Sermon: A Parade from the Underside

Matthew 21:1-11

A Parade from the Underside

James Sledge                                                                                       April 13, 2014

Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! There are no waving palms in Matthew’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, but that’s a minor detail. Waving our palms seems perfectly fitting when we join the parade as the king, the Son of David, enters into the holy city.

It is a parade, but there are all sorts of parades. We have inauguration parades in DC when a new president takes office, sort of like a new king. But for a modern day example of an ancient king’s coronation parade, I picture a first century version of one of those elaborate military parades in North Korea, where Kim Jong-un watches all the tanks and missiles and high-stepping soldier march by. In Jesus’ day it would have been horses and chariots and Roman legions in finest attire, but it’s the same idea.

But Jesus’ parade looks nothing like that. There is no official entourage. There are no soldiers, no weapons. There are no colorful banners or elaborate decorations. Matthew tells us without question that God is involved, that Scripture is being fulfilled. But beyond that, the whole thing feels impromptu. The crowd, which functions in Matthew’s gospel as a single character, a kind of 13^th disciple, covers the road with branches and their own clothes as they loudly proclaim the arrival of this one long promised.

This is parade from the underside, the sort of parade likely to cause trouble because it frightens the powers-that-be. A new king challenges the present rulers and the status quo. In a sense, this parade may feel a bit like an early civil rights march in the deep south. Many of us have vivid memories of how those marchers were greeted with fire hoses and beatings. It was even worse for those who marched against apartheid in South Africa. And so we should know that things will not end well for Jesus.

Jesus’ parade is a counter cultural one because he is a threat to all earthy powers. He is a threat to the powers that many of us serve. This king is a threat to military powers and to those who trust in such power. He is a threat to economic powers that concentrate wealth in the hands of a few, nations or people. He is a threat to the consumerism that rules many of our lives, telling us, “You cannot serve two masters… You cannot serve God and wealth,” but still we try. Jesus is a threat to our overly competitive, 24/7 culture, commanding us, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear,” yet we still do.

Jesus is a threat, and so the Jerusalem powers-that-be must deal with him, as powers-that-be must still do. In Jesus’ day, they used a cross. Today, we’ve grown more sophisticated, enlisting even the Church to minimize the threat by saying that Jesus’ kingdom is only a spiritual one, only about your eternal soul, with no designs on lifting up the poor, releasing the captive, or freeing us from our slavery to possessions, success, money, and more.

Jesus is a threat to all earthly power, but for the moment, the crowd in Jerusalem embraces him anyway. They recognize that this one, so different from the conquering-hero Messiah people were expecting, is indeed the promised Son of David.

The crowd, like the other disciples, will abandon Jesus when he is arrested. Like Peter, they will deny him. Neither disciples nor crowd can yet envision that this humble Messiah’s power is greater than the powers-that-be, greater than the cross and  even death itself. They have not yet encountered the power of resurrection.

Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! We wave our palms and join the parade, this countercultural parade from the underside that threatens all powers-that-be. We know this parade frightens those powers, and that it leads to a cross. But we also know of the power of resurrection, power far greater than anything the world knows.

Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  As his followers, let us continue to march, to proclaim, to agitate, and to work for God’s new day, where love will triumph over all the powers-that-be, and God’s will shall rule, in our hearts and in all the world.