Don’t Rain on My Parade: Palm Sunday Lessons From Fanny Brice
In the classic musical from the 1960s, Funny Girl, the audience follows the semi-biographical story of Broadway star and comedian Fanny Brice. The story starts with Fanny as a teen in love with the stage. After getting her start in vaudeville, she works her way up to a starring role in Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway. However, midway through her rise to the pinnacle of fame, she falls in love a man – an entrepreneur and gambler named Nicky Arnstein.
While folks around kind of caution her about him, Fanny falls head over heels in love and is determined to marry him. In a moment of impulse, she quits the final leg of her national tour with Ziegfeld at the train station, and decides she will catch a different train to go and be with Nicky. While everyone around her is trying to talk her out of it, she belts out one of the most notable Broadway showtunes of all time – “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” Folks around her are cautioning her about the consequences of her decision to desert the tour and run after a man, saying thinks like, “You’ll anger Ziegfeld and ruin your career;”or “Did he ask you to join him?;” and “Does he even want to marry you?” She silences them all singing about how she doesn’t want to worry about all those things – she’s in love and she wants to seize the moment and live life to the fullest. The lyrics go:
Don't tell me not to live
Just sit and putter
Life's candy and the sun's
A ball of butter
Don't bring around a cloud
To rain on my parade
Don't tell me not to fly
I've simply got to
If someone takes a spill
It's me and not you
Who told you you're allowed
To rain on my parade?!
As Holy Week begins, we are talking about another parade. Commonly known as the “Triumphal Entry,” the story of Palm Sunday, one week before Easter, is the story of Jesus finally arriving in Jerusalem. Known as “the Holy City,” Jerusalem was the location of the Jewish Temple, which Torah at times describes as the “dwelling place” of God. It’s a very important arrival. While Jesus has had a nomadic ministry, traveling throughout the region of Galilee, we don’t believe he had yet set foot in this most holy of cities. Jesus sends a couple of his disciples ahead of him to bring him a colt or as other Gospels list “a donkey” to ride into the cities, which would be a fulfillment of the Jewish Scriptures in how they describe the arrival of the Messiah.
And then we have the fascinating scene! People begin spreading their cloaks and leafy branches on the ground and it becomes like a scene from a parade, with people gathered, cheering, and above all, recognizing Jesus for who he is! “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Now, do we know if folks in that crowd really understood who Jesus was and the significance of his arrival? No. But they gathered, participated and cheered nonetheless. It was a celebratory parade.
So often when we tell the story of the Triumphal Entry, we talk about it through the lens of the disciples and the crowd. What were they thinking? Why did they do what they did? I want to look at this story with more of a focus on Jesus himself. Now, Jesus already knows what is going to happen to him. He knows the rest of the story. Our text from today is from the 11th chapter of Mark and just before, in the 10th chapter, Jesus has once again spoken to his disciples and foretold his death. All of it. He essentially shares, “I’ll be handed over, and condemned to death. They are going to mock me and spit on me. They are going to kill me and three days later, I’ll rise up again.” Jesus knows exactly what will transpire. And he’s not thrilled about it. He cries. He prays for God to find another way for this mission to play out. But he continues to follow the plan, even knowing the great sacrifice he will be making very soon.
As we think about Jesus knowing what the arrival in Jerusalem means, the series of events are about to unfold, what are we to think about the joyful parade at the Triumphal Entry?
The last bit of text in our scripture today gives us some idea. The last line says, “Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple, and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.” The Greek word used here is “periblepō,” which means to scan or survey critically. It’s a particular type of looking around that has intention behind it. It’s used other places in the Gospels when Jesus is taking in the whole of a situation around him before offering a teaching. Jesus rides in on a donkey, fulfilling the Hebrew scriptures and then scans Jerusalem, taking it all in critically before retreating to spend the night outside of the city. It suggests that Jesus is thinking about the work that is still to be done now that he has arrived. And he does more work – the flipping of the tables in the Temple and some of the most profound teachings of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark come after he has arrived in Jerusalem.
Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, knowing it will be the scene of his arrest, torture and death, and still pushes through with his ministry at full-tilt. He is not paralyzed by fear or even fading as a teacher because he knows that death is looming around any corner now. He doesn’t let the fear or worry about what might happen next rob him of the joy and importance of the moment – from his parade arrival to moment of his arrest. It reminds me of Fanny Brice, singing “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” and not allowing anyone to take away the joy and thrill of the moment by worrying about what bad things might soon happen down the road.
What is the lesson for us as the church in how Jesus enters Jerusalem those many years ago? What does it mean to know that something difficult is likely coming, but still be authentic to ourselves and follow through on the call to God’s mission?
In many ways, I think many of our churches are doing this right now. We are so often reminded of the daunting statistics that churches are facing in this moment - declining membership and attendance numbers, declining giving to the church and rising costs of owning and maintaining buildings, especially old buildings. It’s a common story of challenge that so many of our churches are facing. A recent book notes that the expectation is that by 2030 (yes, that is 6 years from now), 100,000 churches in this country are expected to sell their properties. We may not know with certainly that something bad is coming for us just down the road, but most of us in churches are well aware that there is at least a strong possibility that the realities will force most of us to make hard changes in the coming years.
This is a difficult reality for the church universal right now. However, just like Jesus arriving in the Holy City, taking a critical look around to survey the landscape and determine what work will be done tomorrow, we too are pressing onward, in spite of these doomsday scenarios that are presented to us regularly. Each week, churches are doing their own “periblepō,” that thorough and critical looking around, and determining the work that will happen today, tomorrow, and the very next Sunday, and the Sunday after that.
Jesus wasn’t naïve to reality. He did not deny what he knew would happen to him as part of the Story of God. And he felt all kinds of very human emotions about what was to transpire. In other words, taking a note from Jesus Christ himself, it’s OK for us to feel anxious about the changing landscape of church in America. It’s OK to be angry about it. It’s OK to be fearful about it. But this Palm Sunday, this Holy Week, and this Easter, we will NOT let anyone rain on our parade. We won’t spend this week worrying about anything beyond the retelling of the God’s most incredible story, and the celebrations and the work we have to do right now!
At this point in the story, Jesus has arrived in the Holy City! The Messiah has arrived! This is awesome news! There will be no raining on this parade! Wave your palms. Shout your cheers. Look at the work we as the church are equipped to do in God’s name today! Hosanna in the Highest! Hallalujah! And Amen!
