Matthew 21:1-11
Liturgy of the Palms - Year A
Ahh, the joy of choosing to walk a slow walk, even though many will not know how to slow down that long, and focus on Palm Sunday, or to take all of pre-Easter week in one big gulp and focus on the Passion.
Thanks to the wisdom of Robert Frost you are encouraged to take whichever path is least traveled by you and/or your community of faith.
Palms: There is still hospitality in the big city. Someone needs your donkey and colt, you lend it. That's the happy spin.
Less happy is the implication of an entitlement to have one's needs met. There is no reporting here of a question being asked when the disciples followed Jesus' command and took the animals. This is the moral equivalent of stealing. Just being Jesus doesn't get anyone off the hook of the commandment.
From there we are on to Hosanna and a recognized, but too easily passed over, understanding that Jesus is a Prophet. It would be clarifying to counterpose Palms and Prophets.
Passion: Where we usually look at the Passion of Christ and focus on his suffering, we might also look at the Passion against Christ and focus on what it is that drives people to participate with the principalities and powers.
In this vein we would investigate the commonalities between Judas, Chief Priests, (Peter, John, James and the other disciples who choose betrayal after a first betrayal), a crowd ready for violence with swords and clubs, false witnesses, Governor Pilate, a crowd still ready for violence with voice, military cohort, and guards. What passion sustained them, one to the next, until passion led to passion, in not a good way?
- - -
Thief Jesus dies alongside thieves
like calls to likeMessiah Jesus dies alongside thieves
like calls to likedo you like the call you're calling?
who are you living with?do you like the call you're receiving?
who are you living with?like still calls to like
like still lives with likebetter like what you like
better like what you like
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
No matter how you try to mitigate it (donkey riding and Sir Walter Raleigh coat etiquette) prophets are wild-eyed idealists who challenge current offices, who, if unchecked, would lead to the dissolution of whatever political structures are currently in place.
Had it been in today's world with a prophet riding into town on an energy-efficient green bicycle and folks using quickly renewable switch-grass to smooth his way over a pot-holed infrastructure, there would still be those who were unnerved knowing an ever-so-polite gauntlet was being thrown down, a feared double-edged sword that would cut to the quick had arrived to force a conscious choice of what was going to constitute an authentic community. A populist "Hooray!" can quickly turn to a resigned, "You can't fight city hall."
While a prophet can push for a choice, they can't make it for folks. By definition a prophet never comes around until it is seemingly too late to have a community conversation about where we would like to be beyond where we are. By the time a prophet arrives, even a gentle, peacefully symbolized one, is a still, small point around which power roils and rolls heads.
While we would imagine ourselves on the right side of the past, a quick look at statistics tells us that more folks opt out of elections, than participate. And not even all those who participate really know the issues or consider anything beyond the latest friend/family decision or negative ad.
Did you recognize yourself joining the "whole city" in asking, "Who is this?"
If you did, is there anyway for you to make sense of the response of "a prophet"?
My hope is that more folks would clarify what it means to be a prophet in their setting and would then choose to come as close to that as they can.
[Note: we are following the slow path for the lectionary choices – Palm Sunday rather than Passion Sunday. This honors the decision of the many to further avoid the midweek observances of the deepening of death with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. If we can see beyond the surface of this celebration, some might be intrigued and challenged enough to test the next stages of this journey, but pushing the Passion too quickly only inoculates folks against having to face the reality of death.]
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html
Matthew 21:1-3
Our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America friends have a mission called Bethphage. "Bethphage (BETH fuh jee) was established in 1913 to help people who were shunned, isolated and abandoned. Bethphage is a leader in providing compassionate services to children and adults with disabilities."
Since we don't quite know where the place of Bethphage is (somewhere between Bethany and Jerusalem) let's reflect on this mission as a starting point for an entrance into the arc of story that moves from glory to loneliness to new life.
What would it mean to have Jesus begin with the disabled? Would they be more open than others to simply hear that "the Lord needs" (otherwise translated, "someone needs") and to offer a cup of water to the thirsty, a bite of food to the hungry, a donkey and foal to Jesus?
So often we use the donkey as a starting point for this journey, contrasting it with a military charger. Might this starting point also suggest that we don't get to resurrection except through disability. The Wounded Healer image might be applied here.
What type person do you know that would immediately respond if they heard, "there is need of what you have"? I suspect that whomever that is for you that the world would consider them to be mightily disabled and not able to keep from being taken advantage of. What does this suggest about our own responses to the various pressures of our life?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/march2005.html
Matthew 21:4-5
I have found out that the Bethphage ministry with the disabled has been renamed Mosaic. To keep with that image for a moment, we hear another of Matthew's fulfillment texts. This one from Zechariah.
The New Interpreter's Study Bible notes that the Zechariah passage falls midway through chapter 9, "falling between those that concern the restored land of Israel (vv. 1-8) and the restored people of Israel (vv. 11-17). Obviously the messianic king plays a central role in the drama of restoration."
Prophets are usually interested in restoration. When life gets out of whack we look for a way to restore it. Prophets are very conservative, in this sense.
Imagine disability as a starting point to Holy Week, as leading into a process of restoration, not failure, judgment, and condemnation nor victory, judgment, and justification. There is instead, brokenness, restoration, new life?
What result do you seek of Holy Week?
To see others condemned?
To see yourself justified?
To participate in new life?
How would starting from a position of being disabled help clarify your desire? Is our desire to continue in some hierarchical positioning of bringing down or raising above? How do we wrestle with the nuances and dynamism of relationship rather than settle for putting people in their place?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/march2005.html
Matthew 21:6-7
It's always fun to imagine Jesus, the circus performer -- one foot on the colt and one knee on the jennet. How else does he ride them both?
The astronauts tell of folks wanting to send a token with them to space. For some it would be a good luck token for their beloved/friend. For some it would be to have something brought back that had been beyond their experience. For some it would be an excellent entrepreneurial opportunity.
Can you remember the crazy days of the Beetles and their rabid fans who wanted simply eye contact or a touch or a piece of clothing? Have you wanted a tangible part in something like being arrested at a civil-rights demonstration or getting a card from the President on your birthday?
Do you think Judas added his cloak to soften the ride? Would you? Was it Peter that threw his cloak on first the same way he discarded his garment to get ashore more quickly?
Beyond these vain imaginings, does Jesus take it as a matter of course that he should have a soft seat and of course his disciples would see to it? Isn't he entitled, after all the temptations along the way, to a small amount of comfort? Or is this another temptation and he thanks them and asks them to take the cloaks back, but they won't?
Or is this simply a literary device that primes the pump as an example for the crowd and, so, not worth spending this many words on?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/march2005.html
Matthew 21:8-9
Going to Jerusalem. There suffer, die, rise. This is prelude.
Hosanna! sings out the crowd. Save us!
The rest of the chapter exemplifies the saving style of Jesus -- upset of the economic system (there go the money changers), the environmental system (there goes the fig tree), the religious system (there goes authority), and the political/juridical/military system (there go the tenants).
We had better be clear what we mean when we holler out Hosanna! It is a revolutionary call that will affect every part of our life. All the loci of stability in our time will be called into question.
If we think that Hosanna will simply install us in the top dog position we will probably be surprised that, for Jesus, Hosanna leads to a different kind of salvation or freedom than we expected; a freedom beyond our past experiences, out into uncharted waters, a salvation beyond our barriers, out into the whole world/heaven complex.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/march2005.html
Matthew 21:10-11
Whoopee! A parade! Even if only one float long! It is bandwagon time! About as good as Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Rio!
Into this good time creeps an important question, "Who?" This is a question we are still struggling with, a question to make us stop and think. Who is our leader? Who is my friend? Who is part of my cohort (both militarily and sociologically)? Who is on my side? Who can I count on?
The troubling response is, "Prophet."
Prophets don't run things. Prophets catalyze change of perception. If there is one thing that should cause consternation, it's a prophet. True, versus false, prophets don't tell us what we want to hear. They demonstrate their spirit in strange, strange ways that are uncomfortable for all concerned. Prophets get stoned, not throned, and in the end are spit upon, not smiled upon.
Fair warning. This certainly sets us up for the rest of the chapter and the rest of Holy Week. Prophets do clearly see crosses. Prophets, even more clearly, see stones rolled away. For the joy of the stone a cross is lived through.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/march2005.html
Where will you focus:
Jesus riding a donkey?
Disciples acting like donkeys?
Judas braying, “Greetings, Rabbi.”?
Peter stubborn in denial?
Chief priests calling for Jesus, reprising Jesus calling for a donkey?
Jesus stubborn in silence?
Crowd stubborn for Barabbas?
Crowd stubborn for crucifixion?
Pilate stubborn in innocence?
Chief priests stubborn in mocking their scapegoat?
Perhaps we might look at release in both Palm and Passion narratives.
What do you imagine a donkey’s release to be riden might signify?
Hosannas let loose.
What do you imagine forsakeness released might reveal?
Positively:
Religious symbols remade.
Faults shifted.
Past unbound.
Perspective changed.
Witnesses blessed.
Negatively:
Rich collude with religious to put away those endangering them?
Witnesses powerless.
Plots deepened.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/04/matthew-211-11-or-2614-2766.html
what is mine is yours
and vice versa
when need arises
privilege exits
the ass of me
becomes sign and symbol
of Hosanna living
donkeys appreciated
against this background
we wave our palms
and shout our hope
passionately
what is mine is mine
there will be no desertion
of individual responsibility
privilege exists
my crowing cock
reveals great bravado
for what it is
flustered and flopping
this visible detail
pains and bows
as we moan our fear
our passion
teaching and learning
backgrounds and foregrounds
confuse and reveal
passion and passionate
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/04/passionate-palms.html