Beyond Barriers: Weakness/Strength

Mark 11:1-11

Rev. Monte Marshall

Well, our Lenten journey is approaching its climax.  We’re headed toward Easter Sunday.  But we’re not there yet!  Today begins Holy Week marked by Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday.  The drama is intensifying as we follow Jesus from a subversive processional into Jerusalem, through the Last Supper and on to the cross.

Our theme for the season is Beyond Barriers.  This morning, through Mark’s story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, we’ll be confronting barriers that hinder us from experiencing the kind of transformation that comes when the gospel turns our notions of weakness and strength upside down.  Let us pray.

On February 24 of this year, The Washington Post ran a story by Moscow bureau chief, Michael Birnbaum, under the headline:  U.S. military vehicles paraded 300 yards from the Russian border.   The occasion was Estonia’s Independence Day.  The location of the parade was Narva, an Estonian border city separated from Russia by a river.[1]

The involvement of the U. S. military in Estonia’s Independence Day parade was more than ceremonial—it was meant to intimidate.  As you may know, tensions have been on the rise between the United States and Russia because of recent Russian moves against the nation of Ukraine.  This military show of strength in Narva was intended to send a message to the Russians:  “Don’t mess with Estonia and the other Baltic states in the same way that you’re messing with Ukraine because if you do, our military will extract from you a bloody price.”  Now that’s strength that our allies and enemies alike can understand, don’t you think?       

Given the display of U. S. power on parade in Narva, Estonia just 4 ½ weeks ago, doesn’t it seem downright silly to be here this morning marching around the sanctuary with our children, singing a hymn and waving palm branches—and all because our scriptures tell these old stories about a puny little parade into Jerusalem that featured Jesus?   So what’s the point?  We might even be wondering:  What’s the connection? 

Well, there is a point and there is a connection.  The point is this:  We have a choice to make today.  Will we align ourselves with a system that relies on intimidation, military might, and the threatened use of violence to achieve its goals?  Or, will we join the puny little Jesus parade that subverts every system of domination by lifting up the way of nonviolent resistance taught and practiced by Jesus?  It’s an important choice as our response to the reign of God is at stake here. 

Now to the connection.  For Mark, the military power that claims his attention is, of course, not American, but Roman.  But here’s the connection:  Both Roman power and American power are examples of what biblical scholar Walter Wink calls, the Domination System.  Are their important differences between the two?  Certainly.  But what both powers have in common with one another and with so many other governments throughout history is their willingness to use violence and intimidation to achieve their aims. 

Now the Christians of Mark’s day would have been aware of a back story to his narrative.  It was customary for the Roman occupiers of Palestine to reinforce their fortress in Jerusalem during the Passover feast as the city’s population swelled with thousands of Jewish pilgrims.  The additional troops were brought in to squelch any potential uprisings.

The Roman reinforcements would have entered Jerusalem from the West.  As one commentator notes:  “The procession…would have been an imposing sight—Legionnaires on horseback, Roman standards flying, the Roman eagle prominently displayed, the clank of armor and beating of drums.” 

And this was not a ceremonial parade.  Its purpose was intimidation.  “The procession was designed to be a display of Roman imperial power.  Message?  Resistance is futile!”[2]

With this back story in mind, Mark frames the puny little Jesus-parade as a mocking counter-demonstration to Rome’s intimidating display of strength.  Commentator Chad Meyers views the parade as a piece of “carefully choreographed street theater,” and another step in Jesus’ “direct action campaign” to challenge not only Rome, but the Jewish religious establishment in Jerusalem.[3]

But as puny as the parade may seem to us, I think Mark would have us understand the story differently.  First of all, Mark fills his story with messianic symbols that are meant to convey strength, not weakness.  And the symbols point to Jesus as God’s anointed One, the messiah.    

The Jesus parade, for example, approaches Jerusalem from the East, from the direction of the Mount of Olives.  This is not only a contrast to Rome’s military parade into Jerusalem from the West, but also the direction from which first century Jewish nationalists would have expected God’s messiah to come to initiate the final battle for Jerusalem’s liberation.  The colt in the story harkens back to a prophetic text from Zechariah in which a triumphant Jewish king enters Jerusalem on a donkey.  The cloaks placed over the colt, and the cloaks spread upon the road with the leafy branches cut by peasants from the fields, mark Jesus as royalty.  The acclamations of the people, who, in Mark’s account, are the followers of Jesus and not necessarily the residents of Jerusalem, are messianic:  “Hosanna!  Blessed is the One who comes in the name of our God!  Blessed is the coming reign of our ancestor David!  Hosanna in the highest!”        

So for Mark, this story is not a story of weakness at all.  In fact, it’s a story of strength, even though, as the narrative develops beyond this morning’s text, it becomes clear that Jesus is not the military messiah that some of his own followers may have expected on parade day.  Mark’s gospel is clear:  The way of Jesus, is the way of nonviolent resistance even when it leads to a cross.  

So by the end of Mark’s gospel, Jesus has challenged not only the power of Rome, but also the corruption and oppression of the Jewish Temple establishment, and the violent expectations associated with Davidic rule of his own followers.  In other words, Jesus challenged every aspect of the Domination System—but nonviolently.

So what does this mean for us?  Well, if we’re aligned with the Domination System and the kinds of strength it offers through intimidating displays of military might and its willingness to use violence to accomplish its aims, then transformation is required.  And transformation will only come as we move beyond the barriers that keep us from seeing the Domination System in all of its weaknesses—in all of its powerlessness to generate the things that make for life—things like love, compassion, mercy, kindness, and peace.  It’s then that we’re able to see the strength inherent in the nonviolent way of Jesus that is God’s powerful way in the world.

Let me give you an example of the kind of strength I’m talking about.   In 1988 during the struggle against racial oppression in South Africa called apartheid, Walter Wink was invited to do workshops on nonviolence in that country.  He writes:  “At worship each morning, we sang [an old hymn]:  Thine be the glory. 

“Someone had made a large wooden cross from a couple of planks about eight feet high and four feet wide, and during the service participants were asked to affix their names to it.  The name-bearing cross would have provided the police with a ready-made roster of those apprehended in a raid.  Hence the act of placing one’s name upon a cross during a service of worship signified:  ‘I am a person who is willing to suffer in the struggle against apartheid.’

“The act further signified:  ‘Not only am I willing in principle to suffer and risk for the sake of opposing apartheid, but I do put myself at risk here and now, by giving up the possibility of remaining anonymous on this occasion.’

“The workshop ended with a final service of worship.  We asked each participant to write down on a piece of construction paper the name of the particular power that had him or her most in its thrall.  Our aim was to provide an occasion for persons to become conscious of the Powers that prevent, or try to prevent, their being faithful to the Kingdom of God in their own South African context.  People wrote phrases like ‘Fear of Death,’ ‘Fear of Torture,’ ‘Separation from Family,’ and ‘Fear of Detention.’  Holding these insignia aloft, the people now formed a procession, at the head of which was the great cross with their names attached.  The procession circled the room and sang:  Thine be the glory.

“When the procession and the hymn ended, the cross with its names attached was placed against a wall.  Participants carried the sign bearing the names of the Powers they feared to the coal stove and burned them.  Someone said a prayer, and the event was over.”[4]  Yes, the event was over, but the nonviolent struggle continued, fueled by countless acts of resistance like the ones Wink described, until apartheid was no more in South Africa.

My brothers and sisters, we have a choice to make today.  Will we align ourselves with a system that relies on intimidation, military might, and the threatened use of violence to achieve its goals?  Or will we join the puny little Jesus parade that subverts every system of domination by lifting up the way of nonviolent resistance taught and practiced by Jesus?  We should decide carefully as our response to the reign of God is at stake here.   And wouldn’t it be amazing if this year we managed to move beyond the barriers so that our participation in this puny little Jesus parade actually contributed to changing us?  May God make it so.  Amen.