READING

Mark 11:1-11, 15-19

And when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Beth-phagea and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, and said to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat; untie it and bring it. If any one says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.'" And they went away, and found the colt tied at the door out in the open street; and they untied it. And those who were there said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?" And they told them what Jesus had said; and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus, and threw their garments on it; and he sat upon it. And many spread their garments on the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed cried out, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest!"

And he entered Jerusalem, and went into the temple; and when he had looked round at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

[The next day] they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons; and he would not allow any one to carry anything through the temple. And he taught, and said to them, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people'? But you have made it a den of robbers." And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and sought a way to destroy him; for they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching.

SERMON

Unitarian Universalism grows out of roots of the Radical Protestant Reformation of Christianity following in the footsteps Martin Luther began. Unitarian Universalist seeds, though, were planted in the dissent to the deification of Jesus. Always being free thinkers, we have moved with the times and been leaders in the continuing reformation of religious life. In the 20th Century, this has meant a move away from Jewish and Christian Scriptures as a basis for our faith. This really began with the Transcendentalists in the early nineteenth century. Today there are U.U. congregations where the words Jesus and God are prohibited. I am quite glad that that is not true here.

Because of this atmosphere of hostility to our sacred history, I feel it is important for you to understand my Christology, my understanding of Jesus, before I work with the Christian Scriptures. My primary religious identification is with Buddhism, so I'm not trying to sell Christianity. There is a great deal of what passes for Christianity today that I'm sure Jesus would reject just as he ejected the money changers from the temple. But there is a great deal that Jesus would embrace as the core of his teaching if he were to return again to walk on this earth.

To me, Jesus was an inspired teacher who was aware of the spiritual life within himself and all people. Jesus did associate with the prostitutes and the tax collectors, not the most upstanding and loved members of any community. His power to move crowds came from the way he spoke in parable that they could understand. We have trouble understanding them because we don't live in the times they lived. I suspect they understood him because his words resonated with the divine presence already within them. That resonance still happens close to two thousand years later.

I believe Jesus is not THE one true teacher but ONE of MANY teachers who discover this spiritual truth within. Some, like Mohammed, led a tribe to conquer nations. Others may live and die with only one or two followers. These awake teachers are present in every age giving a message that can be recognized for its truth power and correlated with other world teachers.

Jesus is a primary religious teacher of Western Civilization and Unitarian Universalism. Humanism springs from Christian origins - Christian idealism without Jesus and the stuff Jefferson cut out of his Bible. The Cross has been removed but its shadow remains.

Jesus was a man. He lived and died for what he believed, as many continue to do today in prison cells around the world. What he did and what he preached have great value that we ignore at our own peril. When I use the Christian Scriptures, it will be to bring his teaching to you. I believe the person of Jesus isn't central to the transmission of his wisdom, a messenger not triune divinity. He didn't say "worship me". He didn't say "make me into a golden calf and fall down before me". He didn't say "BE me", or "imitate me". He DID say "follow me". Today I will follow him into the city of Jerusalem riding a donkey.

Today is Palm Sunday, the week before Jesus is thought to have been executed by the Romans at the behest of the temple priests for being a troublemaker. Up until he enters Jerusalem, he is just one of many self-styled prophets like John the Baptist who criticize the standing order. The roots of the modern Jewish tradition, not centered on temple worship, are anchored in this time in history, as worship is beginning to move into synagogues and away from the temple.

It is very important to understand that Jesus was an observant (by his definition) Jew his entire life. The Last Supper was a Passover Seder. In fact the reason he was in Jerusalem was likely because it was Passover, one of the most important Jewish Holidays which remembers the Jewish exodus from Egyptian slavery.

At this time, it was estimated that two and one half million people came to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover each year[1]. There was a rule that every male Jew within 20 miles of Jerusalem must come for Passover. But many more Jews came to the temple from all over the world for this high holy day. "Jesus could not have chosen a more dramatic moment; it was into a city surging with people keyed up with religious expectations that he came."

The scripture itself reveals evidence that Jesus had carefully planned the way he would enter Jerusalem to get attention. Biblical scholars think that the phrase "the Lord has need of them" Jesus instructed his disciples to use to get the donkey for him to ride was a password. The donkey was just where Jesus said it would be. When the disciples tried to take the donkey and were stopped, the phrase opened the way for them. Riding the donkey into Jerusalem was carefully choreographed to fulfill a well-known prophetic scripture of the time, Zechariah.

Let me pause here and explain a relevant part of the prophetic tradition practiced at the time. When a prophet cried out against the deviations from the pure practice of Judaism and was not listened to, he would act out his prophecy in some symbolic way, believing symbolic speech to be more powerful than words. By riding a donkey into Jerusalem, Jesus acts out the prophetic words in Zechariah 9:9: "Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass." But he isn't a warrior king. When a warrior king would ride into a vanquished city, he would ride in on a strong horse carrying armor, sword and shield exuding coercive authority. The inhabitants would throw their cloaks before him as a sign of yielding to his power. Jesus does the same thing, but as a king of peace, not war. Riding a donkey, he shows his power is not coercive but inwardly persuasive. He uses argument, not arms, to cleanse the temple.

He does overturn the tables of the money-changers, but it is unlikely he did this in a fit of rage but rather a continuation of his symbolic action that began with his entrance to Jerusalem. I like how Rev. Mark Belletini explains it. During the festival of Passover, Jerusalem was probably crawling with Roman soldiers to keep order. If Jesus had disrupted things like a madman, he would have been immediately taken into custody or killed on the spot. More likely he slowly turned over one or two tables and spoke in prophecy. There was probably a throng of followers who surrounded him as he acted, which prevented the priests from doing anything about his disruption of peak activity. In fact, this most likely had happened before, as the money-changers were obvious profiteers who only could do business with the consent of the priests who made the rules in the first place.

More than his attention-getting entrance into Jerusalem, the money-changer incident was designed to challenge the authority of the priests. Like many of the prophets before him, he likely believed he was a divine messenger to cleanse the temple and purify the faith. And since the reign of heaven on earth was close at hand, his actions were part of bringing it to fruition as the fulfiller of prophecy. That he may die in the process will only bring greater glory. I don't think he knew how vulnerable he was in his actions until in the depths of the night, praying in the garden of Gethsemane, he asks for the cup to pass from him.

The message for us today, in this section, is not from the person of Jesus, his courage or foolishness. Setting up one's destruction has elements of both. The wisdom I find in the passage comes from the reason Jesus upsets the tables in the temple: "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people'?" The money-changers were a barrier for people to practice their religion. The temple purity codes were a barrier for the lepers, for the sick, for the poor. Jesus acted out of compassion and a sense of divine justice. For the Jew, the temple was the axis mundi, the center of the world. To be barred from it by a purity restriction was to be cast into a meaningless hell.

Is not the work of Unitarian Universalism to fulfill this prophecy? Is not the lowering of dogmatic barriers to membership an attempt to make this house a house of worship for all people? Do we not cherish diversity in our congregation rather than making everyone change their thinking into the same coinage? We just enacted a part of our by-laws that says "no congregational member shall be discriminated against - de jure or de facto - on the basis of race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability or part-time residence in Florida, or be excluded from full participation in the decision-making and office-holding processes of the congregation".

The Unitarian Universalist Association is actively trying to help us root out institutional sexism, racism, and homophobia toward making our congregations more inclusive of all people. I believe we are way ahead of our time in this regard. And why are we doing it? Because we believe in the worth and dignity of all people. All people are worthy to share our house of worship without having to demonstrate their purity.

This was the truth that Jesus lived. He worked to restore access of all Jews and Gentiles to his religious tradition. He saw the light in all the people healed, bringing them back into the faith. He opened the door to religious life for the profane through his presence and wisdom.

So you see, there are very strong ties between Christianity and Unitarian Universalism. That doesn't mean we are Christian or accept the Bible as accurate or authoritative. One can love Jesus and not worship him. For to deify him diminishes the greatness of what he did and separates him from us. After all, what's so special about a God dying on a cross, since he can't die anyway? The Christian Scriptures are no dispassionate dance of divine play. In my book, the more human Jesus is, the more accessible he is as a teacher for us.

Jesus's perfection is his realization of his divine nature which he acts out in his historical context. That divine nature in him is completely the same as the divine nature in all of us awaiting our recognition. And in the animals. And in the plants. And in the rocks. And in the stars.

This is the greatness of our Universalist heritage: To understand that every last one of us participates in this divinity - no one is left out. Our task in this life is to discover and be guided by this inner light, unique for each, universal in all.

Yes, we are a faith that intentionally makes its house a house of prayer for all people. May we, guided by our inner light, recognize the wisdom and love of this man Jesus we have such conflicting feelings about. May we read him without judging him right or wrong but rather as a potential source of understanding and motivation.

If we accept him in this way, his yoke will be easy and our burden light.

Closing Words

The problem with Christianity isn't Jesus,
It's the Christians.
Those who cry Lord, Lord, but do not truly know him
except as a means to an end.
We have nothing to fear from a Prince of Peace riding
on a Donkey preaching love.
We have everything to fear from Christian Soldiers.
Hear the message of Jesus
As best we can extract it from his followers
And honor it as we honor all world teachers.
We have much to gain from making peace.

Go in Peace.
Make Peace.
Be at Peace.

Copyright (c) 1995 by Rev. Samuel A Trumbore, All rights reserved.