Palm Sunday
Jesus embodies God’s love and compassion. Through his ministry, he reminds us that God is both a God of love and justice.
Jesus’s ministry extends beyond love and compassion for the oppressed and marginalized.
Jesus also acts on that love in the form of what we now call non-violent protest. He preaches on injustice, feeds the poor, heals the sick, and parades into the city in non-violent dissent. Jesus enacts God’s justice while reminding us of God’s everlasting love.
To really see what Jesus is doing as he parades into Jerusalem, we first must understand the custom of a Roman Triumph. This spectacular celebration parade was held in ancient times for a military commander who had won a significant victory on the battlefield. It was a lavish and entertaining propaganda spectacle that reminded the people of the glory of Rome and its military superiority above all other nations. 1 This type of parade had to be approved by the rulers and was reserved for military commanders.
Given this context, Jesus’s triumphal entry takes on a different cast. It was not approved. He is not a military commander, though some wish he would be. He rides a young colt or donkey, which is almost comical. And instead of lavish robes, he sits on the cloaks of his followers.
It might be said that Jesus is mocking the Romans. At the very least, it’s impossible to ignore that this parade is a protest against the Romans. In his final days, Jesus continues to model non-violent dissent against the oppressive forces of Rome, even knowing that he will be rejected.
This is the tension that begins on Palm Sunday with two very different Gospel readings. Even though Jesus knows he will be betrayed, denied, and rejected by all, he continues to model walking in the way of love.
We like to lean into God’s love and compassion, but we are also called to lean into God’s
justice. To find our way in the world to walk in the way of love for our neighbors in need.
Though we are rarely called to martyrdom, we cannot ignore the message of the Scriptures.
God emphasizes over and over that our covenant demands that we love God and love one another. The Torah reminds us to welcome the stranger and care for the orphaned and the widows. The Prophets call for justice for the oppressed, lambasting the kings who enrich themselves at the cost of the poor. And Jesus repeatedly welcomes the outcast, cares for the poor, and challenges the unjust ruling class.
However, in daily life, we often find ourselves in a place of tension when considering how to live according to God’s mission of love, mercy, and justice in our community. Despite our personal convictions, we may feel hesitant to speak out because it damages our personal relationships. We may fear judgment from peers or family if we buck the trend. We sometimes keep silent to keep the peace.
We may struggle because we don’t understand how to speak out, or we may struggle to
understand why something is racist, sexist, or otherwise biased. We may avoid this work
because the discomfort and potential heartbreak are too much to contemplate.
Last week, we talked about allowing our hearts to break when we’re hurting, knowing that God is always present for us and that God’s covenant of love is written on our hearts, waiting to fall into our hearts.
There is another way that our hearts can break, and that is for our neighbor. When we seek to find Christ in everyone we meet, we learn that through new relationships, we can also find our voice for justice. When we know their stories, we find that the only way we can love our neighbor is by walking in the way of love and justice.
I’m reminded of the journey of an old coworker and good friend of mine. David and I worked together before I moved to a different company, but after becoming good friends, we stayed in touch.
David worked in a high-pressure IT department. There was a constant stream of projects, and he and his team were required to keep certain systems running 24/7 to meet the organization’s requirements. After he joined the organization, he developed a lot of respect for his co-worker Michelle. They worked well together to meet deadlines and shared common values around the need to treat their team members with respect.
However, David noticed that Michelle was often sidelined in meetings and overlooked. He
began to make a point of supporting her intentionally in meetings and pulling her into meetings she had been left out of. He was very deliberate about not stepping in for Michelle, but trying to find ways of supporting her voice and work when she was sidelined.
We might call this “woke” behavior today, but David would have shunned that word. See, David is a white male of a certain age and considers himself “conservative.” As a result of seeing so much contempt for people like him on the internet, he had strong aversions to the liberal jargon used to label and censure “conservative, white males.”
Ultimately, David came to his own truth. As he planned to make a job transition, he noticed that Michelle was being overlooked for a potential promotion even though she was more capable and qualified than other candidates. He shared one day that it occurred to him that she had only made it this far in the organization because of affirmative action. But even with affirmative action, she would not be fully recognized for her potential without support.
See, Michelle, was also black. But it never occurred to David to name this, because he didn’t
consider himself racist, and he couldn’t see the systemic racism until it directly affected his
friend.
This was a big turning point for David. He had previously struggled with affirmative action
because, growing up, he was exposed to a different truth about it. David’s father was a civil
servant in a large city. Growing up, he witnessed over and over as his father was overlooked for promotion because of the efforts of affirmative action in the 70s and 80s. Adding salt to the wound, David’s father was asked to work as the “acting manager” to compensate for ineffective leaders but was never given the title or pay commensurate with his work. Granted, during this time, organizations were attempting to address racial inequality with radical corrections, but for David’s family, this meant that good people, like his father, were never given a chance because they were white.
David, however, found a new voice after witnessing his friend Michelle's experience. When he allowed his heart to break open, he found that God’s love and compassion were expansive enough to hold both of his truths. Ultimately, he found healing for his father’s experience, even as he found a voice for justice.
We each must travel our own journey to find our truths, and Jesus’s journey reminds us that we must be willing to stay with the tension of discomfort and uncertainty. But we all have the opportunity to live into our covenant to love our neighbor, whether that’s by paying attention to how the Holy Spirit whispers into our hearts or by holding space where folks of differing opinions are offered a sacred place to find their way. When we respect the dignity of every human being, we follow Jesus, walking in the way of love and justice.
As we journey through Holy Week, I invite you to enter into the story, considering how Jesus
models non-violent dissent and radical love for those who reject him, betray him, and deny him. How does this speak to our own lives, calling us deeper into our covenant to love God and love each other as Jesus has loved us?
1 https://www.worldhistory.org/Roman_Triumph/
