If the Palm Sunday street theatre means what Jesus meant, it challenges all his followers, then and now. The crowds may have been fickle, but they were not mistaken. The two on the road to Emmaus had hoped he would redeem Israel, and they were hoping for the right thing \u201d\u201c God\u2019s kingdom on earth as in heaven, a this-worldly reign of justice and peace \u201d\u201c but they had not glimpsed the means by which Jesus would bring it about. Right story, wrong king. Sooner or later this happens to all of us. We start out following Jesus because we think we know the Story, we know what sort of king we want him to be \u201d\u201c and then things go badly wrong, he doesn\u2019t give us what we wanted, and we are tempted to wonder if we\u2019ve been standing on the wrong side of town, watching the wrong procession. Jesus warned us this would happen: we all have to live through a Holy Week, a Gethsemane, a Good Friday of one sort or another. That happens in personal life, in vocational life, as well as in public life. But we were not mistaken; and the world today, never mind the church today, urgently needs people, young and old, who will follow Jesus through Holy Week and on into the new Mystery Play which our mediaeval ancestors never imagined, the story of his kingdom of love and peace and justice coming on earth as in heaven. That is the Story; he is the King; and he\u2019s looking for recruits, young and old, for a new bit of theatre, coming to a street near you.<\/p>\n