One more week of Pilate
and politics. Are you sick of it yet? I know I am. It’s like we need something
different—a break in the usual routine. It’s like we need a week that is holy;
a chance to start over.
Unfortunately
for me who wants to jump ahead to Easter already, the Palm Sunday story is
extremely political. In the Gospel of John it is yet another cautionary tale
about allying your faith with the empire and of seeking the king you want
rather than the king you need. It’s a reminder that when you do this you end up
saying, “You know what, empire, perhaps that sign shouldn’t say “The King of
the Jews,” but instead it should say, “This man said, I am King of the Jews.” You
find yourself in the uncomfortable position where a man who you just treated as
the your king is crucified on a hill. Talk about poor marketing for the faith! This
is not a great advertisement for the Jewish people.
The empire wins at this game every time. Pilate won.
Pilate got everything he wanted and more. He got the very people who were
shouting “Hosanna!” to turn around and crucify their king. Chalk one up for the
empire. Do not sell your soul to the principalities and powers, because those
powers always win.
There are some other lessons, too. Holy week begins by
suggesting this is politics as usual. Pilate represents the political status
quo, and politics are either everything—if the crucifixion is the end of the
story—or maybe they’re not. Everything hinges on what happens next. If there is
no empty tomb, if Jesus stays dead; if he just has some nice teachings about
loving your neighbor, about upending power structures, and the like; if Jesus
is just a prophet, just a wise teacher; then Pilate wins. The empire wins.
Because in a world without resurrection teachings can always be suppressed,
powers-that-be can always bend the story to say what they want it to say: They
can put “the king of the Jews” over the figures they crucify and mock and
ridicule all of us. The Pilates of the world win more often than they lose in
this life—karma is limited, if real at all—and to pretend otherwise is to be
oblivious to the power that all empires have.
This is why our faith does not rest on our internal
goodness or morality or ethics. It’s why, as a pastor, I get frankly
uncomfortable when people associate my job with helping people do what is right
or make good choices. That is not my
job. That would probably be my job without the empty tomb, because ethics
precede politics. But ethics and morality and all actions follow faith. If we
confuse the order then we suggest that the empire is more powerful than our
God, because we suggest our actions are more important than what God does on
our behalf. The Hosannas are weak. We see that by Friday. They don’t mean a
thing. People are prickly—they will shout “Hosanna!” one minute and crucify you
the next. Every political leader gets cheered on their way into town. People
cheer for leaders; they cheer because other people are cherring. Their side
wins… or their side loses. On the way out of town, they might say that they
never cared that much for him anyway—leaders are dispensable, after all—but
there’s always somebody to cheer them when they come riding into town like a
king. Who doesn’t love a parade, after all?
But the measure of a leader is not the way he comes into
town but the way he goes out, and in Jesus’ case this leads us down the
uncomfortable road to Golgotha. Up until Easter morning Jesus is just another
martyr; he’s just another sacrifice to a cause. Now, don’t get me wrong: it
might be a moral cause. A person can follow Jesus’ teachings and be a good
person and do good for the world on their own—that’s the realm of morality and
ethics and politics—but ultimately to be a Christian is not about what we do but
about what Jesus Christ has done for us. Without the empty tomb we are nothing.
You will be tempted to say, “Yes, but I should accumulate
some power and influence in this world so I can tell people about Jesus or show
people what it means to be a Christian.” And when you do so you will inevitably
fall into the trap of so many before you. It is harder than hard—it is
impossible—to separate that desire for power from the will to do good. Yes, you
may have a good heart in you, and you may believe the world needs more of you,
but your power and influence will corrupt the empty tomb—every day of the week.
I look at Billy Graham, who had his flaws, or Jimmy
Carter, who has his flaws, or Mother Theresa, who might have been closer to
Jesus than all the rest of the world but undoubtedly also had her flaws, and in
every case these are men and women who we think of as saints for their actions
and, yet, at their best they were simply getting out of the way for God to work
through them.
This is the paradox of the Christian life: We are at our best
when we are mere vessels and it has nothing to do with us, because when we make
it about us (even for the sake of others) we begin to align ourselves with
Pilate. More and more, God and I start to look like the same person. The truth
is: I won’t make the world a better place unless I give up my power and get out
of the way. This is what it means to take up a cross and follow. It means not
just cheering with the crowds on Palm Sunday but walking the road to the cross
with him, but in every Gospel account this is a road that Jesus walks alone. At
the end of the story—today’s story at least—there is nobody faithful enough to
follow. Not the disciples, not the good people, not the people who cheered
Jesus as king. Everybody is unfaithful.
That’s a good reminder of what it looks like when we are
forced to choose between our God and our empire. You will make the wrong choice
all the time. The question, for Palm Sunday, is not whether we will ally ourselves
rightly, because we won’t. The question is: What happens next? Will the tomb
remain closed? It all comes down to resurrection—not the empire, not our inner
goodness. It all rests on Jesus.
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