Sunday April 2, 2023

Is it pure coincidence, that Canadian Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Christia Freeland should chose to present her 2023 federal budget the same week that Christian churches around the world celebrate Palm Sunday?
I doubt if many churches in Canada – indeed, I doubt if ANY churches in Canada – will choose to preach this special Sunday about the federal budget. They will, rather, focus their attention on the biblical story of Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem roughly 2000 years ago.
Conservative churches will preach it as literal fact, as documented history. The more progressive churches will preach it as symbolic – a dramatization of the universal human saga, of our tendency to hail a saviour and then turn against him.
Or her.

Palm Sunday story
The basic story is told in all four of the biblical gospels.
Jesus decides to go to Jerusalem, against the advice of his closest friends.
As he nears Jerusalem, he tells two of those friends to go and “borrow” a donkey for him to ride. In modern terms, that might be equivalent to telling them to “borrow” a car that someone left unlocked outside a Walmart.
Then he rides a donkey that doesn’t belong to him through the gates of Jerusalem. And the crowds that have already gathered in Jerusalem for the annual Passover – like the millions who flock annually to Mecca, or who flood to the Ganges River in India -- find something to cheer about.
Do they really believe Jesus is the long-promised Messiah? Do they really think he’s going to kick out their Roman oppressors?
We can never know what was going through their minds. But we have the story – that they shouted and cheered Jesus on. For a parallel, think of Toronto streets after the Raptors won the NBA championship.
The biblical crowds didn’t have confetti or ticker-tape. Instead, they stripped fronds off palm trees and waved them the way protesters today wave banners. They flung their clothes on the ground, for the donkey to trample on. The same urge, perhaps, that makes soccer players rip off their shirts after scoring a goal?
I’m amazed at the donkey’s placidity. The story says it has ever been ridden before. But it stays calm, with a stranger on its back. Surrounded by a howling mob. Trampling on branches and clothing.
Palm Sunday, generally restricts the story to the triumphal parade; Passion Sunday looks ahead, stressing that the same crowds that shouts “Hosanna!” today will shout “Crucify him!” a few days later.

Short-term gains
And what’s all this got to do with Christia Freeland and the federal budget?
I’m sure Freeland did not choose this week to unveil Budget 2023 because of Palm Sunday. Other circumstances dictated its timing. Just as, incidentally, they dictated the timing of Jesus’ visit to Jerusalem.
Human nature being what it is, though, I think it’s at least possible that she may have harboured, somewhere deep inside, a feeling that she was trying to “save” Canada from either Pierre Poilievre or Jagmeet Singh, finding a flowered path between ruthless restraint and/profligate support.
Setting aside speculation, it’s fact that Freeland rode into parliament with a 255- page, $497-billion plan for Canada’s short-term future.
It’s a plan., a forecast, a hypothesis. Not a fact. The plan hasn’t happened, yet. And depending on how Canada’s economy performs, how world politics goes, and what kinds of environmental disasters erupt, the budget may never happen.
For the moment, though, Freeland basks in the limelight.

For how long?
She played a similar role when she managed to re-negotiate the trade agreement between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico despite President Trump’s personal hostility to it.
Largely because of that success, Freeland was appointed Deputy Prime Minister. Which makes her the heir apparent to the Liberal throne.
The story of Palm/Passion Sunday makes me wonder how soon the public will switch from “Hosanna!” to “Crucify her!”
They will. That’s the fate of all political leaders .Unless they die in office, political leaders ride into office on a wave of irrational enthusiasm. And at some future point, they ride off into the sunset , humiliated by rejection.
Some, like Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau, get extended periods in power. Others, like Joe Clark, Kim Campbell, and John Turner, get shorter tenures. They still surpassed Britain’s Liz Truss, evicted after just 49 days.
Clearly, on the significance of Palm Sunday, I’m on what’s called the “progressive” side. I accept that Jesus’ triumphal procession did happen. Its significance is that it keeps on happening.
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Copyright © 2023 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
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Your turn

Last week – no, two weeks ago, because I didn’t write a column last week – I wrote about TV (and films, and social media) giving us the viewpoint of the aggressor, the one behind the gun, rather than the victim, the person being killed.

Jim Henderschedt wrote, “I never gave thought to the position from which we, I, view what is read and seen. I do know that your description of what happened to Malawi made something that happened to a place I never heard of a tragedy of epic proportions. One cannot read that without being moved and deeply saddened for those who experienced the horrors of the event. A real eye-opener for me.”

I used the recent tragedy in Malawi as an example. Randy Hall wrote, “I, too, have been to Malawi, Jim. The people I worked with are as you describe. Friendly, genuine, industrious. It is heartbreaking to think of those faces and how they may have been injured or killed by the winds and water of a freak storm. We are sadly reaping what we have sown as we continually hear the refrain ‘record storm’ in news reports.”

Michael Jensen brought tragedies close to home: “Yes, we feel compassion for the thousands dying from natural disasters, but it is hard to feel what they feel. The closest I came was running from forest fires in the Okanagan. Twice we left our home as the fires crested the top of the hill of the neighbourhood. We were fortunate, and our neighbourhood was unscathed.
“But, I have experienced a lifetime of the cruel medium of TV. I turned on the TV when I needed to get away from stress and troubles. Hiding in the TV only made my challenges more difficult. Even today, I have to limit the time I watch TV or I get sucked back into mindless viewing that accomplishes nothing except destroy my self-esteem.”

Tom Watson: “Two movies I saw recently are ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’—a 2022 movie—and ‘Cold Mountain’ made in 2003. You're right that I didn't have to personally experience the brutality depicted but it was still gut-wrenching in its portrayal.”

Laurna Tallman wrote about going to missionary presentations as a child: “The respect I was taught for the less fortunate, wherever they happened to be, has made me so sensitive to news reports that some days I can barely cope with matters at hand. Don’t underestimate the power in compassion, the prayers elicited, the money donated, the intellectual attention given to problems, the reflexive courage and diligence to one’s own calling that the daily news arouses.”

Steve Roney didn’t agree with the thesis I ventured, that literature has moved from the viewpoint of the powerful to the view of the victim: “It is probably true that there were more characters portrayed as kings and queens back in the days when kings and queens were more common. But the Old Testament of the Bible is largely told from the perspective of slaves in Egypt [JT: former slaves, now seeking local power], or exiles in Babylon. It is told from the perspective of shepherds and prophets in the wilderness more often than kings. The New Testament is told from the perspective of an executed criminal and his working-class acolytes. The great Greek epic the Iliad is the story of a war, told by the victorious side. But the great Roman epic, the Aeneid, is the story of the losers in that war. The oldest epic known to man, the Gilgamesh epic, is the tale of two friends, one a king, the other an orphan raised in the wilderness. Both ultimately fail and die.”

Vera Gotlieb wondered if TV had a more nefarious purpose: “Ever since the advent of TV -- or any other ‘must have’ gadget outfitted with a screen -- we, the viewers, have turned into zombies. Sadly…gone by the wayside are the capability to think for oneself, capability of proper speech (groans are more like it), lack of person-to-person communication. At times I wonder if all this was brought about on purpose with the intention of keeping us sheeples in the dark and oblivious to what really matters.”