Everything's about humility in Palm Sunday / Passion Sunday's readings. Whether you call Jesus' transport animal a donkey, an ass or a colt, the point is that it's not a horse. A horse is what a king rode if he came to make war. Jesus accepts kingly praises from the crowd (the waving palms and the title "Son of David") but his choice of mount asserts that he comes in peace. That makes the authorities' treatment of him later all the more ironic. On trial, Jesus says nothing about what kind of king he might be.

The first reading (third of the four Servant Songs in Second Isaiah (chapters 40-55)) originally depicted Israel in the Exile. Humiliated under the yoke of Babylon, the nation is symbolized by a person beaten and spat upon, whose taunters can pluck his beard for their entertainment. Not even his face is safe. This plays out in the honor-driven, shame-averse culture of the ancient (and maybe not so ancient) Middle East. So feelings are high.

But part of Israel's response to that culture is to assert that the Lord GOD favors them. The patronage of God takes away the shame of it all, mere appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. God doesn't spare the Servant Nation from the awful treatment, but does spare the Nation from shame. So the Servant Nation can speak to its weary self words that will rouse them. God has not abandoned them; they resolve not to abandon God.

There were other times when one or more Israelites felt abandoned by God, and they were on such familiar terms with God that they could complain about it frankly. So the Psalmist asks "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" and describes his sufferings in terms just as graphic as the Servant in the first reading. ("Many dogs surround me. A pack of evildoers closes in upon me!") But this psalmist, too, is loyal to God and urges that same loyalty on all Israel.

Our reading from Philippians, chapter 2, is based on a hymn that Christians were singing so early that Paul could incorporate it into his letter. Its antiquity and its rhythms convince us it was music in worship before it was doctrine in an epistle. So it can yield precious insight into a very early community's understanding of Jesus. The insight is pretty simple, especially given the honor-driven, shame-averse values of those people. Christ Jesus had the highest possible place in the grand scheme of things, but gave it up, humbly became like us, like even the least of us, the slaves. Even further, he accepted death; not just any death but death on a cross. Then the hymn reverses course and begins its happy, triumphal ending. God greatly exalts Jesus, to the point that the world should call Jesus "LORD" and so give glory to the Father.

(Saint Paul then uses Jesus' humility to enjoin humble cooperation among the Philippians, who were having some community issues.)

There are humility themes in Saint Luke's passion narrative, of course. We should try to understand them in their own terms, which are first-century Middle-Eastern terms. For men of that time and place, it was honorable to bear suffering without flinching or crying. Boys were trained this way by their fathers. I see this as a provision for letting some salvage their honor in a very stratified society where one was always likely to be insulted or disdained. If you could endure that without complaint or collapse, well, at least you didn't let the bastards see you sweat. And all this, of course, contributes to the stability of the social hierarchy.
 

Why, exactly, do we follow Jesus?

We follow Jesus because of the ways he was different from the other messiah-figures of his day. But he was still a man of that culture, and the gospels were written by and for people of that culture. So it shouldn't surprise us that Luke's passion emphasizes Jesus' patience under suffering, and his conviction that he's doing the will of his Father. In our time, we no longer take for granted that a father ought to impose arbitrary suffering on his sons for training purposes.

So it distresses us to hear the theological proposition that God the Father wanted God the Son to endure a grisly death. (An even more distressing notion is this one: Sin offended the honor of the infinite God, which offense required infinite satisfaction, which could only be won by the sacrifice of the infinite Son. That's not a biblical teaching, but an early medieval one.) Such ideas make us ask, "What happened to 'God is love?'" Those confounding ideas are what you derive if you assume the gospels were written by people who, hundreds of years ago, shared all your modern cultural assumptions and preferences. In other words, if you're a literalist or a fundamentalist, you tie yourself in this logical knot. Well, you don't have to.

For what it's worth, here's my theological proposition. Jesus believed God wanted him to speak the truth and act on it consistently. That was his whole plan. It was that simple. For Jesus, the truth was that God loves all people, including, for example, Samaritans, tax collectors and centurions, all "enemies of the people." (This is where Jesus differs from the other messiah-figures of his day.) Further, Jesus believed he had to accept the consequences of his speech and actions. If he was to tell the truth, he was certain to stir up the hatred of the smug. That's just the way people are. He didn't think he was entitled to a "Get out of the human condition" card. This is how Jesus was a man of his culture, as described above, resolute and uncomplaining in the struggle. This is why Jesus meditated on the Servant Songs; the servant wasn't exempt either.

(Here's a related theological proposition. Understand the influential story of Eve and the serpent this way: the Original Temptation was "You will become like gods, deciding what is good and what is evil." In other words, "Eat that fruit, honey? You won't die. You'll get to escape the limits of the human condition." We're still falling for that one.)
 

And the relevance of this to our community?

So does this study of humility and suffering in Sunday's scriptures suggest something for our communities? If suffering is okay, then suffering people are okay, and we ought to be willing to be around them, to be in community with them. Speaking only for myself, I admit I'm comfortable around people whose suffering comes from their resolute doing of the will of our loving God. I'm less comfortable around people who are just suffering, especially if they're complaining. But in my better moments I know I don't have to solve their problems. I only have to give them understanding and acceptance as they are. Pope Francis memorably compared the church to a field hospital. If a community disdains the wounded and favors only the comfortable, it's a country club.
 

Bonus: A wry riff on a responsorial psalm

I'm a cantor in my parish's music ministry. One Palm Sunday, I went to confer with the priest celebrant before a very early mass, and he was fussing with some sleepy ushers about how to get palm fronds into the hands of the sleepy worshippers. The priest muttered "This is like herding cats." We got it all straightened out. God was glorified and the people were edified, and after mass I went home to breakfast. There I had a wicked thought, and I yielded. Knowing the priest was occupied at a later mass, I called his phone and got his voicemail. Using the same chant melody I had used for the responsorial psalm, I sang to him, "Indeed, many cats surround me, a pack of liturgists closes in upon me." To the credit of his sense of humor, he liked it.