Jesus the Traveler

Palm Sunday 2003

Cheryl and I took our first longer ride with Kelsey on his new motorcycle earlier this week. He is new to riding and is starting on a fairly large bike for a new rider—he has bought an 800cc bike. My first bike was 54cc. As he likes to tell me, “my first bike is 16 times as large as yours was.”

We started at our house, then headed south through Rosemount, then west on highway 46. I looked often in my rear-view mirror to make sure he was doing all right. As the traffic increased, I became a little more concerned. I could sense some hesitation at times—I could see he was becoming more concerned about the traffic. There was a mixture of joy and apprehension as we rode because when most motorcyclists have an accident, it is most often during their first year of riding. I still bear the scars from my first spill on a bike on a gravel road my first year.

At one point a driver swerved around us dangerously. We were doing 60. The driver had to be doing at least 80. I looked back, to make sure Kelsey was all right. Joy and apprehension, apprehension and joy. Our journey down Hwy 46 ended happily but not without some butterflies in the stomach and some tense moments. Journeys, we re-learned, can be dangerous.

We might call this Sunday, "Journey Sunday." Though Mark’s version is a little shorter, the lessons we read and hear on Palm Sundays take us from a field near Bethany to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, from there back to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to Golgotha. Finally there's the journey from Calvary to the tomb. Each new path taken seems to draw us deeper into the darkness. Themes of death and betrayal litter the story like debris from the looters in Baghdad. The Holy Week services will only reinforce these themes. Perhaps that's why many of us avoid Holy Week. We prefer happy endings. Let's skip the pain and go immediately to the joy.

Would a God who held himself aloof from all that it means to be human be a God to whom we could turn?

We witnessed “Sonny” the donkey lead us into St. Mary’s earlier in the service. The Palm Sunday story begins with a donkey in a field. It's obviously an Episcopal donkey because it prefers to do things the same way each time. It lives in the same field, makes the same journeys day after day, and eats at the same hour each day. I wonder what Sonny thought when he was brought into church. I’ll bet he did not like it since we do it once or twice a year. In the story in our lesson, strangers enter the field, put a halter around the donkey and pull it away. Most donkeys would resist. If this donkey had been able to speak, as in Balaam's donkey in the Old Testament, it might have said, “You want me to do what? I don’t know who Jesus is and don’t much care because he has no message for me and my kind at all,” and give us a good kick. This Jesus, you see, was as immersed in human affairs as one human can be.

In an exceptional film a few years ago, “The Sheltering Sky,” directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, the main character, while traveling in Algeria, learned to distinguish between visitors and travelers. Visitors slip through town, catch the highlights, then move on. Travelers, by contrast, fully engage the locals and are changed deeply because of their travels. The main character eventually loses his life during his travels. With the incarnation of Jesus--remarkably--we learn that God is a traveler.

Would a God who held himself aloof from all that it means to be human be a God to whom we could turn?

Jesus sat on the donkey or “colt” as Mark puts it. According to the tradition, it had not been ridden before. Wouldn’t Jesus have been concerned that the donkey would throw him? If course it was a symbol of royalty to ride an animal rather than walk into the city. Yet one always has the sense that that there was a little bit of a subtle disparagement of Jesus in the choice of this animal. Jesus could sense what was ahead and those raucous voices must have sounded hollow as he rode the donkey.

We forget that early in Christian tradition people were scandalized at the suggestion that God would take such a form and subject himself to all the degradations we inevitably face. Born of woman, complete with bodily functions, eating and drinking, sweating when hot, and do doubt smelling like the desert prophet he was. God would do this? Unthinkable, most would have said. Some thought the early Christians were drinking bad wine at their Sunday festivals.

Indeed, would a God who held himself aloof from all that it means to be human be a God to whom we could turn?

All through Holy Week we find people drawn to Jesus, who then resist him, or try to change the story, avoid the consequences or denounce him. The crowds that had cheered him, of course, later cried "Crucify! Crucify!" Religious authorities--the pious ones in the fancy robes--plotted his death. Most of the disciples ran away when the going got tough, rather like the Iraqi soldiers of recent days. Jesus was not acting like the Messiah was supposed to act. The most trusted disciple, Peter, denied him. Only Simon of Cyrene was faithful and carried the cross; only the faithful and brave women associated with Jesus, and John, stood and watched the horrifying Roman execution. Joseph of Arimathea was brave enough to offer a tomb. But the CNN/Gallup poll ratings for Jesus were so low they did not register; the pundits counted him out of the events that mattered.

Think of all the images we have witnessed these last few weeks. The power, the terror, the expression of joy, the betrayals, the looting, the injuries, the child kissing the soldier, the little girl dead from her wounds. You would think God would walk away from it all, that God would turn out be a disgusted visitor who hurriedly moves on to the next world.

Yet, would a God who held himself aloof from all that it means to be human be a God to whom we could turn?

Each of these journeys draws us into a world of darkness, of betrayal, of naked power, of cowardice and even death. Those of us who love a brave new world, the progress so dear to American hearts, a comfortable pew, peace and contentment; who find illness, separation, betrayal, the use of force, darkness and death offensive—will be very uncomfortable. But our faith should not be an escape from the world as it is. It draws us into the life of Jesus, who is one of us, and Jesus who is true God, who experiences, as the traveler he was, the worst human beings do so that we in turn might be lifted up.

The TV images of this last week from Iraq will not let us forget who we are: we are those who, when the chips are down, rob, pillage, loot, lie and run away. When asked, we deny what we have done. Just like the original disciples. It is an old story that Jesus dies at the hands of lying, perverse people. Yet when we think about it, it is a story that should ring all to true every time we hear it. In that revolting death, Jesus dies to all the corruption that lies within every human heart.

For a few hours, when this journey into Jerusalem is over, we are left with a dead Jesus in a tomb. The traveler is dead, just as in "The Sheltering Sky." Nothing stirs. There's not even a hint of Easter in the lessons today. Nor will there be all Holy Week. What a way to end a Gospel! This can’t be right! But I would suggest to you that unless we can walk these disturbing paths with Jesus, leaving for just a short week our too-comfortable lives, our self-satisfaction, our island of prosperity in a world that is largely poor, daring to walk with Jesus into the darkness of evil and death, then carrying Jesus to the tomb, we will be unable to hear the depth and the power and the glory of the astonishing proclamation that is waiting for us this Sunday.