Scripture:
Luke 19:29-40
In Chelsea, Michigan, we know a thing or
two about parades. Take, for example,
our Christmas electric light parade. It
gives you a little bit of everything. There
are rows of school marching band members playing festive tunes; floats
featuring carolers, preschoolers dressed like elves, and a nativity scene; and busloads
of merry senior citizens wearing Santa hats and belting out “Jingle Bells.” The first year I attended the parade, the Common Grill restaurant
sent someone to participate who was adorned in a lobster costume, covered
with a strand of tiny twinkling Italian light bulbs. I was new to town, but I couldn’t help
spontaneously calling out “Christmas Lobster, thank God you’re here!” Without missing a beat, the woman standing
next to me responded “Now do you believe?!”
Or take our beloved Chelsea Fair
Parade. How could this parade possibly
be better? It starts with the proud
veterans who served our country. Then
you get the marching bands; the twirlers and the gymnasts; the equestrian team;
the local political leaders and the aspiring candidates; men in helmets in giant
fire trucks—and men in fezzes on tiny motorcycles; a vast array of antique cars
and tractors; floats proudly bearing the wreckage of the demolition derby and
the figure eight; our citizens of the year; the fair queen; Frisbees tossed
from the window of an old hearse; bag loads of incoming candy that rain on you
like hailstones; and a semi rig full of Jiffy products that helpers cheerfully
distribute to the crowd. Indeed, as you
look up and down Main Street you can see our entire community united in a
single, common goal: to bring home a few free boxes of corn muffin mix.
In the passage we read this morning, the
entry of Jesus into Jerusalem has some of the festive craziness we associate
with all great parades. The disciples stacked
the colt high with their cloaks and seated Jesus atop them. As he rode along, people rushed before him to
spread their cloaks in his path. People
were shouting joyfully and celebrating and enjoying themselves. Luke makes a point of expressly telling us
that this was all very loud—although I think we could have guessed as much.
Luke also tells us that the Pharisees—who
never failed to protest when something good was happening—complained to Jesus about
the racket. Jesus responded by saying: “I
tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” This apparently left the Pharisees
dumbstruck, because we hear nothing more from them for the time being. And we can understand why. The response that Jesus makes is rich in
meaning—or, more accurately, meanings.
To begin, it is interesting to note
that Jesus phrased his response conditionally: “if these were silent.” I take this to be a less confrontational way
of saying: “You want to silence them? Go
ahead and give it a try! Knock yourself
out! It’s not going to happen!” But Jesus artfully glides right past this
point, because the time for confrontation has not yet arrived. That moment will come when Jesus enters the
Temple—His Father’s House—and drives out those who are selling things
there.
So Jesus continues: “the stones would
shout out.” Now, this is a remarkable
statement for several reasons. First, the
statement underscores that the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem has a divine
inevitability to it; the unfolding events are under the power of God, not of
mankind, and their course will not be altered by human beings—whether crowds of
rooting disciples or clusters of skeptical Pharisees. Second, the statement makes clear that the
entry of Jesus into Jerusalem will be celebrated with shouts of joy—whether they
come from women and children and men or from the very earth itself. And, finally, the statement reinforces the
idea that the Pharisees should stop whining and get accustomed to the
noise. Indeed, as Easter teaches us, the
greatest cries of triumph and amazement are yet to come.
This is, of course, one of the ways in
which we are sometimes called to bear witness: loudly; extravagantly; in our
grand and proudest voices; maybe even a little crazily. “Enthusiasm” has its root in Greek words that
literally mean “God inside”—and that is how the spirit occasionally moves us:
vigorously, demonstratively, dancingly, with arms and voices raised. Abraham Lincoln once declared that when he heard
a man preach “he liked to see him act as if he were fighting bees,” and from time
to time that is how we must go about this business of living our faith, showing
our faith, celebrating our faith.
But there are other ways as well, and
to highlight them we need look no further than to this story as it is told by
Luke. But, first, permit me a brief
digression to talk about how the other gospel writers report the story. All of them tell it; each of them tells it
differently; and, in my view, this story serves as a sort of theological
Rorschach test that reveals the principal interest of the individual gospel writers.
When Matthew tells the story, he
exhibits his characteristic preoccupation with the fact that Jesus was
fulfilling a Hebrew prophecy. This
probably helps explain why Matthew says that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on both a donkey and a colt—that is what
the prophecy described—though he pays little attention to how these animals
were obtained or, for that matter, how one person can ride on two of them at
the same time. Mark, with characteristic
efficiency, omits the donkey from the story altogether and explains that a
group of bystanders allowed the colt to be taken. John, for whom Jesus is always the sole focus
of attention, has Jesus go find the donkey himself!
But look at what Luke, our master
storyteller, does here. He introduces us
to some of the great unsung heroes of the gospels. He does not tell us their names, their gender,
their ages, their social status, or their vocations. He gives us only a brief and indirect glimpse
of them, almost flirtatious in its subtlety: “As the disciples were untying the
colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ And the disciples said, ‘The Lord needs it.’” And then from those people—the owners who
readily surrendered their colt on the strength of nothing more than a
suggestion that the Lord was in need of it—we hear absolutely nothing more.
This, too, is how we are sometimes called
to bear witness: softly, quietly, cooperatively, sacrificially, instantly,
unhesitatingly. We hear the voice of the
Lord say “this is what I need” and we simply give it up. In all candor, I think that this is some of
the toughest witnessing we do. We can
all throw ourselves into some good-old-fashioned palm-waving when the spirit moves
us. But hearing God’s call and untying
our prized colt—whatever that means in our lives—is something else
altogether. Through this short and
apparently insignificant reference to the owners of the colt, Luke brilliantly
reminds us of one of the questions Jesus invites us to ponder over and over
again:
Where is our treasure?
Where is our treasure?
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are
fond of saying that we are an Easter people—and so we are. We believe in an empty tomb. We believe in the resurrection. We believe in life beyond this life, life
beyond suffering, life beyond time, life beyond imagining.
But there is no getting to Easter
without walking the hard and sometimes discomforting pathways of Lent. It is a season of tough questions. And, today, in the midst of our joyful celebration
and our waving of palms, it asks this one: What will you say when the Lord says
that He has need of something that you have, something that you can contribute,
something that you can do, or, perhaps most importantly, something that you are?
Amen.
