Followers

Matthew 21:1-11

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, “The Lord needs them.” And he will send them immediately.’ This took place to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
‘Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
   humble, and mounted on a donkey,
     and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna to the Son of David!
   Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’
When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’ The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’

More than any of the other Gospel versions of the story of Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem, Matthew leans hard into royal imagery and prophetic fulfillment. The Mount of Olives is where it’s said the Messiah will appear. It’s written that the Messiah will enter on a donkey, on a colt in Zechariah; and Matthew takes this passage so literally that it’s implied that somehow Jesus is riding both animals at the same time. He even combines two prophetic scriptures, one being the Zechariah passage I just mentioned, the other being a passage from Isaiah—that’s verse 5 where it’s written “Tell the daughter of Zion, / Look your king is coming to you, / humble and mounted on a donkey, / and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Matthew is the only of any of the Gospels that directly quotes this prophetic scripture in his Palm Sunday story. And then for the royal imagery, in 2 Kings, the new king Jehu is honored by laying down cloaks on his path, a version of Hosanna is used in connection with King David in the Old Testament. And in Psalm 118, verses 26-27, it’s written “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of Lord. / We bless you from the house of the Lord. / The Lord is God, / and he has given us light. / Bind the festal procession with branches…”

All this to say, that about half of today’s scripture reading are direct quotes and references to prophetic and royal writings from the Old Testament. And all these this royal imagery and fulfillment of prophesy, it makes for quite a celebratory story, right? It makes for something exciting, and joyful. It’s no wonder most of us probably think of Palm Sunday as a true celebration—I know as a kid I always looked forward to the familiar hymns and waving the palms around. After all—this is Jesus, our savoir who is about to defeat death itself! Why wouldn’t we want to give him the joyous and royal procession he deserves? Why wouldn’t we want to celebrate? Well, now that I’m all grown up and now that I’m a pastor, I’m here to ruin all the fun for you! I’m mostly kidding.  

If we dig a little deeper, if we really think about what’s going on here, Jesus is actually subverting most of this royal imagery. He’s sort of making a mockery of it, and it’s almost verging on performance art. A Roman royal procession in this same era would involve horses, chariots, so much pomp and circumstance. Even the processions that Matthew is referencing from the times of David and Jehu are much bigger than what’s going on here. And though Matthew does mention large crowds in this passage, it’s very likely he was exaggerating—if the crowd actually was as big as it’s implied here, there is no way the Romans or the religious authorities would have let this slide. So this is probably a relatively modest procession, and the crowds that accompany it are probably made up of people who don’t carry much societal weight or significance—poor folks exclaiming Hosannas—which remember, translates to “save us” or “O save” or “save now.” Not to mention, prophetic fulfilment or not, a king riding on the back of borrowed donkey doesn’t strike me as very royal.

Despite the ruckus Jesus was creating with his miracles and his sermon on the mount earlier on, this crew of people and this humble entrance into Jerusalem doesn’t seem to be worth the Romans’ time—because this was not a traditional royal procession. Don’t be fooled by the language and imagery Matthew uses here. This was a group of the misfits of society leading an eccentric drifter and his group of ragged confidants to the outskirts of the city—the city where their eccentric drifter leader would soon be killed. He is quite literally marching towards his own death. So—is this really a celebration?

Part of the reason it’s so easy for us to see Palm Sunday as a celebratory and joyful procession is the fact that I think it’s hard to imagine a Christian procession these days not being celebratory—I’m thinking mostly of things like Catholic parade, like the Feast of St. Anthony in the North End of Boston; or the one I grew up going to sometimes, St. Peter’s Fiesta in Gloucester; or even Passion parades so popular in Latino cultures; and while not joyful, certainly not looked down upon or censored at all. I mean, even Mardi Gras with its Christian roots in getting all that rich, fatty food in before the Lenten season of sacrifice begins counts! With all this in mind, it’s makes sense that we’d want to celebrate Jesus with a royal and jubilant procession. It makes sense that we’d want to imagine marching alongside our savoir and admire his humble, peaceful yet regal nature riding upon that donkey.

But that’s just it—we have to do more than admire. The Danish Christian theologian and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard writes, “…to admire Christ is the false invention of a later age, aided by the presumption of ‘loftiness.’ No, there is absolutely nothing to admire in Jesus, unless you want to admire poverty, misery and contempt.” I realize this sounds harsh—from reading this one might not assume Kierkegaard was the truly devout Christian that he was—but what he’s saying here is that it’s easy to simply admire Christ today, when a large swath of the world, and certainly this country do, indeed think of him as the king of kings.

So what’s the alternative to simple admiration? According to Kierkegaard, the alternative is to be a follower of Christ, as opposed to and admirer. You might remember a couple weeks back we talked about the powerful high priest Nicodemus who visits Jesus in the dead of night— he clearly believed Jesus to be some kind of prophet, someone truly from God, but he couldn’t bring himself to follow Jesus openly, in the daylight. He couldn’t bring himself to admit what he may have believed deep down—that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. This is why Nicodemus is the perfect example of an admirer and not a follower. He could admirer Jesus from afar, but when it really came down to it, he wasn’t willing to risk his high standing in society, risk his life even, to really follow Jesus. Because that is the difference between an admirer and a follower—a follower takes risks, a follower stands with Jesus even in the darkest days, as we know Jesus stands with us in the darkest days. In the words of Kierkegaard, “…admirers make the same demands that are made in the theater: to sit safe and calm. Admires are only too willing to serve Christ as long as proper caution is exercised, lest one personally come into contact with danger. They refuse to accept the Christ’s life is a demand.” They refuse to accept that Christ’s life is a demand.

Christ asks so much of us—to be a true follower of Christ, at least, requires real sacrifice, which is easy to forget these days when it’s all too easy to simply be an admirer of Christ, to simply be someone who celebrates with Christ on Palm Sunday and celebrates with him when he is triumphantly risen on Easter morning, to simply be someone that takes for granted the fact that Christianity is now the dominant religion, and so on the surface, it seems to not take any true sacrifice or risk to be a follower of Christ. But it does—it doesn’t take sacrifice or risk to be an admirer of Christ.

It makes me think of those folks who are armchair activists—those people who admire those who do the work and believe in their passion and in their calling, but they themselves just don’t have the guts to really get out there and take those risks. They share an article or a meme or a slogan on social media, but they’re not actually doing the work. That to me, is an example of modern-day admiration. But when I think of true Jesus followers, of true followers of the guiding principles of light and Love, as opposed to an admirer, were those clips and videos I’ve seen over the past week of hundreds of mostly young people in in the Tennessee statehouse chanting “Shame on you!” to their elected representatives for doing nothing about the gun violence that continues to ravage their state and this country. Videos have surfaced of many of them being manhandled by cops and security as they exercise their right to protest—they’re risking physical harm in the face of their oppressors to make it known that a more peaceful world is possible.

And Jesus, with this humble and gentle procession, subverting what people think of when they think of royalty—this was his own protest of sorts. He was showing people what a king should really look like. He was showing people a world in which our savior is truly one of us, one who marches with us, one who is down to earth, one who doesn’t think himself as so far above the rest of us. He was essentially, showing people that there should be no king—no more oppressive, money-hungry, violent leaders. But remember—he knew. He knew what he was marching into when he entered Jerusalem. He know he was marching towards his own death. He knew the world was not yet ready for such a peaceful and radical change. And I think many of his followers in this strange and gentle procession knew this too—and that is exactly why they can be counted as followers and not simply admirers. They knew they were marching towards danger, drawing attention to themselves and Jesus with their cries of save us.

So in a world in which there is very little real danger in being openly Christian in most places, are we still able to be true followers? The answer is yes, but as it seems to be with everything in these modern times, it just takes more work. Remember, so much of Jesus’ message was in the denial of self, the denial of our own egos; it was renouncing earthly, material things in order to be a true follower. This is still true today, and in a world that values overconsumption and exorbitant wealth, there are still so many sacrifices to be made.

Soon, so soon, the sacrificial season of Lent will be over, and we will truly celebrate. But for this next week, as Jesus marches towards the ultimate sacrifice, let’s continue to be in a Lenten mindset—let’s continue, with deep intention, to think about what we can do, what we are able to sacrifice and risk in order to be more than just an admirer of Christ. Let’s think of what we can do to be a true follower, a modern-day disciple.

And while Palm Sunday may not, in reality, by the jubilant, royal procession we all imagined, I promise it is still indeed something to celebrate. In this passage, humble is actually better translated as gentle. And there is just something so beautiful about the king of kings, the prince of peace, marching gently with his band of brave misfits, showing us all, as long as we commit to being followers, that a new, gentle world— a world free of gun violence, free of pointing fingers, free of oppression and struggle is possible. And that is indeed something to celebrate. Amen.