Stephen Palmer
Second Presbyterian Church
Sermons: March 16, 2008; Palm/Passion Sunday

"March Madness"

March weather can break your heart or give you unexpected surprises – both frightful and awesome. It can make you say WOW! with delight or scare you into heart-stopping terror – with frightening ice storms or sudden violent tornadoes that wreck isolated havoc in less time than it takes to shoot a pair of free throws at the end of a very intense basketball game. March can be as gentle as a lamb, lovely as picture postcard prepared by the local Chamber of Commerce or the ugly madness of your worst nightmare. Weather during the third month of the year is March madness with hot and cold jet streams colliding with un-predicable results from day to day and hour to hour.

Throughout much of America – especially in places like Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois – where high school and college basketball consumes an unwarranted amount of time from children and otherwise reasonable adults, lots of folks call this time of the year "March Madness," because the outcome of the basketball season is as unpredictable as the weather. It also a time of intense, irrational emotions – so "March madness" lets all of us off the hook. Many folks who remember their exposure to Shakespeare, and his play "JULIUS CESAR," quote the line: "Beware the Ides of March" in a variety of situations. The Ides of March, of course, refers to March 15, 44 BCE when Caesar was assassinated by "his friends" who had become his enemies. Today, the term "Beware of the Ides of March" suggests that some kind of impending doom is on the way. Among other things, I associate the ‘ides of March" and "March madness" with getting all those personal and business tax reports gathered up so the required tax returns completed accurately and on time. The "Ides of March" reminds me that April 15^th is only a month away. And a very short month at that. After all, accountants and tax preparers can’t start their work until the first round of gathering has been done. And for most of the last 30 years from my office on the 8^th floor of the Security Trust Building, I have watched a great parade of people I know from this church and elsewhere, myself included, loaded down with papers heading down the hall toward the offices of my friends – the accountants, who have their own horror stories of March madness and the Ides of March.

And if things were not confusing enough in mid March most years, this year, with the earliest season of Lent since 1913, St. Patrick’s Day – March 17th – the day that marks the death of the Brit kidnapped into Ireland as a teenager – falls on the Monday of Holy Week. Somehow, I just can’t see good Irish Catholics or good Celtic Presbyterians drinking Green Beer on Monday of Holy Week. This circumstance is something that has not happened before during in my lifetime – although it occurred the month before I was born in 1940 – and will not happen again until the year 2060. St. Patrick’s Day in Holy Week? It’s March Madness. But then again Holy Week is its own special kind of March Madness.

Passion or Holy Week begins today; with Palm or Passion Sunday and goes through Resurrection Sunday or Easter Sunday. "The Passion" is the technical term for the suffering, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus, especially the events of the last week of his ministry as recorded in the Gospels. Because the resurrection is an inseparable part of that event, it is often embraced in the comprehensive use of the term. The four Passion narratives^[i] contain both similarities and differences.

Take something as simple as Jesus’ entry into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey. Only John refers to Palm branches specifically; Mark and Matthew talk about spreading leafy branches, but don’t say of what. Luke is silent about any kind of branches. Mark, Luke and John agree that Jesus enters Jerusalem on Sunday on a donkey. In Matthew, Jesus enters Jerusalem on Monday, not Sunday; and on two animals, not one. Yes, you heard me correctly. Verse 7 says the disciples brought him "the donkey AND the colt." That’s two animals. Most Kentuckians know that a colt is a male foal of a horse or a donkey. Verse 7 goes on to say that the disciples "put their cloaks on THEM (the donkey and the colt), and he (Jesus) sat on THEM" (the donkey and the colt). Talk about March madness! Not even Jesus, full of grace, could ride a donkey and a colt together gracefully, especially side-saddle. What kind of non-palm Monday text is this anyway?

Truth be told, Matthew’s scholarship may have gotten him into trouble when he quotes the poetic prophecy of Zechariah 9:9. There was only one animal. But palms, the day of the week and the number of donkeys are minor details to Matthew’s story.

Over the past 40 years "Jesus Triumphal Entry Into Jerusalem" has been re-interpreted by contemporary culture and somewhat distorted in my humble opinion from what the Gospel writers are really saying. Somehow the emphasis has shifted to a large festive event with joyful shouting and laughter, like a Christmas parade with palms, or a kind of "practice run" to encourage stiff Presbyterians to prepare for the Easter joy which lies ahead. And there is nothing wrong with some fun. I am not trying to rain on anyone’s parade. But, there is a lot more to the story here!

We loose a great deal by calling it Palm Sunday alone. It is also Passion Sunday – and we need to celebrate both sides of this important and complex day. A good place to begin is to ask what kind of a parade are we witnessing and in what kind of parade are we invited to participate. Yes, it is a joyful parade welcoming the King of Peace to town. And we do that quite well, even gloriously. However, over the years we have forgotten it is also a sad celebration parade preceding "The Passion." If we stay with the crowd, we can have a really good time, waving and shouting. But if we focus on Jesus, we see this really is Passion Sunday, when the humble and meek Jesus enters the city knowing he is not having a nice day, and it is only going to get worse when he has to throw the money changers out of the temple later in the day in Matthew. And it doesn’t get better by Friday. Friends, the parade we are witnessing and participating in also is a funeral procession! The problem with this day, and our thoughts about Jesus at this time of year, is we are overwhelmed and confused a lot of time. Life comes at us fast; and death is in the air. We want to have fun and join the party – and yet people we love, who don’t deserve to die, do die and will die, for the wrong reasons.

In our second reading, Jesus tells his friends that the Passover is coming in a couple of days – and this year, he will be he sacrificial lamb who will be crucified. Matthew reminds us of the plot to kill Jesus, followed by "the anointing at Bethany." It is one of four somewhat similar anointing stories in the Gospels – each with different message. Matthew follows Mark’s storyline of an unnamed woman in the house of Simon the leper who anoints THE HEAD in preparation of Jesus’ burial. At the end of the story Jesus says "Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her." She was – symbolically pre-embalming Jesus if you will – with the perfumed oils of kindness, tenderness and compassion. Jesus commands us to remember this act by her – this un-named woman. We remember her act every time we re-tell this story, or when we sing "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded." Did you know the original Latin poem on which this hymn is based is attributed to the 12^th century French monk Bernard of Clairvaux or one of his followers? The original poem contained seven parts, each designated to be sung on a different day of the week addressing a different part of Christ’s body: feet, knees, hands, sides, breast, heart and head. In his own time, Bernard brought to religious life a mystic faith and an emotional intensity that enabled him to lead kings, emperors, popes as well as large crowds of ordinary folks to Christ.

Are we called upon to remember and to re-enact this pre-embalming ceremony in the church each year in song or drama? That would be mis-directed madness, in March or any other time of the year, in my opinion. Far better would be to let the passion of Jesus inspire us to develop a year-round passion for the possible, so that we could change the world for good and for God. Let me explain.

It may surprise you, as it did me recently, to learn that "passion" comes from the same Latin word we translate as "passive," which means to be acted upon by an external agency; submissive to verbal, physical and psychological punishment and harm. On Passion Sunday Jesus rode into Jerusalem not as a jubilant, victorious man-of-war on a white stallion, but as a conspicuously meek man of peace riding into town on a borrowed animal in what could be called an "enacted parable" of the new king making his way to center stage.

In Matthew 26^th where Jesus again predicts his own death, we get a new picture of Jesus. We have gone from the conspicuously meek man of peace – to a quiet, strong-willed, non-violent passivist whose attitude, behavior and way of life proclaims that God’s plan of salvation for humanity will prevail over all challengers. This holy passivist has become not the one acted upon, but rather the one who inaugurates the events which will follow, which he will not only endure, but of which he is also in some sense the master. His announcement "You Know (... that the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified)" is not a causal comment or surplus language as it is often in our day, but a signal that Matthew believes the Disciples understood what was happening to Jesus as it was happening, unlike Mark. Matthew does not think the disciples were clueless about the crucifixion until after the resurrection. With this passion prediction, Matthew lets US know that it is God, not the chief priests and the elders, who are making history here. And we should know it too. We know what is ahead. And it is wonderful madness . . . because we know who wins.

Two poetic hymns shape and inspire the conflicting emotions of this day and this week to come for me. And I invite you to think about them. Both are on the cover of the bulletin. The first is the image of Jesus entering Jerusalem and our lives with "lowly pomp." Our Jesus comes in regal humility, as we sing:

Ride on! Ride on in majesty!
      In lowly pomp ride on to die;
Bow Thy meek head to mortal pain,
      Then take, O God, Thy power, and reign.

Even more powerful is the last line of the next hymn in our hymnal. The second verse is:

Beneath the cross of Jesus Mine eye at times can see
      the very dying form of One Who suffered there for me;
And from my stricken heart with tears Two wonders I confess:
      The wonders of redeeming love And my unworthiness.

This is the amazing passion of Jesus which anoints us this day. He prepares us not for death, but for life! If we listen, and listen closely, to that quiet, hidden voice of conscience in each of us, we will learn that the only true source of renewal in life is love. Especially redeeming love. We are to use that love to renew ourselves, our communities and our world with "lowly pomp."

From our readings today, I would invite all of us to move from waving palms with joy and shouting to a deeper sense of the happy holiness that lies ahead. During Holy Week our religious emotions and spiritual attitudes will be as sudden, surprising and as unpredictable as the weather and the winners in the various basketball brackets. At times it will seem to be more difficult than finding all the records we need to do our taxes. It will be March madness. But remember this: Jesus does not call us to understand the details of his biography or the complexities of someone else’s theology – but rather "to follow him" as simply and as honestly as we can with a passion for a life worth living. We are not called as Christians to seek "the good life," but to seek the life that is good.

In the name of Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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^[i] They can be found in Mark 11-16; Matthew 21-28; Luke 19-24 and John 12-21. Mark is the oldest gospel and Matthew and Luke borrow the basics of "The Passion" from Mark, but add their own order, details and emphasis to Mark. John, which was written last, is the most independent of the bunch.