Palm Sunday And The King Who Refuses Violence

A triumphal entry is supposed to end with a coronation, but this one fades out. We follow Jesus into Jerusalem and slow down long enough to notice the strange choices: a donkey instead of a stallion, palm branches instead of fine fabric, a crowd hungry for change but unsure what kind of king they are actually welcoming. That tension is the doorway into a bigger question: what happens when our faith is built on outcomes, proof, and quick fixes, and life refuses to cooperate?

We connect Palm Sunday to Lent and the Exodus journey of faith: being carried by forces we do not control, hearing God’s call, receiving provision, and still discovering that structure and rules do not make us “done.” Faith is not a straight line. It cycles through deep trust, drifting separation, and the vulnerable moments where we finally admit we cannot do it on our own. Along the way, the sermon names the real triggers that push people from praise to cynicism: injustice that overwhelms us, anxiety that will not quiet down, and even hard Bible passages that make us ask, “What do we do with this, God?”

Richard Rohr offers language that turns this from abstract spirituality into a practice for real life: our brokenness becomes the raw material of God’s restoration. We talk about how unprocessed suffering can make us bitter and blaming, and how “transforming pain” keeps us from transmitting it to everyone around us. Holy Week then becomes more than a calendar. It becomes an invitation to bring separation, hurt, and doubt into God’s presence, so Easter new life is not only a story from 2,000 years ago, but something we can begin to taste now.

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Transcript

A Parade With A Hidden Message

Pastor Darren 0:00

Well, we've got uh Jesus arranging for this uh processional uh that um they're going into Jerusalem. And for many, yeah, it was probably a really hope-filled time, especially those who are dissatisfied with the way things were. They weren't feeling that they were treated well, that they were affirmed appropriately, that life was correct, how God would want it. And so they wanted this overthrow. So the the to have a parade was just what they would have in mind, and it was uh this subversive stuff was pretty um probably exciting for them as well, right? He comes in on this donkey uh and actually it says donkey and a cult. Hopefully you didn't ride both because it looked a little circus-y, I think. Right. But it comes in the donkey and a cult, as we're mentioned. Uh, some scholars think differently, but generally it's either surrender or we just don't want to fight, is what you would do when you were in battle if you showed up on a cult or a donkey were saying, Hey, I'm coming here to chat, or basically not get beat up is uh what you were looking for. But for Jesus, it's this message of the kind of king he was looking to be. He wasn't looking to conquer in the ways that many people would think he was looking to conquer, right? I would imagine the people who are there and they're laying down palm branches, even the palm branches are a little bit subversive. A king would come in on this stallion and a horse, and people would come and they would lay, they would lay like really fine fabric to show how much they respected this king. Right. And here we're laying palm branches, palm branches that can be picked most anywhere back then. Some were laying their clothing. You know, that you can see some of the subversive message here. This isn't going to be about top-down. This is going to be kind of a bottom-up thing because they got God working on their side. So you can see that they're excited. But if we were to dip into their thinking right about now, I wonder if they are seeing a different kind of king than Jesus is intending to be. Right? They're into it for right now. You know, they don't uh uh um like how the world is going at the time, but they are ready to accept that he's not uh, but are they ready to accept what that he is not quite what they had envisioned? Can they give up the idea that might Jesus might not be going to do it in their way? Right? You can do it your way, JC. Just fix the really bad stuff first, then I'm right with you. All right, then you can do it your way. It's a question of aren't are they fully on board or even fully understanding? Anybody find it interesting? Does it catch your attention that this parade just seems to kind of end? Right? It just sort of piffles out. You know, there's not this grand celebration. One might have even thought there'd either be some sort of big conflict that came from it, or or the coronation of Jesus, and yet it just sort of piffles out. And those of us here, we have the advantage of knowing how it actually plays out, right? We know what really happens is kind of the opposite of what a lot of people were hoping. So, our theme for Lent, the journey to faith. How in the world does it land here? How does this even connect? You'll remember we're we're kind of like this baby in a basket. Remember, Moses, he's this baby, he's going to be given up to be saved. He's a baby in a basket rolling down the river of different influences and tides, and God comes to us, maybe in a burning bush, if you're lucky, usually in some other way, but offers some better way of doing things, at which point it's open to us to make that commitment of faith, to open ourselves to what God wants for us. And then we learn that the journey, moving from some of those lower gods to the God we understand, capital G, isn't as easy as we'd hope, or kind of pulled to some of that old stuff. But God along that journey provides for us. We get manna, we get quail, we get water, and finally we get some structure. These ten commandments, along with the other law, their structure now. Do we need any more than that? Have we stabilized in our faith now that we have all of those things? Thanks, God, for those ten commandments. Now we're good to go. Do you feel like that solidifies your faith and gives you everything you need to go? My guess is not quite yet. I need a little bit more. Part of what we learn on Palm Sunday is that this is not a journey with a beginning and an end. You know, many scholars believe that many of the people who are there praising Jesus as he comes into Jerusalem, laying out palms and celebrating, singing Hosanna, praising Christ, that they will be, at least some of them, the same people who will be there on Friday night, yelling, crucify him, crucify him. Doesn't that seem odd? That wild, wild swing, how could anybody switch so fast? Well, the thinking is that these people of great, great faith, or at least a a lot of hope in Christ, but they begin to look for something a little bit more substantial from him. You know, if he's really God, then why isn't he just taking over? Why isn't he fixing things? If he's really God, then maybe we should see a little evidence. You know, put it before we put it all forward, before we make a total commitment. I mean, if he's really God, he shouldn't die anyway. Right? Boy, if Jesus put something forward here, if we try to crucify him and he lives, this will be great. I will have a stronger reason to have faith. And all the people who don't have faith will have some evidence. They'll have a reason to follow. Can you see a little bit of how that pathway gets carved between praising Jesus to yelling, let's see what you got. Let's see what you got, Jesus. It turns out that this journey of faith that we have been learning about through Exodus, this journey of faith really is fairly cyclical. There will be times in which we feel like uh we have everything we need to follow in faith. I'm helping the poor. This is great. Everything in Bible study makes perfect sense. Have you been there? Ah, this is it. When I walk through the garden, all of the words of God are so clear. I'm in there taking notes like I'm getting groceries or something, right? Have you been? Where it just feels like you are just in step. Everything is great, my faith is so deep. There's even, there's even just that littlest, littlest space in our heart for the people that we hate. Just a little one, though. Haven't you been there? And then Jesus shows up on a donkey and we think, yeah, we're gonna do this grace and peace style. This is how we're doing it. Me and Jesus, right? We're gonna lay down palms, we're thinking, you, me, Jesus, right? Let's do this. My faith is strong. And then there are times, and we've known these times, when it's not so deep, when the doubt is much more strong. When the social justice need, the human need that is around us, that's engaging us, just feels so strong. I remember talking with Nancy just this week about that. We're like overwhelmed by this need. And we read through our Bible and it it's just it's just not clicking. In the Bible study this week, in Exodus, in our scriptures, we learn that if the master beats the slave so much that the slave dies right away, then he will be punished. But if the slave lasts a few days before he dies, then he'll be forgiven. That's in your scriptures. That's Levitical law. What do we do with that, God? We walk through the garden where God used to speak with such clarity, and now it just feels quiet, but not a good quiet. And we think, okay. Maybe it's time, Jesus. Maybe it's time, Jesus, for you to give us a little bit more to follow. I got all these eggs in this basket of you being the way and the truth and the life. Maybe it's time you give us some proof. Show us your way works. Show us you don't die. Show us that you and that all you represent are eternal. Show me that my work for the poor matters, God. Tell me how scripture makes sense, God. When will the world be fair? God calm this anxiety in my heart. God. Enough of this, enough in this place. And aren't we right there with those others on Friday night? Yelling, prove yourself, Jesus. We think of a journey as going from here to there. But the journey of faith really moves more in cycles. Cycles of deep, deep faith and trust all the way to instability life in that wilderness. I called this message today last stop being human. Only there really isn't a last stop for us. At least as far as we're aware of in this life. It's simply this continual cycle of life in which we try to maintain and strengthen our faith and our confidence in Jesus and the way of love and the way of peace and the way of faith. It's a process in which we move from being at one with Christ. I like to put it up here, where we're at one with Christ. And then as we move forward, a separation begins to happen, usually out of our own hubris, thinking, I don't necessarily need God or God's way. I can do this on my own. And we start moving into more of a separation, right? And then ultimately we get to a point of helplessness, of vulnerability. We've tried it so long in our own way, without the ways of Christ. And finally we reach that bottom where we're we're willing to listen again. We're willing to trust again. We're willing to live out that love again. And through that process, God is able to work with us towards some restoration. So again, we get back up with God. We are at one again with God. The beauty of this process is in the way that God is able to bring us back to that restoration. With God, we are able to move from the separation, the brokenness, to growth and restoration. In fact, I would say our growth relies on that separation because it's in that vulnerability, it's in that openness that we are able to allow God in, that God's able to work with us. In fact, sometimes even when we are at one with Christ, if we are going to move any further, it's because we're willing to let that go a little bit, to really wrestle with something that we've been wrestling with. Richard Rohr is uh somebody I've been uh working with. And I've got a couple of quotes here. I think we're uh ready for them, but uh, I've also invited you, if you uh are reading the emails Fridays and Sundays, to join me in uh working through the devotion that comes from his center for action and contemplation. He really says it in a great, great way here. I'm gonna quote him Our brokenness is the raw material of God's restoration. Let that sit for a little bit. Our brokenness is the raw material of God's restoration. That brokenness that we let God into is what allows God to help restore us. It is the occasion and opportunity for God to love. Our brokenness, weakness, limitation, and hurts are taken into God's hands and there begin to reflect the glory of God. To paraphrase the words of the Apostle Paul, where our brokenness increased, the grace of God increased all the more. In many ways, our task is to live in this place of praise and trust without falling into some abyss of frustration, pain, and bitterness, sometimes enough pain and doubt, that we're taken all the way in front of Pilate, yelling, crucify him, prove yourself Jesus. We're trying to work those cycles in a way that we don't go so far down that it's hard to get back up. So far down that pain and bitterness are what are making all our decisions for us. Listen, as he fleshes this out further, when religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, human beings far too often become cynical, bitter, negative, and blaming. Healthy religion, almost without realizing it, shows us what to do with our pain. With the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If we cannot find a way, make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably give up on life and humanity. I am afraid there are bitter and blaming people everywhere, both inside and outside of the church. This is the cautionary tale of this journey of faith that is so cyclical. This movement of grace, this movement of growing in our faith, the cautionary tale is that we allow ourselves to go to that lowest point where we are living in the pain and bitterness and cynicism that often the world around us is pushing us toward. In this journey of faith, which hopefully we're realizing is this series of cycles, we're hoping to move through those times of trial and doubt into growth. We're trying to make the wounds that we are feeling, both the wounds that have been done to us, but also the wounds we have self-inflicted, they become sacred wounds. Points of being able to understand God and God's grace and God's love. A grace that we can share. There's an invitation that comes with Holy Week. Obviously, the light at the end of the tunnel is Easter and new life, but the pathway to that new life, it goes through Holy Thursday and Good Friday. This is when we focus on that brokenness and that pain, and we look to see where God may be working us through it, giving us a context for it, it that doesn't tear us apart, but actually helps us build ourselves back together. The invitation is for you to bring that separation, that brokenness or that bitterness, and to give it to God in vulnerability and trust. To allow yourself to become the raw material of God's restoration that Richard Rohr celebrates. In this way, new life might not just be something that Jesus experienced two thousand years ago, but it's something you might experience today. And through this week, and then beyond.