Donkey Sunday

It's always been one of my favorite Sundays of the church calendar year.  It's the one where, at the beginning of the service, the ushers in the back hand out instruments of torture to little children then parade them to the front of the church - parade them being the operative word, they are dressed to the eights (I don't know what the 'nines' are so I thought I'd be cheeky) and let them flounce up the center aisle gaily smiling and waving to their parents.  Once at the front of the sanctuary, they are given the 'opportunity' to sit still for seven minutes while an elder of the congregation tries to convince them that instrument of torture in their hand was actually an instrument of praise.

Palm Sunday.  My ass.

I think we should call it Donkey Sunday, or at the very least Sabbath of the Colt.  It seems like the animal that carries Jesus should have much more glory than mere branches cut from trees waved with impunity.  I get it, really: the branches are symbolic of royalty: the fanned waving, cooling the king as he passes by.  Three of the four gospels don't even mention the words 'palm branches' and yet all the glory on Palm Sunday.

So, bring on the donkeys.  Symbols of peace.

It's fitting, if you ask me.  Even our traditional Christmas stories have Jesus' mother riding into Bethlehem on the back of (guess what?) a donkey!  What great bookends for the story.  In the Christmas story, there's no fanfare, glitz and glamour on the journey into Bethlehem - there aren't any people lining the streets shouting, "Welcome, O favored pregnant one!  Welcome you who are pregnant out of wedlock."  There are no waving palm branches, no welcome signs either.  Probably because the manger scene hadn't been set up yet.

But donkeys?  They are the link to the stories.  They play amazing roles throughout the Bible, not just Hollywood stories about ogres.  It's not just Balaam and his donkey either, you know the one who is stubborn enough to not push through the danger of the Angel of the Lord and the one who asks Balaam, "Why do you keep beating me?" but Deborah actually has a song (in Judges 5) about those who ride on their white asses. 

There's even a website called bibledonkeys.com.  At the risk of sounding irreverent, and I quote, 'In the King James Bible there are 444 ass references.'

All right, all right, my dripping tap of sarcasm is turned off.  The Palm Sunday story is not about donkeys or palm branches, spears or otherwise.  It has nothing to do with the kind of road (aisle) that Jesus' donkey was paraded up not led by spears of iron but spears of leaves.  It has very little do with cloaks or even the disciples and their shouts of "Hosanna!  Save Us!"

But it has everything to do with the recently anointed king; anointed not by the prophets of power, but by the hands of a disciple named Mary called to prepare the king for his crown, not of gold but of thorns.  It has everything to do with the king who rides anticlimactically into Jerusalem not on the back of a foaming war horse but on the haunches of a lowly, cud-munching donkey which was probably content to nibble the leaves of the palms thrown on the road. 

The people wanted him to be insubordinate to the Romans; he came to save them from their insubordination to God.  They wanted him to be a mighty figure standing with steel sword and iron fist to smash the foreign army.  He was the Prince of Peace.

A peace that passes all understanding. 

Which is why the donkey was untied from its mooring post, called into service as the carrier of God's son, even just for a little while.  Minding its own business, the donkey probably (if I can anthropomorph the donkey and its emotions for a second) had little inclination to carry any burden that day much less wander down the screaming intersection of manic Israelites intent on having life changed for them.

Jesus rode down the aisle into Jerusalem and in the book of Luke, we find the emotion of the overwhelming moment - the Pharisees are telling the disciples to shut up and Jesus, overcome with remorse for the city whispers into the Middle Eastern air, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace..." 

What will bring you peace on this Palm Sunday?  This Donkey Sunday?  What will it take for you to divorce yourself from the tyranny of the present twenty-first century addiction to stress and look to the hill for the solitary figure that rides on the back of the meekest of animals and hear the whisper on the wind...

that brings peace.