Readings were Psalm 118 and Mark 11,1-11
You know that feeling you get when someone starts telling you a story about something that happened to them, or a joke, or whatever, and about 5 seconds in, you remember that they have already told you this thing, and you know what’s coming at the end of the story, you’ve heard the punchline? You are usually too polite to stop them and say, actually you told me this yesterday or last week or whenever, so you listen on to the end, and there is no impact for you, because you’ve already heard it.
Well, as we arrive at the beginning of Holy Week, I am only too aware that we know the end of the story; it is a story that has been told many many times to us and to our forebears; how Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and was welcomed as a King, but within days had been tried and condemned to death, executed and buried as a convicted criminal, yet rose from the dead after 3 days in the tomb. We know the end of the story because we are still living in its light. We know the end of the story, but that ought not to diminish the impact for us of this episode. It certainly did not diminish for Mark’s first readers, who evaluated the triumphal entry in the light of the resurrection. Of course, we can only call it the triumphal entry if Jesus does go on to rise form the dead.
I’m fascinated by the fact that the crowds welcomed Jesus with open arms, they put down their cloaks and their palm branched to line his route from the Mount of Olives into the valley and up into Jerusalem. So they welcomed him but really they had no idea who he was; only the disciples – and arguably not all of those, had any clue. I was reminded of this on Thursday morning when, while waiting for my sports news bulletin on BBC breakfast TV I was subjected to 25 minutes of coverage of g20 leaders arriving at Excel; the cameras were all waiting for Barak Obama, but he was in a jam (or something) and so in the delay a stream of lesser faces were shown arriving, and the hapless newsreaders struggled to work out who the people greeting Gordon Brown were – the classic example being, on the arrival of an oriental chap, “So that’ll be the prime Minister of Japan”, “ no Bill, that’s Ban Kyi Moon, the UN secretary general.”
In our celebrity driven culture there is a tendency to run from one media hype to the next – for journalists and photographers that is sometimes literally true – if you have ever happened to be in an airport when film or sports stars are arriving you’ll know what I mean. They didn’t have media hype in Jerusalem in 33AD, but they did have an expectation of a coming King, a coming Saviour, to deliver the people from Roman occupation. So if the news came that Jesus was riding into town, the expectation would be high. The gospel writers reflect this expectation by showing Jesus as King – and not just King of Israel but of the entire world. The expectation may then have been exaggerated, much as tabloids tend to exaggerate today, but the gospel writers had a good reason for that – they wanted to make sure their readers got the point about the Messiah’s kingship being of David’s line, but of a different order – Jesus did not ride in as a conqueror but as a suffering servant. He did not come to boot the Romans out but to inaugurate a Kingdom not of this world.
It’s perhaps mostly about perceptions. Jesus was perceived by the crowds to be one kind of King, when actually he was and is a different kind of King altogether; his Kingdom is not of this world; he may have been born into a royal family but in order to ascend to the throne he had to die rather than stay alive, and citizens of his Kingdom are not limited by time space or geography. This has been a big challenge to me recently. As both Lindsell and Stebbing have bee thinking in recent months about how to describe ourselves and our vision, it is good, although not always easy, as part of that process, to consider how we are perceived by those who do not come to church.
In Lindsell I find that there is generally at the moment a perception of the church as being indeed a place of traditional values, an open door and a warm welcome. Our challenge is to make that perception into a motivation for people to welcome God into their lives in Christ. I am happy to be part of a church that stands for the things we say we stand for; what I wonder is, do any of them matte to those who aren’t here? And if not, how can we make it so that they do matter. My hunch is that we will need to carry on doing what we do – caring for others, those in need and those bereaved, and caring for our community, with a servant heart. This I believe is the pattern that fits with Jesus’ example.
In Stebbing I am beginning to realise that our pattern of church is a broken one. Firstly, because of a potential misunderstanding of what this service and the service at 5 pm tonight, are actually about. They are not primarily designed for people who already come to this church; rather, they are both intended to provide a means for us to open our door wide. In the morning, it is open those who do not currently come but who would prefer this kind of formal liturgical worship, and in the evening the same – for informal café style worship. So if regular church members are staying away “because they don’t like that kind of service”, then they are unable to invite anyone to come along, and the evangelistic endeavour is undermined.
Secondly, it may be that the perception of what church is for, who church is for and how we are part of church, is mismatched between church and village. In order to rectify that there is only one solution – to turn ourselves inside out. Then the village as while can see who we are and what we stand for, and then also there will be no wall between us. This will make is quite vulnerable, but I believe it is the pattern that fits with Jesus’ example.
That is the question to ask, isn’t it? “What would Jesus do?” There are many answers to this question, but they would all involve 2 things – a servant heart and a desire to glorify God.
One thing I know Jesus would not do is vote for the BNP. I only mention this because you are going to start seeing election posters for the European elections soon with an assertion from the BNP that Jesus would vote for them because they stand up for the persecuted. Of course, this is a democracy and you are free to vote for those loonies er… I mean that party of you so wish, but let us remember that Palm Sunday is not about democracy, it’s about monarchy, the Kingship of Christ over the entire world. Jesus’ Kingdom is not like a country or even a nation on this earth; it is not subject to elections for it is a true theocracy, in which God reigns, and as our Psalm reminded us, The Lord is good, and his love endures forever.
So even though you know what happens at the end, journey with me this Holy Week. Come with us on the Good Friday walk, and hear and re-live the passion narrative, the story of Jesus’ trail and crucifixion and death. And as you journey, reflect upon your own lives, as I will be reflecting upon mine. And as we near the celebration of resurrection, just after we have held our APCM, let us also think about a new start, for a new year, with a new and fresh vision to serve the people and glorify God. We need not worry if we are going over old ground, after all, at the end of the Triumphal entry, Jesus left the city and went back to the Mount of Olives.
The end is a bit sudden, but "live", we went straight into an act of commitment and the blessing of the palms
