Processing

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 28, 2010: Palm Sunday

Processing 
Mark 11:1-11

We love stories.

We remember stories.

We learn from stories.

So it’s no surprise that the Bible

is filled with stories:

Adam and Eve,

Noah and the Flood,

David and Goliath,

Jonah in the belly of the whale.

And of course all the stories we learn about Jesus:

The story of Jesus’ birth,

his baptism in the Jordan,

feeding the five thousand,

and today’s story -

the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem.

Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday,

riding in on the back of a donkey,

riding as his disciples walked ahead and behind.

The people shouting and cheering,

“Hosanna!

Blessed is the one

who comes in the name of the Lord!”

The people lining the road, waving palm branches,

the traditional way of welcoming the king,

the triumphal king.

We hear this story each year on the Sunday before Easter,

and we love it.

We too love to wave our palm branches

and shout out “Hosanna!”

The story lifts us and fills us with a sense of joy,

enhanced by the coming of spring,

and for many,

the prospect of a wonderful week’s vacation.

Hosanna!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

But the version of the story we heard today

comes from the gospel according to Mark,

and Mark is never willing to let his readers off easy.

He is not willing to let us hear the story

and then go with palm branch in hand,

out to enjoy a spring Sunday.

Of the four gospels, Mark’s is the most “abrupt;”

the gospel is, as one scholar has written,

“…all sharp edges”

(Placher, Jesus the Savior),

Mark’s is the shortest gospel,

the text constantly pulling us forward,

as though Mark was racing to get to the end of the story.

Mark wants no tourists wandering leisurely through his gospel;

he wants disciplined followers,

open to nothing less than being transformed

with every turn of the page.

Mark could have, for example,

stopped our lesson at verse 10 and let us off easy,

the people still shouting out,

“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

But Mark doesn’t do that,

He adds one more sentence,

a sentence that on its surface sounds so simple

but on reflection is rather intriguing:

“Then [Jesus] entered Jerusalem

and went into the Temple;

and when he had looked around at everything,

as it was already late,

he went out to Bethany with the twelve.”

Now wait a minute:

Jesus and his disciples had their parade,

their jubilant procession into Jerusalem,

but once the parade was over

and they were in Jerusalem,

it was so late they had to turn around

and walk the few miles back to Bethany

where they were staying the night?

We can understand that Jesus and his disciples

might not have been able to stay in Jerusalem.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims descended upon Jerusalem

for the Passover Festival each year.

Jesus and his disciples could have searched

and searched within the city,

but found no rooms at the inns.

Staying in Bethany,

less than an hour’s walk from Jerusalem,

was much simpler.

But then what was the purpose of the parade?

Why would they have gone into the city only to turn around

and head right back to where they had just come from?

Matthew’s recounting suggests that

Jesus came into the city earlier in the day;

Luke also suggests an earlier arrival –

both gospels giving Jesus time for other activities

after the last of the Hosannas had faded away.

Mark seems more intent on saying to us,

“I am only going to give you the parade,

the procession.

That’s enough for today.

If you want more of the story,

you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

And we do want more, don’t we?

So we will come back tomorrow,

or at least so we should,

which is just what Mark wants from us.

Mark wants us to continue the procession;

he wants us to walk through each day with Jesus,

walk with him deliberately, willingly, knowingly.

                 

And so we process from Sunday to Monday,

when Jesus goes back to the temple,

goes back and rids the temple of all those

who were “buying and selling” within the temple’s walls,

not just the money-changers,

but all those selling animals for sacrifice.                  

Jesus was furious that they had soiled his Fathers house,

a house that had been built to be

“a house of prayer for all nations,”  

(Isaiah 56)

but which had been turned into

“a den of robbers.”

God’s house, the holy temple in Jerusalem

swarming with the first-century equivalent of

pay-day lenders,

check-cashing services,

auto-title loan shops,

and subprime lenders.

The outer courtyard of the temple

filled with venal men and women,

there to prey on the needs of others,

gouging the thousands upon thousands of pilgrims

who had come to celebrate the Passover,

who had come to God’s holy House

to offer their sacrifices.

Hadn’t the psalmist written,

“Open to me the gates of righteousness

that I may enter through them

and give thanks to the Lord”?

(Psalm 118:19)

But the gates of the temple were no longer

the gates of righteousness;

they had become nothing more than

the gates of the seediest forms of commerce.

After Jesus had cleansed the temple

he taught, taught all who would listen,

taught the rest of the day Monday,

and returned again to teach on Tuesday,

teaching through stories, parables.

Jesus continued to teach his disciples

even as they walked each day between Bethany and Jerusalem. 

He knew what lay before him;

he knew his time with his beloved disciples

was near the end.

And so he taught them again of faith and prayer:

“Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain,

‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea’

and if you do not doubt in your heart,

but believe that what you say will come to pass,

it will be done for you.

So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer,

believe that you have received it

and it will be yours.”

And he taught once again of the importance of forgiveness,

“Whenever you stand praying,

forgive if you have anything against anyone;

so that your Father in heaven

may also forgive your trespasses.”

(11:25)

And he taught of the dangers of hypocrisy

which he saw all around him

especially among the leaders of the religious community.

men more consumed with ego and power

than with justice, righteousness,

generosity, charity.

He taught how important it was

to have a generous spirit,

a generous heart.                                   

        

And as Tuesday turned to Wednesday

Jesus taught of the hope we have in the Resurrection,

even though the Sadducees,

part of the leadership group within the temple,

argued furiously with Jesus that the very idea was absurd,

that there was nothing in scripture to support such a claim.

Mark calls us to process and process:

to walk through this Holy Week with our Lord,

processing each of Christ’s teachings,

every word, every saying,

every act as we process through the week.

Palm Sunday is a joyful day,

but more important,

it is the gateway to an opportunity

for each of us to sit with the disciples

at the feet of our Lord,

to hear Christ’s voice,

and learn from him.

It is in John’s gospel that we find Jesus offering us

such powerful words to drive away our excuses:

“Walk while you have the light,

so that the darkness may not overtake you.

If you walk in the darkness

you do not know where you are going.”

(John 12:35)

Process through each day this week,

starting with tomorrow.

Make Monday a day of holiness,

a day of honoring God, glorifying God,

seeking the gates of righteousness

that you might walk through them

wherever you are:

at home, at work, even on vacation.

Make Tuesday a day of prayer,

especially prayers seeking forgiveness,

prayers offering forgiveness:

“if you have anything against anyone”

our Lord reminds us,

you are to forgive them.

                                            

Make Wednesday a day of learning,

of reading, of growing in faith,

remembering that Christ is our Teacher,

a demanding teacher who expects us to work at learning.

He is a teacher who not as interested in whether

we’ve memorized verses from a book

as he is in whether we have learned

that we are to live generous lives,

charitable lives,

giving, loving lives,

grace-filled, grace-full lives.

                 

Process through the first few days of this Holy Week

and then you’ll be ready for Thursday;

you’ll be ready to come to the Lord’s Table

to eat the bread of life,

and drink from the cup of salvation.

You’ll be ready to share the communal meal,

a meal in community,

where the host’s only requirement

before you take your seat at his table,

is that you be reconciled with

everyone else around the table.

And then nourished by the Holy Meal

you’ll have the strength,

you’ll have the courage to face Friday,

Friday -- when “darkness covered the whole earth”

(Mark 15:33)

You’ll be able to process through the dark hours,

Friday into Saturday,

watching and waiting,

remembering our Lord’s promise

that he will come again

and that we are to be alert and ready for that day,

as though it might happen any minute, any second.

Process through this Holy Week

and then on Sunday,

even before your first cup of coffee,

even while you are still more asleep than awake

you’ll hear the words of the angel

who told the women who came to the tomb

“Do not be alarmed,

you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth,

who was crucified.

He has been raised; he is not here. …

He is going ahead of you to Galilee,

there you will see him…

(Mark 16:6)

And you’ll know that you too will see Christ,

see Christ within this Body of Christ,

where we each give life to Christ.

And you’ll see Christ in yourself

as you become more and more Christ-like

to family, friends, and strangers –

serving, reaching out to those who need

Christ’s healing, help, hope,

those who need to know Christ’s grace and love.

Are you ready?

Are you ready to process through this Holy Week?

Are you ready for the journey that takes us

from Hosanna to Alleluia?

Our Lord invites you and me,

all of us,

to join the procession.

Hosanna!

Blessed is the one who comes

in the name of the Lord!

AMEN