Texts: Luke 19:28-40; Philippians 2:5-11; Isaiah 50:4-9a

It has seemed oddly appropriate to me that Palm Sunday should fall on April Fool’s Day. A day of pranks when you’re not really sure what to believe, and what might be a joke. I’m not exactly sure when we started celebrated Palm Sunday as Palm AND Passion Sunday – but it’s hard to do justice to both in a single service. Among the suggested Scriptures are both the reading that Kyle read as we opened the service, and the entire story of the arrest, trial, suffering and death of Jesus. Many churches read them both. We didn’t used to – we used to do just the celebration on Palm Sunday, but it doesn’t seem quite right to go from the celebration of the triumphant entry into Jerusalem that Kyle described straight to the resurrection on Easter, without stopping along the way to contemplate the last couple of days of Jesus. And so because many people can’t come to church on Good Friday anymore (often because of work or other commitments that don’t allow taking that time away), the church has brought Good Friday to the people, and turned Palm Sunday into Palm and Passion Sunday. So we begin with the celebration of Jesus triumphantly entering Jerusalem to the shouts and acclamations of the crowd…and then we shift gears mid-service, and read the Passion account – the story of the death of Jesus. April Fool’s! It’s not a celebration after all – it’s a tragedy.

While combining these two into Palm and Passion Sunday makes for a jarring day, I have reluctantly come to believe that it’s a good solution, because I think that giving up Good Friday has some pretty serious consequences to our theology and the practice of faith – a faith that has no room for suffering, that just moves from triumph to greater triumph is not a faith that can make real connections with our real lives. And additionally, coming to terms with the death of Jesus is a central issue for our faith – and one that has significant implications for how we think about the life of Jesus, and how we think about our faith and our own lives as well.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and in recent months have been studying some books with the Men’s Group, as well as with my colleagues in Marshfield and Wausau. The principal book we’ve read is one called Nonviolent Atonement by Denny Weaver, although some of this thinking comes from another book, called Problems with Atonement, by Stephan Finlan. Two other books, The Last Week of Jesus, by Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan which I read a year ago, and Crossan’s newest book, God and Empire, have also fed my thinking on this. And of course, my favorite Franciscan priest, Father Richard Rohr of the Center for Action and Contemplation has helped shape my current understanding.

I don’t think I’m alone in having long been troubled by some dimensions of the way the Christian story has been told. Obviously, I am a professing Christian. But for years I have had enormous difficulty with some of what the generally accepted version of Christianity has seemed to say. And I believe a huge portion of the church-going population, and an even bigger chunk of non-church folks, also has trouble with this. I’m fine with Christmas – as a festival, this celebrates the doctrine of the incarnation: God became human and lived among us a Jesus. The stories we have about Jesus bear out this theology: Jesus is fully God and fully human, and in his life reveals to us what being fully human looks like. Jesus comes among us as one of us to reveal to us the depth of God’s love for us. Yes, this I believe.

But then, a few short months later, we come around to Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday, stopping briefly at Maundy Thursday for the institution of communion, observing Good Friday, and then finally the Easter celebration of the resurrection. And what do we make of all this? Because it seems really clear to me that to make any sense of the resurrection, we have to have some understanding of the death that precedes it, and the standard story comes up a little weak on this for me.

I am aware that what I am about to say will be troubling to some of you. I have been thinking about whether or not to say it. After all, the understanding that I now have did not come off a mountain on stone tablets. Nor did it knock me to the ground with a blinding light. But I do believe that it is consistent with Scripture – in my view, it is actually more consistent than the more common version – and additionally, it is consistent with my experience of God. And it is consistent with a significant body of respected theologians over the past two thousand years. If, however, you find it deeply troubling – you should take your own response seriously. Our Presbyterian theology tells us that the way we grow to understand God is by conversation, prayer, study and discernment. We don’t have bishops, because we are deeply suspicious of one person’s truth. We believe that the validating experience and understanding of the community is essential. So take your own misgivings seriously.

Let me explain. The standard explanation for the death of Jesus is that “Jesus died for our sins”. For many Christians, that’s as far as it goes – if you pushed folks, many of us wouldn’t know exactly what that means. Many people however, believe a more explicit version of this, known in theological circles as substitutionary atonement, or the satisfaction theory of the death of Jesus. A short version of this is: humans have sinned, and because of this sin, the relationship with God is irreparably breached. The only way to appease God, and satisfy the need for punishment is by death. Other versions say, by a blood sacrifice. In any event, a human must pay the price for the sins of humanity, but no human could pay the price for all humanity. In order to satisfy God for the sins of all humanity, only a God-man could pay the punishment – another version is, only a perfect person could pay the price, and no humans are perfect, only God is perfect, therefore God had to become human. So in this theory, God came to earth as a human in order to die as a substitute for all humans, in order to appease God and restore humanity into relationship with God. So when you hear people say, “Jesus paid the price for our sins” or “Jesus took on our sins” or even “Jesus died for our sins” this is usually what is meant.

Aren’t you at all troubled by this theology??

I forgive people without requiring a blood sacrifice – isn’t God better than me? And besides, what about the verses in the Hebrew Scriptures where God says, “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:21-27) Or Psalm 51 where it says, “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:14-17) Or Proverbs 21:3 ”To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice”?

And what about all those places in the Hebrew Scriptures where God is saying things like “You are precious in my eyes and I love you” (Isaiah 43:4) or “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord….” (Jeremiah 29:11-14a), or “ – and of course, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

Finally, this is not what Jesus spoke about. Time after time, Jesus shared the shocking news of a God who was loving us already, who was eager to be in relationship with us, who loves abundantly and extravagantly. As we reflected two weeks ago in reading the story of the Prodigal Son, this is the God who was running to forgive his children before they could even stammer out an apology – this is not the story of a God who requires a blood sacrifice. Substitutionary atonement is not consistent with the Hebrew Scriptures taken as a whole, and certainly is not consistent with the teachings of Jesus. So why did Jesus die?

Two processions came into Jerusalem around Passover – in the years around the death of Jesus, there were two large riots in Jerusalem, both at Passover. So each year at Passover, the Roman governor, Pilate, came to town in a military procession. On Palm Sunday, while Pilate came in from the west, in a procession that embodied imperial power, with Pilate riding a war horse, Jesus came in from the east, riding a donkey. Jesus knew that this would be seen as a direct contrast with Pilate. A large number of people followed Jesus when they had a choice that day.

Jesus came to Jerusalem preaching, as he had everywhere, about the Kingdom of God. Jesus was supported by the Jewish people – crowds gathered everywhere he went, and as he entered Jerusalem, they cheered him; but a small group of the elite were threatened by him. This group was complicit with Rome, and connected with the temple, whose sacrificial apparatus consumed 90% of the economy at the time, according to Richard Rohr. So when Jesus came to town, he was exposing the exploitation that the temple system created, as well as the violence of imperial power. Jesus had popular support – the Jewish people supported him, and this was threatening to that small group of the elite who were collaborating with Rome, and it was certainly a problem for Rome. Judaism at the time of Jesus was diverse, much as Christianity in our time. The group of collaborationists was not the Pharisees – the Pharisees were also trying to establish Judaism outside the temple, and Jesus had some Pharisees among the larger group of his followers. In fact, some of the things that Pharisees said to Jesus, that we have often understood as threats, could also be understood as warnings. In the reading that Kyle did this morning that is in the bulletin, the Pharisees warn Jesus that his followers should be quieter and draw less attention to themselves. Is this a threat? Or is it a warning?

The group that gathered later in the week to call for the death of Jesus was gathered in Pilate’s courtyard, and thus was a small group, and more important, a group of those who supported Rome. The general public would not have had access to Pilate’s courtyard. The Romans killed Jesus, with the help of the power elite in Jerusalem. He was killed because his preaching a message of nonviolence, a message of God’s love for everyone, and a message of care for the poor. Jesus preached a great deal about money, and the way we should live, and the kingdom he described exposed the power, exploitation and violence of the Roman empire and those who were collaborating with it.

If we understand the death of Jesus as being something that God planned ahead of time, to secure our salvation, we separate the death of Jesus from his life and ministry, and we separate our faith from our life and ministry too. Christianity is reduced to a salvation scheme, a way to get people to heaven. If we can ignore the life of Jesus, we can ignore our own life too. Our faith becomes reduced to something that is only about our eternal life, and our comfort in this life. That’s not really consistent with the way Jesus lived and spoke. He didn’t say, “Worship me,” – he said, “Follow me.” He spoke very little about life after death, but spoke a great deal about the way we are to live here and now. His teachings are demanding, and a lot easier to ignore than to follow. When we understand that his life led to his death, it makes us understand that discipleship can be very costly. When Paul tells us to have the mind of Jesus, he is telling us to let our thinking be transformed by Jesus, but he tells us that it cost Jesus a lot, so that we understand it may be costly for us, too.

Jesus died because the power of love is a threat to those who love power. If we understand the world this way, and understand the life and death of Jesus and being integrally connected, we understand that living God’s way may lead to rejection but there is more to the world than we see. Jesus was killed by imperial power, and raised by divine power. The story that we celebrate next weekend is that of God vindicating the life of Jesus – when the power of Rome tried to cast Jesus as a criminal, God rejected that version of the story and raised him from the dead, demonstrating that there is power beyond the power of empire. While governments and armies and institutions may seem to hold all the control, the kingdom of God extends beyond what we see and the way that kingdom works is the way Jesus told us: the first shall be last, the last shall be first, those who have dedicated their lives to accumulating riches will leave it all behind someday, while those who have built their lives on love will carry that love with them – love is the energizing force in the universe, all creation shows us the interdependence and mutuality that characterizes God’s kingdom. Jesus showed us a way of life where transformation comes through our relationships – as we break bread around the table, as we pray, in our relationships with God, our relationships with each other, our reaching out to build relationships with those in need whom we may not have understood to be our neighbors. When we try to live like Jesus, we learn that his way is true – deeper joy comes from caring for others than by seeking our own happiness. So a faith that is merely about our own salvation, our own comfort, is not the life Jesus calls us to. We are called to make a difference in God’s world, for Christ’s sake. We have a choice about which empire we serve. Let’s follow this King, this Jesus, wherever he leads. Amen.