This morning we are going to look at all four of the accounts of the Triumphal Entry and the three accounts of Jesus clearing the Temple. I say three because the Gospel of John does not include that in his account – only the Triumphal Entry.

First, look at the way each one describes the way Jesus is met when he enters the city.

In Mark and Matthew, the crowds of those who followed him go before him laying down their garments, palm leaves and even branches from trees. In Luke it is a little different in that it is a multitude of disciples – not just crowds. They are all shouting:

Matthew: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’

Mark: “Hosanna! Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest.” The crowds in Mark seem to expect more of Jesus, don’t they? They are looking for the kingdom of David to return and rescue them from the kingdom of this world.

Luke: “Blessed be the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Where have we heard the shouting for peace before? Look at Luke 2: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.” It was peace on earth then and even more expectations now: Peace in heaven.

John: “Hosannah! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the King of Israel.” Again, the expectation that the King of Israel has arrived in Jerusalem and is about to be crowned.

In John, the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is being spread by those who follow him into the city and so many more people go out from the city to meet him.

In Matthew the city was stirred up because they did not know who this was. They asked, “Who is this?” He was well known in the countryside and the rural parts of Israel but he was unknown in the city. That’s not uncommon is it? People in cities have far more to distract them from what else is going on outside the city. After all, if it was really important then we would know about it. That’s why they are so surprised at all the fuss about this man from rural the province of Galilee. If he really wanted to spread his message and ministry then he should have started in the city in the first place.

And then in Matthew and Mark Jesus enters the Temple and the accounts are almost the same:

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

We don’t know how long it had been since Jesus had come to Jerusalem since his parents brought him when he was twelve years old but this is not what he remembers from then. He probably had no exposure to the darker side of the business of religion then. He still thought of it as his Father’s House and where he had once amazed the teachers and experts as a young boy. It was the place where he felt he most belonged. But not this. Not the buying and selling where religion had become a business that took advantage of people who had no options but to use the merchants making exhorbitant profits from a captive audience. If the Law required a spotless dove then there was a premium to pay. If the offering had to be in shekels then you had to exchange your currency at an outrageous rate of exchange. We sometimes think our own religious industry is embarrassing but this was worse than anything we experience with television evangelists, merchandise and trinkets that panders to the worst in us and outright fraud in the name of Jesus.

The author of “We Become What We Normalize” and professor at Belmont University in Nashville was here this week-end and he had three terms I thought fit this scene perfectly.

The Prayer Trade: “I speak from Nashville where there’s always an awful lot happening. We house HCA Healthcare, the Country Music Association, Daily Wire Entertainment, professional sports franchises, universities, and what I refer to as the “Prayer Trade.” By Prayer Trade, I refer to the marketing of religious faith. In Nashville, it’s all a mix. Holding these cultures and organizations as somehow magically separate makes it harder to name what’s happening — which makes it easy to pretend what’s happening isn’t happening. The Prayer Trade is very obviously entangled in the life of Tennessee’s capital city and is therefore a powerful driver in our state’s politics. “God,” we might say, is big business and big politics, too, in Nashville.To avert our gaze from the fact of it or to avoid publicly acknowledging long-ago-forged alliances — for fear of being tagged as divisive or partisan — is to let bad faith actors dictate the terms of our discourse and the direction of our lives.

The Faith Cartel: A situation in which religious beliefs or institutions have significant influence and power, possibly to the detriment of true faith or spirituality. The term suggests that certain individuals or organizations within the realm of faith may act in ways that prioritize their interests, control, or authority over genuine faith and its transformative aspects.

God Grifters: A “grifter” is a slang term that refers to a person who engages in various forms of deception, fraud, or schemes to obtain money, goods, or services dishonestly. Grifters often use manipulation, charm, or persuasion to trick or con others, often for personal gain. They might be involved in confidence tricks, swindles, or other fraudulent activities. The term “grifter” is typically used to describe individuals who engage in dishonest or unscrupulous behavior to achieve their objectives.

All three of those are present here – the merchants engaged in the prayer trade, the faith cartel that has replaced the Temple as a house of prayer for a power base and the grifters who have used their authority and position to take advantage of the people.

But here is what they all have in common. Every one of them wants to see Jesus out of their lives in one way or another. For some, it might be making him look foolish or catching him or his disciples in an act that would discredit them. For others, they want the authorities to arrest him and let things get back to business as usual. They are not interested in violence necessarily but like the idol makers in Ephesus they are willing to riot to protect their interests. “Men, you know we receive a good income from this business, And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of our people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that man-made gods are no gods at all. There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited, and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world will be robbed of her divine majesty.”

When you threaten their business you are not just threatening their business and their living but their very gods – the things they worship. What they consider divine and have built their lives around is at risk. This is not just a call to strike back in the name of our business but God himself is giving us the authority to riot and create havoc. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair

“They rushed as one man into the theater..The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there.”

Sound familiar? This is what happens when you threaten the man made gods of crowds. They turn into mobs who want retribution and they are looking for the one who will say, “I am your retribution.”

That was the merchants who had turned something sacred into a den of thieves and grifters. What did the leaders want? They wanted Jesus dead. What kept them from that? They were afraid of their own people – their own base. They feared him because the people were amazed and astonished by him and hung on his words. They were leaders at the mercy of their own followers who, as it turned out, would only follow them later into the very worst thing they could have done.

But there is a special section in Luke’s and Matthew’s account that is not in the rest:

Luke:

 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Walter Brueggemann wrote: “Prophetic critique always comes out of grief.” Prophets today spew rage and despair. People are angry about the way things are and demand change. They stand above the issues and launch grenades at their opponents but they do not love. I was with some people a few weeks ago who had a litany of complaints about where they lived and the shortcomings of their city but there was no sign of love for their city – no sign of grief or pain. It was just anger and resentment. Jesus loved Jerusalem at the same time he would not save them from their future enemies. Never listen to the critic who shows no mercy for those criticized. Never follow the prophet who does not grieve over their enemies. Never fall in with those who complain bitterly out of grievance and resentment but have no love that lies beneath their disappointment.

Matthew:

The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.

 “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.

“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read,

“‘From the lips of children and infants
you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”

And he left them.

It’s easy to skip over the words of Jesus about the children and think he is saying the same as he said about them earlier in Matthew. “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

This is much deeper. Look at Psalm 8:

Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory
in the heavens.

Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?

You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.

You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:

all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,

the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Jesus is telling them that the little children understand what they cannot. It is their own children who are defending him against the hatred and revenge of their fathers. Their praise of Jesus can silence the bitter words of his enemies. They are nothing compared to him. And the children recognize it. They can see what the leaders cannot. They see the majesty of Jesus..and the fate of his enemies

And that is what makes the entry triumphant. It is not just the entry into Jerusalem but the entry of God himself into the world that can only be seen with eyes of a child and understood with the heart of a child and defended with the words of a child. The sophisticated of Jerusalem had never heard of him. John says he was the light of men but the darkness has not understood it. We are so anxious to argue and defend our own opinions and positions that we gradually go blind and lose the ability to discover what God wants us to see. We lose our way by protecting our own self-made gods and institutions. As the Pharisees say in John, “Look how the whole world has gone after him.” The world still goes after Jesus and we are left behind to say with those same Pharisees. “See, this is getting us nowhere.” We need to look up again and consider the heavens and the work of his hands and not be deluded and led astray by the gods made by our own hands. We need to say,

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.