Series: April 2025
Speaker: Rob McClellan
Today's Sermon
"What We Look Like"
Matthew 21:1-11
When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, just say this, “The Lord needs them.” And he will send them immediately.’ 4This took place to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
5‘Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’
6The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’
10When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’ 11The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’
“What We Look Like”
Why are the stories of Jesus in the Bible so important to us? They tell us, we claim, what God is like.
What, then, are the most important accounts of Jesus to tell? As you may or may not know, there are four books in the Bible which tell the story of Jesus’ life: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They tell related, but not identical, accounts. Not every story or teaching makes it into all four. For example:
- What’s the most famous parable, perhaps, the Good Samaritan? Not in all four. In fact, only in Luke.
- The most famous prayer, the Lord’s Prayer? It only makes it in two of the gospels, Matthew in Luke, but in different forms.
- Even the Christmas story is only in two gospels and they’re totally different versions.
On Palm Sunday in 2016, United Church of Christ pastor Nancy Taylor pointed out to her congregation that this story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey (or two—we’ll get to that) isin all four gospels.[1] This week, which took him though the last supper, through betrayal, through his crucifixion, through even the grave and to resurrection, we have been told by those who wrote the Bible is important.
Because we return to this story every year, we have found there are so many angles to take. Consider donkeys alone. There’s the lovely legend that it was only after carrying Jesus that donkeys acquired the iconic black cross they have on their backs.[2] There’s clearly something about stories with animals in them that call for our attention. Nothing hits at Christmas like a live nativity. On Palm Sunday, at Second Presbyterian in Indianapolis, they have a live Palm Sunday tradition, bringing a real donkey in to parade around the sanctuary during worship. I know this because my spouse was once one of the pastors who had the honorific role of following said donkey with a shovel. The donkey draws us into the story in a special way.
Then there’s the telling of the Palm Sunday story that focuses on the fact that there were two processions on the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem. We’ve preached versions of this angle more than once here. It’s detailed beautifully in a book by New Testament scholars John Dominic and Marcus Borgcalled The Last Week. In brief, one procession was of Pontius Pilate, who entered in a demonstration of the power and authority of the empire, authoritarian rule. It was meant to keep people in line. The other was of the Jesus who displayed a very different kind of power, and the image of a very different kind of kingdom, welcomed by his those who lined the road with their cloaks and waved palm branches as that donkey or donkeyswent by.
Let’s get to that. You’ve heard me point out before the peculiar detail of Matthew’s telling of the Palm Sunday that seems to have Jesus riding twodonkeys. I have said this as an example of how a New Testament author makes a mistake in trying to tell a story in a way that fulfills an Old Testament prophecy. Telling a story in a way that fulfills a prophecy, by the way, is not the mistake. That’s how ancient authors made points about who their subjects were. Those stories, like so many biblical ones, are meant convey meaning more than literal historical events. Matthew’s telling of the Palm Sunday story harkens back to a passage from Zechariah 9:9 which reads:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Hebrew poetry often says a line and then repeats the same thing in a subsequent line only using slightly different wording, e.g. It was a bright sunny day/the sky shone blue and clear. When Matthew describes Jesus “riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” some say he didn’t understand this poetic device and therefore mistakenly assumes it must be a donkey and a colt. This mistake hypothesis is bolstered by the fact that the other three gospels portray only a singular animal (Mark 11:7, Luke 19:35, and John 12:15).
Until this past year, I assumed that Matthew simply got it wrong. Then, in the course of study, I came across two scholarly positions, from Herman Waetjen and the aforementioned John Dominic Crossan respectively, which trouble this notion. They give Mathew more credit, arguing Matthew is making a deliberate point. Waetjen concludes that the first animal, the donkey, signals Jesus’ rightful claim as Son of David, kingDavid, the most significant of the Jewish kings. Donkeys were, in fact, what kings rode in their coronations, so it’s not a “lowly” donkey as we often tell that story. The second animal, a colt, is the offspring of a pack animal and one itself. It emphasizes the servant side of this king. Jesus, then, embodies a paradox—king and servant. He ushers in a new way of being powerful, which makes sense since at the very beginning of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is described as the new Genesis, the new creation.[3]
Crossan has his own two-animal theory. He asserts that what we have is a nursing mother and her offspring. What’s the significance of that? Well, remember Crossan wrote about the two processions that happened that day. He contrasts the procession across town, the one that carried Pontius Pilate on a war horse, with Jesus atop a nursing mother, the most “unmilitary” display imaginable. Jesus, again, represents a different kind of kingdom, one that rules not through coercive strength, but persuasive weakness, nonviolence, participation in a mercy economy and driven by transformative love.[4]
If these stories tell us what God looks like, then they tell us quite a lot. God is not interested in the kind of power Pilate or Caesar or Herod or…you name it is. God is interested in the kind of power Jesus demonstrates. I was settled on the message that in Palm Sunday, as in all the stories, Jesus shows us what God is like, but then I realized there may be an even more important question.
What does the story reveal about what we look like? Two processions means not only two riders, but two crowds, cheering two very different things, some by choice and genuine enthusiasm, others perhaps by fear or peer pressure. Nevertheless, these stories bear witness our capacity to cheer for very different displays of powers. Which do you want to be in? As I said to our children a few moments ago in our Time of Discovery, watch what people cheer and consider what you cheer.
This is what Taylor said to her congregation about Palm Sunday back in 2016:
In a manifestly violent world, it is now our turn to show the world, to show our friends, our families, our neighbors, our colleagues, what it looks like to follow the Prince of Peace, to turn the other cheek. It's our turn now.
In a merciless world, a dog-eat-dog and might-makes-right world, in a world red in tooth and claw, it's our turn to show the world what mercy looks like, God's mercy. It's our turn, now, today, to give witness to mercy. For Christ's sake give witness to mercy. Show the world what God looks like and watch, just watch. The world will turn its head. [That is a call to faith. Do you have it?]
It won't be easy. It will be costly. [And this part we must emphasize.] It may cost you your life. [Ask Martin Luther King if that was a metaphor, Medgar Evers, Ghandi, and the Christ who rode into Jerusalem].
It was on Palm Sunday that the followers of Jesus began to understand just how costly and rigorous is the Christian life. You train for it as an athlete trains for a race: rehearsing the virtues, practicing courage, training oneself in kindness, exercising gentleness, working at mercy and generosity. It's a fulltime job, this training and practicing. It is a way of life. I submit that Palm Sunday has pride of place in all four gospels because it was on Palm Sunday, it was today, that the church was truly born ... not in wind and fire [allusions to Pentecost] ... but in courage and in conviction.[5]
The Palm Sunday story is a story about us and whether we want empire on earth or heaven on earth. Jesus’ ride says to us: Be gracious even as you call others to better behavior. Look out for the vulnerable. Cross enemy lines to make friends or at least to break bread. Heal where you can. Move on where you can’t. Resist the use of violence to get what you want. Have the integrity of your faith rather than using religion as a shield to take advantage of others. Stand up to bullies but be ready to endure the consequences. Love God, which, incidentally, is how you find the strength to do all of the above.
Our ancestors left us stories that told us what they believed God is like. What will our children say we were like?
Amen.
[1]https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/5d9b820ef71918cdf2003e35/players_and_protagonists_in_the_kingdom_of_god
[2]https://www.simplelittlefarm.com/post/the-donkey-cross
[3]Herman C. Waetjen, Matthew’s Theology of Fulfillment, its Universality and its Ethnicity(London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 218.
[4]John Dominic Crossan, The Challenge of Jesus video series.
[5] https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/5d9b820ef71918cdf2003e35/players_and_protagonists_in_the_kingdom_of_god