On Palm Sunday, the day after a massive student movement called "March for our Lives", marched on cities across the country to mobilize against gun violence and demand action.
Was it a parade or a protest march? I guess it depends on your perspective. Parades celebrate victory and power and
cultural pride. A parade gathers a crowd
to celebrate life as it is, the status quo. Every fourth of July parade is the
same. Protest marches, on the other
hand, demand change, justice, an end to oppression, often instigated by
marginalized or disenfranchised people, those who are struggling with the way
things are. Protests provoke, challenge,
and confront the powers that be. Nobody
gets arrested at a parade. Was it a
parade or a protest march? We know what
happens after Palm Sunday’s protest parade.
He’s arrested and put to death for rebellion.
Pain.
Violence. Destruction of
bodies. This is what we are confronted
with in the story of Jesus. The state
and religious sanctioned killing of an innocent man. Our vile familiarity with cruelty, our casual
acceptance of violent acts perpetrated by those with power against those
without, our callous disregard for the fragility and beauty and wonder of life,
any life, one person’s life at best leaves us with shame or righteous
anger. We may feel the weight of the
injustice and the shame of our cowardice in the face of it. We may not.
We may accept death and dying as undeniable truth. We may wonder why Jesus had to die? For our sins?
Because of our sins? As a
consequence of sin, injustice, violence, prejudice, rage and hate that kills us.
Those who benefit from the status quo are not interested in revolutionary
change. Protect what is mine, even if
someone else bears the cost. I am now
aware that many black lives, southern black migrant workers, the grandchildren
of slaves who worked on our farm-- bore the cost of my childhood and
education. I do not know how to repay
that debt. They bore the cross for me. I did not ask them to do it. I was not responsible for it. But I benefit from it. This is why the
message of the cross matters. It tells us
the truth. We are in that story
somewhere. Politicians. Religious leaders. Crowds.
Police. Executioners.
Bystanders. Fellow prisoners.
Mourners. Family members. God, this keeps happening. We keep doing this to ourselves. Yesterday’s
march for our lives and that march on Jerusalem 2000 years ago have this in
common: a resilient hope, despite strong
opposition, for political change that ends suffering and violence and brings
peace to all people. Call it the coming
of the kingdom of God.
What happened to Jesus of Nazareth on that hill
outside of Jerusalem was not and is not a unique, unprecedented, or unexpected
event. We will not turn Jesus’
crucifixion into a special divine act, an act of great courage or holiness. The
cross was not and is not a one-time event that happened to one man many called
and call the Christ. No. Jesus was not crucified alone for a
reason. It was to show his compatriots that
Jesus was not special, that he was no more or better than any other common
unnamed prisoner of the empire. Killed
by the empire to protect the status quo, to demonstrate power and control, to
assure everyone of their place in the world.
Palestinian Jews, the poor, the sick, the non-citizen, are at the
bottom---are nothing, disposable, expendable, less than human. So they can be treated as such. Stripped, beaten, mocked, crucified, left for
dead. The empire destroys the body to
show that they have the power to control the body. To take life.
They decide who is free and who is not.
Who is good and who is not. Who benefits and who suffers. Rome is not the only empire to use violence
to control. From
European colonialists and slavers to totalitarian regimes. Every war.
War is always about power and control.
Someone is trying to take it from someone else. The crusades.
The holocaust. Hiroshima.
Apartheid. Slavery and
segregation. Sometimes the Christians
are the oppressed, sometimes the oppressors.
Sometimes the oppressed become the oppressors. The abused become the violent abuser. There is always innocent suffering,
collateral damage. In Syria. In
Vietnam. From the trail of tears to the
mass incarceration of black and brown bodies, this country, this empire has its
own way of maintaining power and control.
Segregate by race. Marginalize,
dehumanize, and destroy black and brown bodies.
In ghettos and prisons and impoverished schools and jobless communities. We don’t crucify anymore. Its too inefficient. We have found far more efficient ways to
kill. Unarmed black bodies are
targets. From whippings to lynchings to drug
wars and incarcerations and shootings. If we want to understand Jesus and the cross,
we have to look at communities of the oppressed and suffering. We must look at the refugee, the disabled,
the impoverished, and especially the non-white person of color.
The effect of Palm Sunday is to snap us to awareness.
So we can find our place in that story. In the crowd. As bystanders. Onlookers.
Indifferent. Or worse,
ignorant. Are we powerless victims? Are we privileged citizens that can afford to
look away? If we have not grieved for
the death of Stephon Clark, who was killed by Sacramento police last week. If we have not grieved the murder of school
children. If we do not grieve the death
of Syrian children. What have we become?
Fragile avoiders of pain? Parade watchers?
But if you find yourself marching with Jesus in the story, then its not
too late. We can become protest
marchers, hoping against despair that the world changes, that the gun fight
ends, that the war ceases, that nonviolence prevails, that love wins and peace
comes to earth. May we march with that King and that Kingdom of peace to come.
May we shout Hosannas and march on until it does. Amen.
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