The Questions With Which We Wrestle (Mark 11.1-11)
Tolstoy is quoted as saying that “Certain questions are put to human-kind not that we should answer them, but that we should forever wrestle with them.”[1]
This Holy Week confronts us with questions that cannot be answered or answered cavalierly; it confronts us with questions that demand our wrestling, our struggle – and not just our cerebral struggle, not just intellectual sparring but the struggle of the soul, the wrestling with whose and what we really are. Holy Week is Lent condensed; Holy Week is sort of like the final exam for Lent – the week when all of the self-examination we have done, when all the penitence we have made, when all the sacrifice we have endured is held beneath a cross, and all our Lenten preparing pales in comparison to the dying One who hangs on that tree. This is the week of soul-struggle. This is the week when the questions we wrestle with get louder and more focused. Day-after-day in this holy week, new questions are put to us, and we have no choice but to wrestle.
It begins today with the apparent but not easy question – what parade do we pay attention to?
The American Biblical scholar Marcus Borg tells us that there are two parades that enter Jerusalem on Sunday. On the one hand, from the east, there is the 2-mile pilgrimage procession into Jerusalem from Bethany and Bethpage, past the Mount of Olives. This is Jesus’ route. This parade begins with Jesus on the cloak-covered back of a borrowed colt. Among the pilgrims making their way into Jerusalem for Passover, there he rides. And the people respond. They spread cloaks on the road. Cut branches from trees and lay them in his path, and they raise the historic, the prophetic shout: Hosanna! Blessed is He! And Jesus rides on.
There was another parade entering Jerusalem that day. If Jesus and the pilgrims were entering from the east, there was a parade entering from the west. It was the military parade of Pilate and his legions, entering the city after a march from the coast to secure it during the Passover festivities. You remember that Pilate is on borrowed time. There have been uprisings during his tenure, the kinds of uprisings that get you noticed in Rome and not in a good way if you’re the governor. One more uprising. One more disturbance. So, Pilate is fearful. There will be no uprising in Jerusalem during Passover. And, as Hal Knight notes, if there was a triumphant entry into the city on Palm Sunday, it was not Jesus’ but Pilate’s procession.
Two simultaneous parades into the city, and yet, for us, an obvious but not easy question – which parade do we pay attention to? In our own life and work, which procession takes precedence? Which is more meaningful? More impacting? Is it the parade of the humble Savior? Or is it the parade of power? Is it the parade of the 99% or the parade of the 1? For us, there is no simple answer. For us, there is only struggle; there is only the work it takes to figure it out. There are certain questions human-kind cannot answer but that we are given to wrestle with forever. Which parade matters most?
A second question follows --- How is it that humanity can cheer Jesus on Sunday with words and palms of peace and then jeer him on Friday with violence in their hearts and on their minds? How can it be?
It is too simple to say that the crowd that greeted Jesus on Sunday with “Hosanna” on their lips was the same crowd that booed him, that leered at him, that jeered at him, that chose Barabbas over him. It is too simple, and historically, it’s debatable. We don’t know for sure that it was the same crowd there on Sunday, there on Friday.
What we do know is that the two sides of humanity make an appearance. On Sunday, we have the optimistic, hopeful side of humanity; we have the hurting crying for healing and the attentive seeing and seeking God in their midst. On Friday, though, we have the jaded side, the brokenhearted, the power-hungry, the jealous, the wounded, the hurting who see no possibility of healing, the conniving clamoring for crucifixion.
Now, for those of us who have been chastened by life, who have been humbled by heartache and who have been bashed by betrayal … for all of us who have grown cynical, Sunday is a challenge to that. Don’t give up. People see God and people seek God still. They will spread their garments before him. They will give their colt to his service. Don’t give up hope. For all of us who are war-weary, the crowd waves palms of peace and welcomes a different kind of king to take his throne. On Sunday, a different kind of kingdom happens in our midst.
But, for all of us who want to be hopeful, who want to be optimistic about the future, who want to talk only about the good in humanity, Friday is a challenge to that. Friday sobers us to dark reality. Friday reminds us that we have the capacity as human beings to turn our back on God, to reject grace and deny what is good. For all of us who seek peace, Friday makes clear our love for and reliance upon violence.
Carl Sandberg once described himself as having an eagle within that wants to soar and a hippopotamus within that wants to wallow in mud. There is within us Sunday and Friday.
And so we must wrestle – how is it that humans can cheer and jeer in the same week? How is it that we can seek the things for peace even as we plot violence? This is the week for our soul’s struggle – will we belong to Sunday or will we belong to Friday? “Certain questions are put to humankind not for us to answer, but so that we might forever wrestle with them.”
I like what David Whyte says. “[There are] questions that can make or unmake a life, questions that [ wait ] for you, questions that have no right to go away.”
If we listen, this week will pose them. Not that we might answer. But that we might struggle, and like Jacob, in our wrestling, find that there is blessing. Amen.
[1] Quoted in William Sloane Coffin, “The Things that Make For Peace,” in The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin: The Riverside Years, Volume I. p. 65
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