A matter of trust

a Sermon for Palm Sunday, Year C
Text: Luke 19:28-40

GOD of Hope and Wonder, we gather this morning in joy and confusion, to celebrate this bittersweet day once again. Help us to see how much you trust in us—and that we might return the favor. Amen.

Today is a strange day in which we commemorate both the Palms and the Passion. It may seem a bit confusing since we start on a Sunday, skip to Friday; only to rewind to Thursday later in the week and do the Passion all over again on Good Friday. The chronology alone is a headscratcher.

Some of you might be asking yourselves why we do it then. Why read the Passion gospel now if we are going to read it again in a few days? The answer is simple: the church doesn’t trust us. It doesn’t trust that we’re going to come back Friday to actually hear that part of the story. It wants to make sure that every one of us hears the Passion, so we read it now and again in five days. The church doesn’t trust us. But let’s be honest, why should it? Many of us won’t come out Friday. Many will stay at home, treating Good Friday as any other day. The church knows this because we don’t have a very good track record. So, yeah, the church has a right to not trust us.

Me? I trust you! I know you will all come back on Friday. So I’m not going to preach on the Passion—I’ll save it for Good Friday. We’re going to talk about the Palm Gospel instead. We’re going to talk about Jesus finally arriving at his destination, walking into a Jerusalem suburb and riding a donkey up to the gates of the city. We’re going to talk about this happy day that caused such joyous response.

But first let’s look at the first thing that happens. Jesus gives his disciples some pretty specific instructions: go to this particular place, steal a donkey, and when you are asked what you’re doing, simply say “The Lord needs it.” Now, if I were one of those disciples, and I was given that, I’m not sure I’d simply say “OK!” and keep moving! Would you? Where’s the bargaining? “Um…Jesus, I get that you want this donkey but I think I’m gonna need something a little more tangible to give them.” Right? But they dutifully follow Jesus’s instructions—a miracle for the disciples, really—and when it goes down like Jesus said, we get to a second strange part: the owners actually ask the disciples what they’re doing, and trusting Jesus, (GOD bless ‘em) they say “The Lord needs it.” The text doesn’t say what happens next—but they get Jesus the donkey. Apparently the owners trusted in Jesus too! I can’t explain it. It seems absolutely crazy. But I’ll tell you this: it says something to us about Jesus, about this moment, and about trust.

The reason I bring up the donkey isn’t just because of its strange place in this story, but because of what it represents to the larger story. We know that Jesus was called Messiah— GOD’s anointed. We know that many disciples were following Him because they thought he was the new King, the descendant of David—the great unifier. Jesus—later laughed at as King of the Jews—was making his grand entrance…on a donkey. For the disciples, this must have been a bit confusing.

In their excellent book, The Last Week, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan refer to Jesus’s arrival at Jerusalem as ‘the other’ Triumphal Entry. See, Pilate didn’t live in Jerusalem. He came from the west, bringing with him a large escort of Roman soldiers. He would come to Jerusalem in advance of the big holy days, knowing that a big show of Roman might would keep the natives in line. So you can imagine this Roman officer showing up with all of the accoutrement of Imperial power. Soldiers on horseback, many more marching with these tall banners to demonstrate the majesty of the Roman Empire. Pilate, of course riding along like the Grand Marshall of this ancient parade. So here comes Pilate, showing up in Jerusalem for Passover from the west, while on the other side of town, approaching from the east, is this poor, ragged man, riding on a donkey—the polar opposite of imperial power.

Jesus’ entrance was visually symbolic—symbolic of the leadership of heaven (as shown by Jesus) and the leadership of earth (as shown by Rome). Jesus didn’t just tell people parables, he demonstrated them—he revealed truths that can only be attested to visually, with our eyes. When we close our eyes and imagine all of the pomp and circumstance of a Roman parade, all of those elements, things that make us look skyward, that makes us sense the sheer numbers of soldiers, that make us see their weapons and the various tools by which victory can be claimed, we know that this wasn’t just a celebration of victory, it was a celebration of power and strength. These things make Rome seem bigger and stronger and scarier then anybody else. And in the midst of this is Pilate, the stand-in for Caesar, bringing all of the Emperor’s authority with him…authority that was larger than life…authority that spoke of intimidation, domination, and control over people through acts of military strength and economic coercion. All of this would come to mind in Jesus’s symbolic entrance.

But also coming to mind is that Jesus shows up, representing not the powerful, but the poor. A king and conqueror who enters without a weapon or armor, but with open palms and dusty robes. He didn’t enter on a stallion, but a donkey. He didn’t have the big military escort, but an entourage of peasant disciples. Nothing about Jesus intimidates or coerces; frightens or dominates…except for the wealthy and powerful. Except for Temple leadership that were on the Roman payroll and Roman authorities that didn’t want anything messing up the good thing they had going. For them, the biggest threat wasn’t someone bigger or stronger, but someone not swayed by the riches of earth. Jesus showing up on a donkey with joyous supporters was the very thing that frightened them the most.

For us, Palm Sunday may simply be seen as the kickoff to Holy Week. The day that leads to a strange paradox several days later when joy turns to outrage. The day of bittersweet exuberance. But it’s so much more. It is the day in which we see what real courage looks like. The day we see what it really means to stand up for our convictions. The day we see the true nature of our world, revealed in its ugly, naked quest for earthly power and dominance. And the day we catch a glimpse of what the Kingdom of GOD looks like when practiced on earth. And at its center, this requires trust.

All of that Roman coercion displays a lack of trust, but Jesus expected and reinforced trust. Trust in Him and trust in GOD. It is easy for us to trust in the world. We trust in gravity. If I drop an apple from my hand, it will fall to the floor. We trust that will happen. We’ve done it and continue to do it. But trust really only matters when it’s tested. It only matters when we enter the city as the disciples did, knowing what we’ll find their and hoping that it isn’t true.

To truly trust GOD, we must have faith in the Spirit’s direction for St. Paul’s. That in spite of things that upset us, we trust that the Spirit can, will, and more radically, does lead us. That’s trust.

Think of the trust-fall. It’s a team-building exercise that requires one person to fall back, trusting that the person behind them will catch them. When done in a group, the person not only falls back, but trusts that the group will keep her up as she is passed around the team. As one who has done this many times, it is still difficult to do. Because here’s the thing about trust—we have to start it. If we were falling down anyway, it’s easy to trust the person behind us, because either way, we’re falling. But we have to put our bodies out of balance. We have to shift the weight to the heels of our feet and lean back. We have to start the falling. The only time I’ve seen well-prepared trust-falls fail is when the person falling doesn’t let themselves fall.

More than anything, Palm Sunday represents trust in GOD. Jesus’s last chance to turn around and skip the Passion. Our own last chance to skip committing ourselves to this incredible relationship with our maker, our guide, and our courage. In light of all that has been thrown at us we have been given this shot. This opportunity. This chance to shift our weight, lean back, and…