Morning Prayer: Tom Lyda Hymn of Faith *Lift High the Cross* Witness of Scripture: Mark 11: 1-11 Anthem *When I Survey the Wondrous Cross* Gilbert M. Martin. Chancel Choir Sermon *What Triumph?* David Spain
Recorded on March 24, 2024
Legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi is credited with saying “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” However, Lombardi wasn’t the first to express that sentiment, as UCLA football coach Red Sanders said it before him.Lombardi insisted he was misquoted, and that what he said was “winning isn’t everything; the will to win is the only thing.” However, the sentiment of winning being the only thing that mattered is what took hold, which Lombardi later reinforced when he expounded on his coaching philosophy.“Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit; unfortunately, so is losing. There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that’s first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don’t ever want to finish second again. There is a second-place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers…Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization—an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win—to beat the other guy…I don’t say these things because I believe in the ‘brute’ nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour—his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear—is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause and he’s exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.”
To be sure, Lombardi’s comments carry more nuance than simply “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” However, whether or not this was Lombardi’s intention, in a culture whose focus and value is being number 1 and often by any means possible, it could be that the words winning, victorious, and triumph have come to mean the same thing. At the end of the season, we know what matters most—hoisting the first place trophy. That is the goal of sports, and there are lessons to be learned and values to be developed toward that goal—discipline, sacrifice, dedication, conditioning, resilience. And yet, perhaps winning, victorious, and triumph are not the same—perhaps these words carry different values.
The question Mark’s gospel forces us to ask today is in what way is Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem triumphant? What triumph, what victory does Jesus win? To be fair, Mark does not call Jesus’ coming into Jerusalem a triumph. Bibles that include headings above stories have labeled this story “Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem,” and the church over the years has embraced that moniker for today. But what triumph are we commemorating? Perhaps by Lombardi’s standard and certainly by cultural standards and frankly most any other measure, Jesus’ plodding into Jerusalem on a bashful little colt falls somewhat short of triumphal. It is reasonable to wonder what the big deal is with this event—a one horse rag tag parade with a poor man’s red carpet of cloaks and leaves stripped from the nearby trees honoring an unconventional monarch? Whose idea of triumph is this? We see Lombardi’s quote depicted on posters alongside sturdy athletes; but the image of Jesus riding into Jerusalem—don’t look for it in the victory section of inspiring posters. What triumph?
Maybe it depends on who we ask; after all it is the winners who write history isn’t it?So, let’s ask the Palm Sunday winners—what triumphs on this day? Well, there were some in Jerusalem that day who had been waiting for just such a day to occur. Those who were well-versed in their biblical reading knew the prophet Zechariah had anticipated a day when the successor to King David would ride into town, assume the throne and the much glorified good old days would once again reign. Even though it had been 500 years since Zechariah had prophesied, it was still a vibrant hope living in the hearts of those who had been living under occupation and oppression. “Jerusalem was going to be Camelot and Jesus was going to be King Arthur,” wrote preacher and professor Thomas Long, and perhaps the disciples envisioned themselves as knights at the round table. The bad guys would be kicked out and the good guys would rule.The disciples, for all their obvious failures, had for once followed Jesus’ direction and secured the animal for his ride into town. Caught up in and hoping to capitalize on the moment, they trumpeted Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem amidst the crowds assembled for Passover, proving they knew their Bible by quoting the 118th Psalm and getting others into the act by crying ‘Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’ They took what they had, which wasn’t much, and honored this one with whom they had been traipsing many a dusty mile over the last several years. Indeed, what triumph, no question about it!
So the disciples shouted and some along the parade route joined in, even if they weren’t sure exactly why. For some it simply felt good to honor someone who did not appear to be the kind of person who would put a boot to your throat so that you would stay in line. And yet, that realization was also a bit unsettling, because it did not appear that someone riding into town on a tiny colt with his feet dragging the ground and a worn coat for a saddle, could stand up to those who rode into town on white stallions surrounded by armor and steel—that was the kind of parade that could get people bowing out of fear which is what really works and motivates people, right? Caesar knew how to appeal to the worst in people to get them to act, even if in the long run, it proved ruinous. What’s more this Jesus bumping humbly into town did not really fit the profile of the new King David. He walked everywhere he went, the stars served as the roof over his head rather than a palatial estate, his entourage consisted mostly of people who could never get an audience with Caesar, he played a little loose at times with what some religious authorities considered unassailable truths. What’s more, we know even within his own advisors, there was a growing dispute about the way he was ruling, and when he talked about the possibility of being lifted onto a cross rather than into a throne, the crowds started to drop off. What kind of king, what kind of power, what triumph?
We might have forgotten what the disciples knew well—that the waving of palms was a symbol of Roman victory, and to wave that palm embossed flag was to declare victory over your foes —the symbol of triumph, of winning. Jesus, they are declaring in this parade of waving palm branches, is the hailed victor; yet only 5 days later he would become the almost entirely abandoned victim. What happened? What triumph?The church, in recent years, has embraced that this Sunday allows two powerful and seemingly opposing sentiments—Palm Sunday yes and also Passion Sunday. This day anticipates this week—a day that begins in joy ends in sadness.The one who is hailed with palm branches ends up nailed to a cross. “We must ask ourselves, writes Will Willimon, “how a week that began so well could have ended so badly. I think that one of the reasons for finding ourselves here, at the end of this momentous week crying out ‘Crucify him!’ was that Jesus appears to have so little interest in meeting our heartfelt expectations. He was not the God we wanted, but the God whom we needed. You know what we wanted, a God who would come and vanquish our foes and put us in a position of power over others and over our lives. But then Jesus came to serve and give his life…It wasn’t what we wanted, but what we needed, because when we are honest, we must admit that the true heart of our problem is not the acquisition of more political power, but rather for the overcoming of good old human sin.” (Pulpit Resource, January – March 2024, p. 38) What is our human sin? Very simply the ways we abuse power to lord over and to lie and to dominate and to silence and to oppress.
A long time before this Palm/Passion Sunday, Jesus had gone on a little vacation with his disciples. They were relaxing in the resort town of Caesarea Philippi, and Jesus had asked them, “What’s the buzz on the street, what are people saying about me?” Then Jesus asked, “but who do you say I am?” Today, Jesus is no longer asking the question; instead he is showing the answer—the Messiah who came in lowly birth wrapped in a poor person’s cloth not pampered in the silk sheets of the palace; the Messiah whose parents took him and ran for their lives, becoming refugees in another land because the powers that be wanted to kill anyone who threatened Herod’s power; the Messiah whose first sermon proclaimed good news to the poor, release to the captive, sight to the blind, liberation of the oppressed, and then was promptly run out of town when he said God’s good news is broader than the measure of our minds; the Messiah who challenged religion wherever it had grown stale, exclusive, judgmental, or provincial; the Messiah who enlarged the definition of neighbor, transforming love of the law into the law of love; the Messiah who healed the unworthy and welcomed the outcast and called everyone to live with a righteousness of reconciling mercy that exceeded even the best of religious practices; the Messiah who showed us that the collusion of religious power and imperial power can foment the toxic brew of arrogant self-righteousness that justifies hatred and violence; the Messiah who though the world did its worst act of hatred pronounced his heaven best forgiveness; the Messiah we need, the Messiah God sent who comes into town riding not the fearsome mount of domination, the right of might, victory and success; but instead rides into town on the gentle mount of humility, the might of right, service, and compassion. And we are left to ask what triumph?
Today, Jesus rides again into our town, our lives, offering one more time who he is and inviting us to follow. Perhaps the question today is not so much how Christ is triumphant, for he has already shown us that. Perhaps the question is “what triumphs in us,” which is to say to what and to whom do we offer glory, laud and honor? What is emblazoned on the coats and palm branches today’s parade goers lay before the One who comes in the name of the Lord? Is it ‘hosanna in the highest?” Is it ‘crucify him?’ I guess it all depends on how we respond to the question of the day…what is winning, what is victory? Lombardi knows, culture knows, Mark’s gospel knows. And so we ask, what triumph?