A Nervous Splendor

The first-ever Unemployment Olympics took place in New York City last Tuesday. Jobless men and women from across Manhattan took part in a Fax-machine toss, a stress-relieving piñata bash, and the ever-popular Pin-the-Blame-on-Your-Boss game (complete with blindfold).

All one needed to get in was a pink slip; so be glad if you didn’t qualify.

It was a modern response to a dire economic situation. Financial fears met with frivolity for a few hours. But it also fit an old pattern of street festivals, public spectacle and social protest rolled into one.

Barbara Ehrenreich has written extensively about politics and personal finances. She says this kind of revelry has existed for 10,000 years or more (Dancing in the Streets, Metropolitan Books, 2006). Long before writing was invented, pictures of these gatherings appeared on cave walls. And they remain a way for people to blow off steam and have fun during hard times.

Sometimes these soirees take on religious overtones. Mix together a mob, a bonfire, booze, drums and dancing, and people are bound to start having ecstatic encounters with the gods or goddesses of the realm.

Other times, the exact same ingredients sow seeds of insurrection and treason. Many a revolution was hatched by the lower classes against their masters while masses of humanity thronged in the streets.

Whether or not these street parties are religious or rebellious, they tend to poke fun at the high and mighty. (Better to “Pin-the-Blame” on your boss than buy a gun and stalk him.) It’s a safe outlet for pent-up frustration. As long as the party continues, social rank is dissolved, rigid hierarchies implode, the meek arise, and authority is subverted – helped along by as much bawdy humor as possible.

In medieval France, for instance, pigs were dressed in fine robes to look like nobility. Monkeys were garbed in clergymen’s clothes. (As Miss Piggy said, “I resemble that remark.”)

Today, the most obvious examples of this celebratory chaos are Carnival in Rio and Mardi Gras in New Orleans. A close second goes to people who dress in wild outfits and go nuts every Sunday at Lambeau Field and other football stadiums around the country.

Summerfest in Milwaukee would make the list too. Except that people in power get nervous when things are too loose. So they locked that festival behind gates and began charging admission. Now it only seems like a wild, carefree time.

Here’s one more example to help you see where I’m heading …

Beyond the pigs and monkeys, a favorite old-time animal trick was to dress a raggedy pauper like a king, set him on a donkey (facing backwards!) and lead him through the crowded streets as a form of social protest.

A donkey, a king, and a parade? Have you ever heard anything like that?

What a riot … in more ways than one.

Listen to the jeers the rowdy crowd lets fly and you see why the Pharisees told Jesus to keep the crowds quiet (according to Luke). And you see why he said, “If they were quiet, the very stones would cry out.”

His entry into Jerusalem was religious and rebellious – on purpose. It was an electrically charged, carefully planned poke at people in power.

Who do I mean? Pontius Pilate, for one. After all, he led another procession into the city that same week. Heidi S. compared the two parades in the adult education class today, so I’ll be brief.

From the west side of town, Pilate’s parade entered the city with mounted cavalry, armed foot soldiers, chariots, clanking armor, helmets, banners and drums.

With him, he brought a subtle, unspoken message about pomp and ceremony, shock and awe, wealth and power: Tremble at the troops! Stare at the strong horses! Gaze at the glistening weapons and armor! Bow down to the man who holds life and death in his hand! Whisper in reverent silence: “Shh! There goes Pontius Pilate!”

But when a carpenter, from the east, straggles toward town on a shaggy, half-grown donkey, the contrast is clear. It’s a Jesus-joke. A parody parade.

The so-called “powers” of this world are being mocked and put in their place. Everything is reversed – East/West. Rich/poor. Strong/weak. Jesus outfits Caesar and Herod and Pilate in the emperor’s new clothes. He exposes them as frauds. He reveals them as pretenders to power.

How do I know? Mostly because the prophet Zechariah says so. He not only talks about the Messiah arriving on the back of a donkey, but also about the end of chariots, war horses, and battle bows. When true power comes to town, God will do away with those violent, deadly things, Zechariah says. It’ll all be undone.

Don’t you know, that made the old guard anxious? No matter how hard they tried to keep cool, no matter how much grandeur they tried to invoke, they must have been worried sick below the surface. And they were ready to strike back.

Theirs was a nervous splendor indeed.

And so they made sure a third parade was held that same week.

After Pilate’s parade and Jesus’ parade, this third one unfolded on Friday. Moving away from town not toward it, a slow and ponderous procession made its way toward the top of a hill known as Calvary or Golgotha – the place of the skull.

Again, Jesus was at the center. If today he goes down one mountain toward the city, on Friday he’ll climb another hill, heading away.

On that day too, the crowd will be noisy. Again, there’ll be catcalls and laughter and jeering. Once more, Jesus will be cast as a king, but now with a mock crown on his head … made of thorns.

So much will be the same as today. But it will be utterly different. Rather than riding a beast of burden, he will be the beast of burden, carrying his own heavy cross.

It’s a sobering reminder that earthly powers don’t like to be mocked. They mock back … and get revenge.

To act in the power of God against the powers of this world always has a cost. To pit the kingdom of God against the kingdoms of this world takes courage.

But there’s a payoff. The parades and public spectacle don’t end atop Calvary Hill. There’s one more scene of public drama still to play out.

On Sunday (the day called Easter) the world awakens to the news that Pilate and Herod and Caesar and their foot soldiers aren’t as tough as they think. The royal seal on the gravestone stands broken. The guards posted at the entrance fall in a dead faint … and Jesus rises to new life.

The victim becomes the victor, invoking great and joyous laughter for the world. The kingdom of God vanquishes the kingdoms of this world, and peace trumps war.

Meeting his disciples, the Risen One calls them back to the streets, saying “Go to Galilee, and there you will see me.” Let’s keep the movement going.

A couple months later, on Pentecost day, another street party erupts. In the alleys and avenues of Jerusalem, Jesus sends his Spirit to the crowds, giving them a new experience of the Divine.

Some folks think it’s just the booze and say, “They must have been drinking!” But no. This is the real deal. A real experience of God.

His own mother said it would happen. In her Magnificat, before Jesus was born, Mary said that he would bring down the powerful and lift up the lowly. He would fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty (Luke 4).

She predicted a street spectacle of global proportions. She promised the upending of old powers, the triumph of God, and a reign of everlasting peace.

Jesus knew it too, and told the disciples in the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are you,” he said, “when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward.”

For a time, they didn’t believe or understand. But at last they saw with their own eyes: A man and a donkey overcoming the most vicious forces in the world.

And now, 2000 years later? The parade and street festival show up on our doorstep today. Jesus pulls into our parking lot and marches down our center aisle, inviting us to come along, to celebrate a new power at work in the world.

We can sit on the sidelines, pretending that was then and this is now.

But we won’t – not if we believe God’s kingdom is forever.

If we believe God’s way is everlasting, and God’s victory is real, we’ll know that what happened long ago is happening now. God still makes incursions against the powerful and for the meek of the world. And Jesus still leads his people toward the day when the glorious liberty of God will be sung in all places.

The old order is passing away. The new is at hand. The old king is usurped and a new one is enthroned. Rank and class are dissolved. People gather as equals. There is laughter in the streets … and trembling behind the walls of power, and plotting for how to tame it … or kill it. But of course they can’t.

You can read it on cave walls as a long-ago thing, or you can keep it alive. All you have to do is shout with me: Hosanna! … Hosanna in highest heaven! … Blessed! … Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna!