April 1, 2012

Clay Nelson

Palm Sunday     Matthew 21:1-9     Mark 14:1-15:47

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When I was growing up eight o’clock was bedtime, no exceptions. That was OK with me because eight o’clock was also story time. My mother would read wonderful stories full of fantasy, mythic heroes, romance, mystery and adventure until I nodded off. 

Stories take me out of myself and bring me back with a greater understanding of the world in which I live and more importantly of myself. The stories may or may not be fiction but the insights they provide are not.

With that in mind you will understand why Holy Week is my favourite time in the church year. It is even better than Christmas because there are more stories, 22 to be exact. The Passion Narrative we have just participated combines 21 of them into what seems to us to be one story. The story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is a bonus. Mark tacked together these stories to portray Jesus to his two audiences. For his Hellenistic audience, Jesus is shown to be a mythic hero. For his Jewish audience steeped in Isaiah’s description of a suffering servant, Jesus is the innocent victim.

We are not the audience to whom he was writing. We read it, without understanding his purpose, as a single news account about Jesus the Christ, the third person of the Trinity. It would be another three centuries before the church proclaimed him in such a way. No, Mark’s purpose was to provide clues as to how to interpret God’s purpose in Jesus life and death. Remembering that Mark had no Christian scriptures to draw from, he blatantly used Psalm 22, which we read on Maundy Thursday, as the template for his narrative.

It is an anthology of spiritual stories, it is not, an historical account. While there may be seeds of fact behind some of them they are for the most part fantasy. Here are some examples:

The account of the triumphal entry is built around a prediction from the prophet Zephaniah. Matthew attaches it to his re-edit of Mark’s passion narrative to say Jesus is the one Zephaniah was waiting for. One give away it is fiction is that palm trees did not exist in Jerusalem at that time.

This does not mean it is not a good story full of truth. The idea of a king riding into his kingdom on a donkey resonates with us if we are the hungry, the meek, the bereft, the persecuted, or the peacemakers.

The story of the Last Supper is a powerful story but not likely one based in fact, beyond the possibility that table fellowship was an important part of the day with his disciples. One give away is that it is fictional is after blessing the bread and wine Jesus says “do this in memory of me.” What the story suggests is that he instituted the Eucharist, the central feature of Christian worship. No scholar argues that Jesus had set out to create a new religion or foresaw the rise of Christianity. It is hard to imagine that he saw himself at the Jewish Messiah either or had any inkling that he would be viewed as the Messiah, the Christ, by a religion that did not yet exist.

That does not mean it is not a gripping story full of truth offering insight. The idea that we can join together at table with all who choose to come and acknowledge that we are all one by sharing a common loaf and drinking from a common cup is a mystical vision. It is a transforming image. It is a story that changes us.

The story of Judas’ betrayal that led to Jesus’ trial before the chief priests is again fiction. Some scholars even doubt Judas was a real person. Again, selling out the Messiah for 30 pieces of silver has its antecedent in Hebrew scripture. See Psalm 22. Was Judas’ character created to fulfil scripture? But whether or not he was one of the disciples every good story needs a villain. Betraying and being betrayed is a common motif to which we can all relate.

That Judas sold out Jesus to the Jewish leaders is a political story. By the time Mark wrote his Passion Narrative there was serious conflict between the Jewish leaders and the Jews who understood Jesus to be the Messiah. Orthodox Jews opposed the Nazarenes, as early Christians were called, worshipping at synagogue. It is not surprising that Mark portrayed them as conspiring to set Jesus up to be killed. Sadly, this portrayal was the justification for two millennia of very real stories of anti-Semitism. 

If there is a historical truth to the Passion Narrative, it is that Jesus was crucified, but not by the Jews who did not have the power to do so, but by the Romans. 

What Jesus’ death means is open to our interpretation, not that the church has told us that. The church over the millennia has stated what it means usually in terms that Jesus knew this was his fate and that God intended his death as a sacrifice for our sinful behaviour. But if Holy Week and Easter are to have any transformative effect for us we must wrestle with it for ourselves. It is the meaning we give to it that ultimately matters.

It is into that wrestling match I invite you this Holy Week. Come and embrace the stories at the various worship events offered this week. Enter into it as you walk the labyrinth. Find out where it takes you.

Let me close with one more story, but not from today’s readings.

In a dream, a devout disciple of the master was permitted to approach the Temple in Paradise where all the sages who had studied the Talmud all their lives were now spending eternity. He gazed in at them and they were all sitting around tables, just as they had done on earth, studying the Talmud still! The disciple watched them passionately exclaiming and arguing and reverently fingering the text. He wondered, “Is this really Paradise? It seems like the earth.” But then his thoughts were interrupted by the master’s warm laughter. “You are mistaken. This is not Paradise. The sages are not in paradise. Paradise is in the sages.”

My hope is that by engaging the stories of Holy Week you will discover that you like sages, embody the Messiah.