The First Palm
Sunday Peace Parade
A Sermon by
Anthony Manousos
Delivered at First United Methodist Church of Pasadena
Palm Sunday,
March 29, 2026
(To watch the recorded livestream please click here and go to minute 37)
I am so grateful that Pastor Amy invited
me to speak about Palm Sunday. This is not only a very special time for the
church—the beginning of Holy Week—it’s also a very special holiday for Jill and
me since we met at the Palm Sunday Peace Parade here in Pasadena 15 years ago.
This parade was
organized by our dear friend Bert Newton, a Mennonite pastor. Three weeks after
Jill and I met at this parade, I proposed marriage, Jill accepted and the rest
(as they say) is history. Our wedding vows affirmed that "the Prince of
Peace brought us together for a purpose beyond what we can imagine."
I believe that the Prince of Peace
brought all of us here together today for a purpose beyond what we can imagine.
I believe that the Prince of Peace calls all of us to be peacemakers! Can I
hear an AMEN?
First, let
me tell you briefly about the Palm Sunday Peace Parade. It was started in 2004 here
in Pasadena to protest the Iraq war and to honor Jesus as the Prince of Peace.
The parade recognized Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem as the fulfillment
of Zachariah's prophecy that a king would enter the city on a donkey to
"bring peace to all
nations" (Zachariah 9:9-10).
Between 120-150 people from dozens of
different congregations showed up each year for our parade. We marched from the
Lutheran Church on Orange Grove Blvd down to the Paseo on Colorado Boulevard.
We held palm branches in one hand and peace signs in the other. We practiced
what is called sacred resistance.
The day which Christians celebrate as
Palm Sunday is the first day of the Jewish festival of Passover. In his book
The Last Week:
What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem, Marcus Borg points out that two processions entered
Jerusalem on that day. One was Jesus’ riding on a donkey with his motley crew
of disciples cheering him on, welcomed by a throng of Jews hoping he would save
them from Roman oppression. The second was a well-armed procession of Roman
legionnaires who marched into Jerusalem under the command of Pontius Pilate to
show Roman power and to quell any unrest. One parade was about the power of
empire, the other about the power of love.
Only during important Jewish festivals,
like Passover, did Pilate reluctantly leave his plush governor’s mansion in
Caesarea, a lovely coastal city built by the Romans 70 miles from Jerusalem. He
always took a contingent of well-armed soldiers to march to Jerusalem for
security reasons. During high holy days, Jews were especially hostile to the
Roman empire. Most Jews were angry with Roman occupation of their country and riots
sometimes occurred. Pilate’s army came to ensure stability and to let the Jews
know who was in charge.
The Jewish common people had good reason to be hostile to the Roman Empire.
Both the Romans, and their wealthy Jewish collaborators, taxed the common
people almost to death. To pay these exorbitant taxes, many poor people had to
sell their lands and become day laborers. That’s why Jesus told parables about
workers without land. The workers in Judea/Palestine lived as precariously as
day laborers, homeless folk, and migrant workers do today.
These landless workers resented their Roman overlords. They were like the
insurgents in today’s Middle East. Groups of angry Jews, called the Zealots,
formed “cells” and engaged in acts of terrorism against the occupying imperial
army.
Pilate did not see himself as an oppressor, but as a bringer of peace. Peace
was the official policy of the Roman empire. They called it Pax Romana, the
peace of Rome. Whether people wanted it or not, the Pax Romana brought the
advantages of civilization—beautiful buildings, roads, trade, and prosperity. Of
course, these perks were only for those who were smart or powerful enough to
seize advantage of the opportunities Rome provided. Pilate, like most Romans,
felt that he represented a superior civilization, just as many Americans do
today. Pilate looked down on religious Jews as ignorant and superstitious. Why
couldn’t they be just like other nations and accept imperial rule?
Because Pilate was concerned about security and peace, he would not have been
pleased with Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem. Pilate had no doubt heard about this
upstart prophet/troublemaker from Galilee. His spies would have told him that
everywhere Jesus went, crowds of poor people hailed them as a great prophet.
Some even called him the Messiah, the King of the Jews. Jesus was a dangerous
man who needed to be kept under surveillance. He might even be a terrorist, or
someone giving material support to terrorism. Pilate’s parade was to show that
resistance was futile.
Now, what about Jesus? What kind of parade was he sponsoring?
We know from the Gospels that Jesus planned his arrival in Jerusalem very
carefully. As Marcus Borg notes, what Jesus did had the earmarks of a planned
political demonstration.
Take, for instance, the fact that he rode into the city on a donkey. This was
political symbolism which every Jew in Jerusalem would immediately have
understood.
For a Jewish religious leader to ride a donkey into Jerusalem was the
fulfillment a well-known prophesy of Zechariah (9:9-11). Those who shouted
“hosannah” to Jesus expected him to act like King David and drive out the Roman
Goliaths and restore Jewish independence.
No one knew how Jesus would do this. But Jesus had a reputation as a miracle
worker. So many people were willing to believe that somehow he might be able to
bring about the social transformation they yearned for.
During the rest of this Passover week, Jesus’ dramatic actions suggested that
he was, in fact, about to bring about a powerful transformation of society. He
challenged the religious authorities at the Temple. He challenged Roman tax
collection policy. When he said, “Give to Caesar what he Caesar’s and give to
God what is God’s” this could be interpreted to mean, “Give God everything, and
give Caesar nothing.” After all, the book of Job tells us that the whole world
and its riches belong to God (Job 41;11) . Jesus’ radical words made him very
popular with the common people but very unpopular with the ruling authorities.
By the end of the week, Jesus was arrested, tried, tortured, and sentenced to
be executed in a humiliating way. From a worldly point of view, Jesus’ plan
failed. He didn’t have sufficient power or clout to be a worldly king of the
Jews. From a worldly standpoint, what Jesus did was very foolish.
That’s why the common people and many of his followers turned on him. Clearly
this Jesus guy was no miracle worker. He was just another foolish would-be
Messiah.
Jesus’ death should have been the end of the story. Many charismatic leaders
had come to Jerusalem just as Jesus did, and they were killed by the Roman
authorities and then forgotten. But Jesus’ death was different. What made it
different is the resurrection. The resurrection transformed his followers and
the world. The resurrection showed that love triumphs over hate, that God’s
grace trumps imperial violence. As Paul said in his letter to the Romans: “I am
convinced that neither life nor death, nor powers nor principalities, nor
things present or things to come, nor heights nor depths nor any created thing,
can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.”
This, to me, is the message of Holy
Week. Nothing, not even death, can separate us from God’s love.
I’d like to conclude by talking about
what Palm Sunday means to us today.
I gained new insight into Palm Sunday in March 1992 when I went to the test
site in Nevada to protest nuclear weapons. I went during Holy Week and the
theme for that year was taken from the Gospel of Luke. In that Gospel, the
religious authorities complain about how the crowds are cheering Jesus when he
enters Jerusalem. And Jesus answered them, "I tell you, if these were
silent, the very stones would cry out." (Luke 19:37-40, ESV).
Those of us who went to this protest refused to be silent about the dangers of
nuclear weapons. We felt we had to cry out.
By the world’s standards, we were being very foolish. But we were in good
company. Many religious people, of every faith tradition, were arrested at this
test site, including many Methodists, and our then bishop, Mary Ann Swenson. We
haven’t yet persuaded our nation to end its addiction to violence, but as
Christians we would be foolish not to try.
The rulers of our country believe that they are wise, and those of us who
oppose them are foolish and naive. They spend billions on the military, and
mere peanuts on what is called “soft power”—the power of diplomacy and negotiation.
Their violent approach has been costly and ineffective, yet they call us foolish
and naïve for pointing that war is not the answer.
Looking back, we see parallels with what
happened to the Roman Empire. As Rome grew increasingly rich and powerful, it
grew more and more corrupt. When the empire was teetering on the brink of
disaster, the Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity as a lifeline. Sad to
say, he missed the whole point of Jesus’ message – the power of compassion.
Instead, Constantine put crosses on the banners of the Roman army and sent them
out to conquer the world in the name of Christ. This was a sick perversion of
Jesus’ message. Today, many people still believe that you can fight wars for
Christ. What’s worse, many believe that the US is engaged in a holy war to
bring Christ to the Middle East. That’s the view of our current secretary of
war, a self-avowed Christian nationalist who has written a book called The
American Crusade and prays for violence against those who “deserve no
mercy,” namely, Muslims.
What is Jesus’ real message? It’s so simple that every child knows it and can
recite it. Love God. Love your enemy. Treat others the way you’d like to be
treated.
“Loving your enemy” means talking with them, listening to them, trying to
figure out why they are angry with you, and trying to find ways to make peace.
As a nation, loving your enemy does not mean letting them walk all over you. It
means diplomacy. It means giving food to the poor instead of selling arms that
are used to kill the poor. It means supporting international law, democratic
values, and treating every nation with respect.
Imagine how things would improve if we applied these Christian principles to
our foreign policy!
Foolish as it may seem to those who are fans of Caesar and the empire, Jesus’
wisdom of compassion can actually work in the real world. We know from the
example of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. These men were able to transform
India and the US without resorting to violence.
But to make compassion work, you need to be willing to take risks, to put your
life on the line, if necessary, for what you believe. Sixty years ago Martin
Luther King stood in the pulpit at Riverside Church in New York City and
announced that he opposed the Vietnam War. Among other things, King called for
a revolution of values. He said, and I quote:
A
true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war,
"This way of settling differences is not just."…. A nation that
continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on
programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
In the face of this spiritual death and
destruction, King challenged the religious community to speak out. He said,
“Silence is betrayal. We can’t be silent any longer about the evils of war and
economic exploitation.”
These prophetic words aroused the anger of many in power who had supported
King’s Civil Rights work. A year after King gave this message at Riverside
Church, on April 4, 1968, he was shot down in a motel in Memphis, TN. United
Methodist pastor Rev Jim Lawson and others saw King’s death not only as a
political assassination, but also as a kind of crucifixion.
Like King, Jesus also did not mince words when he went to Jerusalem and
confronted the worldly powers. When he went to the Temple and overturned the
tables of the money changers, he said: “My house was supposed to be house of
prayer for the nations. You’ve turned it into a den of thieves.”
These prophetic words infuriated the religious authorities who profited from
their collaboration with the Romans. That’s why they went to Pontius Pilate and
told him that this troublemaker had to be stopped.
The Romans killed Jesus’ body, but they could not kill his spirit. His unquenchable
spirit of love and truth lives today among those of us who boldly say,
“Religious communities must not bless war and violence.” He lives in those of
us who say, “Let’s give peace a chance.”
Peace is possible, but we need to work to make it happen. Like Martin Luther
King and Gandhi, Jesus knew that peacemaking comes with a price, and he was
willing to pay that price to show us the power of love.
The question facing all of us today is: Whose parade will you join, Caesar’s or
Christ’s?
I hope that as we lift up our palm branches today and celebrate the Prince of
Peace, we will say “No” to the power of empire and “Yes” to the power of God.
[Raise your palm and say: Hosanah!]
