We’ve gone quite a journey these last weeks of Lent – exploring, questioning, pondering some of the central matters of the faith. We’ve opened up (sometimes provoking) possibilities and perspectives on what we mean about God, Jesus, the Bible, Ethics, and the Church. We’ve wondered what it means to be people of faith in a way that values and integrates our rational, scientific, ecological and technological thinking with our commitment to being a community centred on Jesus. Today, on this final Sunday of Lent, on the last of this particular series, I invite you to consider – in light of all this, what it means to be Christian. As we have done each week, there will be a handout available at the door as you leave – another chapter of the booklet “Dear Kim” by Bill Loader, who has been one of our Lenten conversation partners. Tomorrow night, we will have our final Lenten discussion group. And, even if you haven’t been to any of the others, you are most welcome to join the 30 or so folk who have participated in some or all of this conversation-journey.
I want to start by saying that being Christian is a matter of choice. Whereas, when many of us were growing up, being Christian was almost synonymous with being a good citizen; today it’s different. I think it’s probably easier in today’s world to decide not to be involved in a faith community than to make the commitment to one. But, even in those days when nearly everyone went to church, we were still urged to make a choice: each of us, individually, was urged to choose to invite Jesus into our heart, to accept Jesus as our Saviour and Lord. In the communities I grew up in, it was a simple choice –it was just a matter of when you would do it. And, once we had taken that step, we were assured that we would be saved. The message was driven by a mixture of comfort and fear. The promise of an eternal residence in heaven provided consolation and security, whilst the terrors of hell urged us into the expeditious making of the right choice. While this description is a little simplistic, the choice making was nothing like the complex, complicated and challenging choices Christians are faced with today. Having moved into valuing our humanity in its complexity and wholeness – body, mind and soul, all made in the image of God – simple, safe solutions for an after-life don’t work for most of our day to day living. If we are going to be brave enough to be God’s people in the 21st century, we must draw on the riches of the tradition and open ourselves to the constantly evolving world around us as we seek to participate faithfully in the Holy Mystery in whom we live and move and have our being.
This morning’s gospel reading is so well known ...but let’s strip away the overlays of Sunday School pictures of sweet, happy children waving palm branches in the sunshine as Jesus rides serenely into Jerusalem. Let’s ask the brave questions about what might be happening here – and let’s not be sidetracked by our desire for some sanitised, safe celebration. Instead, let’s be guided by scholars like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan[1], who invite us into a different set of questions, which take us right into the heart of our question: what does it mean to be Christian.
It was the beginning of Passover Week. Jerusalem, population of about 40,000, was becoming flooded with pilgrims – another 200,000. (Rugby World Cup crowds were nothing in comparison). Security issues and risk management strategies would be phenomenal. Responsibilities for local law trouble, imposing taxes, while offering religious leadership among their own people. It was not an and order were delegated from Rome to the Jerusalem Temple authorities, who came from the wealthy and elite circles of society. They were in a very tricky situation – keeping an eye out for easy place to be; their decisions were often difficult as they balanced collaborating “enough with Rome to keep Rome happy”, while not fuelling the people’s fires of rebellion.
For the peasant class, the difficulties were more basic. For them, no luxury of balancing competing allegiances – just the daily struggle for survival in an increasingly brutal, oppressive system, with its crippling taxes and land-confiscation, with its concurrent unemployment and poverty.
And here, into the city, come two hundred thousand pilgrims – mostly from the peasant class - to celebrate a religious festival, which recalls a central tradition of Judaism – the unlikely and miraculous escape from another oppressive Empire. It doesn’t take much to draw connections between the past Pharaoh of Egypt and the present Caesar of Rome.
Some of you will remember how, a few years ago I described Borg and Crossan’s picture of two processions entering the city. The first entering from the west. Leading this magnificent imperial procession is Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea and Samaria
The second procession enters the city from the east. At the head of this procession is a healing rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, the April Fool, (some would say the “Daft Bat”[2]) riding on a donkey, cheered on by his friends who have travelled with him from Galilee. This group of mainly peasant people have travelled the hundred miles, or so, south. And, as they have travelled, they have been learning from their leader about the good news of – not the imperial kingdom of Caesar, but of the totally different kingdom of God, where the poor will not be reviled, exploited and disempowered, but will find healing and freedom so that they may stand whole – not in the next world, but in this present day and age. The language of this second procession picks up the words of the prophet Zechariah – a prophecy that describes a king riding on a donkey – a king who will banish war and command peace. The Messiah King has entered the city.
And here, in this picture of two processions, we see the heart of what it means to be Christian: making a choice between the imperial power and the Jesus power... The choice must be made; it’s not possible to serve two masters.
A week ago, a number of us attended a panel discussion about US politics, offered by the University Centre for Theology and Public Issues. One attendee mentioned to me how surprised some of the American panellists were at the level of interest shown. Why are people in Dunedin interested in what happens in the US? Because, that attendee reflected, the United States is our present day Roman Empire...when America sneezes, NZ (and much of the world) is caught up in the effect.
And if this is so, the complexities of our decisions become even greater. Could it be that we, who are doing OK in the present climate, could we, like the Jerusalem Temple authorities – without even realising it – be colluding with Empire at the expense of those with less power? Borg and Crossan remind us how very important it is for us to recognise that the elite and wealthy of Jerusalem who benefited from the Roman system of domination were not necessarily corrupt or evil people. In and of themselves, they write, “the wealthy and powerful can be responsible, honest, hard-working, faithful to family and friends, interesting, charming and good-hearted. The issue is not their individual virtue or wickedness, but the role they played in the domination system. They shaped it, enforced it, and benefited from it.”[3] (Is that what we do?)
We are reminded of Mark’s description of an encounter between Jesus and a rich young man, whom Jesus looked on and loved saying “you lack one thing, go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor ... then come follow me”[4]. And the young man was shocked – and as he went away grieving, Jesus commented to his disciples “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kindom of God.”
In the everyday choices that we face – choices about where we shop, what we eat, how we travel, what we do with our money, how we relate to those who hurt us, and how our actions affect those whom we never encounter – all these become challenging questions of faith – and their answers demonstrate which procession we have joined.
“Two processions entered Jerusalem on that day. ... Which procession are we in?” “The kingdom of God as exemplified by the poor and humble Jesus or the kingdom of Imperial Powers as exemplified by a system of domination [and self interest]. Which procession do we want to be in? This is the question of Palm Sunday and of the week that is about to unfold.” [5]
[1] This sermon draws on and quotes from Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, “Palm Sunday” in The Last Week: A Day-by-Day account of Jesus’s final week in Jerusalem HarperSanFranciso, 2006, p.1-30.
[2] Reference to the Children’s Story Daft Bat, Jeanne Willis, Tony Ross
[3] Borg and Crossan, p.19
[4] Mark 10:20-23
[5] Borg and Crossan, p.30
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