Everybody loves a parade. Especially those big parades on the 4^th of July or the Macy Parade on Thanksgiving day or that spectacular parade before the Rose Bowl game. People love them because parades have marching bands and drill teams and floats and horses and, of course, a Grand Marshal somewhere near the front waving at the crowd from a prancing horse or more likely these days, from a shiny fancy convertible.

The Romans also loved parades and they had them in all parts of their vast Empire. The Governor of the province was always the Grand Marshall and he would ride in a chariot which was pulled by enormous white stallions. The Governor was usually followed by generals who were just in front of the marching troops with their shiny shields and spears. If the parade was being held to celebrate a recent victory after combat, it would also have included the prisoners they had taken who would have been linked together with chains. You see, a parade is especially good for the soul if your empire stretches to distant lands because it’s an excellent way to help the locals remember who’s in charge.

Well the parade we’re remembering today was a very different kind of parade. It took place in the backwater province of Judea when a wandering prophet named Jesus led a parade into the City of Jerusalem. For three years he and a handful of disciples had been traveling around the country proclaiming the advent of God’s reign. And now they’d finally come to the capital, to Jerusalem, with their band of followers. So it seemed like a good time for a parade.

Jesus was the Grand Marshal of that parade and he rode into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey. A borrowed donkey in fact. Now even 2000 years ago a donkey wasn’t exactly the Cadillac or BMW of the animal kingdom. It was more like a VW, an old rusty borrowed VW camper, in fact. But that was the way that Jesus wanted it. He hadn’t asked his disciples to find him a chariot or even a horse. He sent them out to find a donkey because as he entered Jerusalem that day Jesus had some major misunderstandings to correct.

The word had gotten around that he was the long awaited Messiah and to a lot of folks that meant political revolution and an end to the Roman occupation and a return of Judah’s golden age. "God bless the King who comes to sit upon the throne of David! To the streets! Uncover your hidden swords! Raise an army and let’s send the Romans packing!" And that’s sort of where the first reading we heard out on the patio left us this morning. For it retold the story of that triumphal entry into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday.

But the Gospel lesson which followed it sharply reversed our gears. Suddenly the psalms and hosannas of the crowd were gone and we were left with the story of betrayal and persecution which climaxed in a bloody death. And it is that story my friends in differing forms and versions that we’ll be concerned with for the rest of this week we call HOLY. For what that Gospel lesson is meant to do is to attempt to focus our attention on the Passion Story even though you and I might prefer to look away from that gory cross and concentrate on our personal problems.

But there’s no relief for us this morning because today’s Gospel forces us to recognize that the story of our personal grief isn’t the story for this week. The story for this week is the story of the suffering and the humiliation of Christ. That’s why this Sunday’s Gospel calls us to behold the man Jesus: that human being who was crucified on a cross. Our struggle will be to guard against turning that story into a kind of soap opera or melodrama for to treat the events of Holy Week like that is to remain distant from them as if they were happening on a far away stage. A piece of fiction which we can only view in a detached impassionate way. Because the only way that you and I can enter Holy Week is by passing through the gate of this Sunday of the Passion with as much intentionality as Jesus entered the last week of his life by passing through the gates of Jerusalem. Easter day, my friends, belongs to a completely different week. This Gospel helps us to recognize that because it painstakingly recounts all of the events which took place on this week several centuries ago. And so it gives us an overview of what we can expect.

Our biggest challenge this week will be to make time in our busy schedules so that we can participate in each of those tragic events which the Church will attempt to re-present with the intentionality that will allow you and me to immerse ourselves in each of those individual events which led Jesus of Nazareth inexorably toward a barren hill on which a cross was erected on that Friday so long ago. How much this coming week affects us will determine the extent to which we allow this Savior of ours to invade the complacency of our secure lives.

And so maybe the first question this day brings to mind is to ask ourselves how did Jesus’ ministry end up this way? Just how did we get from the cries of "Hosanna" to the shouts of "Crucify him"? Who were the people responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion? The thing to remember is that they weren’t monsters. They were ordinary people like you and me. People with little faults just like yours and mine which cumulatively led to that man’s dying on a cross. So who was responsible for the crucifixion?

Well, it wasn’t the Roman soldiers or Pilate or the Sanhedrin or Caiaphas the high priest or the false witnesses or Judas or even the nameless carpenter who made that cross. For even with all the political and religious intrigue which contributed to his death Jesus still wouldn’t have been crucified if it hadn’t been for the indifferent mob of people in Jerusalem who didn’t really care what happened to him. It would only have taken a few hundred concerned people to have prevailed upon Caiaphas the high priest or the Sanhedrin or even Pilate to change their minds. But no one cared enough to rally people to his defense. Hundreds had heard him during those three years of ministry. He was respected and considered to be a fine man. They admired him. But they weren’t there to shout JESUS instead of BARABAS!

Was it just because they didn’t get out of bed that morning that there wasn’t any protest? You see, it really was INDIFFERENCE that led to the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth as much as anything else. And every time you and I are carried away by the enthusiasm of accusers who tell falsehoods and don’t think we’re guilty of this fault of character which led to Jesus’ crucifixion, every time we refuse to speak our piece when we disagree or fail to challenge a lie or are too busy to register our vote, you and I share in the very failing which enabled a few individuals to insure the crucifixion of Jesus. And just how often do we neglect to do our part? How often do we stay home and don’t bother to vote? For in a democracy such as ours, the nation’s sin is our sin.

So what about us? Are we indifferent Christians? Are we following in the footsteps of those who made possible the greatest injustice of all time? For there’s not a force which harms or hinders the work of Jesus more than simple ordinary human indifference. Not caring passionately enough to declare ourselves for or against him! That was what crucified Jesus on that Friday in Passover week. Not wild viciousness or sadistic brutality or naked hate. Jesus was crucified by the civilized vices of cowardice, bigotry, impatience, timidity, falsehood and indifference.

Vices we all share. The same vices which still crucify human beings today.

So would we have helped crucify him if we’d been there? That cross causes us to confront the qualities in each of us which continue to create destruction and crucifixion in our own times. And it’s that cross which can also help us measure our lives more accurately. Even those little daily trespasses and faults which in and of themselves seem so harmless. And yet, how very much they cost both humanity and God for they’re the nails which attached Jesus to that cross some 2000 years ago.

And so this Palm Sunday, let us remember just what kind of parade that it was. For a donkey led that parade! And when a donkey leads a parade swords and spears just get in the way for donkeys have very short legs. And when a donkey leads a parade chariots are inappropriate and Caesar’s armies are at first amused, then confused and finally helpless because the old assumptions about power don’t work! Something radically new has been let loose in the world. A different kind of power. And even today in our armed-to-the teeth, peace through strength, nuclear armed world, Jesus continues to call us to pay attention to a different kind of power. He calls us to march to a different drummer and a different hoof-beat.

For when a donkey leads the parade those by the side of the road aren’t splattered with mud or cut by flying hooves. And those who move slowly aren’t left behind. And the weak can climb or even ride if they want. And the followers are as tall as the leaders and sometimes can see farther ahead than the leaders can. For when a donkey leads the parade you learn to slog through the mudholes instead of just jumping over them and then even the common becomes holy. Because when a donkey leads the parade there’s always a tail to hang on to when your tired. When a donkey leads the parade the trip may take a long time but everybody will arrive together. And you know that you may not get there in your lifetime but you keep on going so that someday, somebody will get there.

For you see, as he entered Jerusalem on that donkey on that day so long ago, Jesus was telling a parable. A parable in action to the world: to rabbis and farmers and merchants, to Jews and Romans and Greeks, to Pharisees and tax collectors. And that same parable still speaks to us today for that ride on that donkey into the city of Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday may, in fact, have been the greatest parable that Jesus ever told. Amen.