[SB] Sabbath Blessing -- Palm Sunday

[Molly Wolf]

What They Wanted

They knew what they wanted: someone who'd get rid of the Romans. Not 
everyone felt that way; there were many who rather liked the Roman rule -- 
the good roads, the _pax romana_, the sense of being part of a 
sophisticated, civilized, international culture. But others had had their 
livings taxed out from under them or had suffered from the brutalities that 
Rome was quick to inflict when her rule was challenged.  They knew that 
Rome's tolerance of their religion was a bare and sometime thing, and if 
Rome decided to set a statue of Caesar in the Temple, Rome could bloody 
well force that to happen. They dreamed of David's kingdom restored, and 
they waited desperately for the Chosen One, who would come and set David's 
people free.

And so, when he rode into Jerusalem, they turned out in numbers and spread 
his path with palms and their own cloaks and shouted "Hosannah! At last! 
they told each other, in fervent expectation. At last it's going to happen, 
this thing we've longed for and suffered for, for so many years. We will be 
free again. He's going to turn the soldiers out, them and the elite who 
collude with Rome. He'll drive them out in humiliation and we'll be our own 
people again. We'll restore the priesthood to what it should be.  God's law 
will rule God's people. We will rise from the ashes and testify to all the 
nations that our God is THE God, the only one, and they will suddenly 
understand and turn from their ways.  The very air was electric with 
excitement and longing.

As the days went by, the buzz continued. He was making his presence felt. 
He went into the Temple and made a scene about the commercialism he found 
there. He zapped a fig tree whose only offence had been failing to bear 
fruit out of season.  He refused to say by what authority he was acting. He 
told stories that seemed to make no sense. He taught and healed and said 
outrageous things about the forthcoming apocalypse and the destruction of 
the Temple and the coming of the Son of Man and the judging of the 
nations.  But all his apocalyptic talk said nothing about what they wanted 
-- the restoration of political independence.

But what (they murmured) about getting rid of the Romans? His answer, when 
he was asked about the payment of taxes, was unsatisfying, equivocal. "Give 
to God what is God's" (what's that, anyway?) and give to Caesar what is 
Caesar's. Does he mean that paying taxes, getting ripped off by tax 
collectors, is a good thing? Some murmured and turned away. Whoever this 
guy was, he wasn't giving the right answers. All he seemed to predict was 
still more suffering, and they'd had enough of that.

The religious leaders found all this talk about the destruction of the 
Temple disturbing. His attack on the Temple businesses -- honest people, 
just making an honest living -- was unseemly and threatening. Worse still, 
another Messiah wannabe was also going to stir up the Romans, and 
stirred-up Romans had a habit of retaliating with disciplined brutality, 
and who needed that?

And so (just as he'd predicted) the people turned from adulation to 
puzzlement to anger. Like us -- like humans everywhere -- they knew what 
they wanted and thought they needed, and they wanted it in the here and 
now, not later. "Later" meant truly enduring in hope, and enduring in hope 
was something of which they'd had much too much. "Now" is a selfish word; 
it means I don't have to plan for the future, because there is no future, 
and therefore the consequences of my acts are irrelevant, at least to me. 
"Later" requires patience and endurance and trust and staying engaged with 
life as it really is, all of which comes hard.

Enduring in hope was, however, what he was teaching: it was the message 
that the next week would proclaim not only in words but in acts of the 
flesh: endure in hope, trust God.  Don't try to force your way out of the 
situation; stay with it, and trust. He said, no one knows when the 
longed-for day will happen. Don't count on it being ten years off; it might 
be tomorrow. But don't count on it being tomorrow, either. No one knows, 
only God. It will happen in God's good time. Be sure of that.

He offered them God's gift of reconciliation and grace, but not political 
victory and revenge upon their enemies. It was not what they 
wanted.  Confused and angry, some turned away; some turned against him. He 
sorrowed for them, but he knew it was inevitable. And he knew that, 
whatever befell him in the next few days, in the end, it would all go 
according to Abba's will. Of that, he was quite certain.



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I'm about to hit some sacred cows, and they moo so badly. -- Phyllis 
Tickle, aka The Divine Miz T.