A Donkey is not a War Horse
The bible text for this week’s sermon can be found at https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=516772254
A donkey is not a war horse.
Branches and palms are not silks or gold.
Hosanna means “save us.”
This cry for liberation is not a call to conquer.
Shouting crowds are not a band of trumpets.
This is not a parade of prestige or military might.
It is not polished or particularly impressive.
This rag tag procession down the alleys outside the city
Likely would not even be noticed by anyone
whose job it was to pay attention to such things.
And that is kinda the whole point.
Oh, it is still a procession of power…
But precisely a different kind of power than expected or familiar.
The Pharisees, the religious leaders, cry out,
“Look! The world has gone after him.”
Is that a threat or a promise?
The writing is on the wall that this movement has grown beyond something easily dismissible or containable. The gospel writer notes that a crowd is on the move. Not just a crowd, a GREAT crowd. They veer off from the official religious ritual as originally planned, and get caught up in the holiness that is happening out in the street. The energy is contagious. It isn’t mere mob mentality, these people have a story that’s mobilizing them, they have a story to share. They have seen and heard wonders and signs that fly in the face of the limitations being sold to them. This Jesus has even resurrected Lazarus from the dead. They testify, they tell each other the story of what they’ve seen and heard – even if it’s still mysterious to them. Those that were there, that have seen resurrection themselves, are emboldened to let others know what’s possible even if they’re not sure how. We have seen this Jesus make possible a complete and total liberation. For the Jewish people living on the margins, always under the thumb of someone else’s far off politics,
that wasn’t even on the table before, but now….
What have you seen and heard that brings you to hope that liberation, that an abundant, whole and generous life for you and all those around you, otherwise called salvation, is possible?
I think resurrection and liberation are always things that are recognized within before they are realized without. Resurrection and liberation are always things that are recognized within before they are realized without. It is a possibility that is both exhilarating and terrifying. This is a road that is guaranteed to face intense resistance and our own wrestling. Along the way, there will certainly be heartache, loneliness, confusion, and the final prerequisite for resurrection – death. So the people call back to the word of prophets before who remind them – “Do not be afraid.” What is possible when a people have lost their fear? Or at least it’s death grip over them to dictate their every move?
The world had gone after them. The power of Jesus is one that inspires, gathers, and expands. It opens up possibilities and dreams we had forgotten or given up on. It emboldens us to imagine a different way of being, one marked by love and life and beauty and community. It brings us together and moves us toward one another, because that’s the only way we all get free. It extends from Jews to Greeks, farther and farther, always broadening our understanding of God and God’s people.
This is what the gospel of peace looks like, as opposed to the gospel of dominance.
You send a war horse when your goal is to conquer and subjugate.
You send a donkey when you hope to parley for peace.
To give a sign that the violence must come to an end.
To disrupt the ways of death that have been driving the bus until now.
And that is the parade that Jesus is leading.
We can see and hear the power of a crowd that follows, serves, and celebrates this different kind of power. It can cause even those in gilded palaces and behind fortress walls to shake in their boots. To me, I imagine it to look something like the Amazon workers of New York who successfully organized themselves as a union. It was something said to be impossible in the face of one of the most powerful organizations in the world, and they did it for the sake of dignity, care, and community.
What have you seen and heard that brings you to hope that liberation, that an abundant, whole and generous life for you and all those around you, otherwise called salvation, is possible?
A new cry is rising on the winds and making its way through town, something dangerous - hope.
It reminds me of a poem by Alice Walker and I’ll finish with her words:
Hope Is a Woman Who Has Lost Her Fear
For Sundus Shaker Saleh, Iraqi mother
In our despair that justice is slow
we sit with heads bowed
wondering
how
even whether
we will ever be healed.
Perhaps it is a question
only the ravaged
the violated
seriously ask.
And is that not now
almost all of us?
But hope is on the way.
As usual Hope is a woman
herding her children
around her
all she retains of who
she was; as usual
except for her kids
she has lost almost everything.
Hope is a woman who has lost her fear.
Along with her home, her employment, her parents,
her olive trees, her grapes. The peace of independence;
the reassuring noises of ordinary neighbors.
Hope rises, She always does,
did we fail to notice this in all the stories
they’ve tried to suppress?
Hope rises,
and she puts on her same
unfashionable threadbare cloak
and, penniless, she flings herself
against the cold, polished, protective chain mail
of the very powerful
the very rich – chain mail that mimics
suspiciously silver coins
and lizard scales –
and all she has to fight with is the reality of what was done to her;
to her country; her people; her children;
her home.
All she has as armor is what she has learned
must never be done.
Not in the name of War
and especially never in the
name of Peace.
Hope is always the teacher
with the toughest homework.
Our assignment: to grasp
what has never been breathed in our stolen
Empire
on the hill:
Without justice, we will never
be healed.