Procession: The Path of Transformation

The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
Will you pray with me? O God, today, as you call us on a new processional journey, I ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts will be good, pleasing, and humble in your sight. Amen.
 
Thinking back on my childhood, growing-up at an evangelical church across town, I don’t remember a distinction between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. If anything, perhaps if I think hard enough, Palm Sunday was when the adults filled the Easter Eggs, and it was Easter when we got to eat all the candy!
 
In any event, Palm Sunday was a lead-into Easter. It was a joyous parade, a jubilant celebration that all has already been accomplished for us in Christ. Palm Sunday always reminded me of the Greeley Stampede or the CSU Homecoming Parade. The idea was this: “There is no more work for us to do theologically but to welcome the victor, the hero, the triumphant one into our hearts.” Then we can sit back, enjoy life, get rich, and sing songs of praise for the rest of our days. Sound familiar?
 
Our Scripture passage today is known by many names and is observed by many customs—most of which reinforce this parade-like feeling. It isn’t just the Evangelical Church, but also many in the Mainline Church (and culture itself) that reinforce this notion that Christianity is a fait accompli—a done deal. This is especially true with how we experience Palm Sunday. Lament, ongoing journey, and care for the other… not really included.
 
The most well-known of these traditions is the joyous waving of palm fronds in churches around the world and the most common Biblical title for this passage, assigned to it by more recent editors is, “Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.” Triumphal means an event carried out to celebrate a great victory or achievement. Typically, triumph means a parade.
 
The neoclassical L’Arc de Triomphe in Paris is the center of L’Axe historique is at the center Paris and of French national pride. It is a triumphant gate, replicated and re-imagined by many states around the world, including Mexico and North Korea, as a symbol of war victory and military pride. It represents a colonial urge to control and conquer. In France, of course, it is also a symbol of pride in the national soccer team, “Les Bleus,” but that is another sermon! “Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem” typically is interpreted as a victory parade, an eternal win, and achievement. Fait accompli.
 
Now, understanding this Psalm Sunday story as a victory parade isn’t at all outside of a superficial reading of the passage. In fact, the authorship of the Gospel of Luke wants a triumphal parade to be your first impression. One scholar writes, “[Luke 19] incorporates phrases from Palm 118, [‘Blessed is the king, who comes in the name of the Lord,’] This scene depicts a royal entry, naming Jesus as king, a title that will be used in the charges against Jesus before Pilate in Luke 23:2.”[1]
 
On the surface, we have a great royal victory parade, the deed is done, all is accomplished, and it’s time to break out the Easter Ham (with or without pineapple), but we know there is more to the story. The Gospel of Luke is showing us that Jesus, even as he walks literally/ knowingly towards his death, is inverting the norm of the king, of what is royal, or what victory means. Luke is arguably the most literarily sophisticated of the Gospels and is also the one most rooted in Social Justice and community need.
 
Here are three important ways that this is not a normal triumphant parade (like what we imagine with Charles de Gaulle after WWII):

1. Jesus isn’t greeted with the garbs of royalty but with the cloaks, a very precious belonging in the ancient world, of the poor who line his path. The powers of this world, on the inside of the gates, are not present to welcome Jesus. Notice, importantly, that this celebration happens not under the arcs of triumph inside the city walls but still on the outside with the other on the road! Location matters in Biblical story telling. This story happens on the outside of the walls of authority.
   
   
2. Jesus doesn’t ride on a great horse of a Roman military victor, but he rides on a farmer’s colt or baby donkey. The scene, to the ears and eyes of the people of the time, would have been farcical or comical! What a scene of the absurd—a king riding on peasants’ cloaks and a young colt? A colt or donkey is also a working animal of peace used to till fields in peacetime rather than an animal of war. This is an ironic scene, to the ancient world intended to make us question everything we think we know about power and who wields it. Only in modern, perhaps numbed (we have heard it too many times), readings is it a celebratory parade.
   
   
3. Finally, we know that this isn’t the end of the story. This parade is the vehicle by which the crucifixion and the death happen. The language of king, borrowed from Psalm 118, spoken by this crowd is what is used to later secure a conviction of death. This victory seals his fate in a way. It is, in many ways, the opposite (au contraire) of a victory parade. It is a funeral processional march, but not one done in sadness or in vain.

 
The Gospel writers are intentionally offering a paradox. We act like this is the final scene in a fairy tale where Jesus enters the gates of the city and then lives happily ever after. In reality, it is anything but a Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty story once inside the gates. Especially with how we handle Palm Sunday, we absolve ourselves from further work. We have symbolically arrived at the gates. We abruptly stop the story at the gates of the city and declare: Happily, Ever After! How we handle Palm Sunday dictates how we handle and perceive our whole Christian lives. By saying that this is the victory parade, we miss that it isn’t a parade to be watched but a procession which we are called to join.  
 
This isn’t a parade at all, as it turns out, but it is a procession of life and transformation.
 
Tom Long was a professor at Emory when I was a student, and he wrote an amazing book on the Christian Funeral called, Accompany Them with Singing. In it he writes, “The key marks of a Christian funeral: simplicity, majesty, and the gathering of people…For Christians, Jesus is not the founder of some new religion or separate sect, but rather a revelation of what it means to live a fully human life, a life that truly embodies the image of God. To follow Jesus, then, is to walk the royal road intended for all humanity…One of the earliest descriptions of the Christian movement was ‘people of the way.’ For Christians, baptism is the starting point of this Way, a journey along a road Jesus himself traveled. Christians travel this road in faith, not knowing where it will lead and sometimes seeing only one step ahead. But they keep putting one foot in front of the other, traveling in faith to the end…”[2]
 
Friends, the word parade, as we often imagine the triumph of Palm Sunday, comes from an etymology meaning “a showing” or a “spectacle.” It means something to be observed and witnessed from the outside. It is neutral, it is passive, and it doesn’t call us to real lives of grace for each other.
 
On the other hand, what this story is really about is the word procession. A procession means “a moving forward” always and forever. We are called to be people of the way, walking with Christ into, not cheap grace, but deeply lived lives of Christian experience and hope for each other. Christianity is a processional moving forward—one foot in front of the other.
 
Christianity isn’t meant to be a triumphant spectacle, but it is meant to be lived in motion… a moving forward together.
 
We are lulled into thinking that we have an easy theological and ethical “out” here. We imagine that Jesus has done all the work already. Isn’t it time to open the Easter Eggs and eat all the peeps yet? All we need to do is accept the victor of war over evil into our lives and all is accomplished, right? Consciously or unconsciously, Evangelical or Mainline Progressive, that is what happens when we think of Palm Sunday as a victory parade. We miss that it is only the start of the journey and we are all called to the donkey, to the road, to the way.  
 
This isn’t a parade at all, as it turns out, but it is a procession of life.
 
“For Christians, baptism is the starting point of this Way, a journey along a road Jesus himself traveled. Christians travel this road in faith, not knowing where it will lead and sometimes seeing only one step ahead. But they keep putting one foot in front of the other, traveling in faith to the end…”[3]
 
I took last Sunday through Tuesday as vacation days to go on what I consider an annual Pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. to meet with Congress about housing affordability funding and policy. I always start by taking a moment to sit and pray on my own somewhere on the National Mall. This year, with the Cherry Blossoms and bright blue skies, I found myself inspired by democracy and what is possible in our country if we work together. In our National Mall, even today, the feeling isn’t of triumph over others, but it is a feeling of what is possible if we walk together. As a country, despite current rhetoric inside the buildings in D.C., the symbols we have chosen for our National Mall and capitol aren’t symbols and arcs of triumph over others, even our WWII memorial, but signs of togetherness and hope. We are not about triumph over but democracy with others.

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I went into the meetings with a sense of confidence in my place in the Christian procession of justice, of diversity, of equity, and inclusion that Jesus starts with this procession story today. This isn’t easy, solo, selfish grace, but it is a grace to be shared through living lived on the path and way of transformation.

We are called to put the one step in front of the other way of Christ, to the path of hope, to the procession of transformation.
 
We are called into the procession of Christ to find shelter for those without housing.
We are called into the procession of Christ to help create new homes for those who are priced out of the market.
We are called into the procession of Christ to support those who believe themselves to not be living lives of worth or value.
We are called into the procession of Christ to stand-up for services that enable mental healthcare.
We are called into the procession of Christ to work for compassion and safety for the refugee.
We are called into the procession not the parade of Christ to seek peace in our world.
We are called into the procession of Christ to stop conversion therapies wherever it is still taking place.
We are called into the procession of Christ to fund scientific research and cures for diseases.
We are called into the procession of Christ to build affordable housing.
We are called into the procession of Christ, not as observers, but as activists for the ways of God in this world.
 
Procession isn’t a run. It is one step in front of the other, working for change, living in hope, experiencing grace. We may never see the results of our work, but we are in a long line, and we know that Jesus leads onward. Never stop walking and trying and remembering this calling.
 
Palm Sunday isn’t a parade. It is a farcical flipping over of our universe and a reminder of our calling to again become People of the Way. Come, friends, it is time to rejoin the procession of transformation. There is no time to lose.
 
Amen.

[1] Marion Lloyd Soards, “Luke,” in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: NRSV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 134NT.
[2] Tomas G. Long, Accompany Them With Singing: The Christian Funeral (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), xii-xiii.
[3] Tomas G. Long, Accompany Them With Singing: The Christian Funeral (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), xii-xiii.

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Author

The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph ("just Jake"), Associate Minister, came to Plymouth in 2014 having served in the national setting of the UCC on the board of Justice & Witness Ministries, the Coalition for LGBT Concerns, and the Chairperson of the Council for Youth and Young Adult Ministries (CYYAM). Jake has a passion for ecumenical work and has worked in a wide variety of churches and traditions. Read more about him on our staff page.

Poem Response to Sermon 4/14/19

by Anne Thompson

Parade-like feeling
with palm-waving "Hosannas"
through Arc de Triomphe.

A great victory!
Cloaks of peasants on the ground
outside city walls.

A farcical scene
on a working animal --
filled with irony.

The language of "King!"
seals the fate of coming death --
A Funeral March

Join the procession!
We should not be here to watch,
People of the Way!

This is not parade,
not a spectacle to see --
but moving forward.

Called to the donkey --
not knowing where it will lead --
with hope for justice.

Working for this change,
one foot before the other
in transformation.

Procession of love
Journeys of love and justice
Transformation path