Preached at St Peter’s, Poulshot, Holy Cross, Seend, and Christ Church, Bulkington
Philippians 2. 5-11; Mark 11. 1-11
“he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”
If you want to make something of yourself, you’ve got to get out there and sell yourself. The modern world is no place for humility, especially with the job market being the way it is. Pay close attention to your image, not only in the physical world, but especially on social media. To build your profile there, never forget that outrage sells and angry people click.
Giotto, The Entry into Jerusalem (1305). In the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy.
That’s a reasonable summary of the sort of advice that might be given, in an entirely well-meaning way, to an ambitious young person trying to make it big in a bad old world.
Now, we all know that St Paul has the reputation of being a real old curmudgeon, with views completely incompatible with the modern world. That is clearer nowhere than in this morning’s Epistle reading, when he writes:
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who … emptied himself … humbled himself and became the obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”
Holy week turns the values of the 21st Century West upside down. Then again, it also turned the values of the Roman Empire upside down, and it turned the values of Second Temple Judaism upside down. Our Western obsession with self-fulfilment dies on the Cross, just like the Romans’ obsession with power, and the Jewish leadership’s obsession with piety.
And within Holy Week, if there is one story that really speaks to our own times, to the manias and failings of the 2020s, it is that of Palm Sunday. At its core, Palm Sunday is a story about the fickleness of celebrity.
One of the fascinating things about my job is meeting so many primary school age kids. Until a few years ago, when you asked them what they wanted to do when they grew up, there was a strong social gradient to the answers. The better off kids would already have had a few sensible professions whispered into their ears by their parents, and there would always be a few surprisingly sensible answers no matter where you went, but as you went into schools were the kids were poorer, you found most of the boys wanted to be footballers, while the girls wanted win the Lottery. That’s all changed over the last few years. Nowadays, whether they’re rich or poor, they all want to be YouTubers and social media influencers. One can see why when the parents of one American boy, Ryan Keji, made a video of him reviewing a new toy every day; by the time he was ten, he had made a hundred million dollars.
But it isn’t just the money that attracts: it seems to be the chance to become a celebrity as well. “Fame, fame, fatal fame”, as the song goes, “it must play hideous tricks on the brain.” There’s little doubt about that. Yet it’s not entirely surprising that celebrity has become a dream for many in a society where the old virtues are of little importance; where the gap between the rich and the rest is growing ever wider; where more of us feel our lives count for little.
The strange thing is that it takes a particularly and unusually brass-necked sort of personality to genuinely enjoy being a celebrity, and even those few hate the experience at least some of the time.
I wonder if the Princess of Wales is enjoying the celebrity that comes with her Royal status, of being a household name in much of the world, or would she rather live her life as plain old Kate Middleton? Yet this is a dream that so many people wish they could realistically chase.
In our Gospel reading today, Jesus has intentionally courted his celebrity status by riding into town on an unridden colt, the prerogative of a coming king. Yet he still seems to be wary of the atmosphere in Jerusalem. Although it was late when He was finished at the Temple, He and the twelve apostles spent the night at Bethany. It’s a good three miles from the Temple to Bethany, over a very steep hill—while that isn’t exactly a trek around the world, it’s a long enough hike at the end of a hard day. Jesus seems to long to get out of the city where he is a celebrity to somewhere less intense, where he can rest securely among people He trusts, people who love Him.
Celebrity is, of course, terribly fickle. Barely a week goes by without some former darling of the daytime chat show circuit being pilloried in the press for something stupid they said that went viral.
But then every form of worldly success is fickle. We all know that prosperity can be wiped out with frightening speed. So can professional security, for even those in the most mundane of jobs. Knowledge becomes dated, or turns out never to have been correct at all. Physical strength and health pass too, for ourselves and for those we love. As for the global political situation at present, the less said about that, the better. St Paul wrote that only three things remain forever – faith, hope, love. Everything else will ultimately fade away, like our lives on this earth.
I think there’s something terribly touching about this image I have in my mind, of Jesus trudging up the hill from the Kidron Valley with the twelve as the twilight turned to night, heading back to Bethany, perhaps to spend the evening with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. A nice evening full of the convivial love of friends in the face of what Jesus knew was His impending death—a death which He had faith and hope would change everything.
For Jesus, the path from celebrity stardom to a shameful execution took just five days. The shame of Christ’s death is a significant point of the Holy Week story that we, from our cultural perspective, miss. As a result of being crucified, Jesus was not only, from the perspective of Roman Imperial values a weak, failed, outlaw, but from the perspective of the Jewish scriptures, anyone who was put to death by hanging on a tree had been declared cursed in the Book of Deuteronomy. Even the baying mobs of Twitter and TikTok have never conceived quite such a spectacular fall from grace.
The irony was that this Jesus was grace made flesh, God in human form. In taking on to Himself the worst that humanity could do, Jesus brought the darkest and most depraved sins within the scope of divine forgiveness and divine love. In being put to death, Christ claimed authority over all human judgements, including the judgement of public opinion—and He will judge all human actions when He returns in glory.
He will do that by standards that turn every conventional human value system upside down, for that lies at the heart of Christianity. As St Paul writes in this morning’s Epistle, it is because Christ, equal to the Father, refused to exploit His status but humbled Himself to a cruel and shameful end that God raised Him on high. It is because of this terrible end that at the name of Jesus every name shall bow, when every celebrity has long since been forgotten.
So, let the same mind be in you that was in Christ, who humbled Himself and became obedient. Try to keep your eyes on heavenly things and try not be consumed by earthly things. We all, to some extent, have to make it in a bad old world. But never lose sight of how you’ll make it in the world to come. To that end what matters is not our fame or success, but our faith, our hope, and most especially our love, even more especially our love for the lowest and the least—for that is what Jesus Christ became to save us and the whole world.
And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion and power, as is most justly His due, now and forevermore. Amen.
Banner image: Félix Louis Leullier, Christ’s Triumphal Entry Into Jerusalem (1858). Hangs in the British Museum, London.
