“Then they brought the donkey to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it.”
~Mark 11:7
Yesterday we once again waved our palms in worship and shouted ‘Hosanna’! as those of us in the Christian household begin our observation of the week we call holy. It is always a joyous morning. Children and adults alike seem excited to be given a palm branch and to be able to do something often out of character in worship….wildly wave their arms and shout. As we do this we remember Jesus who, along with his friends, joined in a parade that took him into Jerusalem to what became a not so joyous experience.
During our prayer time one of those in our circle shared how this Sunday is one of his favorites. He loved hearing this story, he said. Knowing this person as I do, this surprised me. He is often one to question and challenge many scriptures so when he said this I felt myself smile and my heart warm. This part of our telling of Jesus’ life somehow captures his imagination. He then went on to say that on his way to church he saw a sign outside another church that simply said: “Bet on the guy on the donkey.”
Bet on the guy on the donkey. As I thought about that message I thought of last week’s frenzy over the mega million dollar lottery. It was astounding to me how people stood in long lines to buy a ticket even though most understood the incredible odds against their winning this enormous sum of money. This excitement was the lead news story on most channels. People were interviewed about what they would do with the money if they won. Another station did an in depth report on those who had won large sums in the past. I noted that, at least the segment that I saw, only focused on those who had done really good things, those whose lives had been improved by this windfall. That evening while out to dinner with friends, we shared what we might do if such a large amount of money suddenly found its way into our bank accounts. All this dreaming when, as far as I know, none of us had even purchased a ticket!
It was probably not coincidence that this church sign used a gambling term in its Palm Sunday message. Bet on the guy on the donkey. There is more excitement over suddenly becoming a millionaire than there is about choosing to give your life over to peace and justice and kindness and welcoming all manner of people into your winner’s circle. For life changing experiences, we often find it easier to look outside ourselves for some dramatic, once-in-a-lifetime act of sheer luck(whatever that means) to put us on the path to a good life. This seems much easier that the day by day work of trying to follow in the Way of one who shared food with unlikely, unpopular people and healed people through a look, a touch, a prayer.
And so with the waving of palms and shouts of hosanna, those of us who chose or were born into the Christian household, find ourselves in Holy Week. It is a week that welcomes us into the fullness of what it means to remember the stories that have shaped our faith tradition and challenged us to walk in its ways. It is a week that exposes our brokenness and vulnerabilities as we once again hear those of our brother Jesus who walked the path before us. It is a week that asks us to consider our odds and to bet on the guy on the donkey.
