Occasional Sermons

Today is Palm Sunday, so called because when Jesus entered Jerusalem for the first (and the last) time, crowds lined the streets and waved palms in celebration. But “Palm Sunday” is not at all descriptive of the underlying reality of the event. It’s just some arbitrary free association with the event, by dint of the fact that there were palms there. In that vein, it could just as well be called Donkey Sunday or Cloaks Sunday. There was a donkey there, and there were cloaks. If the event were named properly - if it were named for its underlying reality - it would be called, “A Case of Mistaken Identity.” It would be so called because crowds lined the streets and waved palms in celebration because they thought they were honoring a Davidic King who had come to recreate a Davidic Kingdom. It was a simple and obvious and clear-cut case of mistaken identity. Of course, Jesus was not to blame for it. He made it perfectly clear from the get-go that he was not a Davidic King who had come to recreate a Davidic Kingdom. Think back to the words that inaugurated his ministry: “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God has come near…’” The Kingdom of God, not the Kingdom of David. And as Jesus, early in his ministry, began to teach, his teaching focused exclusively upon the Kingdom of God: “The Kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground…and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how…” Or, “The Kingdom of God …is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds; yet…becomes the greatest of all shrubs…” Or, “The Kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” Or, “The Kingdom of God is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” The Kingdom of God, not the Kingdom of David. And later in Jesus’ ministry, in his various exchanges, all of his references pointed to the Kingdom of God: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” Or, “It is better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell.” Or, “Let the dead bury the dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.” The Kingdom of God, not the Kingdom of David. Yes, Jesus made it perfectly clear from the get-go that he was not a Davidic King who had come to recreate a Davidic Kingdom. And furthermore, wouldn’t you think that if Jesus had uttered not one word about the Kingdom of David, and so many about the Kingdom of God; and if the Kingdom of God seemed totally incongruent with the Kingdom of David, that someone might have sought clarification on the matter? “Hey Jesus, what’s this Kingdom of God you’re on about?” ‘Hey Jesus, this Kingdom of God isn’t adding up.” “Hey, Jesus, what am I missing, here?” This is especially true of his disciples. They were with him day by day -- moment by moment, even. Again, wouldn’t you think if his disciples had heard not one word about the Kingdom of David and so many about the Kingdom of God, and if the Kingdom of God seemed utterly incongruent with the Kingdom of David that they might have sought clarification on the matter? But not only did they not seek clarification on the matter, they willfully ignored Jesus on the matter again and again and again. Recall our lectionary text from last week. It was immediately prior to Palm Sunday. Jesus took his disciples aside. He wanted to make crystal clear to them that he was not a Davidic King who had come to recreate a Davidic Kingdom, so he said to them: ”See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified...” This indeed makes it crystal clear. How could Jesus be a David King come to recreate a Davidic Kingdom if here were dead? And the upshot of this impartation to his disciples? Immediately after Palm Sunday, at which crowds, the disciples front and center, honored Jesus as a Davidic King who had come to recreate a Davidic Kingdom, James and John approached Jesus privately. Since they assumed that he was a Davidic King come to recreate a Davidic Kingdom, they wanted to get their bid in first. “Teacher,” they said, “We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you,” they requested craftily. “What is it you want me to do for you?” Jesus replied. “Grant us to sit one at your right side, one at your left when you come into your glory.” They were seeking for themselves positions of preeminence in the Davidic Kingdom they thought Jesus had come to recreate. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” Jesus responded. The bottom line: Palm Sunday should have been called “A Case of Mistaken Identity.” It should have been so called because it is the example par excellence that everyone, and I mean everyone, mistook Jesus’ identity. Everyone, and I mean everyone, thought he was a Davidic King who had come to recreate a Davidic Kingdom. And how must Jesus have felt on Palm Sunday as the crowds lined the streets to honor a Davidic King who had come to recreate a Davidic Kingdom? How must Jesus have felt about this case of mistaken identity? He must have felt frustration. He must have felt consternation. He must have felt futility. He must have felt defeat – for these are some of the by-products of having felt misunderstood. This is easy enough for us to imagine. We only need to imagine how someone would feel today if their identity was mistaken. Imagine the case of a parent and a child. A child, say a son, is shy, introspective, socially awkward – the kind of child who marches to the beat of a different drummer, the kind of child destined to be a late bloomer. But a parent mistakes his identity. A parent mistakes him for an alpha-male – an athlete and a straight “A” student, who will be a towering success when he grows up. How does it make the child feel? He’s lucky if he is sufficiently conscious to feel merely misunderstood. Likely he won’t put the pieces together for years, for now he just feels like he can’t measure up; he feels the pressure, and he feels inadequate and unhappy. Or imagine the case of a marriage. A young couple settles into married life – like most young couples -- filled with vague hopes and dreams, not knowing, really what lay ahead. But the wife mistakes her husband’s identity. She mistakes him for her father, whom she’s idolized and enshrined all her life. Dynamics set in that are strange to him - like an agenda is being imposed upon him, like there are blind or undisclosed expectations that he is supposed to conform to. How does that make him feel? He feels misunderstood. Yes, we can imagine from our own experience how someone would feel, and so how Jesus felt when his identity was mistaken. It’s an obvious point, really. He felt misunderstood, and, another obvious point - misunderstanding undermines relationship, destroys it even, in time, as it did in Jesus’ case, as he hung from his cross. And so, what a wasteful travesty; what a wasteful tragedy, when we repeat this error in our day, when we mistake anyone’s identity, much less the identity of Jesus. Jesus was not a Davidic King who came to recreate a Davidic kingdom or a worldly kingdom of any kind. Jesus came to found a whole new kind of kingdom, the Kingdom of God - the kingdom that calls God’s people to the transformation of worldly kingdoms through justice, through peace, and through love. Maybe it’s true that we all see just what we want to see. May it be our prayer this Palm Sunday, then, that what we want to see is the Kingdom of God, founded by his son and our savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.