Following the Crowd

Palm Sunday

Cycle A

Someone once said that people alone are smart; crowds are stupid. It’s one of those paradoxes of life that we all want to be thought of as unique, but we also want to fit into the crowd. Popular music, the fashion industry, politics, and sometimes even our Christian faith, all hinge on what the crowd thinks is right and cool and acceptable. And when someone breaks out of the crowd and dresses, or acts, or believes differently they are held up as mavericks or denigrated as freaks. We look at them with a secret envy and a bit of fear. We’d like to be different, too, but are afraid of what the crowd would say if we were. Crowds are a safe way for us to break out of our comfort zones anonymously.

I often wonder about those two crowds in today’s gospels. How many of them were true disciples of Jesus, or true haters of Jesus, and how many were just going along with the crowd? I can imagine that many of them were just passing by and saw a commotion, and they joined in without knowing what they were doing. It’s easy to start a crowd. Just stand on a street corner and look up into the sky for a minute. You’ll form a crowd all looking up into the sky, for no reason except that other people are doing it.

In our celebrity-celebrating society today we all love to build the beautiful people up with unrealistic expectations only to relish tearing them down later on. The higher they are the harder they fall. We like to stand on the sidelines as judge and jury, without ever getting too close to the subject and without thinking of how it hurts people.  

I think the people of Jerusalem were the same way. They had heard rumors of Jesus the prophet, saw a crowd forming, and joined in the celebration. Then, when another crowd formed at the Roman praetorium calling for his death, they just jumped right in again, without a thought to who they were condemning or what it would mean. After he was condemned, they simply went back to their lives, until the next flash mob formed.

Group think doesn’t have to happen in a crowd. Oftentimes we act as a crowd when we’re by ourselves. One example is the ever popular saying “I’m spiritual but not religious”. People pop off with these ideas without really thinking about what they are saying or considering the consequences. And ideas can go viral. Someone speaks it, then another and another, until suddenly it becomes conventional wisdom, even if it’s wrong.

Do we follow the crowd when it comes to Jesus? When we come to Mass are we just following the crowd, praising Jesus as our king without truly knowing who he is? Do we join the crowd because everyone else is? Is it easy to join in when Jesus is popular with our friends? And what happens when he isn’t popular anymore? When it’s not cool to be his disciple anymore? Do we jump on the bandwagon that his Church is just not relevant in today’s world anymore? Do we stick with the easy teachings and ignore the hard ones that go against the conventional wisdom? Do we go so far as to call for his death, or the death of his ideas, or of his Church?

Or even worse, are we the silent ones on the edge of the crowd who find it amusing when the crowd is for him but say nothing when the crowd turns on him? Do we even want to get involved?

Keep this in mind as we enter now into the church in triumphant procession. Remember that just as we’re part of the adoring crowd now we’ll soon be part of the one who condemns him.