According to Marcus Borg, what most readers of Mark 11:1-11 don't realise is that there were two 'triumphal entries' into Jerusalem that Passover. The one we have recorded in Mark describes Jesus entry into Jerusalem. What many of the first hearers of Mark's Gospel would have known is that at roughly the same time, Pontius Pilate, representing the power of Caesar and the Roman Empire and would also have made a Triumphal entry into Jerusalem.


The two contrasting 'triumphal entries' are described vividly in the following two quotes. Describing Pilates entry Borg and Crossan write that it was:

"A visual display of imperial power: cavalry on horses, foot solders, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold. The sounds of the marching of feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the beating of drums. The
swirling of dust.”

It was designed to be an intimidating show of force and a display of the Empire's power and might to crush their opponents.

Describing Jesus' triumphal entry Charles Campbell describes it thus:

“Riding on a colt, his feet possibly dragging on the ground, Jesus comes not as one who lords his authority over others, but as one who humbly rejects domination. He comes not with pomp and wealth, but as one identified with the poor. He comes not as a mighty warrior, but as one who is vulnerable and refuses to rely on violence. Jesus [is offering] a totally different understanding of “rule” and invites people to see and live in the world in a new way.”

Jesus' entry into Jerusalem is one of humility and vulnerability. “Humble and riding on a donkey” are the words from Zechariah that Jesus deliberately enacts as he proclaims a way of peace instead of violence and oppression. The words from Zechariah continue:

“He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations” (9.10).

Palm Sunday asks of us which triumphal entry we will be participants in. Will we follow the way of Caesar and the Roman Empire using force and violence to get our way or will we devote our lives, with Jesus, to build a kingdom of peace and love?

Does this mean that Jesus invites us simply to become victims in life? It is a really good question. This past week I read an article by a woman who reflects on a lifetime of sexual harassment and how she felt that the Christianity she grew up with taught her to remain silent in the face of abuse. As a teenager at school, she writes that she soon discovered her body was not her own as she found herself without invitation, pinched, groped and squeezed by boys in her school. Later in the corporate world she endured the same treatment by many of her male colleagues. She writes that at school she has memories of an Anglican Bishop preaching to them how in the face of abuse, Jesus was silent. In that lesson, she writes that she believed she had to simply silently endure harassment as a young woman and simply accept that her body was no longer her own. In her conclusion she writes, “Why did no-one teach me of the Jesus who invites us to speak out in Truth.” She quotes from John's Gospel where Jesus stands before Pilate and says: “...the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth...” and earlier in the Gospel where Jesus says “The truth will set you free”.

To follow the way of Jesus as opposed to the way of Caesar is not simply to become a silent sufferer or a doormat, but rather to find constructive ways of changing the culture of domination around us to one in which all people can find themselves affirmed and respected as people of infinite value, and thus to become part of Christ's kingdom of love.

The past week had two significant days in it related to women. On Thursday it was International Women's Day, and on Sunday it was Mother's Day in the UK.

In light of these two days observed in our secular calendar, our passage from Sunday ends with a curious verse. After Jesus has been anointed with expensive perfume by one the woman who followed him, Jesus says:

“Wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

Some commentators point out that despite Jesus' words of praise for the woman who anointed his feet with oil, her name is not recorded. How curious it is that Jesus says that what she has done will be told in memory of her, but the writer of Mark's Gospel forgets to record her name.

Mark's Gospel records the 12 disciples names, despite the fact that in Mark's Gospel they are continually portrayed as failing to understand and grasp the way of Jesus, but this woman who has deep insight into to the events that are about to unfold is left unnamed.

Some suggest that this passage reveals the dangers of patriarchal culture where woman are regarded as somehow less significant than men, and therefore their names and contributions are too easily forgotten.

This patriarchal bias is evident elsewhere in Mark's Gospel. At the feeding of the 5000, what we have is a record of 5000 men. The writer specifically states that women and children have been excluded from the count. The men, the apparently important and significant one's are recorded, and the women and children, the less significant one's are simply excluded from the count.

It is a reminder of how for centuries the role of women has simply gone unnoticed, unacknowledged and often taken for granted. Isn't it amazing that it is only 100 years since women were able to vote. Before that women were regarded as not being competent enough to be entrusted with the vote.

How unthinkable it is today that women should be excluded from voting, and yet in recent months and weeks it has become evident that many women are still paid less than men for doing the same work, simply because they are women. This week on International Women's Day a calculation suggested that the gender pay-gap equates to women working 67 days of the year for free when compared to men. Even today, despite progress having been made women are still under-valued and treated as less significant and less worthy than men.

In this passage, Jesus holds up this unnamed woman as having done something of great significance, enough that he says that she should be remembered, but the writer of Mark's Gospel forgets to tell us her name.

On Mother's Day, we had an opportunity to remember our mother's, most of whom like the unnamed woman in this passage have loved us and sustained us in countless ways that have most often gone unnoticed, just part of the hum-drum of every-day life. Very seldom seen or acknowledged.

Secondly, in the passage in verse 6, Jesus says of the unnamed woman, “She has done a beautiful thing for me.”

It was Mother Teresa who was quoted by Malcolm Muggeridge that what motivated her was her desire to do beautiful things for God.

Jesus says of the unnamed woman in Mark's Gospel: “She has done a beautiful thing for me.”

As Jesus acknowledged the significance of what the unnamed woman did for him, so we acknowledge on Mother's Day that our mother's, like the unnamed woman, have done a beautiful thing for us. Thank you to all our mothers.

As part of our Mother's Day service on Sunday we paused to remember those mother's who are no longer with us and who we still hold dear in our hearts. As we paused to remember them we listened to Ed Sheeran's song: Supermarket Flowers.

Mark 10:35-45

In our text from Sunday, as we journey toward Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we see for that the third time in Mark's Gospel Jesus predicts his coming suffering and death.

On each of the previous occasions, the disciples have failed to take in what he has said. They have failed to understand. In fact it has been beyond their mental framework, the way their minds have been trained to think. On this the third occasion, the disciples yet again fail to comprehend.

No sooner has Jesus told them that he is going to be put to death, than James and John, the son's of Zebedee come to Jesus with a special request:

“Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in glory.”

They are wanting positions of honour and glory in the new Kingdom of Israel, which they equate with the Kingdom of God, that they believe Jesus is about to establish. They want to become big-shots, high officials in Jesus' Kingdom.

“You don't know what you are asking for” Jesus replies. They have not yet understood the way of God's Kingdom.

Very soon, the rest of the disciples get wind of what is happening and they become indignant with James and John. Why are they indignant with James and John? Not because James and John have been so slow to learn the lessons that Jesus is teaching them, they are indignant because James and John got in there first. They too wanted positions of glory and honour.

The disciples in this passage have their thoughts influenced by the ways of the world. Even though they hate Caesar and the Roman Empire, their thinking is the same as that of Caesar. They are in fact followers of the way of Caesar. The way of wanting status, power and authority over others.

Despite Jesus' consistent example and teaching, they have not yet learned the way of God's Kingdom.

Jesus in his patience doesn't tell them how stupid they are. He simply begins to teach them:

“You know that the rulers of the nations like to have authority over other people. They like to control other people, they like positions of power, status and authority. Not so with you.

Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the son of man did not come to be served but to serve.”

The way of Jesus is they way of giving up bossing other people around, and following instead the way of servant-hood. Using whatever power and authority we have, not just for the benefit of ourselves, but for the benefit of others and the benefit of society.

Dale Carnegie, the writer of the book “How to make friends and influence people” writes that the desire for importance is one of the key motivating factors of human beings. We all want to feel important. Most of our actions are motivated by the desire to feel important. Some find their sense of importance through negative and destructive means. When the Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz went on his school rampage, in a warped and distorted way he was seeking to express his sense of importance, his desire to be seen, his need to be taken seriously.

When James and John ask for special positions on Jesus right and his left in glory, what they are seeking is a way to feel important.

Jesus invites us to find our importance in life, not based on seeking positions of power and status, not by trying to exert authority and control over others, but rather to find our importance in life by bringing benefit to others. Not how many people can I have beneath me who can carry out my orders, but rather, how many people can I be a blessing to? How many people can I benefit with this short life that I have been given here on earth?