Thomas J Parlette
“On Donkey Duty”
Mark 11: 1-11, Palm Sunday
3/28/2021
Back in the year 2000, Juliet and I organized a trip to Italy and Germany to see the famous Oberammergau Passion Play that is done every 10 years. This was before we had children and of course, before COVID 19, so we could still travel. Now before we went to see the play, we toured around in Italy – a couple of days in Florence, our favorite, some time in Venice, Assisi, and of course Rome. We spent months reading and researching all the places we wanted to see and things we wanted to do. One of the spots on our “to do” list was the Pantheon on Rome.
The Pantheon was originally built to honor all the various gods of Rome, although it has also functioned as a tomb for important artists like Raphael, and various Kings of Italy, as well as holding some church services. In fact, services are still held at the Pantheon on special occasions. I’m sure that has been suspended with the pandemic, but I’m sure they will return.
II remember a couple of things in particular about our visit to this world famous monument. First of all, it was much harder to find that I thought it would be. Rome is not laid out like Washington DC. For instance, where everything is out in the open and pretty clearly labeled. The Pantheon is tucked away in a maze of ancient side streets with only intermittent, and sometimes vague signs pointing the way – or maybe I should say suggesting the way. You really have to work to find it. And when you do – you might not realize it. There’s no sign. There is no Billboard proclaiming “The Pantheon.” It’s just right there and you think, “well, that place with the pillars and the dome looks important – that’s probably it.”
And then, when you go inside – it’s not quite what you expect. I remember it was very dark. The only light in the place comes from a small opening, called the occulus, at the top of the dome. And physically, it’s a much smaller place than I would have imagined. We walked around for maybe 15 minutes and that was about it. Luckily, there was a wonderful little gelato shop right around the corner – incidentally, in Italy, there is always a nice little gelato shop around the corner – the Italians really know how to live. So we stopped in and had a wonderful ice cream before our next stop.
I had expected something far grander, something stunning, something magnificent, when we visited the Pantheon. Now it was very nice, but it wasn’t what I had built up in my mind. The Pantheon wasn’t quite as glorious as I had expected it to be. When I read this story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, especially as Mark tells it – I wonder if maybe the disciples felt a little underwhelmed by the whole experience, particularly the two disciples who ended up on donkey duty.
Today is Palm Sunday, the day we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal arrival in the city of Jerusalem. But the story as we hear it in Mark seems a bit odd perhaps, because Mark spends so much time dealing with what seems like a small matter. Mark uses the first seven verses of this story to tell us about the donkey detail, how the colt was rounded up for Jesus to ride in on. He only spends three verses on the parade itself. We tend to think of the palm branches and the hosannas as the important part of the story – but for some reason, Mark doesn’t spend that much time on the Palm Sunday parade we’ve come to know and love.
Of course, it should be noted that this is not the only parade taking place in Jerusalem that day. Over on the other side of town, another important figure had arrived with a grand procession.
According Borg and Crossan’s book The Last Week, the procession of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate was entering the city from the west side to provide a military presence as a security measure during the Passover Festival. The historian Josephus tells us that Pilate had a rather contentious relationship with the citizens of Jerusalem. On previous visits to the city, the Jews had staged demonstrations over the desecration of the Temple, and on one particular occasion, Pilate appropriated some Temple funds to build an aqueduct for Jerusalem. During the royal procession, Pilate had Roman soldiers, dressed as Jewish civilians and armed with hidden clubs, mingle with the shouting crowd and attack the people at a prearranged signal. There was a history attached to these royal processions. There was some bad blood during these parades. Now over on the Eastern side of the city, Jesus was also arriving, but with a different sort of parade. Many scholars believe that Jesus had carefully planned his entry into Jerusalem and intended this parade to be a sort of street theater event mocking the Roman Empire. Pilate’s procession embodied power, violence and the glory of the empire that ruled the world. Jesus’ procession embodied the kind of kingdom that God was ushering in through Jesus ministry of healing, his message of good news, and ultimately, his death on a Roman cross. Whether this Palm Sunday was meant as a parody or as a simple contrast between the Roman Empire and the Kingdom of God is a matter that is still debated today. But this much is certain. Jesus is very deliberate in his preparations. He is very intentional about the details here. And those disciples on donkey duty – they actually had a very important job. Although I’m not sure they would have agreed.
The distinguished preacher Tom Long has written a meditation on this passage, and he writes, “Though no one knows what these two disciples were thinking, I’m confident that they had imagined for themselves a grander and nobler role on this day than being on donkey duty.” Long says that, though Mark does not explicitly say which two disciples went and got the animal, he suspects that maybe they were James and John. Just a few hours before, these two were the ones who had said to Jesus, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” And now look at what they are being called upon to do. Okay guys, if that’s what you want, go rent the donkey for me!
It’s true, being on donkey duty doesn’t seem all that glorious – but their assignment was actually very important. The donkey is a key symbol in this parade. The Jews watching this procession would have remembered the story from 1st Kings in which an elderly King David makes arrangements for his son Solomon’s coronation as the next King. David gives instructions to “have my son Solomon ride on my own mule.” They would have remembered the words of Zechariah as he described the image of a King coming into Jerusalem with shouts of joy. He is triumphant and victorious, but also humble, and rides on a donkey instead of a noble war horse. That’s why Mark spends so much time describing the acquisition of this colt or donkey. It signifies a fulfilling of scripture, the arrival of a peaceful King, just as the prophets foretold.
But perhaps there is another reason for all the attention focused on these two disciples arranging for Jesus’ donkey.
You remember how Mark began his Gospel. He began with John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” From the very beginning, Mark calls us to prepare the way. And on this Sunday, that becomes the definition of a faithful disciple – one who prepares the way for the Lord, and sometimes that means arranging for the donkey.
We disciples are the ones who prepare the way for the Lord. On our own, we can’t bring about God’s Kingdom, we can’t change anyone’s life – not on our own. God will do that, through Jesus Christ. Our job is to prepare the way for that to happen. Look at what Jesus’ own disciples are called to do. They are the ones who secure the upper room. They are the ones who collect the baskets full of left over bread and fish. They are the ones told to go out and preach, heal, and cast out demons. They are the ones who are sent out to prepare the way. They are the ones on donkey duty.
And so are we. This Sunday we can celebrate all those seemingly mundane, simple, ordinary tasks we do that help prepare the way for the Lord to work. We celebrate those faithful disciples who stop off at Hallmark and pick up a get-well card for the friend in the hospital. We celebrate those people who will deliver flowers to those unable to get out of the house like they used to. We celebrate those saints of the church who happily bake bars and cookies for people to munch on as they share their grief at funeral receptions. We celebrate those cheerful faces that gather in the kitchen and prepare bacon and potatoes for St. Patrick’s Day coddle, our pancakes and sausages for Shrove Tuesday. Through all these seemingly small, mundane gestures, we are fulfilling the will of God. We are preparing the way for Jesus. We are doing those things that must be done before Jesus can make his entry in to the world. While we are on donkey duty, we are preparers of the way!
On this Palm Sunday, we celebrate Jesus entry in Jerusalem. We celebrate the contrast between God’s kingdom as we know it through Christ and the world’s kingdom as we see it in the Roman Empire. We celebrate the arrival of justice, peace and love come to conquer power, violence and self-interest. But we also celebrate all those seemingly mundane ordinary tasks that faithful disciples have carried out for years. In thousands of ways, large and small, those of us on donkey duty have helped prepare the way of the Lord.
May God be praised. Amen.
