March 29 - “Only One King”
Only One King
29 March 2026 – Palm Sunday
Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29; Matthew 21:1-11
Rev. Mary Nelson
First Congregational Church UCC of Williamstown, MA
It’s no accident that yesterday’s No Kings protest was scheduled for the day before Palm Sunday. I don’t know who made that call, but they knew what they were doing: The original Palm Sunday is a political demonstration. Two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, the disciples of Jesus staged a political protest against the Roman Empire. And this protest happened at the beginning of the Passover week, the holiest week of the year—the week of a festival celebrating the people’s liberation from the oppression of Pharaoh’s empire. And here we are, in America in the 21st century, protesting Empire yet again. Ain’t that just the way life goes? Everything old is new again: skinny jeans, baking your own bread, protesting against a tyrannical government.
Back in Jesus’s day, the Roman Empire had established a practice of filling the city of Jerusalem with extra reminders of the Empire’s power before and during the week of the annual Passover celebration. Those “reminders” mostly came in the form of soldiers. But a few days before Passover itself, the Governor, Pontius Pilate, would stage a big processional march across the city, a big military parade, entering through the western gate, and crossing Jerusalem all the way up to the Temple Mount. He did this parade mostly to intimidate, to assert control, and let people know that he was present in the city and he was watching them.
What we now call Jesus’s “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem was likely a counter-protest to Pilate’s procession, entering from the eastern side of the city near the Temple. In Matthew’s telling of the story, Jesus went directly to the Temple and turned over the tables of the moneylenders, driving them out of the Temple. This would have caused mass chaos in the Temple, just in time for Pilate to arrive and pretend to have control. Jesus’s “triumphal entry” was a brazen political and economic disruption of Pilate’s show of power. A provocation, a non-violent protest against the empire of Rome and Caesar Tiberius himself. Jesus probably did not have the massive crowd size that we likely imagine, it wasn’t the size of the No Kings attendance we saw yesterday. His disciples would have staged the demonstration and stirred up the street people to join, rallying them against the powers of oppression and domination, the powers of Empire. Their numbers would have been counted in tens or maybe hundreds, not in thousands. But the people participated with their palm branches and their cloaks on the ground. They clearly understood the symbolism at play in this demonstration, and so did the Roman authorities.
When Jesus enters Jerusalem, Matthew tells us, the whole city is “in turmoil.” The translation is a little bit inaccurate here: the word that Matthew uses is better translated as “shaken,” disturbed. Notably, it’s the same word that Matthew uses to describe Herod’s feeling at the news of Jesus’ birth. Herod is “frightened, and all Jerusalem with him,” and sends the Magi to bring him word of the baby’s whereabouts. Jesus is a guy who threatens the political leadership of Empire from day one, and the whole point of his triumphal entry into the city is to challenge and undermine the Roman authorities. Jerusalem is “shaken,” in turmoil, because of Jesus’s provocative civic action.
Jesus is a peasant who has constructed for himself the procession of a king, with the donkey and the branches and the cheering crowds. He stages this procession on the same day at the same time that Pontius Pilate, representing the Caesar, has a similar procession on the other side of town. And we have to keep in mind that the Caesar himself claims to be descended from the god Apollo. Caesar calls himself the “Son of God,” “Savior,” “Lord,” and, through conquering nation after nation, asserts that he has brought “peace on earth.”
Jesus is riding into town, giving Caesar and the people an alternative political message. Who is the king? Jesus is the king in this procession. But if Jesus is king, then Caesar is not.
It’s a political claim, a symbolic claim, AND a theological claim: There can be only one king. And it’s Jesus. It’s not Saul, it’s not Herod, it’s not Tiberius, it’s not [fill in the blank]. Jesus is king, therefore Caesar is not.
The people recognize the symbolism that Jesus and his disciples have set up, and they respond to his procession with shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” The word “Hosanna” means “save us!” Save us from the oppression of Empire. Save us from the political and economic nightmare we’re living. Save us from a corrupt and dangerous pretender-King. Save us, Jesus! Save us from Caesar! Hosanna in the highest!
We know, don’t we, that in the course of putting down a rebellion, the oppressing forces will retaliate against the leaders of the rebellion and try to execute them. In the Roman Empire, denying the authority of the Empire was the only crime that was punishable by crucifixion. Crucifixion is the punishment assigned to those who commit treason against the Empire. Today’s procession leads beyond the city on Sunday to the cross on Friday.
Jesus loved his people, and loved his faith, enough to take this enormous risk. Whether or not he knew that he would be killed and raised again is legitimately subject to debate, but his actions on Palm Sunday were not just for the fun of playing “devil’s advocate,” or for the caprice of getting a rise out of Pilate’s guards. He loved his people and his faith enough to stand up to the Empire, and risk the death of traitors. Let us all pray we won’t ever have to know what that’s really like.
We have one final item in our behavioral covenant to discuss: Accepting Disagreement and Conflict–and what a perfect day to cover it. I will speak for myself and own what I say. I accept with an open posture that disagreements arise because they are another expression of someone’s love for this congregation. I will trust our resolution to the Holy Spirit’s movement. At times we will look for guidance through prayer.
We have only one King in this church, and that is Jesus. And from time to time, we will disagree about how best to serve him, how best to worship him, and what it means to follow him. No one is going to crucify you for disagreeing with each other. But the key to disagreeing with each other is remembering that each person holds the viewpoint they do because they love their church. You don’t disagree with me because you dislike me, you disagree with me because your love for the church and my love for the church are sometimes not in alignment with each other. We have to figure out how to live together in the church anyway. I speak for myself, and don’t tell other people’s stories – no, “well, some people are saying…” or “I heard that someone was upset about…” Tell your story, own your perspective, and let others tell their stories and own their perspectives. Trust that the Holy Spirit will work it out, helping us communicate with one another effectively. See the love that we each offer for the church, the church as it is and the church as it could be, and then go from there. Provoking for the sake of provoking, for the fun of stirring the pot, isn’t actually loving the church, it’s loving your own ego, and that’s not Christlike. Faith community is not about winning an argument, but about discerning together God’s call, and living out that call. None of us is called to be the King—that position is filled already—so this work is not about establishing or exercising dominance. Faithfulness is not a zero-sum game. There is more than enough of God’s love to go around. And also, there is enough conflict in this world, more than enough: we don’t have to create more for ourselves. Let’s remember that each of us loves the church, and begin there.
We have only one King here, and the very first thing he taught is that the Kingdom is among us. It is here and now: in the way we treat one another, in the way we communicate with one another, in the way we live our lives together in community, in the way we serve others. We do build that kingdom, every time we account for the consequences of our choices, every time we consider the impact of our actions – on the environment, on the economy, on our community, on our children, on our future, on our world. And our impact on one another, especially. The kingdom of God is among us right now. It is in our shouts of Hosanna, and our waving of palms. It is in our listening to one another, our sharing our stories, our love for this congregation. The Kingdom of God is among you, and we have only one King.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest! Thanks be to God.