Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion: Revolutionary Texts for Our Time
As we begin the octave of Holy Week, this Sunday is honestly overloaded with important texts with meaning for us today. I wish to focus on just a few things. Luke 19:29-47 helps us to see Palm Sunday in its full perspective. For if we were to continue the reading we are given, it becomes easier to see that this is no Triumphal Entry to Jerusalem the Church would like us to think it is. That is how the Church when it became The Empire of Rome some 200 years after the gospels would like us to believe. And cutting the story short supports such an interpretation.
We were left wondering why the Pharisees begged Jesus to instruct his followers to tamp down the enthusiasm. Jesus responds, “If they were not to shout out, the very stones of the city ramparts would cry out!” That is, the brutality and injustice of the Empire, and the co-option of the Temple Priesthood is already painfully obvious. To get to Jerusalem from Galilee, one would have passed any number of crucifixions along the roadside meant to instill fear into one and all not to speak out against the authoritarian state.
After this declaration, we are told that Jesus wept at the sight of the city as he descended down from the Mount of Olives with his followers cheering, and covering the roadway with the only garments they owned as all the wealth of Israel was consolidated among the few at the top of the “food chain.” Then once inside the city gates the very first thing Jesus does is to drive the merchants out of the Temple district, interrupting the Temple monopoly of the local economy. The merchants were for the most part selling unblemished animals for sacrifice to pilgrims from all over the ancient world who could not risk their own livestock becoming “unclean” for sacrifice. The money changers were a currency exchange, for monies to make offerings that did not carry the offensive image of Caesar and inscription, “Caesar is God.” They made I possible to pay the tithes and make offerings inside the Temple. Jesus attacks the heart of the Temple economy. This was a public demonstration against an unfair and unjust system of oppression.
Conclusion: riding into the city on a donkey was political satire, mocking the triumphal entries of the Emperor, should he visit his vassal state, or the first in charge, Pontious Pilate, on white steeds, with armed military guard, incense to cover the offensive odors of the peasantry, flags, and all the trappings of the Military occupation. Jesus’s entry was a demonstration, followed by further prophetic protest of the injustices of life under the Boot of Rome. Note: Luke mentions no palms or other branches, but the people’s own clothing, perhaps to symbolize the sacrifices they were making to join Jesus in replacing the Empire of Brutality with a Kingdom of God.
A few words about the Passion text itself. All four gospels describe the events of the week once Jesus was in the city. All four describe most of the same events, though some details are t adjusted – most often for the specific evangelist to make a point. What is not obvious to modern-day readers and listeners, much of the Passion stories is coded. It was dangerous to state the obvious, risking the texts to be considered subversive toward the Empire and thereby destroyed.
It is especially important to recognize that Rome, like all Empires, would divide the conquered peoples against one another. To do so, you must create “an organ of liaison,” an official link between the colonial power and the local population. Which organ of liaison must be close to the heart of the subject people. Rome chose wisely in appointing the Temple Priesthood to fill that role. The Temple was the center of Israelite life, and was believed to be the center of the universe. Co-opting the priesthood to deliver orders accomplishes two goals of dominance: first, the people had already been trained to listen to everything the priests had to say; secondly, it undercuts the authority of the leadership of the Temple Priests themselves. This tactic was evident during the Holocaust as the Nazis would appoint a Jewish prisoner in each bunkhouse as a kapo, who would deliver the orders and punishments on behalf of the camp command. The stories of these brutal kapos were revealed after the camps were liberated by allied forces. These kapos, like the Temple Priesthood, were seen as collaborators.
The story Luke tells, therefore, is coded in the sense that when the priests insist on Jesus being crucified, they do not represent Israel, they do not represent the people of the land. Their only allegiance is to Caesar’s Rome. The earliest readers and hearers of Luke’s Passion would know this. Similarly, they would know that Pilate, rather than having an ounce of reluctance about crucifying Jesus, would see the priests presenting Jesus as a threat to Rome because the people believed him to be a king as a joke. Pilate looks at Jesus and says, in effect, “This is the best you can do for a king? Some bumpkin from Galilee? You’ve got to be kidding.” He then sends Jesus to Herod so that Herod can see the joke for what it is, since Herod is also an organ of liaison in the region of Galilee, and happens to be in Jerusalem for Passover – the busiest most crowded week of the year with pilgrims from all over the ancient world. Herod plays along with Pilate’s joke and dresses Jesus in a kingly robe and sends him back to Pilate. They are toying with Jesus on one hand, which they know forces the Temple Priests to more stridently call for his execution. Both Herod and the priests know what side their bread is buttered on![i]
Make no mistake, the “they” who take Jesus out to be crucified is Rome, not the Judeans. Only Pilate, only Rome can order this execution by the state. Thus, follows the public humiliation and torture of Jesus by the foot soldiers of Pilate and Caesar. Meanwhile, Jesus is still gathering lost souls of Israel as he promises another criminal on the cross nearby that he too will join Jesus in the life to come! It is even possible that he converts the Centurion who oversees his torture who says, “Certainly this man was innocent.” It is also possible, however, that the crowds may have understood that this Roman soldier is saying in effect, “Yes this man was observant of your god’s Torah, and this is what happens to all who do likewise! For only Caesar is God!” Jesus’s friends, Luke tells us, watch all of this from afar.
Finally, we need to focus on the image of Jesus on the cross. For it is in this image that one can come to a deeper understanding of just who we are and who Jesus is. Clare of Assisi, one of the earliest people to follow St. Francis, urges us all to look at Christ on the Cross as if the crucified image is a mirror. “Gaze into this mirror every day” she writes to Agnes of Prague. “…and constantly see your own face reflected in it so that you may adorn your whole being, within and without…for in that mirror shine blessed poverty holy humility, love beyond words – by the grace of God.[ii] This is so that the image of who we are reflects what we are; when our face expresses what fills the heart; then we become the image Christ, the image of love incarnate – God’s agape love. [iii] This is who Christ calls us to be.
There is something else to see in this crucified image. Years ago, I worked with teens living in seven group homes throughout four of New York City’s boroughs. These were young people who lived in dangerous homes, no home at all, were in trouble, lonely, with no one to care for them but an agency run by the Sisters of Charity. It was my privilege to be their chaplain for two years. We had much to learn from one another. One image I carry to this day was the realization that these youngsters, and people from all walks of life throughout the whole world, often live whole lives on the cross with Jesus. Jesus who said that as you care for these the least of my sisters and brothers, you care for me. As we gaze upon Christ on the Cross may we remember those war orphans in Gaza, the families who lost loved ones in Israel, the people living and dead in Ukraine and Russia, those starving or living with rampant diseases in Africa, political prisoners in El Salvador, young people in group homes and childcare agencies around the world, and all those living under authoritarian regimes like the one which crucified our Lord.
The Passion of our Lord Jesus, the Christ, according to Luke 22:39 – 23:56.
After the reading of the Passion we pray:
“Be faithful to the one to whom you are promised until
death.
By him you will be crowned with the laurels of life.
For our labor is short, but the reward is eternal;
do not be confounded by the clamor of a world as fleeting as
shadows.
Let not the empty specters of a deceitful world torment you.
Close your eyes to the whispers of hell and strongly resist
its assaults…
With your whole being love God and Jesus his Son,
crucified for us sinners;
never let the memory of him slip from your mind;
always reflect the mystery of the cross
and the anguish of his Mother
standing firm beneath the cross.
Watch and pray always…
Let us pray to God for each other,
then in this way we will each bear the burden of the other
in love, easily fulfilling the law and love of Christ.” [iv]
Amen.
[i] Swanson,
Richard W., Provoking the Gospel of Luke (Pilgrim Press, Cleveland: 2006)
134-138
[ii] Downing,
Sr Frances Teresa, OSC, Saint Clare of Assisi Volume One: The Original Writings
(Tau Publishing, Phoenix: 2012) “Fourth Letter to Agnes of Prague,” 85-87
[iii] Delio,
Ilia, The Primacy of Love (Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2022) 49-50
[iv]
Ibid, Downing “Letter to Ermentrude of Bruges,” 101-107
