Palm Sunday
Sermon by The Reverend Loree Reed

Mark 11: 11–11
Philippians 2: 5–11
Lord, may we hear your voice in the words spoken in your Name. Amen.

Ask anyone what they expect to hear or see when they come to church on Palm Sunday, and they are likely to describe some first–century version of a ticker–tape parade, complete with conquering hero, cheering crowds and memorable speeches.  But most of these details – the large crowds, the raucously cheering children and people waving palm branches — are simply details we have come to expect after hearing this story so many times.  In fact, it’s only Matthew who suggests that all Jerusalem came out to welcome Jesus.  Only John mentions the palms.  And only Luke mentions the cheering children, whose praise simply could not be restrained.  But this morning, we are reading Mark’s account of the event.  And Mark is telling another side of this story – the story of the King of Love, whose appeal lies not in dramatic events and worldly glory — but in quiet humility.  And that, I promise you, is a story worth hearing.
What all the Gospel writers agree on is the detail they offer at the beginning of the story — that as he and his disciples approach Bethany and the Mount of Olives, Jesus sends two of them into the next town to “borrow” a donkey.  Mark never tells us if Jesus had already made arrangements with the owner of this donkey that would allow his disciples to take it . . . or if he simply knew by divine omniscience where to find the colt.  But it hardly matters.  What matters is that he has asked them to fetch a young, inexperienced donkey, on which no one had yet ridden.  It is not, in other words, the mighty stallion of some illustrious general.  It’s the foal of a donkey that — at best — will barely put him at eye level with the crowd when he climbs on her back.  Though the people greet Jesus as ‘Son of David’, expecting he will be a mighty warrior like King David, Jesus, as Mark tells the story, has a different plan in mind.
Similarly, Mark never tells us which two disciples he chooses to send on this lowly errand.  Maybe he sent James and John, who just a few miles back had asked Jesus, “Grant us to sit, one on your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”  But again, it hardly matters.  For over the last few days, all the disciples have been jockeying for position, arguing among themselves about which one of them was the greatest.  Clearly, none of them would have welcomed this lowly task of leading a young, unbroken donkey back to Jesus.
But that’s the thing about servant leadership in the Kingdom of God.  It’s simply not very glamorous.  Oh, as young priests most of us imagine we’re being called to some glorious preaching career, welcoming people into the Kingdom by the carload.  Or we think it’s our faith that’s valued – faith that will move mountains, heal the sick, calm troubled seas.  It takes us awhile to figure out that ministry is about last–minute trips to Kinko’s to print bulletins, about visiting people in nursing homes who can’t figure out who we are, about getting the church van to the repair shop when squirrels have eaten through wires in the engine.  But Jesus knew all about the humility of servant leadership, and now, as his time on this earth draws to a close, he is showing them – not telling them, but showing his disciples — how it’s done.  For God does not come to us in power or vengeance.  He comes to us in weakness and incomprehensible mercy,¹ riding on a donkey.  And hopefully, one day, Jesus’ disciples will begin to perceive that this lowly path their Savior and Lord has chosen, this way of obedient humility, is the only way to the high calling of holiness.
To describe this as a paradox is to put it mildly.  It’s confusing as all get–out.  So the lectionary editors have paired this Palm Sunday gospel reading with a passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians that helps us make the connections.
St. Paul loved that little congregation in the Greek city of Philippi.  He loved it best of all the churches he had founded.²  But he has heard recently that disagreements have risen up in the congregation, people insisting on their own way of doing things.  So he writes to encourage his friends to remember their identity in the humility of Jesus Christ . . . to remember that before Jesus came to this earth, he emptied himself of all sense of privilege.  What was left was a sense of quiet dignity as he began to serve those whom the Father loved.
Saint Paul wants the congregation at Philippi to remember Jesus’ humility before others, in obedience to the Father.  Mark wants his readers to note the hidden majesty of a king who knew with every ounce of his being whose glory he reflected – even as he rode into town on a borrowed donkey on his way to death on a cross.
And both of them know that we tend to resemble whatever god we worship.  They want us to remember Jesus’ humble service to others, his humble service as a way of life.  They want us to remember that Jesus too had to learn obedience through what he suffered.  Only then, they understand, can God shine his glory through us and show us the path to holiness.
Brothers and sisters, that’s our good news this morning.  Holiness is our destination too, the destination the Lord ordained for every one of us as he created us.  But before we let that good news scare us into adopting a ‘holier–than–thou’ attitude toward everyone we meet, let me reassure you.  Holiness is not about anything we can do – even in our better moments.  It’s not a human virtue at all.  It’s something God does with us and through us³ – especially when he finds a humble human being to work with.
That’s what Mark wants us to see when he describes Jesus riding into Jerusalem on that borrowed donkey who doesn’t know what she is doing.  That’s what Mark hopes we will see in the smaller–than–expected crowd, the less–than–dramatic end of the procession at the Temple.  Not a human being elevated above his friends, above his admirers in some triumphal procession . . . but a human being who has chosen humility as his route through life.  A humble human being who is allowing God’s grandeur to shine through him.
To God be the glory.
Amen.
¹ Russel Rathbun in Sunday’Coming, March 23, 2009

² Walter Brueggerman “A Week’s Walk into a New Mind”  The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggerman, vol. 3
(Westminster John Knox; Louisville, Kentucky: 2020) p. 79

³ Clayton J. Schmit “Holiness is No Virtue” The Living Pulpit/July–September 2001, p. 40
 
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