Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29
This psalm alternates between the first person singular and first person plural. Given that the psalm is celebrating a military victory and deliverance from the surrounding nations, it seems most likely that the first person section involves the king, or another representative person, speaking on behalf of the people, making this arguably one of the royal psalms in Israel.[1] The psalm belongs to the feast of Tabernacles with verses 1-4 being a thanksgiving of the people while 5-21 are an individual thanksgiving and 22-29 contain a mixture of motives.[2] The psalm is performed at the temple gate so Jesus may just be joining the procession that was going to the temple for a festival.
Mark 11: 1-11
This is a very well know story where differences in the different Gospels are not always noticed. Morna Hooker appears sympathetic to the idea that the people crying Hosanna were part of the procession that Jesus was joining, but also points out that it was normal to walk into the city, so in riding any sort of animal makes some claim of authority.[3]
Myers on the other hand focuses on the gospel writer’s motives and notes that Mark would know that the image of a march on the city amid Davidic acclaim would have connected his first readers with a military procession. Myers in fact says that the procession recalls the military entry of the triumphant rebel leader Simon Maccabaeus into Jerusalem, ‘with praise and palm branches.’
But the story is expressly anti-military and comes close to a satire on military liberators. There is also an anti-urban bias in Mark.
Garments are thrown on the animal and on the road, along with straw cut from the fields. Myers sees this as a contrast to the urban elite as the rural crowd bring straw as their only gift and weapons.[4]
Sermon
Today’s gospel reading is one of the well-known stories and as such has been dissected, analysed and enacted year after year. It makes a telling contrast between the crowds that shout hosanna and then those who shout crucify him.
It is not hard to find a contemporary example of such reversal of mood. Dame Jacinda Ardern was re-elected prime minister of the first single party majority government since MMP began. However, when some of the efforts to control covid were inconvenient for some people folk not only marched on parliament but camped in the grounds, set fire to the children’s play equipment and wanted to execute the prime minister.
They were of course a different group to those who voted the government into office and, as Dominique Crossan points out, those who waved the branches for Jesus and those who called for Barabbas may not have been same crowd either.
Another scholar Ched Myers suggests that this Palm Sunday procession, quoted in all four canonical gospels, recalls the military parade of the triumphant rebel leader Simon Maccabaeus entering Jerusalem, ‘with praise and palm branches.’
The Maccabean Revolt defeated the Greeks and briefly restored Israel as an independent state under the short lived Herodian dynasty. Herod the great began the restoration of the temple which went on for more than 60 years, some of which was after his death.
Therefore we should watch the construction of the new stadium and the rebuild of the Anglican Cathedral with interest.
But just like the Ardern Government the Herodian dynasty did not meet everyone’s expectations. Some of the lack of stability was attributed to the fact that Herod was not a descendant of David. Therefore several groups expected God to call out someone with the appropriate genealogy and send heavenly warriors to support him.
Some of those groups started terrorist action to remind God of the divine responsibility. As a result Herod asked for military aid from the Romans.
Roman aid was enthusiastically supplied at the usual price. Complete loss of sovereignty, taxation and unrestricted trade access for the Roman Empire.
According to some historians the Jewish peasants were worse off. But collaborators and the Jewish ruling class got good roads, running water, a sewage system and sports stadiums. Whether they wanted it or not everyone got better security.
Just as Simon Maccabaeus had led a parade into Jerusalem to show they were now free of foreign domination, Roman officials paraded into Jerusalem to show everyone that they were now under the protection of the greatest military power the world had ever known. Many people would have felt secure in that knowledge.
In our time there is about to be a presidential election in Russian. Apart from the reality that opposition candidates seem to have limited life expectancy most of the poorest of the poor in Russia will vote for Putin because he delivers security. Poverty stricken people often feel that if there is any change it could make their life worse.
That yearning for stability is reinforced by massive military parades. In Russia, as in North Korea and China, military parades, not only tell the world not to mess with them, but also reinforce the feeling of security among the least secure of their own people.
Banning gang patches and getting tough on crime have a similar aim.
Protest marches are very similar to parades but, rather than support the government of the day, they tend to demand change. One of my regrets is that I didn’t take part in the anti-apartheid marches. In fact, I didn’t take part in any protests until I moved to Hamilton and the Rev Alan Leadley told me to. But I can’t remember what it was about.
Since coming back to Christchurch I have been, at the encouragement of my MP, to a couple of protests about affordable housing.
Apart from celebrating sporting achievement I think New Zealanders are better at protest marches than parades that affirm the status quo.
One of the most famous was on the 13th of October 1975 the land march led by Whina Cooper arrived at Parliament and presented a petition signed by 60,000 people to Prime Minister Bill Rowling. That hikoi, which marched from the far north of the North Island, was to protest ongoing M?ori land alienation. It moved through the North Island, staying with people and sharing meals in various maraes along the way giving hope and gathering supporters. Media interest grew and the h?koi arrived in Wellington in the full glare of the national media. After a memorial of rights was presented to Rowling, about 60 protesters set up a M?ori embassy in Parliament grounds. A final bit of public place theatre to hammer home the message.
But it caused less destruction and inconvenience than the more recent anti everything encampment.
The gospels focus on the final march of Jesus into Jerusalem but Mark, Matthew and Luke all structure their gospel narrative as a relentless march from Galilee to Jerusalem. A healing h?koi from the province of the most marginalised to the centre of power, staying with people in various villages, sharing meals in people’s homes, offering hope and gathering supporters.
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethpage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘go into the village ahead of you and immediately as you enter it, you will find there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it’. (Mark 11:1,2)
In that action Jesus was setting up his final bit of street theatre, similar to the Maori Embassy on parliament grounds. As he lead the parade into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey Jesus staged an acted parable, the non military messiah on a beast of burden rather than a horse of war. His script comes from their scriptural tradition, first from Zachariah:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
(Zachariah 9:9)
When Matthew tells the story he misses the parallelism which is such a feature of Hebrew poetry and tries to get Jesus riding two donkeys.
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. (Matthew 21:2)
But the passage from Zachariah is poetry and the parallel structure repeats a line with slightly different words. So the king is riding a donkey in one line and the following line makes the point that it is a young donkey by calling it the colt of a donkey.
Mark does not make that mistake and has the crowd chant from our Old Testament reading, Psalm 118. This is a hymn of approach sung or chanted by pilgrims approaching Jerusalem so Jesus may just have been part of the crowd going to the Passover.
Equally Psalm 118 was an appropriate song to sing as part of Jesus’ acted parable just as there would have been songs and haka as Whina Cooper’s H?koi arrived at Parliament.
There are any number of meanings we can draw from this Palm Sunday story but seeing it as a piece of public theatre designed to bring Jesus’ message to a wider public certainly does justice to the way Mark, Mathew and Luke construct their gospels. A march of healing and hope from Galilee to Jerusalem.
Along the way there were sermons preached, demons cast out, people were healed, and outcast brought back into the community. Jesus and his disciples shared meals and hospitality with people on the journey. When the crowds followed him into a deserted place Jesus somehow managed to stage a great open-air picnic where, not only did everyone get fed but there was a symbolic twelve baskets left over.
Once the march reaches Jerusalem in Mark’s Gospel Jesus and the disciples go into the temple.
I can just picture Jesus and his disciples checking out the venue of an even greater event in much the same way as a sports team or a music group might check out the stadium as soon as they arrive. I don’t know how many times I have arrived at a conference the evening before the event and gone and had a bit of a look at the venue before going to dinner.
In verse eleven Mark is telling his readers ‘That procession into Jerusalem was pretty special but just you wait till tomorrow’s episode for some real public theatre that challenges the way the temple exploits the poor’
Jesus checks out the venue at the end of today’s reading then in verse fifteen to seventeen he attacks the merchants and the money changers and brings home the whole focus of the long protest march.
Jesus comes to Jerusalem, not as a military king riding a white stallion but as the servant leader riding a peasant’s borrowed donkey. Nevertheless, Jesus assumes the authority we all have, which is to challenge injustice where we find it.
This is the week before Easter and we are all aware that Jesus will suffer the consequences that so many people suffer for opposing unjust systems and regimes.
But next Sunday, Easter Day we remember that the Jesus march moved beyond his death and can still affect our world today.
In an unexpected twist, that is the hallmark of all good short stories, when the authorities of the time reacted to oppose the Jesus protest, they guaranteed an ongoing march of change that delivered healing and hope at donkey pace for centuries to come.
The gospel journey is more a protest march than a parade. A h?koi of hope that not only demanded and demonstrated change for Jesus’ time but has inspired change for all time.
Each and every Palm Sunday, we are called to make our life journey as part of Christ’s transforming parade.
[1] http://hwallace.unitingchurch.org.au/
WebOTcomments/LentA/PalmSunday.html
[2] A.A Anderson Psalms 73-150 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Erdmans, London: Morgan & Scott, 1972) p.118
[3] Morna Hooker The Gospel according to St Mark (London: A&C Black, 1991)pp.255-257.
[4] Ched Myers Binding the Strong Man (New York: Maryknoll, 1988) pp. 294-297.
