Palm Sunday C, 10 April 2022.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 50:4-9a. It is the Lord God who helps me.
Philippians 2:5-11. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.
Luke 23:1-49. Watching these things.

1.  They had been enemies.  
You know, each of our four canonical Gospels tells its own story of the Good News of Jesus as the Christ. Each has its own voice, its own intended audience, its own character. I believe that we hear and understand best when we hear the distinctive voices telling different stories, when we do not try to make a puree by blending all of the ingredients of the four Gospels, seasoned with church traditions.

Today, before the reading of the Passion narrative at the beginning of our service, we heard a portion of the Gospel of Luke, about Jesus heading into Jerusalem on a colt that’s never been ridden, which always sounds to me like kind of a wild, irreverent, funny ride, nothing like our orderly procession. There is Jesus careening into Jerusalem on a young, borrowed donkey in a hilarious way that both fulfilled the scriptures and at the same time mocked the majestic horses of the Roman army, which were probably parading into Jerusalem on the other side of the city with fearsome pomp and deadly circumstance. The Roman army would have greatly increased its numbers for the Passover holiday, all in the name of keeping the Pax Romana. [1] Everyone would have been on edge. One of the Gospel of Luke’s peculiar details is that it’s not a large crowd of bystanders that surrounds Jesus’ rodeo-like entry into Jerusalem. It is a gathering of his disciples, and they’re poking fun. 

You might have noticed that Luke’s version of the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem doesn’t mention palm branches at all; but maybe not, since we call this day ‘Palm’ Sunday, and we have carried and blessed piles of palm leaves. In the comparable story in Matthew, Mark, and John, palm branches are mentioned, but not in Luke. Palm branches were a sign of Jewish independence after Jewish rebels defeated Syrian oppressors in 141 BCE. We don’t know for sure, but Luke is thought to have been written in Antioch (in Syria) at the end of the first century. Maybe the omission is an attempt to indicate to the Roman government that Christians were not dangerous revolutionaries; or maybe the omission is because mentioning palm branches was a sore subject with his particular audience in Syria; or maybe it’s a little of both.

Our liturgy takes an abrupt, nauseating turn from blessing, processing, and pleading for help (hosanna means save us please) to the story of the Passion. Luke tragically joins the other evangelists in writing a polemic against Jews who were not persuaded to follow Jesus. [2] It’s not just a problem of translation; there are slanderous accusations repeated in Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. The defamation was probably a result of the split between Jesus-following Jews and non-following Jews in the crisis later in the first century, after the Roman destruction of the whole City of Jerusalem. As always, I must preach against Christian scriptures and traditions that accuse anyone but the Roman government for the execution of Jesus, the rabbi from Nazareth. 

2.  He handed over Jesus as they wished.
No matter how corrupt the puppet government of Herod and the temple authorities might have been (as far as we know, they were), they had no power to crucify under Roman law; and they did not represent the Jewish people (as many as seven million were spread around the Mediterranean). According to Luke, Jesus never claimed to be King of the Jews either. The idea that Pilate declared Jesus innocent three times and then capitulated to the crowd would be laughable if the retelling had not been so deadly for Jews ever since. Instead it is inflammatory and libelous. The misconceptions about the role of religious authorities and crowds have fueled centuries of hatred and bigotry, as well as the spiritual triumphalism of Christians, which has been at the heart of murderous repercussions and resulted in terrible suffering. 

This is why at Emmanuel we do not read the Passion narrative in a ‘traditional way’, assigning parts and having the congregation reading the lines of the angry mob. While I think we do need more embodied practice of calling out any government that impoverishes and oppresses people through racism, economic and environmental exploitation, militarism, and a myriad of other oppressions, and we do need practice calling out loud to the Divine to save us please (Hosanna), we do not need practice playing an enraged crowd, clamoring for violence against someone who does not conform to our hopes and expectations. We certainly do not need to act out calling for the execution of Jesus or anyone else. It’s enough to fearfully acknowledge that otherwise-decent people, including ourselves, are capable of getting swept up in wishing someone else harm or calling for someone’s death. We can pray that we never succumb to that temptation (or we can repent and return to the Lord if we ever have succumbed). Let’s practice being the people who stand with and advocate for humane treatment of all people, including criminals, prisoners, and captives. That’s what will save our souls; that’s how God will save us.

3.   This is the king of the Jews. 
My ‘rediscovery’ of such an essential element as palms missing from Luke’s ‘Palm’ Sunday narrative sent me on a search for other parts of the Passion story that might not be in Luke. Here are two examples: in the other Gospels, after Jesus’ conviction, soldiers inside the palace place a purple robe and a crown of thorns on Jesus and mock him with the words, “Hail, King of the Jews.” In Luke, simply leading him away, they seize a man named Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross that would be the instrument of Jesus’ torture and death. And in the other Gospels, the women looking at the gruesome sight of the crucifixion are named. Although the list varies, Mary Magdalene is always mentioned. In this case, Luke just says, “All his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.” Earlier in Luke, Mary Magdalene, Joanna (the wife of Herod’s steward), and Suzanna are listed as women who are known to have travelled with Jesus and provided for his needs from their resources; but at the crucifixion they are not named.

I don’t know what to make of the absence of the purple robe, the crown of thorns, and the names of the women. I’m sure it’s not accidental. Reading what’s missing is hard, especially with familiar stories; our brains fill in details that are not there. It reminds me of the story of the rabbinical student who complained to his professor about the large volume of reading assigned. In response, the professor said, “You are lucky that I am only assigning the words and not the spaces between the words.” The point is that the important part of the story is both what is there and what is not there. 

One of the things that always baffles me is the way so many liberal and progressive Christians can understand that the Hebrew Bible is full of myth and metaphor, poetry, and prose, and then read the Christian Testament as ‘history’ in a contemporary understanding (except for the miracles, which are discounted or excised in a Jeffersonian approach to the narratives of the Gospels). And of course, accounts of history must always be reviewed for the biases they contain, their assumptions challenged, and their authority checked. Even what can be captured by a video camera has a lens that zooms or pans, an optional filter to polarize or diffuse, a frame that includes and excludes, a focus that interprets; and all that is before editing! I want to urge you to spend some time this week, the holiest of weeks for Christians, looking carefully at what is there and what is not there in our sacred stories, in our scripture, and in the texts of your own lives. Question the assumptions in the texts and the stories, and question your own assumptions. Understand that the Passion story is both highly political and deeply spiritual; and pray that we cease to be instruments of our own or anyone else’s oppression.

4.  Women stood watching these things.
On Palm Sunday, our liturgy ends in a solemn and silent procession. It’s not the silence of being alone, though, because we go in kinship, collectively listening for the stones that are crying out when we are silent. We go forward together in remembrance that Jesus never wanted to be worshiped. We go forward together knowing that Jesus wanted people to follow him, to join his ministry of finding the lost, healing disease, and restoring well-being in community. He didn’t want so much for us to be astonished at his power, but for us to inhabit our own power to live and love as he did, creating communities of practice.

For Luke, Jesus’ death was not the means of redemption. Luke’s primary emphasis is that Jesus was a righteous martyr executed by unjust people and systems. Luke’s understanding of Jesus as a righteous martyr derives from Judaism. Jewish writers in antiquity named the importance of remaining steadfast in witness (which is what martyr literally means) even when facing the threat of execution. Luke was emphasizing that the Holy One is faithful to those who suffer because of their faithfulness. [3] Being the Christ won’t help Jesus or anyone else get off of a cross. Luke is asserting that Jesus’ being the Christ will help righteous, faithful people to pick up a cross, that is, to shoulder a burden on behalf of another for the love of God, even at great personal risk and great personal cost. That is the way to redemption according to Luke. Asserting that Jesus is the Christ won’t keep anyone from suffering, but it can help people to remain steadfast in their witness to the love of God in even the most dehumanizing circumstances. 

Before we go today, we will say our prayers and have a little bread and a little fruit of the vine to strengthen us for the week ahead. Holy Week is not an easy week, because in it we are brought to look at, once again, the realm of God that is within and among us, and the ways we deny and betray that realm, that goodness of God. May the God of Grace grant us the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may and cost what it will, as we make our way again to the Feast of the Resurrection.

1. Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan. The Last Week (San Francisco: Harper, 2006), pp. 2-5.
2. Although John is generally thought to be the most anti-Jewish of the gospels, Luke’s second volume, Acts of the Apostles, accuses “the entire house of Israel” of crucifying Jesus and having killed “the Author of life.” Acts ends with Paul in Rome saying that the Jews will “never understand,” but that the Gentiles “will listen.”
3.  Ronald J. Allen & Clark M Williamson, Preaching the Gospels without Blaming the Jews (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2004), p. 201.