Sermon for Palm Sunday, Year A (3-29-26)

In times of unrest and insecurity we often hear - and might sometimes ourselves feel - that if we just had more control - more power - in the right hands, then everything would work itself out. But that idea - for all its appeal - rests on something far shakier than we’d often like to admit:

Power is a fickle thing.

Because much of what we call power… isn’t real. Not in any lasting sense. It’s constructed and maintained and agreed upon. And because of these qualities, it can just as quickly unravel.

Matthew’s gospel really rubs our face in this truth today in the telling of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Because make no mistake, this is not just a quaint religious moment. It is a public, embodied, political statement. Loaded with expectation, and tension, and meaning. A moment where competing visions of power collide right in the middle of a palm- covered street.

The crowds gather. Cloaks on the ground. Branches in the air. “Hosanna!” they cry—Save us! Save us! And what they're reaching for - what they are hoping for - is power. Real power. The kind they’ve seen before. The kind Rome wields so effectively. The kind that dominates and enforces - all for the promise of "security." But what they’re grasping for is not what Jesus has on offer.

Because the power they imagine—the power of control, of dominance, of finally being on top—is always more fragile than it appears. It depends on public perception and collective momentum. On people continuing to believe that it holds fast. But when that belief cracks...

We're watching that play out in real time in our own political life. The current presidential administration has, at various moments, appeared to command almost total influence—shaping narratives, consolidating loyalty, projecting strength. And yet, that sense of dominance is constantly shifting. Legal pressures, electoral outcomes, fractures within alliances—these all reveal something important.

That  what looks immovable often isn’t.

And if we’re honest, it’s not just about one person, or one party, or one moment. It’s about us. It's about the human tendency to chase after forms of power that feel solid,  but that are ultimately sustained by something as thin as collective agreement. We want something to hold onto. Something that reassures us that things are under control. But, Palm Sunday interrupts that illusion.

Jesus doesn't arrive the way power is supposed to arrive. No war horse. No spectacle of force. Just a donkey. A slow, almost absurd foil to everything we’ve been taught to recognize as strength. And make no mistake - it’s not subtle. This is deliberate.

Jesus in this act exposes the lie - not just out there in Rome - but in here, in us. The lie that power is found in control. That salvation comes through dominance. That if we can just get the right person in charge, everything will finally be made right. And as I said, oh, about this time last year, it’s a very convenient idea. But it’s also patently untrue.

Because the same crowd that cries “Hosanna” will, in a matter of days, turn. Or will at least disappear. or fall in line with another story. Another version of power. Another illusion. And that should unsettle us. Because it reveals how easily we attach our hope to things that cannot bear its weight.

Now, to be clear: this does not mean that politics doesn’t matter. Quite the opposite. If politics is how we order our life together, then of course the Gospel should shape our politics just as it should shape every other aspect of our lives. God is not blind to the systems we build or the decisions we make (or don't make) just because they aren't "in church".

There is no such thing as a non-political Christianity.

But—and this is critical—Jesus does not come to baptize our illusions about power. He comes to dismantle them. To show us that what we often call power is, at best, temporary—and at worst, a distraction from the deeper reality of what God is doing in the world. Because real power - the kind that doesn't collapse when challenged - also doesn't necessarily need crowds to sustain it. It doesn't rise and fall with approval ratings or election cycles. And it does not depend on fear or force.

Real power, it turns out, looks like Jesus moving steadily ...toward the cross.

And that is where this road leads. The same road lined with branches and cloaks. The same voices crying out for salvation. The same expectations hanging in the air. All of it will give way—not to an enthronement, but to a crucifixion. Which, is either the ultimate failure of power, or the revelation that everything we thought power was… was never real to begin with.

So, as we wave our palms, and as we join the crowd in crying “Hosanna,” the question isn’t just whether we believe Jesus can save. It’s whether we're ready to let go of the illusion of how we think that salvation is supposed to look. Because God is not interested in propping up our fragile versions of power. God is doing something far more disruptive than that.

And that is very Good News.

Amen.