This is the sermon I preached at First Church Simsbury on Palm Sunday, March 25, 2018.
Mark 11:1-11
About a month ago, on Friday, February 23rd, I took my daughter Abby to the Bushnell to see the musical, The Bodyguard. Based on the 1992 movie starring Whitney Huston and Kevin Costner, the acting was uneven and the plot kind of silly, but the Whitney Houston music was fantastic, and it was a great father-daughter night out.
There was a point in the play when the villain came on stage with a large pistol. It had one of these red lasers affixed to it, so a red dot would appear wherever he pointed the gun. For what seemed like an eternity, the actor aimed the gun into the audience, the red dot landing on one person, then another, then another.
This was just 9 days after a gunman killed seventeen people and wounded seventeen more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Every time the actor swung his gun in my direction, I winced and squirmed. I looked over at Abby, and she had completely disappeared down into her seat, curled into a fetal position. On the way home, I asked Abby about that moment, and she said that it had “triggered her PTSD.” Now, I doubt that Abby could give a clinical definition of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but she sure as heck knew her own feelings of trauma. She had been traumatized by the shooting at the Parkland, Florida high school, and has been left fearing for her own safety. She is not alone.
Though Abby may not know the clinical definition of PTSD, Dr. Megan Ranney and Dr. Rinad Beidas do. One is an emergency physician and violence prevention researcher, the other a clinical psychologist with a focus on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and they are also parents. Together they just penned an article, Generation Parkland: How Mass Shootings Are Affecting America’s Children, And How We Can Help.
In their work, they observe evidence of trauma, not just in kids who have directly experienced gun violence, but in this so-called mas-shooting generation. They write, “Our combined experience and expertise make us particularly concerned about these events’ psychological effects on American kids.”
This generation of children, they say, “has grown up with turtle-time, lockdown drills, ALICE (Alert Lockdown Inform Counter Evacuate) maneuvers and the very real threat that a classmate will bring a gun to school.
As a parent, this knowledge makes me feel helpless, terrified, and angry.
As a preacher, I can’t help but bring my feelings and experience to my reading of the Bible. Thoughts of the trauma experienced by our children were weighing heavily on my mind, when I turned to this familiar and beloved story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.
Jesus’ followers lay palm branches before him and greet him with shouts of Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest! (meaning, “Saved! We are saved!). Like his disciples, this crowd is sometimes thought to be naïve or foolish. By this interpretation, his followers assume that Jesus is the promised king, God’s anointed, that has come to restore Israel to its former glory; and they fail to anticipate or understand that Jesus will soon be brutally executed on the cross.
But were they really naïve? Did the crowd really misunderstand?
I think an experience of trauma informs our understanding of this story.
Though they didn’t have 24/7 news coverage, and they didn’t have social media, Jews in first century Palestine were regularly exposed to something that was just as traumatizing as mass shootings today, crucifixion. If kids today identify as the mass shooting generation, it could be said that those growing up in Roman-ruled, first century Palestine were the crucifixion generation.
New Testament scholar Hal Taussig writes that “Romans practiced both random and intentional violence against populations they had conquered, killing tens of thousands by crucifixion.” Crucifixion got rid of those Rome perceived as threats, and fostered fear in the Jewish population as a means of social control.
First century Jewish historian Josephus writes that the Romans crucified thousands, sometimes on the walls of Jerusalem so all could see.
Television and social media bombard us with horrifying images, but imagine going about your day and seeing bodies, some of whom you recognize, hanging from Roman crosses dying, dead, and decaying.
Crucifixion is literally the background for everything we read in the gospels about Jesus’ life and ministry.
And crucifixion is the background for this morning’s well-known story about Jesus’ so-called triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
So, do we still think his followers were naïve? They would have been well aware of the tensions that had been building between Jesus and Jewish and Roman authorities, and knew full well what fate awaited those who were perceived as a threat.
So maybe Jesus’ raucous welcome into Jerusalem was not out of ignorance of the cross, but in defiance of the threat of crucifixion.
We know from other historical sources that Jesus’ was one of two processions into the city that day. At the same time Jesus was entering Jerusalem from the East, the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate was entering through the western gate at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and solders. Because the approaching Passover festival celebrated Jews’ liberation from an earlier empire, it was a time ripe for social unrest. So every year before Passover, Pilate and additional troops would enter Jerusalem to assert Roman power.
With crucifixion casting a traumatic shadow over daily life, and the acute threat of Roman power in the form of Pilate and a company of soldiers entering the city, Jesus chose this moment to enter Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. And knowing the threat, his followers responded with shouts of “Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest! Saved! We are saved!
The researchers Ranney and Beidas make four suggestions for what we should do to help our kids and our communities to be resilient after a mass shooting.
First, parents need to take care of themselves. In the way we are asked to put on our oxygen mask first during an in-flight emergency, we need to make sure we reach out for help to respond to our own fears before we can support our kids.
Second, set limits around TV and social media, specifically how much we allow our kids to watch and re-watch coverage of traumatic events like mass shootings.
Third, ensure our kids have social support available and don’t become withdrawn and isolated,
And fourth, kids must be able to create a sense of control that generates hope.
In the aftermath of Parkland, youth like Emma Gonzales, that remarkable, young woman with the shaved head, are leading a movement. This movement is critically important for American communities in more ways than one. It may well lead to an effective and lasting response to pervasive gun violence. But taking action is also important for this generation. It gives them hope, and gives us hope.
Not every child is Emma Gonzales, but almost every child can take some action to help feel in control and to help feel like they can make a difference.
On March 14th, one month after the Parkland school shooting, my daughter Abby participated with several hundred other Simsbury High students, and close to a million students around the country, in a 17-minute, #neveragain walkout. Though the school administration had offered its support, Abby was especially pleased that the walkout was meant to be held in the school gym, but all the students walked right past the open gym door to gather outside instead, contributing to a sense of control that fostered hope.
I felt that same control and hope as I joined millions of others around the country at yesterday’s student-led March for Our Lives.
Which brings us to today’s Palm Sunday message for us all, whether or not gun violence is among your trauma triggers. As did Jesus, we live in traumatic times. We don’t need to know the clinical definition of PTSD to experience the fear, helplessness, and anger that trauma brings. Maybe gun violence prompts your fear. Or maybe it is the threat of nuclear war. Or the devastating breakup of a marriage. Or maybe it is the loss of a spouse, or a child. Or maybe you are facing bankruptcy. Or maybe the affair that has been kept quiet is now public knowledge. Or maybe the addiction you thought you had under control is now threatening your life. Or maybe the world just feels like it is changing too darn fast. Too often our lives feel out of control; hopelessness threatens.
We aren’t naïve, nor are we foolish. As in Jesus’ day, crucifixion casts a traumatic shadow in our lives. We know that crosses await. But as people of faith, we also know that our story does not end with the trauma of the cross. And on Palm Sunday, with the faithful of every generation, we lay claim to hope and choose life, welcoming Jesus into our lives with joyous shouts of, Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest! Saved! We are saved!
Pastor Pondering 