Good Shepherd United Church of Christ

Stones Shout Out!                                                                Luke 19:28-40
March 28, 2010 , Palm Sunday
Metairie , LA

A curious phrase Jesus offers us today on Palm Sunday, when 2 disciples fetch that donkey for their master to ride.  A curious phrase, as the multitudes of disciples gather to welcome the Master with singing, shouting blessings and honor, dancing in the streets.  A curious phrase, when some of the Pharisees, who were among the disciples, beg and implore the Master to calm the crowd, lest a revolution begin.  A curious phrase:  I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would shout out!

When we think of natural sounds, we do not think, at least I don't, of stones shouting out.  When we are aware of nature sounds, do we think of a chorus or a symphony of stones?  More likely we think of chirping robins, cooing doves, whoooing owls.  Or maybe winds rustling the palm branches.  We might think of rumbling thunder or crackling lightning or oceans pounding or lakes lapping.  Stones on the other hand are silent as the dead.

"I tell you, if the multitude of disciples were silent, the very stones would shout out."  Their anticipation, the disciples, multitudes of them, was not containable, not restrainable...no matter the cautions of the Pharisees.  The crowds are primed for entry into Jerusalem with their Messiah and about to burst with singing, dancing and testimony...all shot through with joy!  joy! joy!

A New York Times reporter described a train ride through South Africa right after the collapse of apartheid.  On the day of President Mandela's inauguration, this journalist rode the train from the Soweto ghetto to Pretoria , the nation's capitol.  During this 3 hour ride the black African passengers celebrated their liberation by singing and dancing in the aisles.  The reporter was completely amazed by the spontaneous rejoicing, all through the land.  He called it a moment of spontaneous exaltation.  Our God is a God who makes a way out of no way, who liberates the downtrodden.  God takes scorned people and claims them as beloved.  Who could keep quiet in the presence of this God?

There is a story of a wall coming down, a wall of stones and barbed wire.  This wall separated free Germans from dominated, occupied Soviet controlled East Germans.  This wall was guarded by soldiers with guns.  People, many people, had been killed trying to cross over to freedom, pass over to release from captivity.  This brutal wall of separation, this Berlin Wall, became a prayer site for a cadre of inter-religious peacemakers.  They testified by prayer about the evil of the wall.  They prayed for God to tear down the wall.  These international peacemakers prayed aloud, singing, dancing and anticipating victory as when God led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt .  They shouted for the walls to come tumbling down, remembering Joshua and Jericho .  And that wall, it did come down.  And the singing and dancing and praising God exploded like Niagara Falls , splashing around the world.  Their joy could not be contained.  "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would shout out!"

That kind of soul-ful, spontaneous proclamation of God's grandeur happened not so long ago in our nation, though it was a time of grief, not rejoicing.  Still the multitudes could not be restrained from gathering in the streets, collecting to mourn and claim God's presence in the tragedies.  It happened following the Twin Towers destruction in NYC.  Rather than ecstatic, we were terrified.  But not silenced!  And not so fearful that we hid alone in our homes.  Not at all- rather we gathered as free people in public spaces.  And street corners, normally used for commerce, became transformed into worship spaces.  The prayers were heart-ful, spontaneous with not hint of self-conscious restraint.  Prayers of grief and anger, to be sure, but also great unrestrained testimonies of hope and faith.  Distances, petty hostilities, racial or religious barriers- all these walls tumbled down.  No cautionary Pharisee could have closed down those instantaneous gatherings, where we wept and held hands of strangers.  We sang together on that day, Pentecostals and Lutherans and Baptists and Catholics.  I bet there were even some atheists there too, just to be with people of resurrection hope.  On that day we did not see each other as Republicans or Democrats or Libertarians.  Not as Tea Party people or Coffee Klatch people.  (Now if that's not a miracle, I don't know what is!)  Even people who never vote and never pray, we all gathered.  "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would shout out!"

And have we not seen the same in Haiti , as these people gather amidst their ruined city and can not help but sing and dance and proclaim that God's love and justice do not abandon those who trust in God's mercy.

At each of these occasions- the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, the tumbling down of the Berlin Wall, the tumbling down of divisions at 9/11 and in the calamities of Haiti, the crowds are unrestrained, uncontainable.  Just like that day in Jerusalem when Jesus rides the donkey.

At a pastors' Bible study we puzzled over the Pharisees' cautions to Jesus.  These particular Pharisees were among the disciples, likely sympathetic to Jesus' message and certainly feeling worried and protective of their people.  The Pharisees feared the response of the Roman occupiers, who were on brutal alert to any hint of rebellion by the Jews.  The Pharisees were right of course- this boisterous, joyful parade, proclaiming Jesus as King was a direct threat to Roman power, to Roman dominance.

We puzzled, we pastors.  Not one of us had ever been cautioned by our church authorities to get our people under control.  No Conference Minister, no Bishop had ever warned us that our congregation was too boisterous, too riotous- that we should restrain their singing and dancing and shouting "Hosanna!" to the point of public disturbance.  No less are we in danger of threatening the dominant culture.

On Palm Sunday, we distribute the palms and we sing "Hosanna" but we are not about to spill out onto the streets- at least not this year, I think.  We are not such a public people as in Jesus day when most homes were too small for visitors and there were no malls of commerce- rather commerce happened in open air markets like farmers markets and craft fairs.  We are more restrained in our self expression and not inclined to ecstatic exuberance in our main line churches.  Perhaps our spirits are dampened because we know the next part of the story and the shadow of the cross is upon us.  We know that today's rejoicing will transform into weeping.

Perhaps we are timid like the Pharisees because we are aware that it is dangerous to follow Jesus, for those among us who are well off.  It is dangerous to proclaim to the powers of domination walls tumble when the voices of the people shout out in the name of the Messiah.

Easter is coming, confirming that life is stronger than death, love is stronger than fear.  On Palm Sunday the multitudes trusted that the day of the Lord was just around the corner and they did a dangerous thing- they shouted "Hosanna!" and waved palms and threw their coats on the path where Jesus came.  That parade was the beginning of the end of the walls that repress, suppress… that beginning of redressing inequities and dispossessing of those who use power to oppress.  The stones of those walls will come tumbling down.

Dare we pray that we welcome Jesus with such public fervor that we are put in danger?  That our various comforts and privileges may tumble down to the glory of God and the coming of God's righteous Word?  That we turn over our false securities to trust in the Kin-dom that Jesus proclaims?  These are questions to ponder on Palm Sunday and during Holy Week as we participate in the parade that leads to Jerusalem, then Gethsemane, then Calvary and then, only after those stations, to the empty tomb.

Let the people say, "Amen"