The love exposed by the triumphal entry
Palm Sunday | Matthew 21:1-11
Today is Palm Sunday. It is the beginning of Holy Week and the day we remember Jesus’s arrival in Jerusalem and then, at the end of the week, his passion and crucifixion. It is a complex day for people of faith. Always has been.
One of the enduring questions for Christians is raised today: as we acknowledge the genuine excitement of the crowds at the beginning of the week and the seeming eagerness to kill him by Friday. This, as many already know, is a distortion and confusion of the events, sliding it all together, and making us feel like humanity itself is the problem, that you and I are just as responsible for the death of Jesus as the Roman guards who took him into custody, the sham trial they put him through, and then executed him with a punishment reserved for terrorists and revolutionaries.
We get muddled today, is what I’m saying. And I’m sorry to say that our tradition doesn’t help much. But I think we’d be well served, as always, with a little context.
If we look back at the previous chapter, chapter 20 in Matthew, we can learn a lot about this moment. If you’ve got a Bible handy, you might want to follow along, just glancing at the sequence of events:
The Parable of The Laborers in the Vineyard
The last teaching Jesus offers before entering Jerusalem is one of the most mind-bending parables for Western, capitalist, meritocratic Americans who just can’t bring themselves to embrace it. It’s the one in which a landowner keeps going out and recruits more and more laborers to work in the vineyard and then, in the end, pays them all the same: a fair day’s wage. Oh my gosh, do we want there to be a hierarchy, don’t we? Those poor people who have been there all day! we might say. Paid the same. Not fair.
Mmmm . . . not so fast. That’s one layer of fairness. Another is that fairness is also everybody getting fed. Everybody surviving the night. Everybody getting the means of survival.
The clue for us toward the end, is when the landowner asks some of the supposedly lazy laborers why they are out looking for work in the afternoon, and they tell the landowner that no one will hire them. And the landowner treats this news, not as a shame or an understandable thing, you know efficiency and technology and market forces and all of those modern excuses we accept, but as if this news were utterly outrageous. How dare other “job creators” refuse their obligation to these people! This is a matter of life and death! And he takes it upon himself to save these people’s lives. Because not starving is a human right in the eyes of God.
Jesus teaches them about God’s fairness and then tells them for a third time that the Son of Man is going to walk into Jerusalem, will be handed over to the authorities, tried, and executed by crucifixion. And then, on the third day rise again.
Talk about unfair.
Two Requests
And then, to that, the mother of James and John requests that her sons be his first lieutenants. That they ride in their with the Messiah to die in a blaze of glory. And Jesus tells her that she clearly misunderstands the moment. It isn’t their time to face what he is about to face.
The other disciples are outraged, because of the hierarchy the mother of James and John would create. Like the one Jesus critiqued in the parable of the laborers. They are a team, together, sharing. All one. And Jesus tells them that we serve each other: a message we’ll hear about later in the week.
And the last verses bring us to the outskirts of Jerusalem. Two men who are blind shout to Jesus and some of his followers try to shush them. And it says:
“Jesus stood still and called them, saying, “What do you want me to do for you?” They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes. Immediately they regained their sight and followed him.
— Matthew 20:32-34
Even on the way into Jerusalem, Jesus is picking up followers. People who see in him justice and truth and hope and mercy and love. Wholeness and equity. Shalom. Jesus is not just Messiah: he’s the real deal. The Savior of the World.
Finally: Jerusalem
This leadup to the main event highlights why some of the people are still confused when they arrive at Jerusalem, but shouldn’t be. Jesus has been clear from the beginning that he isn’t planning to kill anybody. He isn’t offering a violent revolution. His way is healing and equity. His inner compass is Shalom.
What Jesus will do over the next few days is expose the corruption in the Temple and its leadership. He will share with the crowds the beauty of God and the repulsive sin of empire.
In Matthew’s gospel, after leaving the Temple for the last time, when Jesus describes the pain to come, that empire will destroy the Temple and all that the people believe is holy and forever, he shares three dark parables about the limits of wisdom and power, culminating in a proclamation of judgment on the nations, saying that
“for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
— Matthew 25:35-36
And conversely, when we see him hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and we did nothing, we did nothing to Jesus. How we treat our neighbors is how we treat Jesus.
Just as he said to the scribe at the Temple about the greatest commandment: that love of God is linked with loving neighbors as ourselves. That every last bit of our faith tradition literally hangs from this ethic.
This, friends, is why they kill him.
A Threat of Grace
Jesus’s teaching is a threat to empires of every age. And they are embraced by the people who are subjected to the unfairness of empire. This is exposed by Jesus entering humbly into Jerusalem, inspiring the crowds, encouraging the people in the Temple to believe in a God who loves them. And not the leaders more. All of us.
And it is exposed by the few who seek to destroy him. The blood-thirsty collaborators who shout at the sham trial crucify him! — a moment that the crowds at the gates and in the Temple could get nowhere near. Exposed by the brutality of the Roman soldiers and the corruption of their leaders. It is exposed on the path to the cross, and even from the cross.
Jesus exposes the truth of power and how it can’t offer the safety that the blessed community does. A truth the people were starting to realize. And will come to realize more fully in the days to come.
With Eyes to See
We get to read this now with eyes to see, friends. We already follow. And we know where this goes. So our return to the scripture this week may be enriched with new hope and new insight and new grace. To see the popularity of generous grace. Of the heroic nature of sacrificial service, in loving one’s neighbor with the same intensity as our innate self-preservation. Seeing our connection as neighbors, to every person here, every person in this neighborhood. Not just as a child of God, but as co-creators of the blessed community. Equal members of a new society governed by Shalom.
It is not only a beautiful dream, it is also a potentially experienced reality. One that is ordered by Jesus toward health and wholeness and vibrant living for everyone. It is just right there, friends. So close.
The thing about it is that it’s a group project. And I know some people couldn’t stand those in school because not everybody pulls their weight and some people have to do twice as much and then everybody gets the same grade, and we think that isn’t fair, but then we remember the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard and we remember that fair isn’t only on this one line of thinking, and we remember that the point is that we all have to get this thing done together and some of us will work harder and that isn’t just normal, but just because there are other people getting hosed by landowners obsessed with efficiency and making bank for shareholders by not putting them to work and pretending that they can’t afford to hire them.
God’s Dream is like that group project and we are those laborers who are here in the morning and the work depends on us to get done. All of us.
We welcome those who come after us. And we want the same for them. As equals. As members. They are us. Because there are those who came before us. And there will be more who come after those latecomers. These are all blessed community members, neighbors in love and service. This is our work and these are our hands and here is our field, and we work it with love and hope and thanksgiving for all of the grace that God can offer and all of the hope that we can muster and we set our alarms to wake us in the morning to return to this work because it is good. And the world depends upon us to keep at it. During famines and bumper crops. To be beloved and blessed. A people of mercy and hope through every trial. Loving everyone like we long to be loved by our most beautiful and generous God.