University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

A WRECK WAITING TO HAPPEN

Matthew 21:1-11

Matthew 27:15-26

A Sermon by Robert E. Dunham

University Presbyterian Church

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Palm/Passion Sunday                March 16, 2008

            Barbara Brown Taylor teaches these days in a Presbyterian seminary, but she still lives out in the country of North Georgia. There is something bucolic and lovely about life in the country, but it is not without its hazards. Taylor explains:

Where I live… there are not many stop lights and there are even fewer street lights. People drive fast, and way too many of them never get where they are going. The side of the road is dotted with crosses marking the places where they died: one covered with pink plastic roses for the grandmother who never saw the stop sign; one with a teddy bear for the four-year-old who was not wearing his seat belt when his father tried to pass the truck. Near my house there is a plain wooden one with one red rose for the motorcyclist who was killed by a local woman blinded by the sun.

All of these are bad enough, but what is even worse is to arrive just after the accident has happened. The traffic is backed up for half-a-mile, the blue lights are flashing. There are so many cars that it is hard to tell what has happened. That is why traffic is backed up – not because the road is blocked but because people want to know what happened. They ignore the police officer who motions them to move on. They stare at the crushed vehicles, the broken glass. They look around for victims, or survivors.

Some of them pull over either to help or to gawk. I say gawk, but it’s only human – to want to know what has happened, to want to know if someone is hurt. For most of us, it is because we sense how easily it could have been us. I too have slammed on brakes when a stop sign appeared out of nowhere. I too have been blinded by the sun. That could be my car. That could be my body. Next week someone I love could be planting a cross on the piece of scorched earth where I died.[1]

Today, I think, is a day when we slow down to gawk, when we pull over for a while. It’s not exactly a wreck yet; today, in fact, it looks more like a parade. But those of us who’ve been around know that it’s a wreck waiting to happen. And even now, it seems to be starting, almost in slow-motion, inexorably. We hear the shouts of “hosanna,” but the screeching slide toward Friday’s collision is already beginning. We know those who shout their “hosannas” today will be shouting their cries for crucifixion come Friday.  It is bewildering, if you think about it, and in the end it will defy our understanding; Like those who pull over and stop to survey the wreckage, we may well turn to one another and ask, why him, why this, why today?[2] 

            The wreckage of Holy Week, the wreckage of the cross, is so hard for us to understand.  Across the centuries, the church has offered up so many theories as to why Jesus had to die, about what his death accomplished; they said that his death was an atonement for our sins… that he was like a sacrificial lamb offered up for us all… that he was sent to experience death so as to conquer it. And each theory has had a place in our tradition and in our own personal histories. 

            In the wake of the events of the last few weeks in the life of this community, those theories seem both helpful and not helpful at all.  They are helpful, I suppose, in terms of claiming some larger purpose, some larger, redemptive plan, under which our lives are lived. There is some theoretical comfort in such claims. But such claims are not very helpful or satisfying in the midst of great grief, when plan and purpose seem unfathomable to us.  Young Wiatt Farrar’s life ends in a blinding crash on a rural road… and one dare not talk of plan.  Young Eve Carson’s life is snuffed out by gunfire, and for what redemptive purpose?

There have been other deaths in our community, too, less publicized – Marshall Ralph Brown, shot and killed on Sykes Street a month ago… Kedrain Swann, killed outside the Avalon nightclub two years back. And as one draws the circle wider beyond Chapel Hill, the names and numbers multiply exponentially. We may well wonder how in the world all the theories about the wreckage of Christ’s passion possibly speak to the sorrow and sadness those families… and this family… feel in these days.

            A few years back the Lutheran pastor Barbara Lundblad looked at the events of Palm Sunday and of Holy Week and at the tragedies of our lives, and found the agony of Christ’s passion meeting us in a way different from all the traditional theories – a way that might speak to us today. Preaching just a few months after the horrific, senseless violence of September 11, 2001, she said this,

Jesus' death was [first and foremost] an act of violence brought about by threatened human beings... This death occurred historically because of Jesus' fidelity to the deepest truth he knew, expressed in his message and behavior, which showed all twisted relationships to be incompatible with God's shalom.

[Why him? Why the cross?] Some of the old answers may no longer hold for you or for me. That doesn't mean we've stopped believing; rather, it means that some of our certitudes, our very doctrines, have pinned Jesus down too securely. We need to look again and see what we didn't see before, daring to be surprised by the man on the donkey. Our brother Dietrich Bonhoeffer met a God he had never known while he was confined in Hitler's prison. “God allows himself to be edged out of the world and onto the cross,” Bonhoeffer said, “and that is the way, the only way, in which God can be with us and help us...Only a suffering God can help.”

Jesus comes riding into a different city this Palm Sunday. He comes not bound by time nor the turning of calendar pages. On that horrible day in September, Jesus came riding into the rubble, into the cloud that covered everything and turned the morning light into darkness. Jesus came riding into the heart of suffering, and he has not gone away. Only a suffering God can help….

Jesus comes riding into my broken life and yours. Only a suffering God can help us. Jesus went where suffering was sure to come for he lived his life within the heart of God. It was not what the world expected. Jesus’ words and actions were threatening as often as they were life-giving. So it wasn't surprising that the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” Some followed him into the city because he had brought them out of despair into hope. But others were scared to death at the rumors that preceded him into the city, rumors of what he had been teaching the people who joined this odd parade.

“Blessed are the meek,” he said, “for they shall inherit the earth.” No, this is crazy-we know the mighty will inherit the earth.

“You have heard it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’” What sort of madness is this against the threat of terrorists [and murderers]?

“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink.” Who can live that way?

“For what will it profit you to gain the whole world but forfeit your life?” That is surely no way to get the economy moving again.

“Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant...” Forget it, we say, we're standing tall and we will be greater still.

Living this peculiar, God-shaped life Jesus knew he would not escape suffering. He talked of it along the way, telling his confused disciples not once but three times that he was headed for Jerusalem, where he would surely be arrested, condemned and crucified. Yet, still he rode into the city, drawn there by the heart of God. And he comes riding still.[3]

It may not be a wreck, not yet – this parade we have slowed down to observe. But we can see already that it is a wreck waiting to happen. And by the end of the week, we may well be asking again, “Why him, why this, why today?”  Perhaps Barb Lundblad had suggested the best answer we can give in a time such as this:  Only a suffering God can help. 

My friend and colleague Joanna Adams once remarked wisely that in our Presbyterian tradition

we say the Apostles Creed, and when we say it, we include the line, “He descended into hell” after we say, “He was crucified, dead and buried.” He descended into hell. What a powerful acknowledgment that there is no human experience - no height, no depth, no loss, no pain, no apparently God-forsaken place, even the farthest reaches of hell - that Jesus has not entered into. He descended into hell is immediately followed [in the creed] by the glad affirmation that he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven. It is here that the great reversal takes place. The servant becomes Lord. The humiliated one becomes the exalted one whose name is above every name. He ascended into heaven, [but] on Palm Sunday, and during this Holy Week ahead, we remember that he did not get there the easy way.[4]

It seems especially appropriate for us this Palm/Passion Sunday that we should remember the pain and the passion before we remember the triumph, that we should remember the suffering of God before we talk about God’s power or providence or plan – especially appropriate on this Sunday when we feel still the shock and the grief and the pain of these last weeks.  For the truth is, only a suffering God can help.