A Sermon Delivered by The Rev. John D. Painter
at Centenary United Methodist Church
Metuchen, New Jersey
April 5, 2009
(Passion/Palm Sunday)

Text: Mark 11:1-11
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and im-mediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
“Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. —Mark 11:1-11, NRSV

Today is the day that begins the week we have been waiting for all during Lent. Jesus at last makes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. His ministry began “out back,” out in the rural ar-eas of Galilee. But throughout the Gospel he has alluded to the time when he needed “to go up to Jerusalem.” There, he would confront the powers. There his reign, begun out in Galilee, would reach its glorious consummation. There he would enter the holy city of Jerusalem and establish his rule over it and take it back for God’s reign.

And what does Mark say that Jesus did in order to enter the capitol city—in order to pa-rade into Jerusalem in triumph and take his crown? Mark says that everything gets going with Jesus first sending a couple of his disciples to go get a colt. Securing transportation is a relatively important matter, but only relatively. It could also be seen as a very mundane, non-spectacular, and even trivial matter. However, Mark—who usually is rather short on specifics—expends nearly half of his story about Palm Sunday in this rather detailed description of acquiring a don-key for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem.

The distinguished professor/preacher Thomas G. Long, in a meditation on this passage, says, “Though no one knows what these two disciples were thinking, I’m very confident that they had imagined for themselves a grander and nobler role on this day than being on donkey detail.” Dr. 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. You may remember that, just a few hours before, these were the two disciples who had boldly requested of Jesus, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, when you come into your glory.”

Some glory they were now experiencing! Jesus is about to go head-to-head with the prin-cipalities and powers of his day. Striding confidently into the great capitol city, his disciples at last have a chance to be vindicated before the whole world—and here these two “assistants” are sent off to find the donkey. The disciples were all busy trying to get some glory, asking among themselves, “When we get him elected Messiah, and God’s reign has come, who will get to serve in the cabinet?” And here are Jesus’ two disciples, sent out looking for a stable from which to borrow a donkey.

My friends, this is not an inspiring story of how great it is to be a disciple of Jesus! Mark’s Gospel began back in Epiphany, with Jesus calling his disciples to leave home, work, and family and hit the road with him. Jesus did not look much like the Messiah in those early days, and his path did not remind anybody of God’s reign. But eventually, with hard work, and some infusion of the Holy Spirit, who knows? Surely this thing will get going; the movement will take off; the crowds will gather; Caesar will at last recognize his superior; and, it will be impressive, great.

But no, the great triumphal procession begins with two disciples, sent by Jesus, to wheel and deal with some donkey trader, standing in the mire of some forlorn stable, trying to get Jesus the means to get into Jerusalem.

When the Gospel of John tells this story, John tells it differently. There, Jesus comes into town on foot. A donkey comes on the scene, not because of advance work by the disciples, but rather in response to the crowd. In John, the crowd gets caught up in the frenzy of welcoming the new “king” to town, waving palm branches and shouting political slogans. There, Jesus grabs a donkey and sits upon it, as if to say—“I’m not the kind of king you are expecting.” Few were the folk who would expect a powerful, messianic king to bounce into town on the back of a donkey.

But in Mark’s Gospel, finding the donkey and arranging transportation is something that is delegated to the disciples.

As you may know, throughout his Gospel Mark has a not-too-positive picture of Jesus’ disciples. They are always misunderstanding, befuddled, and dense. They are not portrayed as the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. Is Mark now, here in chapter 11, attempting to paint a little more positive picture as he comes towards the end of the story? After all, if it hadn’t been for their obedience in attending to the mundane details of going to fetch the donkey for Jesus, there might not have been a triumphal Palm Sunday. No “Hosannas!” would have been shouted. They went out as they were told, did as they were commanded, and found a donkey at the last minute, and thus the Son of God was welcomed to Jerusalem.

Way back in January, Mark’s Gospel began with John the Baptist’s voice crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” This Sunday, take that as a definition of a faithful disciple—one who prepares the way of the Lord. We disciples are not the Messiah, not even close. We are the ones who secure the room, so that Jesus can have an intimate, last meal with his friends. We are the ones who go get the donkey, so that Jesus can enter the capitol city in the manner that eventually reveals who Jesus is and what his mission is about. Such is the reign of God.

Elsewhere in the Gospel story, Jesus sends his disciples out to preach, to heal, and to cast out demons from troubled people. But this Sunday let us remember that most of us disciples are also called to more prosaic, mundane tasks. We are the ones who take the tuna-noodle casserole, when we hear that someone’s loved one has died. We are the ones who speak a simple word of, “I’m praying for you” (and do so), when we hear that someone’s going through a rough time. You’re not usually called to thoughtfully preach sermons on tough biblical texts, but you can do-nate and sort the clothing—and provide the canned goods, and diapers and pull-ups every month—that ensure others will be cared for in their need. And through these seemingly small, countless gestures, we are fulfilling the will of God. We are preparing the way of Jesus.

Nicholas Kristof wrote in the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times this week: “As world leaders gather in London for the Group of 20 summit meeting, the most wrenching statistic is this: According to World Bank estimates, the global economic crisis will cause an additional 22 children to die per hour, throughout all of 2009.

“And that’s the best-case scenario. The World Bank says it’s possible the toll will be twice that: an additional 400,000 child deaths, or an extra child dying every 79 seconds.”

“In London, Washington and Paris, people talk of bonuses or no bonuses,” Robert Zoel-lick, the World Bank president, said this week. “In parts of Africa, South Asia and Latin Amer-ica, the struggle is for food or no food.”

We are the ones who are called to share from our resources—even in these difficult times—to support ministries like the “Nothing But Nets” Anti-Malaria Campaign, and “Red Bird Mission,” and the “Joy to the World” Heifer Project—all of which reach out to the world’s poor-est people and nations. And when we do, we are doing those ordinary/extraordinary things that must be done before Jesus can make his entry into the world! Like Jesus’ first disciples, we are once again preparing the way of Jesus. We are preparers of the way!

A visiting preacher came to a little church in the rural, northwest corner of the state. “This is a wonderful church in which to preach,” he exclaimed to a little group that had gathered after one of the services. “The congregation is so wonderfully attentive and engaged during the sermon and the service.” The pastor smilingly agreed with the visiting preacher that this was in-deed a great congregation in which to preach.

“My father made that pulpit in his workshop,” one of the women who was standing there commented. “I remember when he made it. One spring, he went out and gathered the walnut boards, and carefully planed it, and rubbed it smooth with his own hands.”

The visiting preacher realized—standing there with an immense feeling of gratitude—that there was a sense in which the effectiveness of his preaching at that church, the receptivity of the congregation, the holiness of it all, rested on the quiet, almost forgotten, mundane efforts of a man working late into the night—after he had gotten off work, in his workshop down in the basement at home—to lovingly create that pulpit.

In a way, it is for us a parable of God’s action in the church. At your best, many of you are the ones who build, with your own hands and mundane deeds, a solid platform on which this preacher lays his notes, on which God lays God’s holy Word. That is all.

And yet, it’s hard to imagine God’s Word getting through to us—God’s Word ever being heard and responded to by us—without that platform, that pulpit, that piece of wood patiently, lovingly, and unspectacularly formed, by ordinary, grace-filled, divinely-called human hands like ours.

PRAYER
Lord Jesus Christ, even as you entered Jerusalem, on this day enter our world, enter our hearts and lives, and come to us and rule over us. Teach us, day by day, to serve you as you ought to be served, to walk with you where you walk, to talk as you talk, and to be the faithful followers whom you deserve. Give us the strength to follow you toward the cross, not thinking about ourselves and our needs, but focusing upon God’s reign and its triumph. Amen.
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