Palm Sunday
Luke 19:28-40
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
The Liturgy of the Palms; Palm Sunday; Year C; RCL
En rance
The summer after my senior year in college, I lived in Galveston, Texas. I worked at the Jack Tar Hotel on the “strip” but after getting fired from there for having a bad attitude (all too true—world’s worst cocktail waitress), I worked, much more happily, waiting tables at Tuffy’s Seafood Restaurant on the south jetty. It was a good time. After work, in the wee hours of the morning, my friends and I would go bar-hopping and then about mid-morning, we’d be looking for a good breakfast. One such morning, walking along a charming old street I spotted a likely place but was confused by the sign on the door that read “en rance”. Thinking it was some kind of Cajun or Frenchified term unknown to me, I asked my companions, a couple of whom were locals, what was the meaning. Everyone, except me, burst into laughter because they saw what I did not, merely that the letter “t” was missing from the word entrance and that “en rance” did not indicate a required state of mind or some secret code necessary for admittance. En rance. Funny how things stay with a person. I always think of it now when entering a place for the first time. It’s become a kind of gird your loins, no guts no glory, sort of thing.
Well, anyway and I hope not completely irrelevantly, today Jesus is making his en rance into Jerusalem, and maybe we have just done an “enrancement” around our farm. The Gospel text, noted in most Bibles as “Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem”, is all about making an approach, entering in, being well received. It is also all about a provocative, symbolic act calculated to end up just where it does on Good Friday. And it’s also all about that donkey. I know it all hangs together somehow but don’t know that I will succeed in hanging it myself, so will take a leaf out of Sr. HM’s book, and set before you three, maybe it’s four, strands of the story, that we might weave together later as the Spirit moves.
Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem. He and we know what is coming. He has tried to prepare his disciples, but they don’t like what they hear and so, rather obtusely, just don’t go there with him. But we know that Jesus must make his way into Jerusalem, God’s holy mountain and dwelling place, for the penultimate purpose of being betrayed, reviled, condemned, tortured and killed. It is difficult for us not to think ahead to the ultimate purpose, but this is what Holy Week is for, to slow us down and stay with the man. So for today, let us only consider his approach, entry, and reception into Jerusalem.
When you come to think of it, making an approach, entering, being received is something we all do, over and over, every day, in all situations, under all circumstances. Whether we are joining a conversation, making a new friend, embarking upon a vision quest, we are continually making the approach, entering in, hoping for a good reception. How do we do it? Boldly go where no one has gone before, like a star trekker or conquistador; or back into a darkened room like they do in scary movies; or sneak in like a spy or cat burglar; or like Jesus, just walk in, more or less, unarmed and disarming. Jesus of course, is the master and actual perfect example of “the medium is the message”. He never departs from humility, simplicity, compassion, or radical inclusiveness in his speech, his action, or his intention.
Here his intention is to take on the unholy trinity of empire, hierarchy, and institution. How to do so humbly, simply, compassionately, and so that everyone can take part? The Universe, Jesus’ heavenly Abba, Jesus himself has need of (as the text says), resorts to, again calls upon the donkey. I say again because doesn’t this donkey call up images of Bethlehem? No room at the inn, the manger, the animals as first witnesses of the wondrous birth. Doesn’t the image of the colt, never ridden, call up the image of the Virgin herself? The presence of the donkey takes us right into the space and time of the Feast of the Incarnation and once more Jesus is borne by flesh and blood and once more embodied purity and innocence carry the Incarnate Word onto the next stage.
The Incarnation is a powerful message. That we have everything we need to overcome the oppression of institutional and hierarchical empire, church, and in our own day corporation, by virtue of our human birth is totally and immediately engaging. Down come the cloaks; out come the palm fronds, up surge the voices shouting hosannas. And nothing can stop it—just like you can’t stop a birth once it’s in motion. Jesus says, if it weren’t these people, then the stones would be shouting.
Just like the action of birth cannot be stopped, the action of this text does not stop. There are so many forward motion verbs in this story. Once the reading begins, we are moved right along with no pause until we’re in. But the strange thing is, there is no exact point in the text when Jesus enters in. He is on his way, approaching, coming down the Mount of Olives, drawing near, and then all of the sudden he’s in. As I read it over and over, it began to seem like a filmed dream sequence where the subject, Jesus, is in three-dimensional relief, not seeming to be in motion himself as much as the background or scene is changing or proceeding along behind or around him. Maybe it’s not Jesus who is in motion in this passage, but the people. He doesn’t really enter or get in until those cloaks come down and the hosannas spring up. I understand that there is a centuries old argument about the exact point at which, in the Eucharist, transubstantiation takes place and that seems analogous to this triumphal entry story. Doesn’t matter when exactly, but our presence–our joyful, singing, praising, shouting presence– is required for a triumph and a Eucharist.
So there are the strands: the entering in, the donkey, the dream like quality, and the similarity to the procession through the liturgy. I really get a sense of the spirally essence of Scripture—always curving back on itself and we end up at new and different heights or depths, depending on how you want to look at it. It’s weird. But hey, we’ve made it—we’re in Jerusalem now, headed for the temple, headed for the upper room, headed for the garden, headed for, well, you know…
Carol Bernice, CHS
Little Melrose Chapel March 28, 2010
