Palm Sunday: 2025
Palm Sunday: 2025
Luke 19:28-40
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.
The guard’s actions made the point that they had power over everyone, that they had the power to force people to conform, that the people shouldn’t consider, even for a second, any kind of revolutionary action. The Romans had the power to put people in their place. That place was on their knees, worshiping Caesar. Everyone saw this every year. Everyone hated it.
So, all four Gospels agree that Jesus chose, at a very tense time, to lampoon the Roman guard. Instead of a giant war horse, clad in armor, Jesus rode a young donkey that had never been ridden before. Instead of being clad in armor, Jesus rides along and is completely unprotected. Instead of the guard waving weapons, the crowd waves branches. And absolutely everyone would have understood the point. Jesus might as well have had a plunger in his hand and been marching like a drum major down the street. His actions would have inspired more than a few chuckles and smiles. Those actions, though no physical threat to anyone, would have done what those in power always hate most: they would have brought the truth to life for everyone to see. Those in power rarely want the truth to be seen by anyone.
So, that’s the truth that Tracy explored with the adult education group and, honestly, it sounded to me like people’s reacted as if they had never heard this before. At that point, I kind of raised my eyebrows and thought to myself, “Gee, isn’t that what I’ve been preaching for the last 30 years?” When I shared this thought out loud with Tracy and my daughters, my daughters had the audacity to speak the truth to me: “Dad, it’s not like everyone is listening…” Ouch…truth like that leaves a sting!
So, point number one this morning, is for all of you who are listening. There is a deeply political dimension to Palm Sunday. Jesus wasn’t politically neutral. He was deeply disturbed by the corruption of the religious leaders in their compliance with the Roman authorities. They had sold out their faith in order to survive and in time they had come to enjoy the benefits that came with that collusion. Jesus, also, no doubt, despised the Roman occupation. No one liked paying “tribute” to Rome. No one liked the presence of the guard, everywhere. No one liked the notion of pretending that Caesar was God incarnate.
In the particular political moment in which we find ourselves we should remember that Jesus did not “cow-tow” to those in power. He confronted them. However, he did so not by using brute force but by finding ways to bring the truth to life. He spoke the truth to power and, I believe, we are kidding ourselves if we think that sooner or later, we won’t end up needing to do the same. Jesus will be betrayed by someone who didn’t think that he was political enough. He will be crucified by those who thought he was too radical and political. Those who speak the truth to power can still expect to be betrayed and/or crucified. Speaking the truth to power, even non-aggressively, even speaking the truth lovingly, is a dangerous occupation.
So, now, you’ve heard this truth..again. Take it in. Let it be a part of what you carry away with you this morning. Ask yourself, “What would it mean for me to speak the truth to power, too?” Palm Sunday was the necessary next step for Jesus. Speaking the truth to power may be one of our next steps, too—as a matter of faith.
All of this is built into Palm Sunday. However, I want to challenge you to go even further with me this morning. Listen up! No really…I want you to hear this: there are no palms in Luke’s version of Palm Sunday. Did you hear what I just said? There are no palms in Luke’s version of Palm Sunday.
So in Matthew, Mark, and John’s Gospels, the crowd waves branches and/or palms. In this heavily symbolic, deeply theatrical event, when the crowd grabs palms and branches, they are “arming” themselves. They are making fun out of what the guard was usually doing—waving spears. Sometimes, I think of “West Side Story” and the highly stylized dances being done by the “jets” and the “sharks.” Gangs, of course, have not practiced ballet long enough to come close to dancing like that. However, we all get the point. The crowd becomes the armed mob that the authorities feared but they are armed with branches. In the process, they have the chance to make the Roman guard look silly and small.
Palms are an essential part of Palm Sunday (makes sense right?) unless you are reading the Gospel of Luke, in which case the palms didn’t even matter enough to mention them. Crazy right? What’s Luke thinking? I assume that he meant to focus on something else. What might that be?
Luke, to me, is the most “this worldly” of all the Gospels. In Matthew, when Jesus preaches the sermon on the mount, the focus is on spiritual things: “Blessed are the poor…in spirit.” In Luke, Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor.” Do you hear the difference? In Matthew we are told that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed. In Luke the focus is on those who are hungry—for food. When Matthew places Jesus on “the mount” he draws on the whole Jewish tradition of leaders going up mountains to bring back wisdom from God. When Luke gives us his version of this sermon from Jesus, he tells us that Jesus is on a plain, that he is on the same level as everyone else.
The point that I’m trying to make is that Luke is uniquely focused on this world and the concrete problems that people face in this life. Jesus spends his time trying to help people with “this worldly” problems—feeding them and healing them and consoling them. This is the “Way” that Jesus is showing us—to look around and see the concrete needs of our neighbors and respond to those needs with love. You might remember, when the disciples were paying enough attention to the needs of the crowd that they tell Jesus that he should do something, Jesus looks them in the eye and says, “You do something!” When they say that they don’t have enough food, Jesus says, “Give me what you have.” And when what they have is shared, there are leftovers, not leftover good feelings but leftover bread and fish. The miracle, though, isn’t leftovers. The miracle is what happens when people share what they have.
Really, one of the central questions for followers of Christ since the beginning of our faith has been this: Is faith about where you are going in the next life or is faith about what you do in this life? Our faith has been used over and over again to tell poor people that they shouldn’t worry about this life because the next life is going to be amazing. Our faith has been used to tell people who are persecuted that one day, in the next life, the score will be evened out. Our faith has been used to tell crying, grieving people that they should stop crying and think about heaven instead. The message would seem to be that God so loved the world that God sent Jesus into this world to teach us that this world doesn’t matter. In the meantime, those in power have benefitted from having the crowds complacently looking toward heaven.
This is not Luke’s focus. Luke tells us that there was a plan for this parade. This was an intentional act. Two disciples were sent to pick up the colt, at great risk to themselves. The owner of the colt willingly offered up probably the most valuable thing he owned, without really knowing if he would see it again. These people are making real sacrifices so that this statement will be made. Consider the risk that each member of the crowd is taking. They show up. The authorities are there. Undoubtedly, there is someone there taking notes and writing down names. A “spiritualized” faith can be purely private. It can be something I practice in the comfort of my own home or even in the privacy of my own head and heart. These people are acting publicly on the basis of what they believe in order to concretely change the world.
Now, think about Jesus on that colt. This is the ultimate act of servant leadership. He’s not putting his power on display. He is showing everyone that he is not going to play the world’s power game. Insecure leaders need to intimidate and exaggerate and preen. They have to act like they are “the man” because they know that, in fact, they are just another guy. Jesus isn’t out to impress. He’s not pointing to himself. He’s pointing to God and pointing out how to live, just like he has every other step of the way.
Consider the crowd though! Again, Luke never mentions palms. So what are they doing? They are shedding their cloaks and laying them on the ground.. What does that mean? This is perhaps the central miracle of Palm Sunday. Cloaks were status symbols. If you had a plain cloak, you were poor. If your cloak had a little color, you were richer. The more colorful your cloak, the richer you were. Those cloaks were how everyone instantly knew their place in society. Their robes established the “pecking order” of society.
And what do the people do? For one shining moment, they reject what divides them. They shed their cloaks and concretely say, “We are all in this together! We are all beloved children of God.” For once, the crowd became a vision of the kingdom of God. They were briefly a community of faith. And as a faith family, they cried out with one voice: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”