Luke 19: 28-40

Journey to Jerusalem

Sunday March 28, 2010

Rev. Susan Cartmell

The Congregational Church of Needham

During March our theme is spiritual journeys. It is an apt topic in our church because modern people are on the move.  We travel for work, for fun, and for education and for service. But the topic of spiritual journey is particularly relevant to me personally today because I have just returned from a trip to the Holy Land with six people from our church.  Our journey to Israel took us to sites that were significant in Jesus' life- starting in Bethlehem and ending in Jerusalem. So we have just returned from a trip which has been full of cultural, historical and spiritual insights.

The theme of spiritual journey is also a good one for Palm Sunday - the day when we remember Jesus' journey into the city of Jerusalem. On this day Christ descended from the Mount of Olives and approached the city riding on a colt and the crowd saw him and responded with enthusiasm. They tore the palms from the trees and screamed hosanna. They threw their cloaks on the road and greeted him like a royal guest. These people who had witnessed his healings and marveled at his sermons were thrilled by the strength of Christ's presence. They loved the fearless way he stood up to the Romans hegemony and the Pharisees hypocrisy. So when he came into the capital riding in procession on a colt, the people responded to his charisma with singing and excitement. His journey that day has a lot to tell us about our own lives and how we live them.

In the first place, we are all on a spiritual journey of one kind or another. I have a card on the door of my office that asks the question - Do you know where you are on your spiritual journey? It is a postcard I picked up and saved because I liked its message. It assumes that everyone is on a spiritual path in life. I put it on my door because it reminds us to question. Did you realize you were on a spiritual journey? Have you thought about your progress? Do you know where you are headed? Do you know where you have been? Are you lost? Do you sense that you are walking with God?

The bible is like a travel's guide to the Middle East. All the important characters in the Old Testament and the new are going places. Those trips become metaphors for the journey that is life. The bible tells us that everyone who is fully alive is on the move. Everyone who is growing in faith is also traveling somewhere. Journeys are the sign of change and growth. Adam and Eve outgrow the garden and start a journey together. God calls Abraham, and he begins a trip to find some better land that God has promised. The Hebrews escape from Egypt and prefer to take a long convoluted trek through the Sinai wilderness to being stuck as slaves. Ruth leaves her people. Mary walks up to visit Elizabeth. Paul travels the Roman roads searching for Christian converts. And Jesus is rarely still.  Once he begins his ministry the man is on the move. He travels to various villages to talk about faith. When he calls his disciples - to a person, they leave their home and business and embark on a journey.

The bible tells us that life is a journey. Wise people recognize that we have choices about the paths we take. Faithful people pray about this journey. Thoughtful people stop to consider their options. The temptation in today's world is to get going so fast that you forget or neglect an opportunity for a course correction.  Then we tell ourselves we are victims of our pace in life. We think of ourselves are flotsam in the stream of life. We go along where the currents push us, assuming we have no control over the course we take. Sometimes indeed we do feel helpless. We feel manipulated. We feel pressured by forces we feel powerless to contend with. Sometimes we even imagine ourselves like pawns in someone else's chess game. 

But Jesus never acted like pawn. Even as a Jew in Roman-occupied Israel he believed he had lots of choices. He saw himself as a player in the game of life- never a pawn. One reason people come to worship each week is to be reminded that life is a spiritual journey - which only they can control. We come together to worship to sit in the silence of this sanctuary and to consider our path. We are all on a spiritual journey; only some of us see it.

In the second place, Jesus says slow down.  He comes quietly into the city this Palm Sunday. He comes thoughtfully. No matter how frenzied or excited the crowds became, he stayed centered, focused on his mission. He was not distracted or swept up in the anxiety of the moment or the furor of the throngs. This image of Jesus riding on a donkey is a good reminder to us. 

So often the crowds of people around us are frantic. We feel their ambition, their competition, and their anxiety. We get churned up too. This is true wherever you go. We learned it in the Holy Land. We met many groups of pilgrims from Europe and Asia and the United States. As we cued up for different sites, it might have been tempting to grow competitive. We discovered that the delays were often more meaningful than times when we strictly followed our agenda. One day we waited for 40 minutes while Armenian monks chanted a daily prayer service. We sat on the steps and watched. When they finished singing, the head priest personally washed the altar. To see his devotion was a site none of us will forget. It slowed us down, for sure, but it changed our day. For most of us waiting for these devout men became a highlight of the trip.  Slow down.

Finally, the travel time is just as important  as your destination.  Now, I want to explain what I think we really happening on Palm Sunday. When Jesus came to Jerusalem, many scholars now believe he was staging a political protest. 2000 years ago Jerusalem was volatile at the Passover celebration. Jewish pilgrims were converging on the city. They all hated the Romans and the fact that the seat of their faith was occupied by foreigners. So as the city filled to capacity and people celebrated their freedom from slavery in Egypt Jerusalem fairly seethed with indignation. Romans were nervous because at Passover Jerusalem was like this tinder box, just waiting for someone to light an insurrection. The soldiers were jumpy because they feared an armed rebellion at Passover.

So the Roman rulers had a big presence for the holiday and arrived in the city in a big procession parading ranks of soldiers into the city in an effort to discourage rebellion and to assert their dominance. Every year Pilot would enter the city on a stallion with a full military escort of soldiers armed to the teeth. He made a spectacle of his arrival riding through the gates on a prancing stallion at the head of a full dress imperial parade. The people watched the spectacle in silent resentment. While that was going on at the western gate,  another procession was unfolding at the eastern gate. Jesus  came down from the Mount of Olives, mocking Pilot by riding in solitude low to the ground on a humble beast of burden - a donkey.  The crowds understood Christ's brilliant ridicule. They enjoyed the fact that he was making a political commentary with his street theatre that day. So they went nuts.

Both Pilot and Jesus entered Jerusalem. Both had the same destination. But the path that led them there was quite different, right down to the way that they entered the city. It is a truth we all recognize, but perhaps this story provides one of the starkest examples of this phenomenon.  Your trip may be much more important than your destination.  

Jesus used his travel time to do his work. He did so many healings along the road, stopping in the middle of a trip.  He talked about faith with the disciples as they walk. He stilled the storm on the way across the sea. He appeared to his followers on the road to Emmaus. The travel time was more significant than their destination.

It is true for us, too. But it is easy to forget. When you drive your family places you are focused on arriving on time. So it is easy to overlook the opportunity you have to make an impact while you are en route.  You have a captive audience. It is wonderful time to talk, to sing, to laugh, to tell stories about your childhood, to remind them of things you hope that they will remember. What most children remember for the rest of their lives - is not where you took them, but how you were with them along the way.

On our journey to Israel we had the benefit of faculty guide. He was a scholar of archeology as well as Bible. So he had the ability to make the sites comes to life. But even in a place where the very stones seemed to cry out with centuries of meaning, we realized that our conversations in the bus and the different people we met at the sites shaped our experience. This was very clear at the Church of the Nativity. When we arrived there was a big line to see the cave under the altar, where people think Jesus was born. It would have been like a barn where the animals were. The site was about to close but we felt sure we would make it. But after a 20 minute wait a big group of Russian pilgrims grew anxious behind us and they started to move around us. Nothing we said or did would stop them. Before long it was clear that we were not going to get in. The irony of people storming such a place to view the birthplace of the prince of peace was not lost on us but we decided to return early in the morning on another day. Several days later we returned before nine o'clock to get in before the crowds. When we approached the cave, we met a Czech group there who had been waiting over an hour. By rights they should have gone first, but when they saw how small our group was and that Mary had a cane, they stepped back and gave us the first place. When we went in, they stood around us as we sang "O Come All Ye Faithful". As we finished, their many voices took up a Czech hymn.  And we stood there in wonder, surrounded by the singing listening to music that meant more to us than lots of words we understand completely.