Thomas J Parlette
“The Public Language of our God
Mark 11: 1-11
4/5/20, Palm Sunday
“We’re good at planning!
Give us a task force
And a project
And we’re off and running!
No trouble at all!
Going to the village and finding the colt,
Even negotiating with the owners
Is right down our alley.
And how we love a parade!
In a frenzy of celebration
We gladly focus on Jesus
And generously throw our coats
And palms in his path.
And we can shout praise
Loudly enough
To make the Pharisees complain.
It’s all so good!
It’s in between parades that
We don’t do so well.
From Sunday to Sunday
We forget our Hosannas.
Between parades
The stones will have to shout
Because we don’t.
Ann Weems wrote those words in her book “Kneeling in Jerusalem.” Between the parades, we don’t do so well. Between this triumphant parade into Jerusalem and the somber parade – the walk of shame down the Via Dolorosa on Good Friday – we don’t do so well. Somewhere along the way our Hosannas are forgotten.
Today we jump into the story of Holy Week as we find it in the Gospel of Mark. Mark is the earliest of the 4 Gospels – the one that all the other writers seemed to have available to them as a reference. It’s also the shortest, the most “bare bones” retelling of the Gospel. Things happen very quickly in Mark. The language is simple – direct – sparse. There is not as much literary flair in Mark, and some of the most beloved Gospel stories are nowhere to be found. There is no birth narrative, no Good Samaritan, no Prodigal Son. There are bits and pieces of the Sermon on the Mount – but nothing like what Matthew gives us. In Mark, we don’t find the expressive language of Luke, the Old Testament references of Matthew, or the other-worldly imagery of John. Mark just gives us the facts of Jesus’ life, simple and direct – from his baptism to his death – and he does it in half the time that Matthew, Luke and John need to tell the story.
As a result, many scholars over the years have thought of Mark’s gospel as rather simplistic. Mark earned the reputation of being a bit of a “theological lightweight” compared with it’s 3 cousins. For many years, biblical scholars have gravitated to the longer, more complex gospels as their area of concentration. Mark just seemed to simple.
But sometimes, simple is best. Sometimes the best stories are the shortest ones. Mark packs a lot into every word he writes. He is sparse – yes. But Mark is still quite profound.
For instance, this morning’s passage – the triumphal entry into Jerusalem – has two features that we shouldn’t overlook. According to Ched Myers: This procession is the opening round of the struggle over the character of messianic politics.”
First of all, the people went ahead of Jesus and shouted out their belief that this ancestor of David would restore the temple, the Romans were history and the Lord’s Kingdom was coming. Then parade went first. We have no idea how long after, but Mark uses the word “then” – as if Jesus was separated from the crowd, riding by himself, keeping some distance between himself and the crowd’s expectations. Just one word – but it’s packed with meaning.
Secondly, Jesus’ next stop is the temple itself. When John tells this story, he has Jesus clear out the moneychangers at this point – but not Mark. We can still hear the crowd chanting “Hosanna” in the background, believing that Jesus – as the Messiah – will use force to take back the temple and establish God’s reign. But that’s not what Mark tells us. Here – Jesus goes to the temple, he looks around a bit… and does nothing. Nothing Happens. He just looks around and heads back to Bethany. Again, just a few words – but they are packed with meaning.
As Ched Myers points out, “Many have puzzled over this verse, complaining that it adds nothing to the narrative; but this is precisely it’s power – Nothing Happens. Mark has drawn the reader into traditional messianic symbols, only to suddenly abort the mission. This prepares us for the shock when Jesus does intervene in the temple – not to restore, but to disrupt it’s operations.”
Perhaps that’s why we don’t do so well between parades. It’s too hard to deal with the shock and disappointment over the public language of God. We expect Jesus to come and solve everything. We expect Jesus to come and put everything right that is wrong. We expect Jesus to come and throw out the Roman armies and the corrupt politicians, heal the sick, wire out cancer and the coronavirus, cure Aids, alleviate our sorrows, eliminate our griefs, and stomp out all the sufferings and pains of life. We stand with the crowd and we expect that Jesus will ACT like the Messiah we EXPECT.
The story is told that when Queen Victoria lived in Balmoral Castle in Scotland, she sometimes liked to walk through the surrounding countryside incognito – no guards, no ladies-in-waiting, just John Brown, her faithful servant, following at a discreet distance. One day, while on one of her walkabouts, the Queen came across a flock of sheep being driven by a young boy. The Queen accidentally got in the way, and the boy shouted, “Hey, old lady, get out of the way!”
The Queen smiled, said nothing, and moved on. But her servant, John Brown, hurried up to the boy and scolded him, “How dare you, you just insulted the Queen.”
To which the boy responded, “Well if she expects to be treated like a Queen, she ought to dress like a Queen!”
That’s how the crowd in Jerusalem felt. Perhaps that’s what we all feel sometimes. “Jesus, if you want to us to treat you like God, then act like God. Let’s see some of that righteous power and glory we’ve heard so much about. Come wipe out this pandemic and heal those who are suffering.”
But Jesus gives us a very different demonstration of the public language of God. Indeed Jesus himself is the public language of our God. In Jesus – his life, his ministry, his actions and his attitude – God speaks to us. As William Willimon says:
“We wanted Jesus to come into town on a warhorse – but Jesus rode a donkey.
We wanted Jesus to go up to Capitol Hill and fix all the political problems – but he went to the Temple to pray instead.
We wanted Jesus to get organized, mobilize his forces, get the revolution going and set things right – but Jesus gathered with his friends in a quiet upper room, broke bread and drank wine.
We wanted Jesus to go head-to-head with the powers that be – but he just hung there, on a Friday from noon till three, with hardly a word.
It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t do anything; it was that Jesus didn’t do the things we wanted him to do. It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t intervene; it was that Jesus rode in on a donkey.”
It’s not that nothing happens here in Mark. It’s just that what happens is different from what we might expect, it’s different from what we are prepared for.
Back in the 1990’s, a couple of filmmakers went over to East Germany to make a documentary about the Berlin Wall. The filmmaker asked many of the government officials how it had all happened – this seemingly spontaneous movement of the people that in a few short weeks led to the demise of the Berlin Wall and the eventual collapse of East Germany’s once invincible security apparatus.
What the filmmakers heard was that it began, oddly enough, in the church. In St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig, worshippers had been quietly praying for freedom for over 40 years. Their prayer meeting ultimately grew so large that on October 8th, 1989, over 70,000 people filled the streets. A former security officer spoke about his desire to use force to put down the rebellion, but how, in the end, all he could do was stare in amazement at the vast crowd in front of his headquarters. He said, “We were prepared for everything – everything except candles and prayers.”
The people spoke in a language that the government didn’t expect. The public language of God is not what we expect either. The public language of God, expressed in Jesus, is all about showing power in a different way, it’s about showing power by sharing the suffering of his people – not simply wiping it away.
As Paul Claudel says, “Jesus did not come to explain suffering or take it away. He came to fill it with his presence.”
He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, suffering humiliation and torture, and died on a cross as the public language of a God who suffers with us.
As Robert Capon says, “God is not like an over-eager car mechanic who roams about night and day ready to pounce upon us motorists in distress, fix the transmission, and send us on our way. God id more like the hitchhiker who comes upon us on the side of the road and sits in the car with us through the night, weeping with us, and showing empathy for our plight.”
Jesus is the living expression of a God who cares so much about us that he would suffer right alongside us. It would be too easy to do what the world expects – fix us up and send us on our way, to wipe away all suffering and make us immune from the hardships of life.
It is a far harder thing to sit in the car through the night, suffering right along with us.
But as Ann Weems says – we don’t do so well between the parades. We have a hard time with this unexpected public language of God.
The question for this Palm Sunday, for this Passion week is…
- Will we worship a God who speaks to us like that?
- Will we lay our lives before one who speaks not in strength, but in weakness, who acts not with power but with obedience and suffering.
Can you follow the narrow way that God in Jesus, walks this week?
How will you do between the parades?
May God be praised. Amen.
