesus’ passivity, we hear a passage from Isaiah that reads “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting” and a passage from Philippians that reads, “he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death,” just for good measure. The problem is that what gets ritualized is what gets remembered. If there is no ritual, there is no collective memory. What’s missing from the Church’s Palm Sunday rituals is any memory of Jesus’ deep righteous anger at the people who were perpetuating systems of domination – of military, political, religious and economic domination – by their actions or by their complacency. What’s missing from our Palm Sunday rituals is any memory of encounter after encounter, teaching after teaching, which insulted and threatened those in authority in Jerusalem at a time when the city was already in turmoil because of the crowds gathered in the city for Passover. Passover, of course, was (and is) a celebration of freedom from the military, political, religious and economic domination over the Hebrew people by Pharaoh and the Egyptian empire. Big crowds were in Jerusalem to celebrate the foundational story that what God wants for God’s people is food enough to eat and freedom from oppression at the same time! Big crowds always create a potentially dangerous situation. And we all know how dangerous crowded celebrations can be – how quickly a celebration can become violent – especially when the police force or the army is on high alert. In their book entitled The Last Week, Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan describe the parade of Jesus and his disciples into Jerusalem from the east as the non-violent counter demonstration to the procession of military, political and economic might from the west. Pontius Pilate and his large armed escort would have been arriving from the coast on majestic horses with gleaming swords and shields. Jesus’ entrance into the city on a donkey with crowds chanting hosanna – O save us – would have probably raised some eyebrows and maybe attracted mockery from the forces that represented the military might and economic power of the government that ruled the world. But that was just the beginning. Jesus went “straight to the Temple and threw out everyone who had set up shop, buying and selling. He kicked over the tables of loan sharks and the stalls of dove merchants. He quoted this text: My house was designated a house of prayer; You [temple officials] have made it a hangout for thieves. [Having cleared the area,] now there was room for the blind and crippled to get in. They came to Jesus and he healed them.”2 And so things went with increasing intensity, all through the week. His growing anger is palpable as he realized the enormity of what he was up against – not just the power of Roman Empire but the power of the religious authorities of his own people, the guardians of his own faith. He withered an unproductive fig tree and predicted similar death and destruction for all those who were participating in political, military, economic and religious forms of oppression. And he was doing all of this in a very public way, getting the crowds stirred up, and causing fear among those charged with keeping the city under control – those charged with keeping the peace. He publicly condemned many, including all who were not actively engaged in feeding those who were hungry, offering drink to those who were thirsty, welcoming those who were strangers, clothing those who lacked sufficient cover, visiting those who were sick or in prison. This is not a portrait of an innocent lamb led to the slaughter. This is a portrait of a radical and passionate provocateur, a justice-seeking troublemaker. This is a portrait of a prophet – “one who indicts the present to create energy for changing the future” (to quote Marcus Borg). Jesus was indicting the status quo to create energy for changing the future – at the ultimate personal cost. And do you know what? Right in the center of this gap in our reading – right in the center of this week -- is Jesus’ reference to the Sh’ma – the central prayer, the central commandment of Judaism. You all know it. Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God. Listen deeply, you who struggle with God. The Lord is our God. The Lord is One. And you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And you will love your neighbor as yourself. Right in the center of the week of provocation, of non-violent resistance and rage, is the reminder to listen deeply to the Source of all Being, the Holy One of Israel, and a reminder to love God and neighbor with everything you’ve got – your whole heart, your whole person, and with your very muchness...with your very muchness (to translate literally).3 This is not the kind of love that can be represented on a bumper sticker that says “I heart Jesus” or in a greeting card. For Christians, to love God is to love what Jesus loved. For Christians, to love God is to love the way that Jesus loved – with abandon, with compassion, and with a willingness to risk everything. As you enter more deeply the Passion story this Holy Week, do keep in mind what and whom it was that Jesus was passionate about. In other words, mind the gap. |
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