In order to hear what’s going on in the Gospel of Luke, I need to set the context this morning.  Last week, we watched as Luke told us the story of the women at the tomb on Easter morning.  They were there to care for Jesus’ body but when they got there, the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.  Nothing was the way that they expected it to be.  At first glance, the women had to be thinking, “Someone has stolen Jesus’ body.”  When you’re in a novel situation, the tendency is to make sense of the unknown by making it fit in categories that we already know.

Let’s begin here.  I think the point of Jesus whole ministry was to invite us to live a loving life.  He says that we should love God, love our neighbors, and love ourselves.  He says that we should recognize the needs of others and respond.  He points us not toward the “mansions” but toward the margins, toward the overlooked and the ignored, and tells us that they are our neighbors.  He insists that we should love our enemies and that if we make our lives about revenge—“an eye for an eye”—sooner or later everyone will be blind.  There is one question and only one question that matters in the end.  That question is, “What’s the next loving thing to do?”

So, a few weeks ago, Tracy was teaching an adult education class.  After church, she said, “Wow, people were really excited and surprised about the notion that Palm Sunday was political theater.” (Jesus confronts the powers that be through collective action and satire.)  Jesus and the crowd are ridiculing the way that the Romans wield power. During the Passover festival, when the city swells to three times its normal population, the Roman guard show up in force on warhorses, waving spears, and doing everything they can to intimidate people.  Along the way, the guard would yell praises to Caesar.  The crowd either joined in or they would run the risk of being prodded with the pointy end of a spear.

One of the things that makes the Bible powerful to me is it’s willingness to speak in the most honest ways about how broken human beings can be.  One of the first things that people (Adam and Eve) choose to do is the one thing—the only thing—that they’ve been told not to do. They eat the fruit and…boom…paradise is lost.