TO BE HUMAN IS TO CARRY EACH OTHER THROUGH
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Luke 19:28-48
6th Sunday in Lent, April 13, 2025
Pastor Ritva H Williams
Welcome to Episode 4 of our Lenten series “God is Still with Us.” Wednesday evening we were introduced to the idea that to be human is to carry each other through.When we are weak or injured, we lean on each other. When we fall, another helps us up. However loudly we might announce our independence or denounce our mutual need, we are each other’s keepers. We do not make it through our lives, even our days, solely on our own strength. We simply are not able to carry our burdens alone. This carrying has its limits, of course. The weight must shift once in a while—the same people can’t do the carrying all the time. We have to take turns. It is exhausting. It wears us all out. And it is what makes our lives bearable.
We explore this theme through the characters in this morning’s gospel reading, beginning with the one most often ignored. The donkey has been that most common beast of burden and mode of transportation among common people for the more than 6000 years. Ancient Greeks regarded the donkey as stupid, stubborn, and slow — a stand in for fools and lowlifes. Shakespeare turned the donkey’s Latin name, asinus into an insult. Yet in the Bible, the donkey shows up as symbol of suffering service, humble loyalty, patience, peace, and the ability to see what humans miss. This suggests calling someone an ass is an insult to hardworking, reliable donkey!
G. K. Chesterton penned this poem honoring the donkey:
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood,
Then surely I was born;
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
Chesterton’s donkey is a truth-teller without vanity, admitting to having a monstrous head, a sickening cry, ears like errant wings, and being the tattered outlaw of the earth. The donkey is a truthfully names the oppression it endures — starved, beaten and ridiculed. The donkey says, “I am dumb,” not meaning I am stupid, but that I am silent, treasuring in secret that fiercely sweet hour when shouts of joy filled my ears and palms were laid before my feet. Chesterton’s poem makes me smile even as it makes my heart hurt because there are so many human and non-human beings in our world who have been and continue to be treated like this donkey — starved, beaten down, and ridiculed — but who may never know a sweet hour of glory.
Next are the two disciples Jesus sends to fetch the donkey — I call them the donkey detail. The gospel writer doesn’t tell us their names, perhaps intentionally inviting us to imagine ourselves in this role. Jesus gives very specific instructions about finding and fetching the donkey — where to go, what kind of donkey to look for, what to do, what to say. As the story unfolds we see the donkey detail diligently carrying out its task.
If we see the donkey as simply a mode of transportation for getting Jesus from the Mount Olives into Jerusalem then the donkey detail is a necessary, behind the scenes kind of job. Almost all of our daily work whether at home, school, in the work place, or in the church falls into this category. Now matter how humble or routine, they are all essential to help us carry one another through daily life.
If we see the donkey as representing all human and non-human beings who are hungry, put down, beaten and oppressed then the donkey detail work is vitally urgent.. As members of the donkey detail we are called to find the last, the lost and the least, to love and care for them as Jesus would — as if they were Jesus himself. We are called to carry them through to Jesus by ours acts of service and care, in our prayers, in our advocacy, in our resistance to those who would make their lives more difficult.
Then, there are all those people carrying palm branches and spreading their cloaks on the road. Some were Jesus’ own disciples. Others were pilgrims from Galilee who were carrying each other through their journey. All were heading to Jerusalem for Passover — the great freedom festival celebrating the deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt.
At the top of the Mount of Olives the city with its gleaming marble and gold temple comes into view. The disciples begin to praise God joyfully and loudly, proclaiming Jesus as the “blessed king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
These cries evoke a character who is not in this story — Pontius Pilate. Perhaps, the crowd catches glimpses of sunlight dancing off the standards of Pilate’s Romans soldiers entering the Jerusalem at the same time from the west. Pilate is the governor who comes in the name of Caesar to enforce the Pax Romana — the Roman peace. Pilate comes to make sure that the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims don’t get any ideas about being liberated from Rome.
So it is no surprise that some of the Pharisees in the crowd urge Jesus to silence his disciples. Calling Jesus the king who comes in the name of the Lord can be seen as a political protest against the governor who comes in the name of Caesar. Jesus responds that if the disciples were silent the stones would shout out.
In the midst of that joyful crowd the main character — Jesus — sits on the donkey and weeps. He laments the coming destruction of the holy city because it does not know how to make peace, or even sense God’s presence in its midst. Someone must have noticed or Luke wouldn’t have been able to share this moment in his gospel, but who? Not the disciples, defiantly praising Jesus. Not the pilgrims caught up in the joy of reaching their destination. Not the anxious Pharisees. It must have been the loyal donkey that carried Jesus through this moment of intense grief.
When the procession reaches the city, Jesus enters the Temple and drives out those who were selling things. These people are agents of Jerusalem’s the elite one-percenters who have turned God’s house of prayer into a safe-house for storing the ill-gotten goods. The temple was not only a house of prayer but also the seat of government and the central bank. Five high priestly families satisfy their greed for wealth and by carrying each other through difficult relations with Rome, while the people they rule are living at subsistence levels.
And so we enter the drama of Holy Week, with Jesus acclaimed as the king who comes in the name of the Lord facing off with a system that rules in the name of Caesar. Which parade will you join? Will you praise Caesar and his minions? Or will you join the throng of pilgrims crying out,
“Hosanna! Blessed in the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Blessed is the one who comes to us by the way of love poured out with abandon.
Blessed is the one who walks toward u by the way of grave that holds us fast.
Blessed is the one who calls us to follow in the way of blessing, in the path of joy.
(Jan Richardson, “Blessed is the One — for Palm Sunday” p. 125 in the Circle of Grace)
