Where Shall We Lay Our Coats? A sermon for Palm Sunday

Where Shall We Lay Our Coats?
A Sermon for Palm Sunday
© Rachel Small Stokes, March 24, 2013
Text: Luke 19:28-40
 
Happy Palm Sunday!
This is one of Leslie’s favorite two favorite holidays.  The other is Halloween.  She loves it because of all the frolicking and children and singing and palm waving  — and no family obligations or expectations of gift-giving!
Indeed, it’s one of the few religious holidays that hasn’t been commercialized – but probably only because they haven’t found a market for donkey-shaped peeps.  (Maybe the correlation between the other name of the animal and where that peep would ultimately end up affecting you is too close!)
For me, though, this holiday always felt really bizarre – a celebration of a major mistake; or a giant set-up for a giant guilt trip.
My understanding of the story changed a bit when I learned about the symbolism of this story.
All the weird details of the story – the colt, the cloaks strewn on the ground, the things the crowd is shouting – they all have important meanings to the people of Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, it was really common for dignitaries to have parades when they would enter the gates of the city.  It was a way of showing honor.
You might think of it like a ticker-tape parade.  Driving in a convertible down Broadway in New York City, with long streams of paper floating down from the skyscrapers like palm fronds being laid before them.  The air was jubilant, the joy made visible by the confetti and the cheers.
This was the Roman version.
Instead of a convertible, the dignitary would enter on a war-horse, escorted by throngs of citizens or their own army, all singing hymns of acclamation and praise to whatever God that dignitary represented.  The procession would end at the temple of the god associated with the dignitary, and the dignitary would then offer a sacrifice to that god.
Once you know this pattern, Jesus’ little parade looks very different.  It’s not some spontaneous, hey-let’s-go-steal-a-donkey-and-see-what-happens sort of thing.
It’s a carefully planned act of protest, meant to show the city who this Jesus was, and what a different world he represented.
I do love me a good protest.
If you come to my office I can show you a photo from my first protest, when I was 10, on the Washington Mall advocating for the homeless.  And I haven’t stopped protesting since. On Tuesday I even get to participate with many of you in another, taking our message of fairness to Frankfort.
Leslie and I have a difference of opinion about protests.  She tends to think that they are useless.  Just a bunch of folks beating their own drums and getting over-emotional and not really accomplishing anything.
I, on the other hand, tend to think that a protest is usually worthwhile even if it accomplishes nothing politically.  It builds community and helps the group define its message in contrast to the world.  Being with others for that short burst of energy can give you courage to keep going once you get back home, where you might be in the distinct minority.
Some are certainly more effective than others.
There’s your standard protest, where everyone marches down the street and chants, “What do we want?  _[fill in the blank!]_ When do we want it? Now!” (Congregation participates.  I applaud them for their protesting skills.)
Those protests still give you a sense of community, but they tend to blend in and not get their messages heard.
My favorites are the ones with a twist.  Like in Seattle when a homeless person died outside, we stood in silent vigil, all dressed in black, in front of city hall. Or Occupy Wall Street’s creative way of taking back public land and sharing power.
Or when Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert led a protest on behalf of Sanity.
One of the best signs there was,
“What do we want?
Reasoned, thoughtful conversation!
When do we want it?
We could look at our schedules and find a mutually acceptable time!”
 
Jesus’ protest had some twists.  Jesus enters from the Mount of Olives, which any good Jew could tell you was the place from which the messiah was supposed to enter Jerusalem as he conquered it.
But instead of riding on a war-horse, brandishing a sword, Jesus arrives on a donkey colt, a symbol of peace and domesticity, and one that has never been ridden – a symbol not of accomplishment and proven ability, but in faith in God’s ability to do something new.
The prophet Zechariah had foretold that a victorious king would arrive on a colt, and would “cut off” the war horses and bring peace instead.
His multitude of disciples seems in on the message too.  Perhaps some were just caught up on the moment, but most seemed ready to demonstrate.
They are chanting from Psalm 118, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” But they go a step further and proclaim, “Blessed is the KING who comes in the name of the Lord.”  It is a coronation for this humble, poor rabbi on a donkey.  They are declaring that it is he, not the Roman princes, who have their loyalty.
 
This is clearly challenging for the authorities. The Pharisees, the great rule-followers of the Jewish laws, were freaked out, and asked Jesus to stop.
His reply gives a further indication of how upsetting his message will be.  He quotes another Jewish prophet, Habbakuk (whose name I love to say!), who proclaimed that in a time of such great injustice, if the people were no longer able to stand up for themselves, the very stones of the temple would cry out for justice.
 
As you may know, the Romans had a strong affinity for peace.  Their motto was Pax Romana, and they worked very hard to make sure that wars and uprisings were squashed quickly in order to keep the peace.
Peace was symbolized as a security state, one with

• soldiers on every streetcorner,
• crucifixions of political upstarts,
• guns in every school,
• drones flying in the skies seeking out potential ne’er-do-wells.

Wait, maybe some of that is from another empire…
The message Jesus was so vividly displaying was one of a different kind of peace.  Where Pax Romana kept the peace through security, Jesus was claiming that God’s way is to create peace through justice.

• He will ride into Jerusalem, despite the likely consequences of such an act, to demonstrate that there is a new and better way.
• He will ride in the faith that, even if the people of God don’t understand, the very temple of God will.  The injustices of the time were so wrong that even the stones would cry out.
• He will ride in not on red carpets or riding on a litter carried by well-oiled centurions, but blessed by the torn and dirty cloaks of those he had taught and healed.  They lay before him their best garments, out of hope for this new message.

After he entered Jerusalem, he continued to challenge the traditional ticker-tape protocol.  Riding up to the temple, he entered, and what did he do?
He turned the tables.
He declared that the coins with Roman heads of state and declarations of Pax Romana had no place in the worship of God, and that priorities had gotten all mixed up.
It was a heck of a protest.
 
One of the most key things about a good protest is defining one’s message.  And to do that requires one to first understand within oneself what one believes.
In Jesus’ protest on Palm Sunday, he was declaring symbolically that the kingdom of God was to be one of justice and peace, not war and oppression, and that he would do whatever it took to get that message across.  He was defining himself in the midst of chaotic, mistaken messages about who he was.
 
At the annual meeting last week, many of you asked about the work that Kent and I have been doing at the Clergy Clinic, which you’ve so graciously shipped us off to several times in Chicago.
The key skill that we’ve been learning there is that of self-differentiation, the act of defining and honoring one’s own selfhood in the  midst of a family, or congregation.
This is part of Family Systems Theory, which basically asserts that there is a whole bunch of anxiety floating around in every family system, and the anxiety just builds and builds unless people can find ways out of it.
What’s radical and bizarre about this theory is that the best way to help the whole group cope with its anxiety is to calm one person down.
The way to calm down, the theory says, is to define yourself as an individual, with loving but firm boundaries.
It is to say, “this is me, and these are my beliefs, and that’s okay that they’re different from yours.”
And to do that while also staying in loving connection with all the parties in the family.
Simple, right?  😛
 
One of the most compelling things to me, though, is the promise of this theory that, if one person can manage to do that, it can not only eventually bring down the anxiety level of the whole group, but it also enables others to do their own self-differentiating.
To put this in Christian terms, if you can find the God-voice within yourself and follow through on the transformation it necessarily causes within you, and if you can stick with it long enough to make it through the societal pressures to change, then you will change not only yourself for the better, but you will be allowing others to see what God has done within you and possibly be changed, too.
 
It strikes me that Jesus’ protest here is a powerful act of self-differentiation, and he shows through his actions throughout the week the way this theory plays out, very dramatically.
In this theory, there are four steps to change:

1. Clarify your beliefs, and once you’re clear on them, take action.
2. All the people in your system will get really uncomfortable with this, and they’ll start to try to convince you that you’re wrong, or you need to change back, or that you’ll have all sorts of bad things happen to you.
3. You must find a way to stay the course and stay calm, while continuing in loving contact with those who are trying to pull you back in.
4. IF you can make it through this, you will ultimately be accepted in your new position of selfhood, and others will automatically begin their own process of redefining themselves.

You might think of this like the story of Jesus calming the storm.

1. Jesus is so clear on who he is and how connected he is to God, that he can simply fall asleep in the midst of chaos.
2. The storm rages. All systems seem against Jesus, even the weather system.  All the other people on the boat freak the heck out.  They shake him and scream for him to save them, because they just know that they’re going to drown.
3. Jesus’s faith calms the storm despite their fears.  He continues to love and accept them as disciples.
4. They eventually become courageous enough to perform other miracles in his name.  Transformation.

 
In the Palm Sunday story, we can see Jesus’s protest as an act of self-differentiation that sets off a really intense version of this process.

1. Jesus enters the turmoil of Jerusalem at Passover with a distinct and powerful message of self-definition; and in his case, that’s also one of God-definition.  His protest is an act of public self-differentiation.
2. The powers that be freak the heck out.  They warn him of bad things to come.  His disciples freak the heck out.  They fear for his life and his ministry.  They know he’s going to drown, and their dreams of a conquering messiah are going to drown with him.  The more he states his position, his message of what God is and wants for the world, the more trouble comes his way.
3. But even in the garden of Gethsemene, though he wavers a bit in his prayer, he remains strong – connected to God, connected to his disciples, connected even to the prisoners that will be crucified next to him, and assured of his God-given role.
4. In the end, many of the consequences do come to pass.  But what else happens?  The world is changed forever.

 
Through his ability to remain true to God’s vision of a peaceable kindom, a different way, a way of peace through justice rather than war, Jesus is resurrected into a force that spins the world on a different axis.
As witnesses this week to this transformation, it makes sense to wonder how we, too, will be changed by it.
 

• What will be our acts of protest?
• At whose feet will we lay our coats?
• What will be our acts of self-definition?
• How will we be resurrected?

 
We will be changed.  (Family Systems Theory says so!)
But how?
We don’t know the answer to that now.  That’s the part where faith comes in.
That’s the part where you have to believe that the God-voice inside of you is one calling you toward an ultimate good, despite the pain you might have to endure to get there.
And that’s the part that we as a community can help each other through.  We can wave palms for each other as we each make our spiritual journeys.  We can celebrate and sing and shout.
And we can stick by each other, hard as it may be, when the going gets rough.  And if we do, we might just get to witness a resurrection.