He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the
stones would shout out.”
(Luke 19:40)
If
you were in Jerusalem on that Sunday so long ago, I bet you’d know something
was up. Things always got a little tense around Passover time. Folks remembered
how God had set them free from Pharoah, parted the Red Sea, and gave a
sorry-assed bunch of slaves an historic victory over the might of an empire.
And lots of them were waiting for God to do it again. Maybe, had you been
there, you might’ve been hoping that this was the time when the Messiah would
show up, lead a revolution, kick the Romans out of Israel and depose that
greedy bunch of hypocritical oligarchs like Herod Antipas and the Pharisees and
the Sadducees and everything would go back to the good ol’ days.
Maybe
you’d be thinking that this Jesus of Nazareth guy would be the one to kick
things off. You might recall all the promises made by the prophet Zechariah
about Jerusalem being restored, and you’d think this guy coming to town “humble
and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey”[i] just like the prophet
predicted, will be the one to do it. All of Jesus’ fans are gathering around,
throwing their cloaks on the road, and making a heck of a racket as the rabbi
rides in on that little baby donkey.
Meanwhile,
the Pharisees, who have been playing footsie with the Romans and the Sadducees
and want to keep everything quiet, are starting to sweat. They’re afraid
there’s going to be trouble, and the kind of trouble they don’t want. They know
Pontius Pilate has come to town from Caesarea Philippi to keep his eye on
things during the Passover festival, and he’ not going to like it if folks
start getting ideas about liberation and restoration and such.
No.
The Pharisees want to keep everything low key. No hoopla, no chanting, no singing,
no trouble. Just keep your mouths shut, okay? “Teacher,” they say to Jesus, “order
your disciples to stop.” But Jesus tells them, “I tell you, if these were
silent, the stones would shout out.”
The
truth just has to be spoken. Jesus knows this. He knows what’s about to happen,
and he can’t keep silent. He sees Jerusalem and his eyes fill with tears because
he knows there’s a chance for peace—a chance that’s going to be missed. The
people will choose violence and rebellion and bloodshed. And then the city will
be leveled and not one stone will be left upon another. Then the scattered stones
themselves will shout out the people’s folly. The rubble of Gaza, the wreckage
of Ukrainian cities, the scattered debris of American homes lost to fire,
flood, and other climate-related disasters all speak aloud of the foolishness
of humankind and our resistance to listen to the word of God.
The
cry for peace, reconciliation, and forgiveness just has to be sounded even if
we think no one is listening. We know the crowd that cheered for Jesus that
Sunday as he drove the money changers out of the temple, the crowd which sat
spellbound in the temple later that week listening to Jesus preach, would be
the same crowd which stood passively on Friday while a violent insurrectionist was
released in place of Jesus and the
Prince of Peace was nailed to the cross.
When
we are baptized, we are baptized into God’s mission for the world. We are also
adopted into God’s family, and family members have to talk to one another and,
sometimes, tell each other the truth. Our baptismal promises enjoin us to “trust
God, proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God made,
and work for justice and peace.”[ii]
I
think we find ourselves in an hour similar to that in which Jesus entered
Jerusalem. Things are tense. People are unhappy. It is no time to be silent, because
the society is hungry for the things Jesus came to give: love, compassion,
fellowship, forgiveness, cooperation, and self-denial. It might start with a simple
conversation with a neighbor or a family member about what faith in Jesus means
to you.
Let’s
find our voice so the stones don’t have to talk for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment