humility Archives - Gerry Lynch: Priest, Writer, Photographer

Preached at St Peter’s, Poulshot; Christ Church, Bulkington, and Holy Cross, Seend

Philippians 2.1-13; Matthew 21.23-32

“…the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you…”

Small black-and-white engraving. In the centre, a bearded older man in a long cloak and soft hat stands facing right, his left arm stretched back towards a vineyard where two labourers bend over the vines with tools. On the right, two young men with mattocks over their shoulders stand before a brick wall; the nearer one looks up at the older man and points. A tree overhangs the vineyard, and the number 8 and the monogram PG appear at the top. — *Georg Pencz, The Parable of the Father and His Two Sons in the Vineyard, from The Story of Christ (1534-5). In the* *drawings and prints collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.*

Do you ever catch those little ‘God slot’ reflections on the radio? Things like Thought for the Day on the Radio 4 Today programme? Has any of them ever stuck in your mind?

One still sticks in mine, from decades ago, when I would hear the Radio Ulster ‘God slot’ blearily as I got ready for school. The clergyman presenting it startled me by saying that hypocrisy was a good thing. If you’re a hypocrite, at least you know what the right thing to do is, even if you don’t actually do it. There’s room for God to work with a hypocrite, ran the argument, in a way there isn’t with someone completely blind to what’s right. It was an interesting argument for grabbing the attention of a distracted audience more interested in the Weetabix and the traffic report – interesting enough that I still remember it three decades later.

The problem is that it’s hard to square with what Jesus actually taught, especially in today’s Gospel reading.

“…the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” As attention-grabbing statements go, that trumps even the argument that hypocrisy is a good thing. Any of us would be taken aback, and probably a bit outraged, to have this said to us. And Jesus says it not to a group of randomers, but to the chief priests and elders, on the sacred ground of the Temple itself.

For months our Sunday Gospel readings have been following Jesus around the Holy Land teaching and healing, starting in His home turf of Galilee with the Sermon on the Mount, then into surprising places like the territory of the Syrophoenicians (the descendants of the Canaanites), and finally on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, where He warned His followers He had to die in the Holy City.

Now Jesus’ journey is over. It is the Monday of Holy Week. The day before, He rode into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, as the Scriptures foretold a mighty prophet would, and the crowds flocked out to see Him, singing His praises and spreading palm branches before Him, also just as those prophecies foretold. The tax collectors and the prostitutes and all the common people of Jerusalem knew a prophet when they saw one.

Preached at St Peter’s, Poulshot and Holy Cross, Seend

Philippians 2. 5–11; Matthew 21. 1–11

If Jesus made his second coming in the near future, how would we know about an event like his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday? I suspect we might learn about it from TikTok, or a YouTube video, probably made by one of the army of professional YouTubers trying to cash in on Jesus’ popularity.

When I talk to primary school children, one of the most common things that both boys and girls say they want to be when they grow up is a “YouTuber”. You might wonder if that can actually be a job. Well, the highest paid video-maker on YouTube in 2020 earned US$26 million in that year alone. He is a boy from Texas called Ryan Kaji who reviews toys, and 2020 was the year in which he had his ninth birthday.

A watercolour painting in dull colours by James Tissot of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey carrying a palm surrounded by cheering crowds. — James Tissot, The Procession in the Streets of Jerusalem, (1886-94). Hangs in the Brooklyn Museum

So, the Palm Sunday story should resonate powerfully in our era of celebrity. Jesus rides into town like a king, and He is quite conscious of what he is doing; He seeks to fulfil Hebrew prophecy, with a direct quote from Zechariah. What comes next has clearly been carefully thought through, and Jesus seems to have made preparations for His triumphant entry to the Holy City with people in Jerusalem who call him “the Master”, but who aren’t known by even the closest disciples who have travelled with him from Galilee. The crowds greet Jesus like a conquering king entering his new capital, spreading their cloaks in front of him and forming a guard of honour.

Today, we break the story here, with Jesus the darling of the masses. Yet within just a few days, the story will take a dramatic twist. To be a darling of the crowd and greeted as a coming king is, needless to say, a serious threat to the actual kings and rulers of a society. The authorities soon launch a campaign of black propaganda against this preacher who some people see as a prophet. The propaganda is effective and soon enough the masses turn against Jesus. When He is brutally executed just five days later, those members of Sunday’s crowd who come to see Jesus on the Cross do so not to cheer, but to jeer.