Even the Stones Cry Out

Luke 19:28-40

April 10, 2022

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/CKUecweOc1E

Today we enter Jerusalem with Jesus. Over the last 10 chapters of Luke’s gospel, he has been making his way to this city, very deliberately. Several times, he has told his disciples that it is necessary for him to go there, He has said that he expects to be rejected and insulted and beaten and even killed in Jerusalem. Some of his friends have tried to dissuade him from going, but he insists on it.

He and his disciples are joining a huge crowd. Scholars estimate that Jerusalem’s population swelled from its usual 40,000 to as much as 200,000 at Passover.[1]

They have walked all over Galilee to get here. The destination was always clear, even though the route was anything but direct. Someone has said that the path that Jesus follows in Luke’s gospel is like the family that was going from Florida to New Jersey for a family wedding. The Grandpa asked if they could swing by Minnesota on their way home to Florida. [2] Luke spends 10 chapters on Jesus’ travel because he is more interested in the theology of the places Jesus goes than their geography. We can talk about that some other time. The point I’m making is that Jesus covered miles and miles by walking. He never needed a donkey . . . until now.

If he had to go to Jerusalem, he could have done it more discretely. On foot, he could have been just one more anonymous pilgrim. But he chose to be conspicuous. He chose to make an entrance.

He rides in on a donkey. It is not a war-horse, and thus is a symbol of peace. But he is riding it into Jerusalem on Passover and the other pilgrims immediately make a connection with a prophecy from Zechariah about the king who will come to Jerusalem, triumphant and yet humble, riding on a donkey. They are chanting Psalm 118 which is the song you sing on the way into Jerusalem. But when they see Jesus on the donkey, they change one word. Instead of “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” they say “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord”

It is Passover, a religious-political holiday that recalls the liberation of the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt. It is Passover, that event which led Pharoah to “let my people go” as God and Moses demanded. That liberation and freedom and opportunity for self-determination is what 200,000 people are cramming the streets to celebrate—all while they are not liberated or free, but under the thumb of Rome, subject to the whims of Roman governors or emperors, controlled by the humiliating, and ruthless tactics of Roman soldiers.

I have a different sense of what it might be like to live in an occupied country now, as I watch Russia’s attempts to occupy Ukraine. I read one woman’s explanation of her family’s decision not to abandon Kiev. They know they are risking their lives. But she says, that they cannot give into fear, or the enemy wins. She also says that they stay in order to help others who have no way to leave. And that they have a deep conviction from God that their place was in Kiev.

And so I read this text this year, through the lens of a small country being unjustifiably over-powered by an exponentially larger occupying force. If people in the crowd believe that Jesus is the one who will deliver them, if they think that he is the military strategist, the guerrilla warfare expert who can lead them to liberation and freedom again, then the crowd could easily become a mob and things could get seriously out of control. When they start throwing the word “king” around, the sense of danger ratchets up.

The religious leaders hear it. They’re afraid the Romans will hear it and retaliate with violence. So they tell Jesus to make his disciples shut up. And Jesus says, “I tell you, if they were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Wondering what the stones might say, Presbyterian pastor William Klein writes “ . . . they could tell of the river of tears and blood spilled here and there as the result of any number of brutal campaigns. They could tell of one military leader after another parading into the city and filling the people’s ears with fear. The singing stones’ song on the day Jesus entered the city would sing, not just for joy at the coming of a gracious king, but also for grief and lamentation -- like Rachel weeping over her children, like Jesus weeping over the city. Their song would be a cry rising from any boulevard of broken dreams across this planet where God’s people have suffered.”[3]

When he speaks of the stones crying out, Jesus is quoting Habakkuk. The prophet wrote that the stones will cry out against the corruption of the wicked. The people are crying out against the injustice and violence being used against them, against the greed and the will to power that exploit them. They want a king who will deliver lasting peace.

Writing from the cell where he was imprisoned for his resistance to the Nazis in WWII, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled – in short from the perspective of those who suffer.[4]

The world is now watching Ukraine and seeing history from below.

Jesus does not silence them. Those who suffer and those who care for them will cry out He knows that some truths cannot be suppressed. There comes a time when we cannot stay quiet any longer.

The Russian Orthodox Church officially supports the invasion of Ukraine. But one Russian priest cannot do that. The Rev. John Burdin spoke out last month. He criticized the war in an open letter he published on-line. He named the invasion an invasion and a war. It was an act of truth-telling that contrasts with Putin’s insistence that it is a “special military operation.” He wrote that the blood spilled is a curse on the killers but also on those who keep silent or don’t protest.

He preached about this on a Sunday morning and within three hours, the police were investigating him. He has been fined. If he is charged with spreading false information, he could face up to 15 years in prison. In an interview that was relayed internationally, he said, “I don’t consider it possible to remain silent on this situation. It wasn’t about politics. It was about the Bible. … If I remain silent, I’m not a priest.”[5]

Ironically, his bishop has now told him to keep quiet and warned that he might be banned from ministry if he doesn’t. This is what they often tell preachers. Just preach the Bible. Stay in your lane. Don’t talk about justice or systemic racism or immigration or climate change. Whatever you do, they say, leave politics out of the pulpit.

That’s hard to do. If we can’t preach on justice, that leaves very little of the Bible left to preach. If we can’t preach about Jesus who insisted on coming to the capital city, the intersection of religion and politics, whose gospel are we preaching?

Lord George MacLeod, the founder of the Iona Community, said, “I simply argue that the cross be raised at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on a town garbage heap; at a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek . . . and at the kind of place where cynics talk smut and thieves curse and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died, and that is what he died about. And that is where Christ’s people ought to be and what church people ought to be about.[6]

Jesus does not silence his followers. But he is not naïve. He knows that justice and peace are not coming quickly. He knows that he is not the kind of king they want.

He does not offer a military solution. He will not confront the powers with domination or retaliation or retribution. Instead, he will keep walking into the fear, walking into the hatred, walking into the violence, telling the truth and offering his life.

They will not understand. Truthfully, we still do not understand, even though we have the benefit of knowing the rest of the story. Even though we know that Jesus’ path of courage and vulnerability leads to resurrection. “We still mostly trust the peace of armaments, the peace of vigilance, even the peace of isolation from those we fear. We still find it difficult, almost impossible, to trust and practice the peace of love.” [7]

And the Jesus who wept over Jerusalem still weeps,

over Kiev

and Kramatorsk

and Aleppo

and Kandahar

and Tijuana

and San Salvador

and St. Louis

and New Town

and Albany.

And we say Hosanna -- Save us.

[1] Borg, Marcus J. and John Dominic Crossan. The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), p. 18.

[2] https://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2010-10/travel-narratives

[3] William Klein, in Feasting on the Gospels, Luke, Volume 2, Cynthia Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, editors, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2014), p. 178.

[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953) p. 17

[5] https://religionnews.com/2022/04/05/for-russian-priest-protesting-ukraine-invasion-a-mixture-of-defiance-and-concern/

[6] George MacLeod, The Cunningham Lectures, delivered at New College, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1954

[7] Justo Gonzalez, Luke in the Belief Commentary Series, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010), p. 228.