"The Politics of Jesus"

Written by Ed Kauffman

“The Politics of Jesus”

Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011

Ed Kauffman

I want to begin this morning with a quote that was among my reading for this past week.  It comes from Dorothy Sayers, 20th century English novelist, best known perhaps for her mystery novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.  However, she also wrote other things, and in a collection of writing called A Matter of Eternity ((1947) she writes this:

“The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused him of being a bore – on the contrary; they thought him too dynamic to be safe.  It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium.  We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him ‘meek and mild’ and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.  To  those who knew him, however, he in no way suggested a milk-and-water person; they objected to him as a dangerous firebrand.  True, he was tender to the unfortunate, patient with honest inquirers, and humble before heaven; but he insulted respectable clergymen by calling them hypocrites; he referred to King Herod as ‘that fox’; he went to parties in disreputable company and was looked upon as a ‘gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners’; he assaulted indignant tradesmen and threw them and their belongings out of the Temple; he drove a coach-and-horses through a number of sacrosanct and hoary regulations; he cured diseases by any means that came handy, with a shocking casualness in the matter of other people’s pigs and property; he showed no proper deference for wealth or social position; when confronted with neat dialectical traps, he displayed a paradoxical humour that affronted serious-minded people, and he retorted by asking disagreeably searching questions that could not be answered by rule of thumb.  He was emphatically not a dull man in his human lifetime, and if he was God, there can be nothing dull about God either.  But he had ‘a daily beauty in his life that made us ugly,’ and officialdom felt that the established order of things would be more secure without him.  So they did away with God in the name of peace and quietness.”

       (from A Lent Sourcebook: The Forty Days  Book 2, Liturgy Training Publications)

Let’s face it; Jesus was not a very good politician!  Despite the crowds that greeted him as he entered into Jerusalem, and despite the fact that he could truly claim to be a political outsider, it is highly unlikely that he could have been elected.  And yet, here were people gathering and shouting, “Hosanna!”  which literally means, “Save us!” 

If we follow the chronology of the Gospel of John, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem comes shortly after the raising of Lazarus, which happened just outside Jerusalem.  John reports that many people believed in Jesus because of that event.  But what did they believe?  What were they looking for?  Let me suggest some things.

For one thing, they may have been remembering stories or experiences of others who had ridden into Jerusalem.  In 332 BC, three centuries earlier, Alexander the Great had entered Jerusalem, riding on his famous black stallion Bucephalus, having recently conquered Tyre and Gaza and now riding into Jerusalem without a fight:  the conquering hero.

John Crossan, Catholic Theologian and NT scholar, also suggests that Pilate probably made a yearly entry into Jerusalem, complete with war horse, chariot and weapons, sometime prior to Passover to remind all the Jews gathered there who was really in charge.  In fact one commentator suggested this may have been happening on the other side of the city at the same time.

And, in their Passover celebration each year, the Jews recalled in their Seder meal a ritual repeated through the centuries – many will repeat it tomorrow evening as they begin Passover.  In that meal they recall their slavery in Egypt, and the deliverance at God’s hand.  They recall the bitterness of slavery, and finally the promise of a coming Messiah.  And the final words of the Seder liturgy, repeated each year, are, “Next year in Jerusalem!”  For when Messiah comes, then the oppressors will be overthrown as the Egyptians were, Jerusalem will be restored as God’s city, and God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Is it any wonder that the people who had just seen Lazarus raised, who had heard of Jesus’ miracles and pronouncements thought just maybe this was it – this was the fulfillment of those hopes?  Maybe this year it really was going to happen in Jerusalem.  “Save us,” they cried.  Throw off the dreaded Romans, proclaim yourself King and we will rally around you. 

But Jesus wasn’t a very good politician.  Evidently he didn’t have great advance teams or know much about staging an event.  I learned something about those things back in my University days when a political information organization I headed on campus hosted then mayor of New York, John Lindsey, who was considering a run for president.  Although we knew that he was running several hours behind schedule, his advance men wanted us to keep the crowd around.  We were supposed to find some girls to scream and carry-on when he arrived, and when we suggested that the crowd looked like it was larger than the room we had arranged and that maybe we should open up some dividers to make more room, they told us to wait and do that after the TV cameras arrived so that it would look make a bigger impression on the viewers. 

We did all that, and it was all very exciting, and I even appeared on the network national news that evening greeting Mayor Lindsey and escorting him into the building – or at least that’s what I was told – I didn’t see it because I was too tired and in bed already.  And quite frankly, it turned me off completely to political rallies. 

So here Jesus had a perfect platform from which to launch his campaign. He had the crowds.  He had the momentum.  He could have gone anywhere from here.  And what did he do?  Well, of all the accounts, Matthew makes it the clearest – he came fulfilling what the prophet Zechariah had proclaimed. 

“Look, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”  (Zech. 9:9)

Amazingly, you can read pages of articles commenting on Matthew’s use of this passage and whether or not Jesus rode on two animals at once – the donkey and the colt- since Matthew uses plural terms in verse 7: “they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.”  But perhaps John Crossan, whom I mentioned earlier captures the message here the best when he says:

(Matthew) wants two animals, a donkey with her little colt beside her, and that Jesus rides “them” in the sense of having them both as part of his demonstration’s highly visible symbolism. In other words, Jesus does not ride a stallion or a mare, a mule or a male donkey, and not even a female donkey. He rides the most unmilitary mount imaginable: a female nursing donkey with her little colt trotting along beside her.

Is it any wonder that the people were asking, “Who is this?”  As one on-line commentator said, “Just when you think you’ve got Jesus figured out, he says or does something else!”   And so he got everyone upset.  To the people he appeared to dash their hopes of a military overthrow, a leader after King David who would free them from their oppressors.  To the religious leaders he was a rebel who flaunted the rules, called them to account, and seemed blasphemous as well.  And to the political leaders, he seemed to be a political figure who could rally the people to his cause.  So which one was he?  Or wasn’t he any of them?

And who is he to us?  We’re currently in the middle of a political campaign – in case you hadn’t noticed.  Leaders of all the parties are promising to save us and the country from whatever seems to be the evil of the day.  And people are looking for someone to “save us.”  “Hosanna,” we shout.  “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of Pierre Trudeau, or Brian Mulroney, or McKenzie King or whomever.”  It was even interesting to find one depiction of this scene, painted in 1947 by an Australian artist, Danila Vassilieff, which seems to depict Jesus as an Uncle Sam look-alike, complete with soldiers walking along beside.

But today we proclaim a different kind of king, whose political platform looks very different from the ones we hear from politicians whether in ancient Rome or Canada today.  It’s a platform based on Philippians 2.

“Have this mind among you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”  (Phil. 2:5-8) 

This is the one who conquers, even death, by dying.  Who comes, not with swords and might, but humble, riding on a donkey, preaching peace and love of enemies.  And yes, as Dorothy Sayers noted, this is the one who was considered dangerous enough to be killed, for he posed a threat to the established order – both political and religious.  And followers of Jesus today can pose the same kind of threat. 

Those who truly follow Jesus, who have the mind of Christ portrayed in Philippians 2, are still often misunderstood on all sides.  There are those who jump on the band-wagon, until they realize that the church isn’t going to take over the government and institute religious rule, and then they go looking for the next self-proclaimed messiah. Some religious people think Christ’s followers are great as long as they talk about carefully defined “moral issues” like abortion or homosexuality, but if you start to quote Jesus about money, or feeding the poor, or creation – well, then you’re getting too political.  And politicians certainly don’t want to hear about loving your enemies or any of that other servant stuff.

And so we follow a leader unlike any other, and as someone once said, if you think it’s going to be a smooth, easy road, well, put on your crash helmets, because its going to be a rough ride.  Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a political platform that made no sense to those who gathered, even to his disciples.  The whole town seemingly asked, “Who is this?” 

“This is Jesus of Nazareth, in Galilee,” was the reply.  This is the Jesus we follow through this week, even to death, death on a cross. This is the Jesus who walks with us, even as we face misunderstandings, trials, and yes, even death.

Hymn –“ I want Jesus to walk with me”