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Follow Him to Jerusalem                        Luke 19: 28-40                   March 28, 2010

Often referred to as "The holiest city in the world," Jerusalem became the capital of Israel in the time of King David, about 1,000 years before Jesus was born. The country was united, then, with all twelve ancient tribes under one king. Enemies were easily kept at bay by a powerful army.

David's reign as king was viewed by most as a time of righteousness in the land. His name was synonymous with goodness, protection of the weak and justice for all. It has been said that the King was the apple of God's eye.

Solomon, David's son and his successor to the throne, built a glorious temple in Jerusalem. It was the center of the Jewish world - and God's dwelling place on earth. It was also the only place, the Jews believed, where forgiveness could be obtained.

In the centuries following David's reign, though, Jerusalem ceased to be the "City of God," that the psalmists and poets described. Political and economic oppression became the order of the day. Total domination by the wealthy few assured that ordinary people had little or no power over the direction of their lives. And the temple became the place where these abuses were legitimized.

The great Prophets of the Hebrew Bible railed with criticism against what Jerusalem had become.

"Listen, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel!" Micah wrote, "Should you not know justice? - You who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin off my people, and the flesh off their bones; Hear this, you . . . who abhor justice and pervert all equity, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong!"

And Micah was not alone.

"Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem," echoed Jeremiah," look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth - so that I may pardon Jerusalem. This is the city that must be punished; there is nothing but oppression within her."

Dire predictions of destruction followed the prophets' indictments. Isaiah quoted the words of an angry God:

"I will turn my hand against you," He says. "Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness. But rebels and sinners shall be destroyed together, and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed. The strong shall become like tinder; they and their work shall burn together, with no one to quench them."

The prophets predicted that God would intervene to change the mess that Jerusalem had become. And the result of God's intervention would be a world of peace and justice. In one of the most famous passages in Scripture, Isaiah writes:

"He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

But sadly, it was the prophets' dire warnings and not their hope that came to pass. In 586 BC the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem. The city and the temple were destroyed and most of the survivors were forced to live in slave-like conditions. For centuries thereafter, foreign empires ruled Judea and its capital - first the Persians, then the Greeks and, finally, beginning about 60 years before Christ, the Romans controlled the lives of the people of God.

And it was a miserable life, indeed.

The Romans made the Jews eat pork, which made them furious. The Romans forced them to worship Caesar, which they refused to do at great personal risk. And the Romans forbade them from circumcising their children, which called their very identity into question. In short, the Romans did their best to separate the Jews from their Judaism.

Worst of all, the Romans did all of these things with the cooperation of the wealthy, powerful leaders of the newly rebuilt Temple, who either looked the other way or - remarkably - justified these acts as somehow sanctioned by God.

Not surprisingly, most everyday Jews hated the Romans. And they hated, even more, the Temple elite who they viewed as nothing more than Roman collaborators.

In Jerusalem, Revolution was in the air. Zealots - activists who desperately wanted to see the government overthrown and the Temple reformed, often took to the streets, organizing violent revolts. Revolts that almost always resulted in crucifixion for the leaders of the uprisings.

The city is a tinderbox, ready to blow up with any spark. Hundreds of thousands of people have crammed the streets. Many are there to celebrate the Passover, but many are also looking for something more. Something cataclysmic.

Jesus knew exactly what he was doing when he paraded into this politically and emotionally charged city on Palm Sunday. His grand entrance was more like an acted-out parable than a processional. It dramatized his mission. And it pointed the way for his disciples to follow.

He made careful plans. He gave his disciples specific directions: "Go into the village ahead of you," he told them, "and as you enter it you will find tied there a donkey colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it.'"

Yes, Jesus deliberately entered the city of Jerusalem, where confrontation with religious authorities and almost certain death awaited him, and he did it on the back of young donkey.

And thus begins what we call Holy Week, the most important week in Christian history.

By Good Friday, Jesus' disciples will have argued among themselves about who was the greatest, Judas will have betrayed him, Peter will have denied knowing him, all his disciples will have fled (except for the women, interestingly enough), and the Roman government will have employed the most brutal means at its disposal to crush what it believed to be an insurgent movement - including interrogation, torture, mockery, humiliation, and, finally, a sadistic execution.

And Jesus knew it was coming.

Think about it. Jesus didn't ride on a donkey into Jerusalem because he was too tired to walk or because he wanted a good view of the crowds. He rode on a donkey because he wanted to call attention to himself, and he rode a donkey so that everyone who saw him would know that he wanted to confront the powers that ruled this once Holy city. Jesus wanted no part of the domination system that Jerusalem symbolized - rule by the few and economic exploitation by those that "have" over those that "have not."

He wanted to confront that system and he wanted people to follow him as he did so.

Jesus and his disciples walked everywhere. He could easily have walked into Jerusalem. Riding a donkey, though, is the perfect choice. It's a perfect choice because it puts the authorities on notice. Here I am, Jesus is saying. You can't ignore me even if you want to. My disciples know I'm heading for Jerusalem. The crowd knows I'm heading for Jerusalem. Even the rocks and stones know it, Luke poetically writes.

And riding a donkey is also the perfect choice because at the same time that it shouts, "Here I am," it also lets the powers that be know that his was a processional of peasants - and that he was a different kind of King. An alternative to the status quo.

So this morning, on this Palm Sunday, If we want to be followers of Jesus, we too must follow him to Jerusalem.

But what did it mean to follow Jesus into Jerusalem? Or better still, what does it mean for us, today, to follow him on that path?

After Jesus death and resurrection, following him to Jerusalem often meant being persecuted for "subverting the nation." Paul, for example, was stripped, beaten, flogged, and imprisoned for what Luke later describes as "disturbing the city by advocating customs unlawful for Romans to accept or practice." (Acts 16: 20-21)

And Paul was by no means alone. Stephen was thrown out of Jerusalem and stoned to death. James, the son of Zebedee and the elder brother of John, was killed when Herod Agrippa arrived as governor of Judea. Philip, a disciple from Bethsaida, was scourged, thrown into prison, and afterwards crucified. Matthew, the tax collector from Nazareth and the author of the Gospel that bears his name, was preaching in Ethiopia when he suffered martyrdom by the sword. James, the brother of Jesus, who administered the early church in Jerusalem, was beaten and stoned, and finally had his brains bashed out with a fuller's club. Matthias, the apostle who filled the vacant place of Judas, was stoned at Jerusalem and then beheaded.

The list goes on and on.

As one scholar puts it, though, it's not martyrdom that is required if we want to follow Jesus into Jerusalem. It's faith. Risky faith. Faith that dares to risk a life of love and service and openness to God. Faith that risks failure, that acknowledges and remembers that we are mortal and that our triumphant entries may end in disaster; faith that knows that God is with us not only on the Palm Sundays when the crowd shouts Hosanna, but also in the gloom and despair of the Good Fridays, when our task is to find the courage to accept failure, surrender our self, give up our ego and relinquish our desire for worldly success. *

The first commandment, Jesus taught, is to love God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. The commandment is not to succeed; it is to love.

So our task is to live in faith, to be willing to go when and where we are needed, to be willing to risk the loss of our comfort, our egos and our lives at least as we know them. Our task is to be willing to fail in love.

Thanks be to God for the faithfulness of those who, over the centuries, have followed Jesus to Jerusalem by living the risk of faith. And thanks be to God for the grace that blesses us from their witness.

                                                                             AMEN

* From a sermon preached by Christopher L. Walton

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