I remember when Palm Sunday was a big day for the kids. At some point during the service, the kids would parade around the sanctuary waving their palm branches and shaking tambourines and banging drums while the congregation sang, “Hosanna, loud hosanna, the little children sang; through pillared court and temple the joyful anthem rang.” This was the Sunday the children got to make a lot of noise in church!
My first church had a lot of kids. We made a lot of noise circling the sanctuary with Palm branches. My second church was a small church with a small group of kids. We had a lot of fun, but that group of kids grew up and teens when they come are too cool for palm waving. Now…well, we have to raise the age of childhood to 70+ in order to have children. Palm branches are optional. And, we all sing with a bit of sorrow and the anger of lament in our voices as we miss the joyful noise of all those children banging and clanging in a well-attended service.
I don’t know about you folks, I feel some, well no, quite a bit of sadness if not disillusionment around Palm Sunday. The loud voice of children having fun in church is dreadfully missed. Things Christian have fallen so far off the map in our culture that it’s a rare kid even counting those 70 and under who could answer if you stopped them on the street and asked “What’s Palm Sunday?”
Oh dear, I’m sorry. I might be adding to the little bit of Palm Sunday depression we are all feeling now. But, stick with me. I’m just trying to set the stage for us to take the opportunity to rethink Palm Sunday a little bit. You see, it may be that the way we’ve understood and celebrated the events behind this Sunday – King Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey to the praises of a crowd – might be a little too sugar-coated, a little too nostalgic a celebration than it originally was. Let’s step back in time here for a moment.
The people in this crowd and the people of Jerusalem were living under occupation. The Roman Empire and its virus of an army permeated the land. The people led sequestered lives. You didn’t want to be out too late for the Romans might think you were an insurrectionist. You didn’t know whom you could trust, so you kept your thoughts to yourself. You kept yourself distant. There were zealous religious types wanting to start revolts. Religious legalists who wanted you to wash your hands, wash your dishes, and forbade you from interacting with certain types because purity was what they believed would get God to act faster to save his people while “impurity” would bring down his wrath. And, there was the religious establishment making money hand over fist on the desperate people coming to Jerusalem to make the sacrifices the Law of Moses required of them at the Jerusalem temple believing God will look after his righteous ones. Jesus came “humble, and riding on a donkey” to a people just wanting God to act and deliver them – save them – both from their Roman oppressors and from those corrupted religious leaders.
As Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey like a king the crowds shouted “Hosanna”, but hosanna does not mean what we think it means. We have come to think that “Hosanna” is just another ancient word like “Hallelujah” that simply means “Praise God.” But guess what? It’s not. It’s actually a term crying out for political deliverance. It means “Save us now” or “Deliver us now”. Sorry. Ancient word lesson coming.
Hosanna is a Greekification of the Hebrew phrase, “Hoshiah Nah.” “Hoshiah” is the imperative form or the command form of the Hebrew verb Yashah which means “to save” or “to deliver”. “Nah” means now. “Hoshiah nah” – hosanna – means “Save us now.” And wait…there’s more. The Hebrew name we know as Joshua (Yeshua in Hebrew) also comes from that word “Yashah” and it means “Deliverer” or “Saviour”. You may or may not know it, but the name “Jesus” is actually the Greekification of the Hebrew name Joshua (Yeshua). Jesus’s name literally means “Saviour” or Deliverer” and that is a…wait for it….a political term. A saviour, a deliverer is a leader who comes and saves, who deliverers God’s people from the enemies who are oppressing them.
Well, I can very easily imagine that day being like a political rally. At such events people will chant something to get themselves rallied up. I can hear them loudly chanting, “Hoshiah nah. Yeshua nah. Hoshiah nah. Yeshua nah.” In English that would be “Save us now. Jesus. Now.” Now imagine this if you can; a political rally today where a ragtag crowd of the poor and homeless, the disabled, the deformed, the disfigured, the stinky; prostitutes, drug addicts, loan sharks and so on (you get my drift, all those peoples who get stigmatized and judged). Imagine a crowd like that marching on the nation’s capital (either Ottawa or Washington D.C.) not headed for Parliament, but rather for the biggest church in town and they are chanting, “Save us, now. Jesus, now. Save us now. Jesus, now.” And, imagine this crowd as being joyful and celebrative rather than angry. That would be a little different, eh? Those folks are usually too outcast by politics to care about politics. They are not the type of people one would expect to fill the pews of big downtown established churches. They are the outcast, the stigmatized. Every one of them would fit into the category or persons we so callously throw around…“Those people.” You might want a token one or two persons like these at your rally (maybe in your church), but not a whole freaking’ crowd of them…and they’re holding Jesus up as their saviour…and they’re joyful because each and every one of them has in one way or another been touched and even healed by Jesus…and they are coming to the church not to worship it but too…
Looking back to Jesus’ day, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem that day the crowd was indeed singing out a very politically charged chant. “Save us now, Saviour Jesus, Son of David, the one coming on the authority of God bringing salvation from the highest reaches of heaven” (my paraphrase). Note; salvation here doesn’t mean going to heaven when you die. Salvation to them meant the presence of the Kingdom of God on earth casting out the oppressive rulers and once again also note, they were not headed for the government buildings. Jesus and his crowd were headed for the Temple, the bastion of the religious establishment., but also the house of God This Jesus crowd’s conflict (protest, whatever we want to call it) is with the religious establishment not so much the government or the Roman oppressors. They were marching on those who were blatantly misrepresenting the God of Israel to the people of Israel. They were coming to the front steps of the ones who were making big business out of faithful practice of the worship of God, and who were trying to run the country by using their religious authority to control the masses with fear of God (meaning fear of them). They were a “good ole boy club” that oppressed women and hated foreigners. They had no problem colluding with the Roman invaders because it reinforced their power over people. They were a religious establishment cherishing power over people for the sake of power and here comes Jesus. They are going to meet God and his followers…Jesus and his crowd of those people…and be held accountable.
Well, back to today and our sad angry lament that there are next to no children in the churches that still remain. If we want to know why the church is in the shape it is one way to find out is to give a good, honest ear to those who have left the church in droves these last several decades and trying to understand their reasons for doing so. Doing so we will realize that it is because the church has been and continues to be too much like that religious establishment in Jesus’ day that coveted power over people rather than actually loving God with all its heart, soul, mind, and strength and its neighbour as itself. We have been too much like that institution with our judgementalism and exclusion of vulnerable people while not inventorying our own “sins”. We have not only colluded with corrupt political powers whom we should have held accountable, but we have also sought governmental power for ourselves and abused. We’ve been warring. We’ve blamed the poor. We’ve been racist. We’ve been misogynist. We’ve stood by while children died in educational institutions run by us. If you ask people out on the streets why they don’t come to church, if they know what church is they will tell you what I just said and more.
It was that religious establishment by means of coopting the power of government that crucified Jesus who was God come to be with and among them…with and among them manifesting the power of the reign of God. But, they were too corrupted by power to know their own God so it was not among them but rather amidst all “those people”, the outcasts whom those religious authorities had deemed to be not allowed in the presence of God, that “God with us” manifested the Kingdom. The same thing happens today. Instead of our owning up and admitting our own weaknesses and blatant failures and thus truly becoming a part of the ragtag crowd of outcasts needing Jesus to save us now, we’ve let ourselves be an establishment that cruelly insulates itself against the outcasts among whom we will find Jesus. Maybe the best thing we can do this Palm Sunday is to welcome him in as he comes to cleanse our Temple, welcome his crowd of outcasts realizing we each are one of them. Let’s put our pride and fear aside and humbly join the joyful chorus, “Save us, now. Jesus. Now.” Amen.
