Lectionary Year C, Palm – Passion Sunday: Palms: Luke 19:28-40; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 23:1-49
The premise: “Pride turns People into Predators.” It’s a catchy little phrase, but what does it mean? And how does this relate to our readings? Let’s start by considering the people part.
“People” means simply human beings: creatures created in the image of God, with the ability to think and feel and act; beings with the free will to choose their actions, and minds able to consider the consequences of those acts; men and women with imagination to create new things from the materials and ideas around them; individuals, yet made to live in community and relationship with others; people created live in love with one another and with God.
As people, we are the crowning glory, the final flourish, the finishing touch of God’s creation! Wow – what potential we have as people of God, created in God’s image!
Ah, but too often we behave more like predators than the people we were created to be. The definition of “Predator” is “an animal that naturally preys on others.” So first and foremost, a predator is an animal, and animals survive by following their instincts of self-preservation.
A carnivore doesn’t stop to think about whether or not it’s right to kill and eat another creature. If you find yourself facing a hungry lioness, you’d better have a side of beef handy to feed that big cat, or she’s going to kill and eat you without a second thought. The lioness will have no regrets, no second guessing her actions, wringing her lion paws and wondering “if I’d waited a bit longer perhaps something else would have come along to eat so I wouldn’t’ve had to kill that nice lady…”
Animals don’t think like that. Animals don’t think and reason, they don’t distinguish between good and evil. They have no morals. All they know is what they’re programmed to do to survive. If they’re hungry, they kill to eat, and if they’re threatened, they attack to survive. They prey upon other animals naturally – it’s their basic inclination, they were created to behave that way.
Now, you may be thinking “well, sure, a wild animal will behave like that. But I KNOW my dog loves me, and would never try to eat me even if he were starving.”
Your dog may be your devoted companion, but your dog is in it for the kibble! Dogs are social creatures. On their own in the wild, they live in packs and hunt in packs. Their hunting is most successful when the best hunter is the leader. The whole pack prospers by following the lead of the strongest dog, the wiliest hunter. The pack members behave in ways that make the top dog like them, because if the top dog takes a disliking to you and drives you out of the pack, you’ll have a hard time surviving on your own.
Its instinct to seek acceptance from the pack leader - that’s ultimately what inspires the apparent devotion of your pet dog. Fido’s behavior may feel like love, but Fido’s devotion is as much about self-preservation and instinct as the hunting behavior of a hungry lioness.
So, what does it look like when people start behaving like predators, like animals, following survival instincts? Well, our two gospels stories, the Palms and the Passion, show us two different ways this animal behavior can look.
In the Passion story, we see Jesus attacked by the chief priests and scribes, the elders and leaders of the Jews in Jerusalem. They arrest him, accuse him, beat him, take him to the Roman authorities and demand his death because they’re threatened by his teachings. Theirs is an unthinking, animal-like response to the threat of Jesus. There is no love or humanity in it. Teeth bared and claws slashing, they lash out against the perceived threat like a cornered lion.
In the Palm story, the animal behavior is more subtle. The people aren’t attacking Jesus, they’re welcoming him and cheering his arrival. Ah, but why? Look at the motives of a typical man in the street and we’ll see the animal-like behavior.
You see, the Jewish people have been awaiting a Messiah, a powerful king to restore Israel to the glory of former days under King David and King Solomon. Crowds have been following Jesus, watching him perform deeds of power: healing the blind and lame, feeding multitudes. And now he’s entering Jerusalem. What the people see is a new King arriving.
They see a new and powerful “top-dog” stepping up into leadership. This new “pack-leader” will increase their status, create better conditions for the Jewish people and make them successful in all they do. The people are looking out for themselves as they cheer the Messiah and welcome him with palms, paving his way with their garments. They seek his favor much as your dog does. They’re securing their place with the new pack leader. There’s no love in it.
And as soon as it’s clear he’s not the sort of powerful King they were expecting, not a new top-dog, they turn and follow the Jewish leaders in attacking Jesus and demanding his death. The crowds turn their loyalty to another top-dog (the Jewish leadership) that seems more likely to help them survive.
So far we have people and we’ve seen how they can act like predators, like animals. Now let’s look at how pride fits into the picture.
First of all, let’s clarify what pride is. Pride is that deep pleasure or satisfaction you get from achievements: things you’ve achieved yourself or things achieved by your family, clan, team – by some group that you feel close ties to. Pride can also come from having “something” that others admire, like money or power, beauty, wisdom, status (or the latest electronic gadget).
To have pride, first you’ve got to place a high value on “something”, and then having or possessing that special “something” inspires the pleasure and satisfaction of Pride. Pride comes through doing or possessing. It’s about having prestige in your own eyes or in the eyes of others, or both.
The Jewish people were proud of their special status as the chosen people of God. It gave them pride that even though they were under the thumb of Rome right now, their God was going to vindicate them by sending a Messiah to end their suffering and oppression.
So when it looked like the Messiah had arrived, it was pride that inspired the people to jump on the Jesus bandwagon. They wanted to be part of what Jesus the Messiah was going to accomplish. They wanted the special status they could get by joining this latest Messiah movement. But Jesus didn’t turn out to be the kind of Messiah the people were expecting.
That’s when the pride of the Jewish leaders took over. The chief priests and elders and scribes had a long, proud tradition of having a special place among God’s special people. But Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God didn’t match up with what these leaders believed. Jesus’ teachings threatened the pride they took in their special place in God’s order. And it was the threat to their pride that inspired them to seek Jesus death.
“Pride turns people into predators.” Pride inspired the crowd to their self-serving cries of “Hosanna!” And pride goaded the Jewish leaders to demand Jesus’ death. When we people fail to exercise our uniquely human ability to love, we’re no better than animals.
“Pride turns People into Predators.” And it can do the same thing to each of us. When the things that give us pride are threatened, we tend to behave badly. We oppose and threaten and vilify the people or ideas that threaten us. And we’ll jump blindly onto the bandwagon of any cause that seems likely to succeed, just so we can take pride in being on the winning team – whether or not the cause is truly right and good.
As people, as human beings, we might perhaps take pride in being created in the image of God. But even the most righteous person has squandered the potential to live in love as a fully human being, created in the image of God. Since Adam and Eve, all have sinned and all have fallen short of the mark.
As Christ followers and people of God, the only source of pride we should indulge is pride in the Gospel message – that Jesus Christ came to save sinners - that God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son.
And Jesus himself is the only person to ever live the fully human life that God desires each of us to live. To exercise discernment and judgement, to choose good and not evil, to create and enjoy and live in relationship with God and people. To love God and to love our neighbors: that’s what it means to be the human beings God intends us to be.
The antidote to our sinful pride in our own achievements and possessions is shown forth in the life of our Savior, and is so beautifully stated in the reading from Philippians:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death--
even death on a cross.
Jesus didn’t take pride in His equality with God. It was not the thing that gave pleasure and satisfaction to His life. Only relationship and love with the Father gave Jesus meaning in his life, therefore, he could set aside all things – even life itself - for the sake of that love.
I invite you to join me this Holy Week in following Jesus example, striving to set aside the sinful pride that inspires us to behave as animals, and indulge instead in the humility of Christ, the only thing that will make us the fully human beings we were made to be.
I invite you to join me this Holy Week in following Jesus example, striving to set aside the sinful pride that inspires us to behave as animals, and indulge instead in the humility of Christ, the only thing that will make us the fully human beings we were made to be.
Amen
