Palm Sunday, 28 March 2021
Jesus was a fundamentalist: he believed fundamentally in fun. [1] You may have heard me say this before, but I never tire of it, for Jesus’ way of challenging the social, religious and political derelictions of his day was to create comic incidents to challenge the ungodly and subvert the established order, and, with a smile, to introduce his new alternative and joyful way to those who had the wit to understand.
It’s there in his cheeky provocations of picking grain to eat on the sabbath, his sunny disposition to always touch a leper; it’s there in his audacious use of Caesar’s coin to turn a toxic argument inside-out; and it’s there in his many parables full of characters whose behaviour would seem frankly absurd to Jesus’ audience, as they would to us if we read them the way Jesus told them: as a prankster’s take on social conventions which introduce the possibility of a whole new set of values we could live by.
Palm Sunday is perhaps Jesus’ finest moment of comic genius. It is pure political pantomime, in which Jesus on his donkey poked fun at the pomp of Pilate who was entering Jerusalem himself that same day in all the ostentation of a full military ceremony. Jesus’ burlesque backstreet performance made a very clear statement about his very different take on power and leadership. [2]
It’s joyful to see how the spirit of Palm Sunday is alive and well today. For instance, take the recent “involuntary walk-a-thon” which the people of the German town of Wunsiedel organised in response to an annual neo-Nazi march there. Avoiding the usual stand-offs which would almost certainly turn violent, the organisers determined to undermine the neo-Nazis by using comedy.
Marking chalk lines along the parade route they created a starting point, halfway point, and a finish line. Then they enlisted local residents and businesses to donate 10 euros for every metre the white supremacists marched, pledging their donations to a group called Exit Deutschland, which is dedicated to helping people leave right-wing extremist groups. Rather than attempt to block the neo-Nazi marchers, the counter-protesters chose the tactic of ironic encouragement. They came out to cheer the marchers on the day of the event, flanking the route with signs that read, “If only the Fuhrer knew!” and offering refreshments to the walkers. This comic turn transformed the marchers into involuntary resistors of their own cause, and brought the community together in unity to counter the messages of white supremacy. [3]
Then there is the student movement Otpor! that helped topple the kleptocratic Serbian president Slobodan Milošević. Otpor! once arranged a demonstration which they called a “Birthday party for Milošević”, in which more than two thousand citizens had a chance to write down, on a joint birthday card, their wishes for their president - the popular choice being a trip to the International Criminal Court. Along with the card, gifts, including a one-way ticket to the Hague, prison uniform, and handcuffs were received on Milošević’s behalf. [4]
Otpor! worked on the principle of "creating a dilemma" for the regime, which then had to either tolerate the movement's actions and appear powerless, or respond with force and risk alienating members of the larger community or publicly embarrassing itself. A sense of humour is essential here. And the last laugh is on the subject of the people’s protests who knows well how to stop violent demonstrations - by using violence - but who will be flummoxed by a people’s use of fun. The spirit of the laughing Jesus is alive and well on earth this Palm Sunday, at the start of Holy Week. Here’s a poem I wrote to celebrate it.
He put on a panto for Pilate
He put on a panto for Pilate
that day at Jerusalem’s gate:
Jesus the jester
erroneously dressed as a daft king
on a Donkey of State.
He made an old ass out of Pilate
by lampooning his arrogant ways
with a braying old mule as his chariot
and a crowd of the town's waifs
and strays.
He went on to screw up the Temple:
chased its trading floor vendors away
with a show of derision,
and released every pigeon
like a comic magician at play.
When Judas protested the perfume
that Mary had splashed on his feet
Jesus the smiler
said just to beguile her
that what she had done was quite neat.
He caricatured the self-righteous
and made a big farce of their rules
by splitting his sides at their smug pious pride
thus showing those priests up as fools.
He made quite a twit out of Judas
For placing his bets the wrong way
On a guerrilla-fighter who’d take on the might of the Romans:
Saying, ‘No, put your weapons away’.
He’s a barrel of laughs at a party:
with the lovely red wine flowing free
he said, ‘This is my blood,
yes, honest to God,
drink up and remember me’.
Like a miming old harlequin artist
in the courts of the Chief Priest and King
he spoke not a word:
which rendered absurd
each concocted charge that they’d bring.
With a nod and a wink at poor Peter
Jesus walked out to offend
every humourless bloke
with the ultimate joke
that death really isn’t the end.
How comfortable are you with the idea that ‘the contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar is central to the story of Jesus and early Christianity’; that his confrontation with the high priestly and Roman authorities was ‘the central conflict that led to Jesus’ crucifixion’? [5]
When we say that he ‘died for the sins of the whole world’, that is entirely bound up in the ways of those earthly powers and authorities, which he challenged, seeing them as being incompatible with the good and gracious ways of God he wanted all people to enjoy.
Jesus’ crucifixion makes no sense. It is a non-sense. A foolish gesture, an absurd waste of a good life. But Jesus went through it because he knew it would reveal itself as a last desperate act of the kingdoms of this world to assert their dominion over those who oppose them.
Funny, all that worldly power drains away the more you contemplate Jesus’ resurrection as the ultimate triumph of the kingdom of God, a victory achieved very much in and for this world.
Notes
This talk is dedicated to my good friend Mark Coleman for his longstanding campaigning on climate change and environmental issues and honouring his vigil outside his local MPs constituency office last weekend.
[1] This line is derived from the rather witty Martin Wroe who I recall saying to camera way back in the 1990s, of Greenbelt: “We are a fundamentalist festival: we believe fundamentally in fun.”
[2] This perspective is expanded in a previous Palm Sunday talk of mine, The donkey-king is coming! Jesus' crowd is a Flash Mob (2019). The writing of Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan in The Last Week: What the Gospels really teach about Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem, is central to this discussion.
[3] Elena Cresci, German town tricks neo-Nazis into raising thousands of euros for anti-extremist charity. Guardian, 18 November 2014.
[4] Wikipedia: Srđa Popović (activist): Otpor! See also CANVAS: Center for Applied NonViolent Actions and Strategies.
[5] Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels really teach about Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem, p.2-5.
Comments