Mark 11:1-11: Phil. 2:5-11  “A Change of Mind”

INTRODUCTION

            In New York City on a Veteran’s Day, I witnessed a parade.  A long convoy of heavy military trucks, armored tanks and columns of veterans rolled and marched down one of the main thoroughfares of New York City.  I’d never seen anything like it, except perhaps in film footage of the tanks and truck loads of the liberation force that drove into Paris at the end of World War II. The crowds cheered and waved. 

It’s Palm Sunday, a day when we remember another parade, Jesus’ triumphal entry through the west gate into Jerusalem.  The people thronged around him waving palm branches and shouting “Save us! Save us! (Hosanna). Last week I talked about change, how change, though difficult, is possible through Christ.  I’d like to continue this focus on change. The people who hailed Jesus as king wanted change.  They hoped that Jesus was the one to bring it.  But the kind of change they had in mind is not the change that Jesus brings.  And so, their shouts of hosanna became “crucify him!” by the end of the week.  The Palm Sunday parade was quickly forgotten.

TWO PARADES

As the gospel of Mark progresses, Jesus sets his sights on Jerusalem.  He tells his disciples what will happen in Jerusalem.  He plans his entry into the city. Two of the disciples are assigned donkey duty.  We have the impression that Jesus has made arrangements in advance.  He tells the disciples where to find the donkey and what to say if they are questioned as they make off with it.  We can imagine the disciples grumbling about this responsibility.  At several points we see the disciples jockeying for position.  James and John want to sit on the right and left hand of Jesus when he establishes his kingdom.  But the donkey duty disciples find themselves mucking around a stable, looking like common horse thieves, trying to lead an untamed, obstinate jackass toward the olive groves… not exactly what they had in mind.   

Bible scholars tell us there was another parade into Jerusalem that day.  From the east side of the city came the parade of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea, and Samaria.  Pilate’s parade included a column of imperial cavalry and a contingent of soldiers. With hundreds of thousands of people thronging to Jerusalem for Passover festivities, Pilate’s parade demonstrated who was in control. Jesus’ parade was a counter protest against Pilate’s parade of imperial power and imperial theology.  If these two parades were to occur today, Pilate would arrive with tanks and armored humvees while Jesus would come into the city riding a golf cart.  What a contrast, these two parades.

            At the time of Jesus entry into Jerusalem, Rome was in collusion with the Jewish leadership.  The Roman government was very clever in its dealings with lands they conquered.  Their system of domination included political rule by a few, powerful and elite members of the monarchy, nobility and aristocracy.  These folks exploited the agriculturally based majority of the population through taxation and indentured labor.  Many of the common people were in debt.   The government of Rome recruited local collaborators from among the wealthy and gave them a free hand with one condition: they collect an annual tribute for Rome.

            Originally after Rome abolished the Jewish monarchy, the high priest and temple leaders ruled.  But there were squabbles and power plays among the Jewish aristocratic families that finally lead to Rome appointing a king of the Jews, a man named Herod.  Herod was a Jewish convert.  He had a very long reign, building a huge temple in Jerusalem covering about 40 acres.  He also built a palace in Jerusalem, and this was where Pilate lived.  It was luxurious with, “columns of colored marble, glittering fountains, shaded pools, ceilings painted with gold and vermillion, chairs of silver and gold inlaid with jewels and mosaic floors with agate and lapis...” [1]  In contrast Jesus camped out with his disciples and accepted hospitality wherever it was offered.  He said, “The son of man has no place to lay his head.”

TWO COLLIDING REIGNS

            The temple in Jerusalem was an important religious center for the Jewish people.  It was like Mecca to Moslems.  People would journey to Jerusalem from all over the known world to visit the temple, often a once in a lifetime experience. But the temple, during the time of Jesus had become the central economic and political institution in the country as well.  With a system of domination, Rome ruled through a few people who exploited the masses, while appearing legitimate because of its association with the religious establishment.  Jesus vehemently opposed this church/state collusion.  Jesus was not anti-Jewish; nor was he anti-government.  He was against the system of domination that oppressed the people by perverting religion.

As Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he had a pretty good idea about what was going to happen to him.  His teachings and ministry that had gathered a following among the ordinary people, the poor and the outcast, was a threat to Rome and to those among the Jews in cahoots with Rome. In going to Jerusalem, Jesus took his message right to the center of this religious, political collusion.

As he entered Jerusalem, the people who followed him shouted, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Roman imperial theology held that the emperor was the “son of God.”  Augustus, who ruled Rome from 31 BCE to 14 CE, claimed that his father was the god Apollo.  Emperor Augustus was referred to as “son of God,” “lord” and “savior.”  When he died he ascended to heaven to take his place among the gods, and his titles were handed down to subsequent emperors.[2]  So the Roman Emperor was lord, savior, and son of God.  That the followers of Jesus referred to him with these titles was not only blasphemous to the ears of temple leaders.  It was blasphemous to the Romans as well. 

Through the years we’ve tended to romanticize Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.  We sing lovely, upbeat songs about children waving palm branches.  But the Palm Sunday parade was a set up.  It was an “in-your-face” provocation that led to the rest of the week’s events.  The temple leaders who had the most to lose from Jesus’ challenge were already plotting against him.  They had to find a way to get rid of him.  Uprisings were not unfamiliar within the Roman Empire.  A violent movement’s leader and followers were crucified.  However, a nonviolent protester’s followers were usually left alone after the leader was executed.  John the Baptist is an example.  As a nonviolent leader, he was arrested, but his followers were not, and the movement he started eventually died out.

 Jesus took a different tack.  Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan describes John the Baptist as having a monopoly. Jesus, on the other hand, was a franchiser.  Jesus didn’t draw his followers into the desert, but engaged with people in their daily living.  Jesus ate with people in their homes and took boat rides with them.  Jesus healed and taught people; then commissioned his disciples to do the same.  Crossan comments that Jesus didn’t go to Jerusalem to die. He writes:

 Even though he knew his message that God owns the world and rules justly could get him killed, Jesus didn't go to Jerusalem to die. It's pathological to want to be a martyr; knowing you could be and going anyway is not the same thing. Jesus went to make a statement. Just as (Martin Luther King Jr.) went to Selma and Gandhi went to the sea, Jesus went where the action was, Jerusalem.  If you live your life for justice and the fair distribution of material goods, odds are you might die of injustice.[3]

THE MIND OF JESUS

            Mark is the earliest gospel.  Even before Mark’s gospel was penned, Paul wrote to the Christians in Philippi: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”  The mind of Christ.  Jesus, though God incarnate, humbled himself.  He entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.  He didn’t try to get power for himself.  Rather, he demonstrated through his own humility how we are to serve one another, thereby serving God.

            Paul tells Christians to “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ.”  One preacher compares the human mind to a computer.  He suggests that we have certain “default” settings.  One person may default to pessimism, another to gratitude, still another to worry.  What’s your default setting, your basic programming for approaching the world?  Are you usually skeptical?  Are you more often than not cheerful? Whatever your default setting, Paul states that Christians are to have the mind of Christ. The way he phrases it, “let the same mind be in you,” implies that change is possible, and that we can allow it to happen to us.  God can change our default settings.

            Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as changing the default settings on a computer.  Changing our default settings takes continuous effort, perhaps a lifetime of opening ourselves to God’s Spirit, of intentionally thinking and acting in Christ like ways.  Humility doesn’t come easily to most of us, and our culture sends us mixed signals about it.  On the one hand, we admire people like Jesus, Gandhi, and Mother Teresa.  On the other hand, the vast majority of us aren’t willing to make the sacrifices they made. We need constant reminders that we are to be like Jesus.   Philip II of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great, was a great king. Yet he wanted to remember to be humble. He employed two men whose sole responsibility was to address him twice each day. Their morning duty? To say: “Philip, remember that you are but a man.” And in the evening they were to ask: “Philip, have you remembered that you are but a man?”

CONCLUSION

Holy Week begins with the entry into Jerusalem. Jesus empties himself, gives up his crown, and takes on the role a servant. He gives up his position of power in order to show us self-giving. This emptying becomes the model for the Christian life. Ironically, his acts of selflessness lead to true exaltation. Jesus did not follow the path of fame, fortune, and influence that the world claims as the way to success. He chose the way of the cross, the way of shadows and sorrow, the way of significance.  Jesus could have used his heavenly power to awe the world into belief. But instead he chose to reveal the way through acts of service and kindness.

One of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott recalls a greeting card she received that said, “You can either practice being right or practice being kind.”[4]

The way of the servant is the way of kindness, the humble way of Jesus.

Amen.