witness                                                                                                                 palm sunday 2004

It was a glorious witness to the truth when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. In a world based on power and appearance and status, the one from God appears without defense, without glamour, without pretension armed only with humor and love and the greatest power of all, the truth itself, for this is the way of peace and joy for humankind, our only hope really, humility, nonviolence and humor. This is what God reveals of the truth: the way of life is not the way where one rules another but rather it is the way where all serve one another.

It was a witness to be sure. It could not go unnoticed. The stones did not need to say a thing. The entrance to Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday mocked the powerful and the proud and threatened a society, and every society since, ordered and maintained with fear and coercion. There is nothing they fear more than the laughter of those who no longer fear them. Here is the witness of the fearless one who is fearless because he knows something that we need to know and that he has been trying to tell us for a long time. Preposterous and ridiculous as it may sound there is a happy ending. This is the truth he is dying to tell. The punch line to the cosmic joke is that life overcomes death, love trumps hatred. In the words of Buechner it is the comedy of the gospel that Jesus knows,  the comedy of God's saving the most unlikely people when they lest expect it Blessed is the one who takes no offense at his outrageous vulnerability, his reckless generosity, his goofy love of everyone, the outcast and despised but alsothe very ones who would harm him.

But we have heard this story so many times before. The challenge for us is to get it, to pay attention, to finally see that we who profess to be followers of Jesus are not in the business of reinforcing the status quo, of keeping things as they are, but rather we are in the business of upsetting the apple cart, of creating a new world, of rethinking the values of a society that gives lip service to religious ideals while trampling all over each other to get our hands on the very things that the blessed clown of God mocks with his witness to the truth that we don't want to know because it calls us to be different, to risk ourselves rather than assure our own well-being at any cost. It simply is not natural to want to be vulnerable or generous or foolish It is natural to protect oneself. Jesus rode into town with no protection at all to the cheers of those who for one bright moment may have actually thought that love would overcome. How foolish is that?

What makes this interesting is that the witness of Jesus entering Jerusalem is neither aggressive or passive. He does not bring an invading army. He does not rely on force but neither does he submit to the ruling powers. His nonviolence is anything but passive. It confronts the standard lies about how human society must be with the burning truth about what it could be if people had the courage and the faith and the compassion to simply do what love demands. Some have wondered why anyone would be afraid of love but love is dangerous. It will take us where we had not planned to go. It makes us accountable for one another. It insists that we let our defenses down and be open to the pain and suffering of the whole world. But there I go again. This love is too big to comprehend. It asks too much. It is seriously crazy. So much so that one wonders why we are here.

In Sunday School at the Shadyside Presbyterian Church, writes Annie Dillard, the handsome father of rascal Jack from dancing school, himself a vice-president of Jones and Laughlin Steel, whose wife was famous at the country club for her tan, held a birch pointer in his long fingers and shyly tapped the hanging paper map - shyly because he could see we were not listening. Who would listen to this? Why on earth were we here? There in the blue and yellow and green were Galilee, Samaria itself, and Judaea, he said, (and I pretended to pay attention as a courtesy), the sea of Galilee, the River Jordan, and the Dead Sea. I saw on the hanging map the coasts of Judaea by the far side of Jordan, on whose unimaginable shores the pastel Christ had maybe uttered such cruel, stiff, thrilling words: "Sell all that thou hast . . ."

Yes, Jesus said that. When he rode into Jerusalem for the last time he said it again but the only thing he had left was himself and he didn't really say it out loud in those same words but just rode into town as a witness to what happens when love foolishly believes it will overcome the world. 

Dillard in another piece where she describes how somebody named Larry is teaching a stone to talk writes: We are here to witness. And what is our witness? Are we kind to one another let alone the stranger? Do we care about justice for anybody other than ourselves? Do we test and examine our assumptions or our self-interests? Are we open enough and brave enough to listen to the truth about ourselves? What do we know? What do we reveal of the truth? What do we offer of ourselves?

Palm Sunday is not just for Sunday School anymore. It is a clear call to confront the powers that be with the truth about love by living as those who are witness to how love overcomes the world and continuing to live as those who witness to love overcoming the world until well. . . . until love overcomes the world. For this is the unlikely good news on this Palm Sunday - love is overcoming the world. It sounds as ridiculous now as it did then but it is still the only good news we have.

Remember what Jesus said when they came to take him away? Be of good cheer, he said, I have overcome the world. This is one serious sense of humor but who is the joke on and why aren't we laughing?  Beyond the words is a witness to something that, for us to know what it is, will cost us, in the words of the poet (TS Eliot) not less than everything.  

PS : Now "everything" sounds like a lot, perhaps is even incomprehensible but  what it is that costs not less than everything is in fact more than everything which may also be incomprehensible, as incomprehensible perhaps as trees clapping and stones talking but some thing that is more than everything that costs less than everything is a pretty good deal when you think about it. For the record, love stops being an abstraction when it becomes a practice. So, wave the palms, shout hosanna, love somebody, witness to this crazy good news of which Jesus on that silly little donkey riding into Jerusalem surrounded by his lunatic followers is just one beautiful witness - love is more real than anything else. Amen.