Background animals.

They used to be thought of as props -- cheap and disposable props on the movie sets of Hollywood.  As films were being made, horses were shocked, tripped, and forced to run into trenches.  Wires were strung around their ankles and then yanked to make the horse fall on cue.  According to The New Yorker magazine (November 17, 2003), six horses were killed during the filming of “Ben-Hur” in 1924, and 25 died during “The Charge of the Light Brigade” in 1935.  What a horrible waste of life.

Then an organization called “American Humane” opened a Hollywood office to enforce standards for the protection of animals.  The group sends representatives onto movie sets to make sure that safety precautions are in place, and that animals are treated properly during the making of a motion picture.  If all goes well, the film gets to display the trademarked line that you’ve probably seen at the end of a movie, “No animals were harmed in the making of this film.”

Not even background animals.

So, how about the donkey in today’s passage of Scripture?  Is she an old-style background animal, subjected to shocks, trips and abuse as she transports Jesus into Jerusalem?  Is she blindfolded, beat up and destroyed, like the horse that was forced down a greased chute and off a cliff in the movie “Jesse James”?

No way!  The donkey is one of the superstars of the Palm Sunday story.  She has a major role to play in the carrying of Jesus Christ to glory.

Matthew tells us that Jesus sends two of his disciples into the village of Bethphage, and he orders them to fetch him a donkey and a colt.  This is to fulfill what had been spoken by Zechariah, a prophet who had a vision of a meek king who would ride on a donkey, instead of a war horse:  “Look, your king is coming to you,” said the prophet, “humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Matthew 21:5).

It’s interesting that Matthew is the only one of the gospel writers to mention two animals – Mark, Luke and John speak of a single colt.  The reason for this is that Matthew wants to show that the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is a full-color fulfillment of Scripture, down to the very last detail of Old Testament prophecy.  And so he describes the acquisition of two animals, and he emphasizes that Jesus sits on both of them.  

This is kind of awkward, don’t you think?  Sitting on both a donkey and her colt would be an awfully wobbly ride.  Well, maybe Jesus didn’t ride them simultaneously -- it could be that he rode one animal, and then the other.  After all, it’s well known in the movie business that you have got to use an occasional stunt double or body double.  When Matthew says the disciples “put their cloaks on them, and [Jesus] sat on them,” he is probably referring to Jesus sitting on multiple cloaks, not on multiple animals (v. 7).

Whatever.  The point is that Jesus enters Jerusalem as Zechariah had predicted, and a large crowd spreads cloaks and branches on the road in front of him.  They greet him as their king, shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” (vv. 8-9)  

It’s a Hollywood spectacular.

As for the donkey, she plays her role like a PATSY.  Now I know you’re wondering about this.  I’ve already received a number of questions about the title of this sermon.  I’m not talking about a lower-case “patsy,” meaning a character who is turned into the butt of a joke.  Instead, the donkey is an upper-case PATSY, standing for “Performing Animal Top Star of the Year.”

I’m not kidding.  The PATSY is the Academy Award for animal actors, started by the American Humane organization to recognize its four-legged superstars.  Francis the Mule was the first PATSY winner in 1951, and later winners included Roy Rogers’ horse Trigger and Arnold the Pig from “Green Acres.”  Remember them?  In 1973, an Animal Actor’s Hall of Fame was established, and Lassie was the first inductee.  (Susan Orlean, “Animal Action,” The New Yorker, November 17, 2003, 92ff)

If the “Performing Animal Top Star of the Year” award had been around in first century Jerusalem, the animal who carried Jesus certainly would have been a winner.  She’s a Top Performer, and a shining star in the Bible’s Animal Hall of Fame.

The donkey is a PATSY.

I believe that we can learn a lot about our role as Christians by reflecting on the performance of this beast of burden.  The donkey actually does a better job than most of the humans in the Palm Sunday story.  After all, the disciples are not particularly good role models for us.  They may stand with Jesus now, but in a matter of days one of them will betray him and another will deny him.  Nor are the members of the crowd particularly noble.  They are shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David” today, but soon they will reject Jesus and call for his death (27:20-23).  

So what we’re left with is the donkey, the PATSY.  And this animal can teach us a lot, because she is the creature who carries Christ into the world.  That’s an important job for us, isn’t it?  To carry Jesus into the world around us.

To be a PATSY is to be willing to serve.  This doesn’t mean being the butt of a joke, but it does mean being ready, responsive, agreeable and available to do a certain amount of grunt duty without reward.  There’s a measure of humility that goes along with this service -- what Paul describes as not thinking of yourself “more highly than you ought to think” (Romans 12:3).  Here at FPC, I think we are moving in the right direction as a mission-minded church, as a congregation that is making progress in its willingness to serve.  Whether we are donating canned goods to today’s food drive, or making plans to house the homeless on freezing nights, or raising money for a youth mission trip this summer, we are discovering that service is an essential part of Christian spirituality.  We are finding that God helps us to grow inwardly as we look outwardly. 

All of this means that we are humble donkeys, carrying a humble king.

As we carry Christ into the world, we are also challenged to show a distinctively Christian lifestyle.  This means letting love be genuine, hating what is evil, holding fast to what is good.  It involves rejoicing in hope, being patient in suffering, and persevering in prayer.  To live in this way means that we are going to contribute to the needs of the saints, extend hospitality to strangers, and even go so far as to bless those who persecute us (Romans 12:9-14).  It means that when our whole city is “in turmoil,” as Jerusalem was on Palm Sunday, and the people around us ask “Who is this?” (v. 10), we’ll be able to give them an answer that shows them the way to everlasting peace and salvation.  

In short, we’re going to do whatever we can to live as followers of Christ.  Not because he is on our backs, in a negative sense, but because we want to carry him to people in need.

No one ever said it would be easy to be a PATSY.  But this approach is the very best way to bear the living presence of Jesus into a sinful and shattered world.  Christ goes with us when we show love and patience and perseverance and generosity, and he promises to give us the strength we need to survive … and even thrive.  We have a certain burden as Christians, but what a magnificent burden it is: To convey our Lord to the places he is needed.

You know, we aren’t ever told the name of that Palm Sunday donkey – it doesn’t appear in any of the four gospels.  But I think it would have made sense to call her “Christopher.”  Okay, that’s an odd name for a female.  But Christopher literally means “Christ-bearer,” and that’s the role that she was called to play.

Being Christopher means:

- Following Christ’s direction, and going where he wants to go, not where we want to go.

- Taking Jesus into enemy territory, even when it spooks us or overwhelms us.

- Never asking Christ to “get off our backs,” and leave us alone.

- Being obedient to the will of the one who holds the reins and steers us.

So let’s be Christophers as well as PATSYs, and discover the joy that comes from bearing our Lord.  We’ll know the glory of hearing hosannas, the thrill of close contact with Jesus, the excitement of accepting a challenge, and the deep satisfaction of knowing that we are walking in the way of God.

There’s no better role we could be asked to perform.  Amen.