March 20, 2005

Rev. Henry Ticknor
Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley

In Search of the Nazarene

Well, here I go again. Today is one of those Sundays that are often a challenge to those of us with more heretical leanings. It is sort of reminiscent of the mess that happens every December when we try to put our own unique spin on the Christmas, Hanukkah, solstice, Kwanzaa thing. I think it was our DRE Brenda Berry who so neatly tied that package up and called that experience chriskwanzicah!

Today is Sunday, March 20. According to the astronomical calendar spring arrived sometime early this morning. In case you missed it, an Internet site, aptly named The Spoof, ran the following item:

The National Weather Service disclosed today that hackers gained entry into their computer systems and modified the first day of spring. Rather than March 20, the first day of spring could now come as late as April. The FBI is investigating the unauthorized entry. The Director of the National Weather Service, Dr. Louis Uccellini, said technicians will "move heaven and earth" to restore the first day of spring to the correct date.

Dr. Uccellini would not formally commit to completing the necessary fixes to have spring begin on time. "We may have to settle for mid-April," he said. He expressed confidence that summer would not be impacted. "I can assure you that summer 2005 will start right on time, you can bet your sprinkler on it."

The FBI believes the system entry was done by a single individual, possibly a person who has been traumatized by inaccurate weather predictions. They are reviewing the 200,000 threats the NWS has received in the last 12 months. "You can make a lot of people mad if your weather forecast is wrong," said FBI Special Agent Wanda Broane. An FBI profile describes the hacker as a male between 16 and 25, pale, and possibly obsessed with the Weather Channel.

A late spring could have a serious effect on the economy by causing increased heating bills and delaying the start of warm weather consumer purchases. Retailers are angry that the NWS was not prepared for this kind of break-in. "It was just a matter of time before somebody really did do something about the weather," said a statement from the American Plastic Pool Council. "We are disappointed that the NWS does not have the security measures in place to protect the integrity of our seasonal calendar."

Psychologists are concerned that prolonging an already grim winter will adversely impact the nation’s mental health. "People look forward to spring with great hope," said Dr. Gifford Goldman, "and waiting another month may be just too much for some people." He said his chain of Florida condos was offering reduced rates to customers who were clinically depressed due to the delay of spring.

A spokesman for Major League Baseball denied reports that players had doubled their normal steroid order so they could be prepared for cold weather play.

Now spring is a fairly consistent event arriving as it does each year around the 20^th or 21^st of March, at least in the northern hemisphere. However Easter, and the season of Lent that precedes it, is a moveable feast and the exact date of Easter can vary by more than a month. It can never be earlier than March 22, nor later than April 25. The date was fixed in 325 C.E. by the council of Nicea, and was set as the Sunday after the first full moon after or on the spring equinox.

I say, Easter and the season of Lent because indeed today is the sixth Sunday of Lent. This particular Sunday in the Christian liturgical calendar is known as Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday. This Sunday marks Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem where he was welcomed by crowds supposedly waving palm branches and proclaiming him as the messianic king— the same crowds that only five days later would cry for his execution. This is how the writer of the Gospel of Matthew described this event:

And when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Beth’phage, to the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, "The Lord has need of them," and he will send them immediately. This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet saying, "Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass.

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the ass and the colt, and put their garments on them, and he sat thereon. Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and followed him shouted, "Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord! Hosanna in the highest!" And when he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, "Who is this?" and the crowds said, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee."

I think it most appropriate on this Palm Sunday to ask again the question saked by the ancient Hebrews in Jerusalem over 2000 years ago. "Who is this?" "Who is this man called Jesus and what do we know about him?

As I was getting ready for this sermon I re-read portions of John P. Meier’s book A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. In writing this book Meier imagined the following scenario: "Suppose a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, and an agnostic—all honest historians cognizant of first century religious movements—were locked up in the bowels of the Harvard Divinity School library…and not allowed to emerge until they had hammered out a consensus document on who Jesus of Nazareth was and what he intended."

This book sets out to explore the Jesus that can be reconstructed by modern historical research. "The historical Jesus is not the real Jesus. The real Jesus is not the historical Jesus," writes Meier. "What do we mean when we say we want to investigate the "real" Jesus or the "real" Nero or the real anybody in ancient history?" Even worse the author states we know next to nothing about the true historical sequence of events that are preserved for us. His conclusion is that each gospel account contains not a historically accurate chronological order but an artificial theological schema and putting all four Gospels together will produce only a confused heap of theology—not an accurate historical accounting of the man’s life.

Meieir set out to explore some difficult questions: Was Jesus virginally conceived? Did he have brothers and sisters? Was he married or single? Was he literate? Did he know Hebrew and Greek as well as Aramaic? Well, after over 400 pages of sometimes obtuse writing here are his conclusions.

Jesus of Nazareth was born—most likely in Nazareth, not Bethlehem around 7 or 6 B.C.E. a few years before the death of King Herod the Great. After an unexceptional upbringing in a pious family of Jewish peasants, he was attracted to the movement of John the Baptist, who began his ministry in the Jordan Valley around the year 28 C.E. Baptized by John, Jesus soon stuck out on his own, beginning his public ministry around the age of thirty-three or thirty-four. He regularly traveled between his home area of Galilee and Jerusalem. He would travel to Jerusalem for the great feasts, such as Passover, where he would find large crowds assured a ready audience for his teaching. This active ministry lasted approximately two years.

In 30 C.E. Jesus was in Jerusalem for the approaching feast of Passover and he seems to have sensed that there was increasing hostility between the temple authorities and himself. He celebrated a "solemn farewell dinner" with his inner circle of followers on Thursday evening. He was arrested in Gethsemane late Thursday or early Friday and after questioning by some Jewish officials; he was handed over to Pilate sometime early on Friday. Pilate quickly condemned him to death by crucifixion—a penalty most often employed for traitors to the state. After being mocked and scourged, he was crucified outside of Jerusalem that same day. He was dead by that evening. He was approximately 36 years old.

It’s not much of a story. In fact it reads more like a modern day obituary. And it doesn’t go very far to answer the question "Who is this?" So, let me try and add to the obituary by going back to the story of Palm Sunday.

According to the Gospel writers, after the cheers of welcome had died down; after the streets had been swept clean; after the jubilation came the pain and cruelty. They scorned him for not being the king they imagined. The crowds did not understand that Jesus was a different kind of King. He came as a king of peace looking for a kingdom where people practiced mercy, pity, peace, and love as Jesus emulated by his life.

In the gospel account of Luke the story is told that:

Indeed, this is the irony the Palm Sunday story. A man of peace, bearing message of non-violence and support for the oppressed and marginalized is met with state sanctioned violence and ultimately murder. And when I think of our modern world, I wonder just how much has changed.

I think of Martin Luther King who brought the message of reconciliation among the races only to be vilified by many and ultimately murdered for his radical message of love. When I ponder the meaning of this Palm Sunday I am reminded of the words of Rev. King: "Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Cavalry’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three men were crucified for the same crime—the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness and therefore rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."

I think of King’s mentor Mahatma Gandhi who was murdered on his way to a prayer meeting. "Who am I?" wrote Gandhi. "I have no strength save what God gives me. I have no authority over my countrymen save the pure moral. If he holds me to be a pure instrument for the spread of non-violence in place of the awful violence now ruling the earth, He will give me the strength and show me the way. My greatest weapon is mute prayer. The cause of peace is, therefore, in God’s hands."

I think of Abraham Lincoln, killed at the age of 56. I think of Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address in which he concluded, "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

And finally, I think of the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was hanged by the Nazis at for his part in a plot to kill Hitler. He died at 39, but left a legacy in his writings that now, a half-century later, still provides valuable insight for those seeking peace over violence. From a poem written in prison titled "Who Am I?"

Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my cell's confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me I would talk to my warden freely and friendly and clearly, as though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me I would bear the days of misfortune equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really all that which other men tell of, or am I only what I know of myself, restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds, thirsting for
words of kindness, for neighborliness, trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation, tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, faint and ready to say farewell to it all.
Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today, and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others, and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army, fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine.

Yes, the irony of this Palm Sunday is not lost on me. We live in a world that has the resources to feed the poor, to shelter the homeless, to heal the sick. Yet we live in a world where the peacemakers are often vilified and murdered just as Jesus was because their radical message of love and peace is contradictory to the economic and political wishes of those exercise political and economic power.

We live in a world that is gradually slipping into ecological disaster; where the divide between rich and poor may become unsurpassable, where emerging illnesses may take the lives of countless millions and where religious fundamentalism threatens to sever the relations between nation states.

This Palm Sunday let us remember to recognize the things that make for peace so that each of us can do our part, no matter how small, to keep our world from being crushed. Let us remember the life of the man called Jesus and let us recognized on this day the things that make for peace.

Just as the earth has once again awakened from winter’s bond, let us awaken to the promise of what might be rather than to give in to the pain of what is. When future generations ask the question, who were we who went before? Let the answer be we were the peacemakers who built a land where people practiced mercy, pity, peace, and love. For this is the true legacy of the man from Nazareth.

Amen