Rev. Joyce Parry Moore
Sermon 3/24/13 – Palm Sunday
St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Livermore, CA
Blessed is the one who rides a donkey
It has been a hectic week, with lots and lots of preparation, and not much sleep. And now the
journey of Holy Week stretches before us. I admit to feeling both a little exhausted and very,
very excited. How will I get through this week? Who shall be my companion, my helper, my
inspiration? I prayed to God – “have mercy on me, for I am in trouble” and “My times are in
your hands”. Then, a surprising answer came to me while preparing today’s sermon: I would
find my inspiration in a donkey!
That’s right, the humble donkey: an animal most commonly used as a beast of burden in the
ancient near east, and still in many Eastern countries today. As a prey animal, and one that has
retained many of its natural instincts of self-preservation despite being domesticated by
humans, the donkey is attentive, and watchful. The donkey stands its ground to defend itself
and its home, and perhaps thus has been maligned as being “stubborn” and “willful”, when in
fact, the donkey has been serving humans for thousands of years.
It was perhaps the 2nd century novel of Apuleius called Metamorphoses, later called The Golden
Ass by the troubled St. Augustine, that gave the donkey its bad reputation. The protagonist in
Metamorphoses is turned into a donkey when he dabbles in magic, and goes on a dangerous
journey to return to human form.
When Jesus instructs the disciples in today’s Gospel according to Luke– as well as in the Gospels
of Matthew and John – to go into the village and find a “colt”, he was talking about the
firstborn offspring of a donkey. In Matthew, Jesus’ words are “Go into the village ahead of you,
and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to
me.” Matthew also quotes from the prophet, Zechariah: “9Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is
he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Jesus brought donkeys
along for his big entrance, knowing what it would mean!
Kings often rode on donkeys in Biblical times. But this transportation also indicated the kind of
king they would be. Warfare came on horseback, such as the horses and chariots that chased
the Israelites into the red sea. A king that rode on a donkey was a working king, a peaceful
king. Zechariah continues: “10 He[c] will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse
from Jerusalem; and . .he shall command peace to the nations”. By riding on a donkey, Jesus
proclaimed peace.
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Rev. Joyce Parry Moore
St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Livermore, CA
Sermon 3/24/13
Blessed is the one who rides a donkey
Donkeys carry importance throughout the Hebrew scriptures. In Exodus, although donkeys
were considered “unclean” because of their hooves, the Israelites were also told to “redeem”
the firstborn colt of a donkey with the “blood of a lamb”. This refers to the Passover, when God
spared all the firstborn of Israel. So Jesus, the lamb, comes into Jerusalem leading along a
firstborn donkey, a colt.
There is also a story in the book of Numbers, about a prophet named Balaam who rode an ass.
Balaam was up to some no good tricks, having sold out the people of Israel, when his donkey
had a vision of the angel of God coming to punish Balaam; and so the donkey turns aside, he
“repents”, to save the life of Balaam. In this story, the donkey is not foolish or stubborn, he is
wise and caring.
Our perceptions of identity are often formed by the name we give to a person or an animal. In
Shakespeare’s Europe, when donkeys were viewed as symbols of labor and of lower class, they
were named “silly asses”; in Don Quixote, from a country more familiar with the help of such
beasts of burden, Sancho Panza’s donkey Dapples is portrayed as a faithful companion. By
choosing a donkey as his transportation, Jesus was, once again, raising up the lowly to a place
of importance.
This morning, we enter the sanctuary in triumph, proclaiming the “King of Glory”, only to hear
the devastating story of Jesus’ passion and death. It begins with Jesus trying to explain to his
disciples the importance of serving; trying to get them to change their perceptions of the one at
the table as being the greatest, but rather to get them to empathize with, to relate to, the one
who is serving.
Jesus commends his disciples for being faithful to him, and tells them that for being such loving
companions, they will receive a place at the Heavenly table. To the world, the disciples must
have seemed foolish and poor; to Jesus they were bold leaders and friends. Jesus sees the
world, and sees us, differently, and calls us to see with his eyes, and to serve with his hands.
So, how will a little donkey help me, help us, as we journey along with Jesus through Holy
Week? Well, my family has often commented that it might be helpful for me to have a pack
animal to carry my heavy briefcase! I also learned this week that many donkeys have the
pattern of the cross on their backs; people in the Middle Ages believed that a hair from the
donkey’s back would cure them. It helps also to remember the donkey’s sense of humor; we
need only think of Shrek’s faithful (if slightly) annoying companion “Donkey” to recall the
childlike playfulness in this animal, who was, in his heart, “a noble steed”.
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Rev. Joyce Parry Moore
St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Livermore, CA
Sermon 3/24/13
Blessed is the one who rides a donkey
Following Jesus where he must go, let us walk beside that humble colt, the one who will be
redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Let us try to be steady and true, and stand our ground
when needed, and to keep our playfulness and sense of humor. Above all, let us remember to
serve, because in serving and loving we are saved.
And let the redeemed people of God say,
AMEN.
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