Preaching Paths 13 April 2025

Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary

A careful, thoughtful public reading of the gospel text on Palm Sunday this year (Luke 19:28-40) may warrant a brief introduction. We can alert listeners that Luke’s presentation of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem omits details found in the other gospels. They will hear no mention of palm branches, and no Hosannas. But Luke includes intriguing details that open promising paths for preaching.

Jesus sends two disciples to fetch an unridden colt from a nearby village. When asked why they are untying it, they answer (literally) “Its owner needs it”*—as if Jesus’ claim on this animal supersedes mere human property law. Luke aligns with Mt and Mk when he describes the throng spreading cloaks on the road that leads down from the Mount of Olives and up toward Jerusalem; but it is specifically a crowd of Jesus’ disciples that begins shouting praises. In Luke, they alter the words of Ps 118:26. Instead of chanting, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” they shout, “Blessed is the king who comes . . .” (v 37)—provocative language in Jesus’ time and place. Little wonder that some onlooking Pharisees urge Jesus to silence them; Rome did not tolerate the least flicker of nationalist fervor in its territories. Yet–implying that something greater than Rome is here—Jesus declares: “If these were silent, the stones would shout out” (v 40). In Luke, Jesus’ disciples raise a hymn of peace and glory in heaven (v38), language that echoes the angels the night of Jesus’ birth (Lk 2). An untrained, young donkey willingly carries Jesus. Stones stand ready to take up the cosmic, heraldic shout. Perhaps creation itself comprehends what the city ahead of them has so far missed: God’s agent of peace is here. Luke goes on (vv 41-44) to tell us that Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and its leaders, so determined to maintain control and reject the peace he offers them.

Sermons on the triumphal entry sometimes indulge in bitter contemplation on the fickleness of human nature: the same crowd that hails Jesus as he rides to Jerusalem is all too quick to cry for his death! If we are preaching from Matthew or Mark, this may be justifiable, but Luke establishes a narrow, yet crucial distinction between the crowd in general—maybe hoping to cash in when this wonder-worker seizes power—and the disciples who celebrate him as the king who brings peace. A sermon might propose that we fall in step with those disciples, confessing our faith in a “king” who does not rule by coercion. In a world that insists that the path to peace necessarily requires violence, how might we demonstrate through acts of compassion the non-coercive power of Jesus?

Alternatively, a preacher might consider bringing into the foreground the “wild” young colt that is docile in its master’s hands and the stones—ancient witnesses to human folly and strife—that stand ready to testify to the Lord of heaven and earth. What is creation saying to us, in our place and time?

A third approach would be to connect Jesus’ ride toward Jerusalem with the lament that follows.  Jesus presses on toward Jerusalem with self-sacrificial love. In troubling times, we are tempted to turn away from that which makes us weep. We can choose, like Jesus, to move toward it, testifying to “the things that make for peace” and demonstrating love for the most vulnerable among us.

*Kurios can mean either “lord” or “owner”.