{"id":1025,"date":"2017-04-09T18:33:04","date_gmt":"2017-04-09T18:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/09\/on-kings-and-messiahs-based-on-zechariah-99-10\/"},"modified":"2020-02-15T19:05:21","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T19:05:21","slug":"on-kings-and-messiahs-based-on-zechariah-99-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/09\/on-kings-and-messiahs-based-on-zechariah-99-10\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cOn Kings and Messiahs\u201d based on \u00a0Zechariah 9:9-10 and Matthew 21:1-11"},"content":{"rendered":"

On
\nthe evening of the first full moon after the Spring Equinox,1<\/sup><\/a>
\nthe celebration of Passover commences. \u00a0Meals are eaten in
\nremembrance, with story telling. \u00a0Passover starts at Sundown
\ntomorrow, and Seder meals will be eaten this week. \u00a0During the Seders
\nand through the week, our observant Jewish sisters and brothers will
\navoid eating leavened bread. \u00a0Leavened bread is bread that has risen,
\nby either yeast or sourdough. \u00a0Nearly all the bread we eat is
\nleavened, even the crackers I make are leavened! \u00a0Matzah, an
\nunleavened flatbread, is used during Passover.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Do
\nyou remember why? \u00a0The formational story of the Jewish (or Hebrew)
\npeople is that of the Exodus. \u00a0The story starts with the people
\nenslaved in Egypt, struggling under harsh conditions and impossible
\nwork expectations. \u00a0They cried out to God for help, and God heard
\nthem.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Moses
\nwas born and was raised knowing he was Hebrew but in the Pharaoh’s
\nhouse. \u00a0He saw a fellow Hebrew being beaten by an Egyptian overseer,
\nand in his anger he beat the overseer to death. \u00a0Then he fled to the
\ndesert in fear that his act would become known. \u00a0While in the desert,
\nMoses experienced God, and became aware that God had work for him to
\ndo! \u00a0After great objection, argument, and forcing God into
\ncompromising, Moses returned to Egypt to set God’s people free.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The
\nstory speaks of ten plagues, the first 9 of which are natural
\noccasional occurrences in Egypt. The Hebrew people took events that
\nhappened and ascribed them to God’s will. \u00a0It is likely that this
\nstory developed its dramatic sequences over time \ud83d\ude09 \u00a0The final plague
\nis by far the most horrifying. \u00a0In preparation for that one, the
\nHebrews are said to have killed lambs and spread the lamb’s blood
\nover their door posts. \u00a0Then, the story says, God killed the
\nfirstborn sons of all of the Egyptian people and animals \u2013 every
\nfamily except those who had lamb’s blood on their doorframes. \u00a0(I do
\nnot have words for how horrified I am by this story, and the only way
\nI can deal with it is by assuming it is the creation of hundreds of
\nyears of oral tradition and not anything like factual history.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The
\nHebrews were then KICKED OUT of Egypt, in fear that God would do
\nsomething even worse if they weren’t set free. \u00a0They left so fast
\nthey didn’t have time to let the bread rise before they broke it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Thus,
\nunleavened bread.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

More
\nimportantly though, the Passover story is one of liberation from
\noppression, and a liberation that the people did not believe they
\ncould achieve without God’s help. \u00a0The enslaved people became FREE.
\nIn her song after the people are free, Miriam refers to God as their
\nsalvation, meaning that God saved them, meaning that God helped them!
\nThis is the first time salvation is attributed to God. \u00a0The harsh
\nconditions were traded in for manna in the desert. \u00a0The God of their
\nancestors saved them. \u00a0The huge Egyptian nation with its vast wealth
\nand military might caved to let them walk away (and with gold and
\nwealth too!). \u00a0Now, the story may not be historically true as
\nwritten, but it is metaphorically abundant, and tells of a God who
\ncares enough to change the reality of oppressed people. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The
\ngospel quotes from Psalm 118, a Psalm that the Jews recited at
\nPassover celebrations, one that includes the words, \u201cBlessed is the
\none who comes in the name of the Lord,\u201d beautifully intermingling
\nthe freedom that God had given the people with the moment that Jesus
\nwalked into Jerusalem. \u00a0Psalm 118 has TWO references to God’s
\nsalvation, naming salvation work as God’s work. The Palm Sunday
\nnarrative is saturated with symbolism of the Passover, and of God’s
\nwork to free the oppressed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Continuing
\nwith a fast history, Moses had led the people to freedom, and led
\nthem to the Promised Land, but died before they could enter the land.
\n For hundreds of years the people lived simple lives in their
\nfamilies and tribes without any central government. \u00a0Eventually
\nthough, they became antsy and afraid (even though nothing really had
\nchanged) and decided to get a king. \u00a0They got King Saul. \u00a0He was
\neither a little bit crazy all along, became crazy over the years, or
\nperhaps it is just that the propaganda against him called him crazy \u2013
\nI don’t know. \u00a0But after Saul was David, and David was \u2026 \u00a0 OK, I’ll
\nleave the David insults for another day. \u00a0As David was dying he
\ndecided that his son Solomon would become king after him and arranged
\nfor Solomon to enter Jerusalem riding a donkey while people
\nproclaimed him king. \u00a0Thus entering Jerusalem on a donkey became
\nsignificant.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This
\nimagery is used, and added to, in the text we read from Zechariah
\ntoday. \u00a0In Zechariah the act of a king riding in Jerusalem on a
\ndonkey, again, is used as a symbol of the coming Messiah. \u00a0Zechariah
\nis written after the exile, when there is no longer a king in
\nJerusalem and between the destruction of the first temple and the
\nbuilding of the second. \u00a0Zechariah is written in a downtrodden time,
\nwhen the people yearned to be rescued from their new oppressors and
\nfor their society to be rebuild. \u00a0The people remembered a time when
\ntheir lives were centered on God, and they dreamed of a leader who
\nwould guide them back to that. \u00a0Zechariah’s words about a king and a
\ndonkey reflect hope for such a leader, usually called the Messiah.
\nThe hope was that the Messiah would bring God’s salvation back, that
\nGod would use one human to save the rest, to free them from
\noppression, to restore their nation and their order.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There
\nare still more symbols in this story that come from Jewish scriptural
\ncontext. \u00a0Another ancient King (pre-exilic), in this case Jehu (who
\nwas even further from perfection than David), who was greeted in his
\nkingship when people took off their cloaks and spread them over a
\nstairway while shouting, \u201cJehu is King\u201d (2 Kings 9:13). \u00a0This
\nseems like it is referenced with the laying down of cloaks in the
\nroad for Jesus, once again affirming the perception of Jesus as God’s
\nchosen leader.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This
\nis a story that is also post-exilic, but much closer to the time of
\nJesus. \u00a0The Maccabees (200-350 years before Jesus) gained military
\nvictory and freedom for the Jews in Judea and were celebrated with
\ncrowds waving palm branches and thanking God
\n(1
\nMaccabees 13:49-52 and 2 Maccabees 10:1-8). Intriguingly, the second
\nof the stories relating palm branches, parades, and thanksgiving to
\nGod in Maccabees also relates to cleansing the Jerusalem Temple of
\nforeign influence and reclaiming it for YHWH worship after driving
\nout the army that had occupied Jerusalem. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

The
\nmore I look at the story of Palm Sunday the more I’m struck with the
\nintensity of the symbolism. \u00a0It seems clear that the people who told
\nthe story, the ones who wrote it down, and those who edited it wanted
\ntheir points to be clear. \u00a0Now, that means that not all of the
\nsymbolism is likely to reflect history itself, but instead to reflect
\nan excess of meaning. \u00a0The Jesus Seminar puts it this way, \u201cIn
\nMatthew and John the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem mounted on an ass
\nthus becomes the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophesy and
\nconfirms the early Christian conviction that Jesus was the expected
\nMessiah. \u00a0The Christianization of whatever event lay behind this
\nstory led the Fellows to declare the narrative a fiction based on
\nprophecy. \u00a0At the same time, they held out the possibility that Jesus
\nmay have entered Jerusalem astride a donkey as a symbolic act.\u201d2<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

In
\nall of the Gospels, the crowds yell \u201cHosanna\u201d which means \u201cGod
\nsaves\u201d or \u201cGod, save us\u201d or \u201cGod, HELP!\u201d \u00a0The salvation the
\nJews had experienced in Egypt as freedom from their oppressors, and
\nthe salvation the Jews had experienced in Babylon as freedom from
\ntheir oppressors, was being sought in the time of Jesus while seeking
\nfreedom from Rome. \u00a0I think it is important to remember that the
\n\u201csalvation\u201d they were calling for was a tangible, physical kind
\nrelating to the opportunity to survive as a community, for each
\nperson to be able to live a just and righteous life while thriving.
\n\u201cHosanna\u201d wasn’t about afterlife, it was about desperate need in
\nTHIS life. \u00a0Hosanna sounds like a shout of glory and acclamation to
\nus, but I suspect it also carried overtones that would be very
\nfamiliar to refugees today.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

My
\nthinking on Palm Sunday follows the lead of Marcus Borg and John
\nDominic Crossan in The
\nLast Week<\/i>.3<\/sup><\/a>
\n Most definitively, this story tells us that the early Christian
\ncommunities who wrote down the gospels believed that Jesus was the
\nexpected Messiah and that his life was as important as any king’s
\nlife had been. \u00a0Furthermore, it is very clear from the way the story
\nis told that Palm Sunday is Act 1 to the Cleansing of the Temple’s
\nAct 2. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

For
\nthose who haven’t been present on previous Palm Sundays with me, Borg
\nand Crossan point out that at the same time Jesus is said to have
\nentered the city on a donkey via the Eastern Gate, there was a Roman
\nprocessional entering via the Western Gate. \u00a0The Roman governor ruled
\nfrom the coast of the Mediterranean, but came to the city for
\nPassover, along with significant military guard, in order to maintain
\nthe peace while the people gathered to remember their God’s actions
\nin freeing them from oppression. \u00a0The parade that people gathered to
\nsee on the West side of the city was a display of military might,
\nexcessive wealth, and the glorification of the Empire. \u00a0People on
\nthat side yelled, \u201cHail
\nCaesar, son of God; Praise be to the Savior who brought the Roman
\nPeace; Caesar is Lord\u2026.\u201d \u00a0That’s what makes the shouts on the
\nEast side so significant. They defied the power of Rome, and gave the
\npower back to God and God’s actor. \u00a0They were blaspheming against the
\nEmpire, and doing so while seeking God’s help in overthrowing it!<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Jesus’
\nparade was a counter to their Imperial procession. It was
\nintentionally different\u2014meek, mild, nonviolent, the opposite of
\nmighty, militaristic and powerful. And it was carefully timed. In
\nother words, it was subversive and courageous. \u00a0While
\nwe don’t know that all the pieces happened as the stories suggest, we
\nhave reason to think that the stories reflect a kernel of truth \u2013
\nand that the counter parades offered very different visions of the
\nworld as it should be!<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nThe
\nPalm Sunday processional along with the indictment of the Temple, and
\ntheir timing within the Jewish celebration of Passover, seem
\ncarefully planned to present Rome as the new oppressor \u2013 the Egypt
\nand Pharaoh of Jesus’ present day. \u00a0In naming Rome as the oppressor,
\nJesus also reinforced God as the liberator (savior). \u00a0The Palm Sunday
\nparade offered an alternative to oppression, and suggested that the
\nalternative was in God’s way and God’s vision. \u00a0Jesus entered the
\ncity while the people called for God’s salvation. \u00a0This suggested the
\nRoman officials were NOT the appropriate leaders of the Jews, and
\ntheir actions as oppressors delegitimatized them and opened the door
\nfor a rightful leader. \u00a0Furthermore, I think it was a popular action
\nand disconcerted the authorities. \u00a0I still think this is why the sign
\nover Jesus’ head at death read \u201cKing of the Jews,\u201d because this
\naction claimed that he was. \u00a0More and more I don’t think Jesus was
\naiming at a throne, rather he simply aimed at reminding the people of
\nGod and God’s role as their liberator. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nJesus
\nMIGHT have gotten away with Palm Sunday if he hadn’t continued on,
\nand pressed the issue further with the Indictment of the Temple. \u00a0I
\nthink that the two actions were carefully planned, and meant to
\nsubvert the power of Rome while reclaiming God’s vision for a just
\nsociety. \u00a0They both contrasted God, and God’s acts to save the people
\nfrom oppression, with Rome. \u00a0Jesus acted to reclaim the power of the
\nTemple for God worship, as he reclaimed God’s leadership of the Jews.
\n Jesus aimed to reconnect the people to God. That’s why he would have
\nengaged in planned actions that destabilized Rome’s power and thereby
\nlead to his own death.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nConnecting
\nthe plight of the Jewish people under Roman rule to the plight of the
\nJewish slaves under Egyptian oppression was exactly the sort of thing
\nthe Governor came to Jerusalem to silence. \u00a0Yet Jesus pushed the
\npackage, road the donkey, disturbed the peace at the Temple. \u00a0It
\nseems to me that he heard the shouts of Hosanna and was willing to
\nlisten and act. \u00a0This leads me to wonder: are we?<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nAmen<\/p>\n

1<\/a>Well,
\n\texcept when lunar calendars add a leap month and then it is the
\n\tsecond full moon after a vernal equinox, forgive me for
\n\toversimplifying for the sake of a better story \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

2<\/a>Robert
\n\tW. Funk and The Jesus Seminar, The
\n\t<\/i>Acts of Jesus <\/i>(USA
\n\t-HarperSanFransicso: Polebridge Press, 1998) 230.<\/p>\n

3<\/a>Marcus
\n\tBorg and John Dominc Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels
\n\tReally Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem<\/i> (Harper
\n\tCollins: \u00a02006)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rev. Sara E. Baron<\/p>\n

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady<\/p>\n

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305<\/p>\n

Pronouns: she\/her\/hers<\/p>\n

http:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FUMCSchenectady<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the evening of the first full moon after the Spring Equinox,1 the celebration of Passover commences. \u00a0Meals are eaten … Continue reading \u201cOn Kings and Messiahs\u201d based on \u00a0Zechariah 9:9-10 and Matthew 21:1-11<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[34,38,28,39,33,691,695,696,694,693,230,692,56],"class_list":["post-1025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons","tag-fumc-schenectady","tag-progressive-christianity","tag-rev-sara-e-baron","tag-thinking-church","tag-umc","tag-context-matters","tag-god-save-us","tag-help","tag-hosanna","tag-jewish-scriptures-matter","tag-palm-sunday","tag-passover","tag-schenectady"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1234,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions\/1234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}