NO KINGS

Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock

[(Matthew 21:1-11 – Lit of Palms); Isaiah  50:4-9a; Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 26 – 27:66]

It was the spring of the year 30 of the Common Era.  Preparations were beginning for the Hebrew people’s most sacred time of the year – Passover.  Amidst the high expectations of this seasonal event, two “parades” began to form on opposite sides of city.[1]

One demonstration took shape at the east gate of the city.  The other gathered at the west gate.  At the east gate, a peasant procession gathered with Jesus at the center.  He rode a borrowed donkey down from the Mount of Olives and was cheered into the city by his followers.  Beginning from the peasant village of Nazareth, up north in the Galilee region, and over the course of the last three years, Jesus and his small circle of supporters had steadily moved toward Jerusalem with a message that the Kingdom of God was at hand.  The rallying cry from Jesus’ procession was “Hosannah!” – a Hebrew transliteration that meant, “Please save us!”

On the opposite side of town, from the west, Governor Pontius Pilate entered the City of David at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers.  The sight of their well-formed, helmeted marching columns, the sound of their leather armor creaking with their every movement were all designed for one thing: to convey with wordless action the reality of a dominating control.  In the dust of their entrance, this imperial procession proclaimed the power and violent presence of the Roman Empire.

The imperial procession was well-known in the conquered territories of the Jewish homeland.   As a palpable reminder of who was in charge, such a procession was the standard practice of the Judean governors (appointed by Rome).  Especially at the time of the Passover in Jerusalem, the celebration of God’s liberation of the covenanted people from enslavement had the potential to burn hot. So it was at the Passover, a massive demonstration of Rome’s military might was always present to temper any and all freedom fevers.

But there was one, unspoken commonality between these two demonstrations.  The Jesus procession embodied the power of love.  The imperial procession demonstrated the love of power.  While each “parade” represented these differing notions of power and life, both also carried a differing sense of religion and theology, that is, of what ties people together and what orients life.

The imperial version of religion and theology was not simply that Caesar was the ruler of Rome; but that the imperial presence was also proclaimed with these legal descriptors: “Son of God”; “lord” and “savior”; the one who could provide “peace on earth”.  The key difference between this imperial religion and its sense of theology and what Jesus presented was the difference between dominance and companionship, enslavement and redemption.

Yesterday, throughout our country, there were an estimated 3,000 demonstrations under the banner of “No Kings”.  Yesterday’s rallies were the third national “No Kings” day demonstration, “parades” of a sort that garnered crowds, protesting the authoritarian proclivities of our government.  In my little village of Haydenville, hundreds and hundreds of citizens once again lined both sides of Route 9, in front of the Williamsburg Town Hall, to proclaim the need to honor an alternative way of sharing power and living together in trust.  In places like Boston, there were multiple-thousands of people embodying their concerns about the extent to which our Constitution provides for our common civic standard and not the whims of personality.

Beyond this, like many contemporary followers of Jesus, I couldn’t miss the irony that this third, national “No Kings” day occurred the day before Palm Sunday.  Signs aplenty emblazed with the slogan, “No Kings!”  and honking car horns underscored the protests. And given that the Jeffersonian DNA remains deeply and importantly in our national heritage, I can’t help but wonder to what extent do we actually mean “No Kings”?  Politically, that aspect of the protest is clear; but theologically, the question remains by and large unaddressed.  So, on this Palm Sunday, I ask this: When it comes to who or what resides at the center our lives, what does it mean to have “No Kings”?

It strikes me that the cry surrounding the Jesus parade reveals this implicit-yet-crucial issue.  The crowd around Jesus cried out: “Hosanna!”, which meant, “Please save us!”  And that “parade” cry gets at the very heart of all our “parades”.  Who or what will save us?  And from what do we need saving?  Do we need a “fixer” who for a price promises to give us relief; or do we need someone whose own life brings the kind of “saving” that overcomes human “dis-ease” and the ravages of brokenness?  “Salvation” as in “health and wholeness”; or a transactional “fixer” for power?

The events and encounters of Holy Week and Easter -- of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection -- are actions that God takes in and through Jesus. to convey not a transactional moment but rather “the gifts of God for the people of God”.  Jesus is not “fixer” but the bearer of sacred gifts that restore life’s purpose: namely, Communion with God and with one another.  Holy Week is about God acting, not to “fix” but to restore.

I want to close this Palm Sunday homily with a brief poem.  Our parish friend and companion, Robert Shaw, has written a Holy Week poem that helps us keep our eyes on the prize and recognize what makes this particular week “holy” – that is, of God.  Here is Robert’s poem, entitled, “Good Friday”.

Good Friday – by Robert Shaw

Nailed to that scaffolding the State

erects to brandish sovereignty,

bait for the circling vulture, death –

this was his choice, and not his fate.

He oversaw, with the laboring breath,

the world framed by his carpentry,

the work of six days, seen as good,

but long since tempted to its fall,

its honor lost, its beauty marred.

Could it be salvaged?  If it could,

the savior would not go unscarred.

He staked all for the sake of all.

For those who climbed to see the sight

on the bald hilltop, sick at heart,

even before the sky had changed

it seemed a day imbued with night.

Heaven and earth, so long estranged,

Had never felt so far apart.

His final cry was not a word.

(So wrote Matthew, also Mark.)

Utterances we count as seven

all had been meted out and heard

by those who stood bereft of Heaven

under a midday sky struck dark.

Wordless, the Word poured out a cry

That racked creation through and through.

When all that death could do was done,

When the Undying dared to die,

Heaven and earth were fused as one.

The Temple’s veil was torn in two.

Not  fixed but restored.  Thanks be to  God.  Amen.

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 [1] Marcus Borg & Dominic Crossan.The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus' Last Days in Jerusalem,