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DonateApril 9, 2006 |
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Mark 11:1-11
This Sunday we begin the most important week in the Christian calendar. For good and ill, and there has been much of both, the gospel accounts of the events of that week have profoundly shaped the thinking and feeling and acting of Christians. This has been true from a very early point. The gospels have been called, not too misleadingly, passion narratives with introductions. In Mark’s case, already in chapter 8, Jesus is predicting his suffering, death, and resurrection. Clearly, from Mark’s point of view, Jesus went to Jerusalem to challenge the political and religious authorities directly and publicly. He anticipated the consequences and he made no effort to avoid them. The cross casts its shadow over all the events of this week.
The week begins with the “triumphal” entry. According to all three synoptic gospels, Jesus modeled his entry into Jerusalem on Zechariah 9:9. The New Revised Standard Version translates the crucial phrase as follows; “lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Fortunately, Mark spares us the absurdity offered in Matthew, who read the passage as referring to two animals, one the donkey, and the other the colt. In order to have his misreading of the prophecy apply literally to Jesus, Matthew places him simultaneously on the backs of two animals!
This act of Jesus is part of his challenge to authority, in this case, particularly to political authority. Zechariah is explicit that the one who rides on the donkey is a king. Jesus is not depicted as explicitly claiming the royal title, but all the gospels tell us that it is his claim to being king of the Jews that is highlighted by Pilate as the reason for his crucifixion. That claim is clearest in the way he entered Jerusalem.
In Matthew and Luke, this challenge to political authority is immediately followed by the cleansing of the temple, Jesus’ boldest challenge to religious authority. Mark says it was too late that day and tells us that Jesus returned the following day for this further seditious act. In either case, the two acts were closely related. In Jesus’ day, as in many others, political and religious authorities were closely related. Jesus opposed both. I suspect that he would do so today. In saying that, I recognize that I, too, belong to the sphere of “religious authority.”
The way he opposed political authority in today’s lesson is significant. Zechariah’s vision was certainly of a king, indeed, a victorious king, but he did not depict the king as entering Jerusalem in a chariot or at the head of his cavalry. One characteristic of the king is highlighted. He is humble, and the humility is expressed in the choice of animal. Jesus challenged political authority not by putting himself forward as a replacement of current authorities but by modeling and teaching a different kind of rule. Elsewhere he spelled out this reversal. The highest position in his “kingdom” is one of service to all. The master is the one who washes the feet of the others.
It is not clear from the story that many people understood the symbolism. In Mark’s account, most seem to have believed Jesus to be aiming at the restoration of the Davidic Empire, which was not always characterized by humility! No doubt it was for this, and not for the alternative model of rule, that the crowd showed enthusiasm.
The question arises as to which was the greater threat to Roman imperial rule, an effort to restore the Davidic monarchy or the teaching that true authority lies in service of others rather than in lording it over them. The Jews tried military revolts twice and were defeated and scattered. Yet to this day most people, including most Christians, think of opposition to oppressive rule chiefly in terms of violent resistance. Most still assume that only force can effectively oppose political and military power.
Jesus’ way of inwardly rejecting the values of the empire and acting out of a different mode of understanding does not appeal to many. Yet it has had its followers. Some have simply been destroyed invisibly by the powers they rejected. But others have been brilliantly effective. Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu inspired by Jesus, has been the most impressive. But Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela are now also household names.
At least in part because of Jesus’ influence, the world today allows for great changes to be made by what Gandhi called “soul power.” And at least in part because of Jesus’ influence, there are those committed to that kind of power who use it effectively. The humble leader who serves the followers without the use of physical force sometimes exercises enormous power in our time.
For Jesus, there was no such political success. Even though the entry into Jerusalem is called “triumphant” in the tradition, it was not a triumph for Jesus’ teaching. That was not even understood. Far from saving Jesus from death, his challenge carried him another step toward that end. The crowd that cheered him when they thought he came to restore the Davidic monarchy quickly lost interest.
Over the centuries, elements of Jesus’ reversal of imperial values crept into public rhetoric. Our rulers now call themselves public servants, and the idea that rulers rule for the sake of the people rather than for their own sakes has some real currency. But the professed ideal is also a source of great hypocrisy. The ruled are often manipulated and exploited rather than served, whatever the rhetoric employed.
Although there are many calls for diplomacy in international affairs, our leaders often seem to trust physical force more than moral persuasion. Those who would limit nations to the latter are thought of as softheaded, whereas those who count on force are thought to be realistic and tough minded. Jesus’ message is hardly understood better by most of his followers today than by the crowds who welcomed him when he entered Jerusalem long ago.
The United States once exercised considerable power in the world through projecting an image of democracy and anti-imperialism. The reality, of course, was far from pure, but the image had great power all the same. At the end of World War II we emerged as the defender of freedom. Our treatment of our former enemies was magnanimous. We were appreciated as liberators more than we were feared as conquerors. We had great moral capital, some of which still exists.
But as a nation we did not appreciate the significance of such capital. In the Cold War we regarded the containment of Communism as an end that justified all kinds of means. We overthrew democratically elected governments if we feared they would be soft on Communism. We supported the use of terror by anti-Communist governments against their own peasants. We welcomed corrupt leaders such as Saddam Hussein and trained terrorists like Osama bin Laden as long as they directed their energies against Communism.
After the break up of the Soviet Union and our emergence as the sole superpower, we could have returned to winning hearts and minds by generosity and by supporting human rights and the quest for justice. But as a nation we made a very different choice. We chose to continue on the path of military force. A few years ago this led to the conquest of Iraq. As I write there is much saber-rattling directed against Iran.
Some of our leaders pointed out that we had the possibility of establishing by force of arms a Pax Americana, explicitly modeled on the Pax Romana that was the Roman Empire. Some of those who affirm this as the proper destiny of our nation claim to be Christian believers. But it is hard to connect this imitation of the Roman Empire to the counter-imperial model of power that Jesus embodied as he entered Jerusalem on a donkey. It seems that many who claim to be followers of Jesus today prefer the model of the imperial crucifier to that of the humble crucified.
The relation of Psalm 118 to the Marcan passage is superficial. It is suggested more by the way the story is entitled, “The Triumphal Entry,” than by its content. The psalm gives thanks to God for military triumph and expresses confidence that God will ensure future military success as well. It mentions a festal procession with branches that may well have shaped Mark’s telling of the story. There is nothing here to counter the standard imperial theology that associates worldly power with God’s approval and support. There is nothing about humility. There is no challenge to political institutions based on force.
Both ways of thinking of God’s relation to history are found in the Bible. When Jews and Christians are in power, they often appeal to those passages that closely associate such power with proof of God’s blessing. When we are oppressed by worldly power, we can appeal to passages that condemn the rulers of this world and exalt the weak.
But Jesus’ critique of worldly power was not simply a consolation for those oppressed by it. It was also a model of an alternative exercise of power. There is nothing weak about the Jesus who rode a donkey into Jerusalem and proceeded to cleanse the temple. The humility he taught is not obsequiousness, passivity, or underestimating one’s capacity for action. The renunciation of force is not cowardice or the attempt to get along.
Most human
thinking and most social institutions accept and support imperial power.
This was true in Jesus’ day, and it is true today. Jesus, in contrast,
modeled resistance by teaching and embodying an alternative form of
power. By undercutting the legitimacy of authority based on force, this
alternative becomes more profoundly revolutionary than any counter use
of force could ever be. If we would be, in our day, true followers of
Jesus, we must find ways, appropriate to our time, to resist the
increasing rule of force. But if we do so, the shadow of the cross may
fall upon us as well.
John B. Cobb,
Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Claremont School of Theology and a Founding Director of the Center for Process Studies.
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