The Lord has Need of a Donkey Isaiah 50:4-9a
April 5, 2009 Mark 11:1-11
Good Shepherd UCC
Here's how the poet, Mary Oliver, from her recent collection, "Thirst", imagines the Palm Sunday events in her poem called, "The Poet Thinks about the Donkey".
On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
chatter away, splashed with sunlight!
But the donkey, tied to a tree, as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let a stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still he was what he had always been:
small, dark obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man
who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped,
as he had to, forward.
I remember that other donkey, the one at the beginning of the story, the one who carried the mother, Mary, with her precious cargo tucked inside her body. That first donkey, who attended the birth of the baby Jesus born in a humble barn. Humble beast, humble barn, both serving their purpose well.
I remember all the animals gathered at the barn. Do you remember?
The cow that gave the manger for the baby's bed...
The sheep that gave wool for the blanket warm...
the dove that cooed...and the donkey?
"I", said the donkey, all shaggy and brown. "I carried your mother, uphill and down. I carried your mother to Bethlehem town. I", said the donkey, all shaggy and brown.
And it occurs to me that much of life is about donkey moments, not stallion moments. Jesus' last moments happened at the pace of a lowly beast of burden, not the racehorse pace.
He has been telling his companions all along that the ending of his life will not be glorious, but rather humble and lowly. And especially in the gospel of Mark, Jesus is slow to complete the parade. Only in Mark does the procession stop at the city gates, then Jesus goes by himself to the Temple. The cheering crowds are dampened in Mark; the tone muffled and somber; Jesus proceeds with deep humility, as if he perceives the sorrowful events that will occur that week.
Jesus knew where he was going and there was little joy, no easiness as he crept along the path. Three times he had predicted, not once but three times since the disciples were so resistant to the message, Jesus forecast the events: "See we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes and they will condemn him to death; they will mock him and spit upon him, and flog him and kill him; and after three days he will rise again." (Mark 10:33-34). Jesus knew exactly where he was going on that humble donkey ride toward Jerusalem.
The religious leaders had long been after him and his lawlessness- healing on the Sabbath, hanging out with lepers and prostitutes, challenging authorities, amassing huge crowds that threatened the status quo. And the political authorities worried about an uprising in this part of the empire and were quick to eliminate anyone who radiated revolutionary passion.
All the gospel writers include pretty details in their recollections of Palm Sunday- they wanted to recall those last moments as vividly as he had lived his life for them. Looking back later, they wanted to hold onto the hope and promise they experienced with their friend, as each day that awful last week, Jesus stepped, obediently, forward.
While you and I do not normally live with that kind of life threatening agony which Jesus carried, we too find ourselves in moments in our lives, facing threats that destabilize our comfortable lives. And we must step forward into a fear filled unknown. We come to reckoning moments when we have some important and critical thing that needs be addressed and we would rather not, and yet we do, we do step forward because integrity demands it of us.
A child who has wandered across to the dark side of the street needs tough love, which about breaks our heart, but we step forward, as we must.
Someone we love beyond words gets so sick and we do not want to ever let go, but the time for treatment is past and the end is inevitable and we call for hospice care with broken heart and we step forward as we must.
A traditional church, once filled with children and teens, now half empty on Sunday, becomes stagnant. People move away, young folks seek out the high tech, rock band church instead. And the congregation gives itself over to a new mission, stepping forward as it must.
I think of our young President and his charming wife, facing every day the risk of assassination in our era of gun-craziness and our national history of Abraham Lincoln, John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. Our president has made himself vulnerable to political assassins who would find glory in gunning him down. His wife and children offer their husband, their father, to the nation in the face of great personal risk. You may disagree with his political agenda, but there is no doubt that our President is laying open his life for the nation. And I expect that our President , who came to our denomination as a young adult, has been shaped by the same Christian model that molds all of our lives- that of Jesus, Messiah.
What Jesus was doing on the first day of that week, when the donkey took that hesitant step forward, was above all else, stepping into our lives, into things we face, in to our own suffering, even unto death, like our death. Jesus rode into town on God's behalf, a humble human being sent to see it from our side, to enter loneliness, betrayal, pain, suffering, agony, and humiliation; he takes upon his own body and spirit our most profound faith that nothing, nothing at all will be able to separate us from the steadfast and enduring love of God.
This week I invite you to complete a holy Lent by attending alongside Jesus the path that he took which blesses us. Join us at Maundy Thursday to share the sacred meal where Jesus is host. Join us at the service of Tenebrae on Good Friday where we stay together for the darkest hour. These are for the enrichment of your lives.
The poet, Mary Oliver, imagined that the donkey "loved the man who rode so lightly upon him, as he lifted on dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward". I like to hope that, for the love of God, we do too.
Amen.
Sermon indebted to "A Palm Sunday Sermon" by Agnes Norfleet in "Journal for Preachers", Easter 2009
