“Pick Your Parade”

(Mtt 21:1-11; 27:27-44) JG White ~ 10:30 am, Palm & Passion Sunday, March 29, 2026, FBC Amherst

It is July 1st, 1987. I’m on a trip with the boys group, the Christian Service Brigade, of Middleton Baptist Church. We are all the way up here in Cumberland County. We’ve camped and dug clams at Five Islands, visited the lighthouse keeper at Cape D’or, and we’ve stayed near Wallace. Now, it is Canada Day. It is rainy. But we go to the parade. In Pugwash, which always has a big Canada Day. I don’t remember the parade. But I have one photo I took. Of a simple float. There is an outhouse on it, with a Century 21 sign. And it says, “WE WILL SELL ANYTHING.”

The parade in churches today is not silly and fun like this was, it is sublime and serious, as well as joyful. We mark Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem for Jewish Passover, in about the year 30 CE. 

Twenty years ago a couple popular and controversial Bible scholars made known their sense of history. Borg and Crossan said there would have been two parades into Jerusalem for Passover, probably on the same day. Jesus and his crowd of supporters entering from the east; the Roman Governor, Pilate, and his military entourage, entering from the west. Such powerful officials always would make a big scene, and would come to this Jewish capital city to be present and keep the peace. It was a high and holy religious celebration, with thousands of visitors. And Passover does remember and rehearse how the Jews got freedom from oppression and slavery. 

So, picture two rival parades into town that day. Which one would you attend? One for a powerful ruler, surely well dressed and on a strong, well-dressed horse. This had been happening every year. But from the east, this now famous peasant Prophet, Jesus of Nazarath, getting acclaimed as Messiah, Anointed One. 

And what a humble arrival. Though the crowds cheer and sing, quoting Psalms and scriptures, Jesus enters not upon a horse, and not decked out with any ceremonial armour or weapons. Just upon a donkey. As if to fulfill promises like that in Zechariah 9. Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Matthew’s Gospel even says Jesus entered upon a donkey AND a foal of a donkey. Seems a bit silly, or a clerical error in reading Zechariah, to have two animals, but Dom Crossan suggests the picture may be on purpose here. Not just on a donkey, but a humble donkey still nursing her foal, staying with her.

So this Jesus is not like other kings. Not even like the great kings of Israel and Judah of old. Not like Pilate, or Herod Antipas, of the Roman Empire. Today, one could even say Jesus is no king. Not like Charles III or Carney, or Trump, or Zelenskyy. Jesus is living in a different category altogether. His ways are not the ways of kings and queens. And so his parade is far different. 

Pick your parade, we might say. Ever since that day in about 30 CE, the story has been told, and the tellers know the rest of the story. What we also read some of today. We know the outcome after the parade for Jesus. We will mark this Holy Week that ends with some unholy events of pain and horror. Yet we wait for the Resurrection, and Jesus becomes our King of life! We know the finale. 

But we do not know the outcome for following Jesus for us here in 2026, do we? Do we?

What does ‘picking our parade’ look like today? What do we choose to follow? Choose to celebrate? Choose to obsess over? 

I see a few ideas. One: actual celebrations, processions, protests, marches. Even getting together in this place is one way of choosing a side, so to speak. From here, where else does Christ lead us? 

Of course, we follow other people, get inspired by others. One thing that happened when Jesus entered Jerusalem – Matthew tells us – was the little children who joined in the praises, shouting ‘Hosanna to the son of David.’ This certainly upset the Temple officials. The children did what they saw their parents, the adults doing. They copied. They learned the song, joined the parade. 

This is how we all got to parades, as children. We were taken by adults. When we grew up, we decided what parades to attend, what marches interested us. A Canada Day parade, a show-and-shine car show, a protest against clearcutting old growth forests. What calls to you? And where do you meet Jesus in these parades?

Two: Turning our attention to Jesus, moment by moment. This is the ‘Hearing from God’ bit that we will explore in the next study group. This is the bit where we abide in God here and take our attention on Christ into the other six days of the week. This is the bit where we take our whole week and bring it here for an hour, and discover how Jesus walked with us, even when we were not paying attention. More on this some other sermon…

Three: Day to day choices - what would Jesus do? Or, what do we do, with the Spirit of Christ abiding in us?

Dallas Willard in ‘Hearing God’ talks about become the sort of people God can trust to go after our own desires. Our wants get to align with God’s desires and will. God will give us the desires of our hearts. We get to choose for ourselves. I mean, this takes readiness, personal growth, training in spirit. We choose to cheer at Jesus’ parade as we get excited to see His unrelenting humbleness at work.

Four: Down to earth life, from branch waving to earth quaking. Maybe you are like me, and notice in Bible stories the things of earth. The sky, The trees and their branches. The earth and rocks and water in the stories. It is all well grounded. In our faith we learn to pay attention to these earthy lessons. And we are trained to hear from the birds and the bugs and the ants around us - to hear something real and true and holy. I trace the rainbow through the rain, 

And feel the promise is not vain, 

That morn shall tearless be. (George Matheson)

Listen to the earth and all things, the first revealing, the primary revealing, of God to us. Romans 1:20 Ever since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—God’s eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, because they are understood through the things God has made. So humans are without excuse.

Five: Decisions made together, not just individually, are about picking the right parade. All our lives, being together, being in groups that choose a path together has been important, but not always easy. So soon we people split off from those ‘we don’t agree with’ and start our own thing. In this century, there may be less and less of people joining in, being committed to groups, teaming up, being community. Robert Putnam’s book about this, ‘Bowling Alone,’ is already twenty-six years old, and traces the trend of just doing life on your own back to the 1950s (in America).

I have been trained, in Baptist Churches, to see how each member has direct contact with the Spirit of Jesus, and thus the whole congregation can be guided by God, even though we have such freedom to be ourselves and have our own conversations with the things of the Master. I was certainly trained to expect prayer at the start and end of various meetings, in all the groups. I think this may not be so much about what we say in the prayer before a Board meeting, but it is about God getting our attention, and us choosing to be present to Spirit. I must say, this is the first Baptist Church I’ve been in that was a bit lax on prayerfulness in meetings. The first one that does not pray at weekly Choir rehearsal, for instance, though we do pray on Sundays before we enter here. 

How do we pick a parade? Six and final: The path of non-violent resistance is the Jesus way. The Matthew story of all this, especially, has a very quiet Jesus, facing soldiers and priests and rulers. But all the records concur - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - that Jesus and his closest companions face violence - physical and verbal - without violence. Without a fight, in the normal sense of the word. 

Lately, we can see protests and parades for all manner of situations; at best they are non-violent. Be they about cutbacks at a university, funding from the Province of Nova Scotia, huge cutbacks across the United States of America, wherever. Just before my lifetime we had world-known leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ghandi, leading non-violent resistance. Such people still inspire us today. We who are named after Christ look back to Jesus of Nazareth as our source of such strength against evil that is filled with mercy for all. But cheering His parade will still be dangerous.

Allow me to end with this story from the radio program and podcast, This American Life, from February 13th. ‘Kid Logic.’ 

A father says: Well, it all began at Christmas two years ago, when my daughter was four years old. And it was the first time that she had ever asked about what did this holiday mean. And so I explained to her that this was celebrating the birth of Jesus. And she wanted to know more about that. And we went out and bought a kid's Bible and had these readings at night. She loved them, wanted to know everything about Jesus.

So we read a lot about his birth and about his teaching, and she would ask constantly what that phrase was. And I would explain to her that it was "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And we would talk about those old words and what that all meant, you know?

And then one day, we were driving past a big church, and out front was an enormous crucifix. She said, "Who is that?" And I guess I'd never really told that part of the story. So I had this sort of "Yeah, oh, well, that's Jesus. And I forgot to tell you the ending. Yeah, well, he ran afoul of the Roman government. This message that he had was so radical and unnerving to the prevailing authorities of the time that they had to kill him. They came to the conclusion that he would have to die. That message was too troublesome.”

It was about a month later after that Christmas… And her preschool celebrates the same holidays as the local schools. So Martin Luther King Day was off. So I knocked off work that day, and I decided we'd play and I'd take her out to lunch. And we were sitting in there, and right on the table where we happened to plop down was the art section of the local newspaper. And there, big as life, was a huge drawing by a 10-year-old kid in the local schools of Martin Luther King.

And she said, "Who's that?" And I said, "Well, as it happens, that's Martin Luther King. And he's why you're not in school today. So we're celebrating his birthday. This is the day we celebrate his life." And she said, "So who was he?" And I said, "Well, he was a preacher." And she looks up at me and goes, "For Jesus?" And I said, "Yeah. Yeah, actually, he was. But there was another thing that he was really famous for, which is that he had a message."

And you're trying to say this to a four-year-old. This is the first time they ever hear anything, so you're just very careful about how you phrase everything. So I said, "Well, yeah, he was a preacher and he had a message." She said, "What was his message?" And I said, "Well, he said that you should treat everybody the same no matter what they look like."

And she thought about that for a minute. And she said, "Well, that's what Jesus said." And I said, "Yeah, I guess it is. I never thought of it that way, but yeah." And that is sort of like, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And she thought for a minute and looked up at me and said, "Did they kill him too?"