The excitement in that long ago crowd demonstrated
the burning hope for salvation, the hunger and the thirst for a renewal of
society. For the early folk of Israel who lived as an oppressed people in an
occupied land the sight of this holy man riding towards the city would have
awoken within them the poetry and prophecy of their childhood's Once upon a time, Once upon a time God’s appointed king will enter Zion and establish true peace and justice Once upon a time, once upon a time... Is this all that we are really talking about? Fairy tales, magic realism, myth and old folk songs ringing soft into the
night?
Do any of us really believe that transformation is possible?
Or are we just going thorough the motions, waving the palm leaves, flinging down a cloak or two, smiling for the children and all the while knowing in a sunken stone way that nothing is ever really going to change?

There is a film called Living Out Loud in which the main character, played by the actress Holly Hunter, sits in her shining apartment which soars triumphant over Manhattan streets. She is sitting and eating take away and flicking through the channels on her TV screen and each station is
playing or replaying, some terrible moment from the days news.
Holly Hunter’s character sits, tears flooding down her face and she flicks
from image to sound bite to war zone to drought.
‘Why are they showing me this ‘ she begs?
‘What am I meant to do with this?" "What am I meant to do with crack babies
and land mines and torture and flooding?"
"What am I meant to do with all this information?"

Today as we listened to the story of Christ's entry to Jerusalem we heard
Christ say something which has the potential to jar or jolt in the listeners
mind.
He says.
"Do not be afraid."
"Do not be afraid."
What a strange thing to say.
Here he is, the triumphant figure aloft his steed and instead of saying Rejoice! or Beware! or Watch out here I come! he says the three words which of all the words throughout the old and new testaments appear the most often, "Do not be afraid." Because we are, aren't we, and that's why we give up, lose heart, lose hope, lose any sense that there is any point in fighting the good fight when the odds are so stacked, the world so broken.
How can we, in our tiny, humble, small one, way ever make any difference?
Why are they giving me all this information!
So fear is one of the reasons that we choose to shy away from riding on the
back of the donkey. What are the others?
 

Marx is famously quoted as saying that religion is the opiate of the masses
- or - in other words, people will not fight the status quo because they believe that if they just keep their heads down and follow the system in this life then everything will be peachy perfect in the next.
Such a philosophy can be traced back to one of our primary religious
doctrines which teaches us that God has everything under control,
that everything happens for a reason and that everything will be all right in the great eschatological ending of time.
Many theologians now believe that the time has come to challenge this notion
of God's omnipotence and that if we take seriously the God who shines through
to us in Christ then we have to take seriously the image of a God who is
calling us into co transformation of this creation.

Because God in Christ can not do it all on Her own.

Travelling through Australia at the moment is the feminist theologian Carol
Christ who believes that throughout history we have allowed ourselves to be
restrained  - restrained in our imagining of how much potential we have to be part of the process of the transformation of the cosmic whole. Christ feels that part of this constraint has occurred due to institutional religions focus on immortality. A focus which has led to life after death being viewed as more important and ultimately more relevant than this life in the here and now. This finite life which can be broken and shadow-filled. Christ argues that when we focus on life after death, we are in danger of devaluing this life and perhaps lessening our moral commitment to change the things within the world that we know to be wrong. As we walk today with our Christ and our small one (donkey) towards the cross, the focus, for many Christian communities, is Christ’s movement towards death. What would it be like if instead of choosing this as our focus we chose instead to be

re-awoken to the revolution that Christ is calling us to unlock our power to truly make a difference in this world of oppression; Which inspires us to not sink
into apathy at the face of injustice nor to hide away in tears and despair but to instead
Ride on, Ride on towards Jerusalem
even though we are afraid.
For Christ came to awaken within us - we the little ones, the donkeys, the small folk -
our own sacred power so that we may bring about earth as it is in heaven.

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