{"id":946,"date":"2019-04-15T01:53:27","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T01:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/15\/crying-out-based-on-psalm-118-1-2-19-29-luke\/"},"modified":"2020-02-15T18:23:03","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T18:23:03","slug":"crying-out-based-on-psalm-118-1-2-19-29-luke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2019\/04\/15\/crying-out-based-on-psalm-118-1-2-19-29-luke\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cCrying Out\u201d based on Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29 & Luke 19:28-40"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

I
\nlong thought that Palm Sunday was a big Yay-Jesus parade, where
\npeople shouted Hosanna to say \u201cYAY God!\u201d and it was clear that
\neveryone got how great God really is and how God was working through
\nJesus. \u00a0I thought that the enthusiasm for God and Jesus was just so
\nbig that the stones themselves were on the brink of crying out. \u00a0Then
\nI read John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg’s book \u201cThe
\nLast Week\u201d <\/i>
\nand learned that wasn’t it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nThe story of Palm Sunday is so
\nmuch bigger, so much deeper, and so much BETTER than what I
\noriginally understood. \u00a0It was, indeed, a Yay-Jesus parade, and it
\ndid, indeed, reflect people celebrating their excitement over God’s
\nacts in the world. \u00a0But a WHOLE lot was happening underneath and
\naround it, and to understand that, we need to look at the Jesus
\nmovement itself, the thing that was being celebrated.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

I’m
\nworking today largely from John Dominic Crossan’s book \u201cWho
\nKilled Jesus: Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel
\nStories of The Death of Jesus.\u201d \u00a0<\/i>When
\nhe was here last fall for a Carl lecture we learned that he goes by
\n\u201cDom.\u201d \u00a0As he often does, Dom manages to get into the heart of
\nthings by explaining the context. \u00a0Context is what makes his
\nscholarship so awesome.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nJesus was a Galilean, whose
\nministry was centered in Galilee, right? \u00a0What was Galilee? \u00a0Galilee
\nwas a colony of the Roman Empire, and it was a part of what had been
\nthe Northern Kingdom of Israel. \u00a0We talk about the Northern Kingdom
\nof Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judea because under King David
\nand his son King Solomon there had been a single united Jewish
\ncountry, Ancient Israel, for about 80 years after 1000 BCE. \u00a0It then
\nhad a civil war and split into two \u2013 north and south. \u00a0The Northern
\nKingdom of Israel lost a war to the Assyrians in 722 BCE and its
\nleadership was taken into exile. \u00a0The Assyrian empire took over the
\nland and imposed their customs. \u00a0The Southern Kingdom did better, it
\ndidn’t lose and go into exile for another 150 years, AND the Southern
\nKingdom also got the chance to \u00a0return from exile and rebuild.
\nAfterward, it became extra judgmental of its secessionist northern
\nneighbors, both for the differences that had been present in the
\ncivil war AND for the fact that they were no longer a pure Jewish
\nstate, in faith or custom.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nWe know some of this history
\nbecause of the stories of the Samaritan woman at the well and the
\nGood Samaritan. \u00a0Samaria is, after all, directly north of Judea, the
\nSouthern kingdom. \u00a0What we sometimes forget is that Galilee is the
\nregion NORTH of Samaria. \u00a0It was ALSO a part of the old Northern
\nKingdom. The difference is that in the time of the Maccabees, about
\n150 years before the birth of Jesus, faithful Jews from Judea moved
\nup to Galilee to try to resettle faithful Judaism up north. \u00a0The
\nGalilee of Jesus day was multicultural and multilingual, \u00a0rural, and
\nfull of faithful Jews as well as lots of people who weren’t Jewish at
\nall. \u00a0It was also a colony of the Roman Empire.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Now,
\nas Dom says, \u201cThe Jewish peasantry was prone \u2026 to refuse quiet
\ncompliance with heavy taxation, subsistence farming, debt
\nimpoverishment, and land expropriation. \u00a0Their traditional ideology
\nof land<\/i>
\nwas enshrined in the ancient scriptural laws.\u201d1<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\nGalilee itself was a fruitful place, and the land was useful to the
\nempire. \u00a0Dom explains, \u201cLower Galilee’s 470 square miles are
\ndivided by four alternating hills and valleys running in a generally
\nwest-east direction. \u00a0It is rich in cereals on the valley floors and
\nolives on the hillside slopes.\u201d2<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\n It was also pretty rich in radicalism, perhaps BECAUSE of the
\npercentage of very faithful Jewish people who believed land to be a
\ngift from God for the people of God.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Now,
\nJohn the Baptist did NOT do his ministry in Galilee. \u00a0(I JUST figured
\nthis out.) \u00a0His ministry across the river in Perea, in the DESERT. \u00a0I
\nhadn’t realized that Galilee didn’t have deserts until Dom pointed it
\nout. \u00a0The other side of the Jordan is the side people had waited on,
\nit is the side they entered the Promised Land from. \u00a0Galilee, like
\nSamaria and Judea, had been part of the Promised Land. \u00a0 According to
\nDom, John the Baptist \u201cis drawing people into the desert east of
\nthe Jordan, but instead of gathering a large crowd there and bringing
\nthem into the Promised Land in one great march, he sends them through
\nthe Jordan individually, baptizing away their sins in its purifying
\nwaters and telling them to await in holiness the advent of the
\navenging God.\u201d3<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\n He was re-enacting the entrance into the Promised Land, that gift of
\nLAND for the people. \u00a0Thus he was challenging the religious,
\npolitical, social, and economic bases of Roman control.4<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\n \u00a0This got him killed. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nBeing a colony isn’t a great
\nthing for people. \u00a0That’s obvious, right? \u00a0Colonies exist to bring
\nwealth to the country that controls them, and that means that the
\npeople in the colony are means of wealth production. \u00a0Dom explains a
\nbit more:<\/p>\n

\n

\n\u201cWhen
\na people is exploited by colonial occupation, one obvious response is
\narmed revolt or military rebellion. \u00a0But sometimes that situation of
\noppression is experienced as so fundamentally evil and so humanly
\nhopeless that only transcendental intervention is deemed of any use.
\nGod,
\nand God alone, must act to restore a ruined world to justice and
\nholiness.
\nThis demands a vision and a program that is radical, countercultural,
\nutopian, world-negating, or, as scholars say eschatological.<\/i>
\n That terms comes form the Greek word for ‘the last things’ and means
\nthat God’s solution will be so profound as to constitute an ending of
\nthings, a radical new world-negation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThe best known example of this
\nin the Bible is when God acted to free the people from slavery in
\nEgypt. \u00a0The people were oppressed, they cried out, God heard them,
\nand sent Moses and set the people free.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nThat particular story is
\ncelebrated and remembered at the Passover. \u00a0The Passover is holy
\ncelebration of God’s action to set the people free when they had no
\npower to free themselves. \u00a0 \u00a0The Palm Sunday parade was a formalized
\nentrance to the Jewish celebration of Passover in Jerusalem, at the
\ntime when Jerusalem was ALSO under Roman Imperial control. \u00a0It was,
\nthus, a very dynamic situation. \u00a0 The potential for Jewish upraising
\nat Passover is the reason that the Roman Governor showed up then,
\nwith a lot of military might and show.. \u00a0In fact, the Roman Governor
\ncame into the West Gate with a LARGE military parade, at about the
\nsame time that the Gospels say that the Jesus movement came in the
\nEast gate with a populist God parade. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nCan you feel the tension rising?<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Dom
\ngoes further into explaining how religious ideas of eschatology, of
\nlast things, work. \u00a0He says that there are two models, and John the
\nBaptist used one while Jesus used the other. \u00a0The John the Baptist
\nway was passive for humans and active for God. \u00a0It was the idea that
\nGod is going to come save \u201cus,\u201d where us indicates a single group
\ndefined by those who know that God is about to act. \u00a0This sort of
\neschatology is based on a future
\npromise that God will
\nact to save us. \u00a0Dom says, \u201cThis future but imminent apocalyptic
\nradicalism is dependent on the overpowering action of God moving to
\nrestore justice and peace to an earth ravished by injustice and
\noppression.\u201d5<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\n That might sound pretty good, until you hear the one Jesus used. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

As
\na reminder, Jesus was baptized by John. \u00a0That means he was a DISCIPLE
\nof John (a student of John’s), but one way or another he branched off
\nof John’s teachings and went his own way. \u00a0 The second way that Jesus
\nended up going is called sapiential
\neschatology. \u00a0<\/i>Dom
\nsays, \u201cThe word saptientia
\n<\/i>is
\nLatin for ‘wisdom’ and sapiential eschatology announces that God has
\ngiven all
\nhuman beings<\/i>
\nthe wisdom to discern how, here and now in this world, one can so
\nlive that God’s power, rule, and domination are evidently present to
\nall observers. \u00a0It involves a way of life for now rather than a hope
\nfor life for the future. \u00a0\u2026 In apocalyptical eschatology, we are
\nwaiting for God to act. \u00a0In sapiential eschatology, God is waiting
\nfor us to act.\u201d6<\/sup><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

As
\nfar as I can understand it, this is the crux of it all. \u00a0We follow
\nJesus, who taught us about God who is already present to us, who
\nworks with us to change things for the better. \u00a0We aren’t waiting on
\nGod. \u00a0We’re working with God. \u00a0Jesus’s ministry was one of
\nproclaiming the Kingdom of God. \u00a0Dom explains this well too, \u201cthe
\nsayings and parables of the historical Jesus often describe a world
\nof radical
\negalitarianism
\nin which discrimination and hierarchy, exploitation and oppression
\nshould no longer exist.\u201d7<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\n \u00a0The Jesus kingdom movement, \u201cis not a matter of Jesus’ power but
\nof their empowerment. \u00a0He himself has no monopoly on the kingdom; it
\nis there for anyone with the courage to embrace it.\u201d8<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\n All of this may explain why they could kill Jesus, but not his
\nmovement. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

It
\nalso explains why the crowds were so excited on Palm Sunday and
\nthroughout Jesus’ ministry. \u00a0Jesus was speaking to their problems,
\noppression, debt, loss of land, loss of subsistence, loss of dignity
\nAND he was offering them the reality that God
\nwas already with them and they could change it themselves!
\n No wonder they were having a Yay-Jesus parade.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

I
\nthink the big questions this leaves US with today are about how we
\nbest live the Kingdom. \u00a0If it is already here, if God is already with
\nus, if we can partake in the radical egalitarianism, if \u00a0God has
\ngiven all
\nhuman beings<\/i>
\nthe wisdom to discern how, here and now in this world, one can so
\nlive that God’s power, rule, and domination are evidently present to
\nall observers… then what is it that we need make space for so that
\nwe can LIVE it!??? \u00a0How do we access that wisdom we already have, how
\ndo we live that life that God has made \u00a0possible?<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nOr, to put it another way, how
\ndo we step out of the world\u2019s obsessions with consumption,
\nacquisition, fear, existential anxiety, competition, hierarchy, and
\ndistractions SO THAT we can live the GOOD life God already made
\npossible? \u00a0Since the goal is to live in love and allow lovingness to
\nexpand in us, and I wonder if it is a matter of balance. \u00a0There is a
\nneed for rest, to savor the goodness; AND there is a need for
\nactivity, to respond to the goodness. \u00a0There is a need for more
\nlearning to know how to best respond, AND there is a need to teach
\nothers what we know. \u00a0There is a need to attend to the goodness of
\nlife AND there is a need to attend to the brokenness and see it
\nclearly. \u00a0There is definitely a need to play \u2013 to live into joy,
\nlaughter and delight AND a need to be courageous and loving in
\nseeking justice for all. \u00a0Because part of the call of Jesus is to
\nlive a good life, and the other part is to make it possible to for
\nothers to live a good life \u2013 but not JUST a good life! \u00a0The call is
\nto a life that is a transformed, courageous, God-soaked with love.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

In
\nthe end of our story we hear, \u201cSome of the Pharisees in the crowd
\nsaid to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ \u00a0He answered,
\n‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’\u201d
\nThis is the part I had entirely wrong. \u00a0It isn’t that the stones are
\nbursting with joy. \u00a0It is that the people cannot be silenced because
\nthey’ve been empowered.
\n God’s empowering love is with them, and they’ve learned that they
\nalready have what they need to change their lives and change the
\nworld. \u00a0And once people know that, they can’t be silenced. \u00a0Thanks be
\nto God! \u00a0Amen<\/p>\n

1<\/a>John
\n\tDominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus: Exposing the Roots of
\n\tAnti-Semitism in the Gospel Stories of The Death of Jesus<\/i> (USA:
\n\tHarperSanFrancisco: 1995) 40.<\/p>\n

2<\/a>Crossan,
\n\t42.<\/p>\n

3<\/a>Crossan,
\n\t44.<\/p>\n

4<\/a>Crossan,
\n\t44.<\/p>\n

5<\/a>Crossan,
\n\t47.<\/p>\n

6<\/a>Crossan,
\n\t47.<\/p>\n

7<\/a>Crossan
\n\t48.<\/p>\n

8<\/a>Crossan,
\n\t48.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she\/her\/hers
http:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/<\/a>
\u2028https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FUMCSchenectady<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

April 14, 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I long thought that Palm Sunday was a big Yay-Jesus parade, where people shouted Hosanna to say \u201cYAY God!\u201d and … Continue reading \u201cCrying Out\u201d based on Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29 & Luke 19:28-40<\/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":[34,38,28,39,33,236,231,233,230,56,173,232,234,235],"class_list":["post-946","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-forgot-to-say-that-hosanna-means-god-saves-us","tag-gospel-of-luke","tag-john-dominic-crossan","tag-palm-sunday","tag-schenectady","tag-sorry-world-for-the-umc","tag-stones-crying-out","tag-who-killed-jesus","tag-yay-jesus-parade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946","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=946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1161,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions\/1161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}