2019-04-14 Palms and Protest

Palms and Protest

April 14, 2019

I don’t much like protest marches. I don’t like rallies. Even for fun joyous events like the Pride Parade I need to gird myself up a little. I get nervous about losing the people I’m with. I worry about what if I need the bathroom. Just the idea of standing for hours or walking for miles make my stomach sink. The crowds make me anxious. I mean, I could go on. But Jesus walked right into this kind of a scene with intention and with boldness. Rode into it, actually. On a donkey.

Even after years in ministry, after celebrating Palm Sunday every year. Reading in worship dozens of times over my life, I still learn and hear new things in the narrative. One awareness that this year brought me was the movement in the Gospel of Matthew of Jesus from countryside, to the back of a donkey into Jerusalem and straight into the action at the temple.

Maybe this is not new to you, that this is actually one story. In Matthew, anyway, it’s all of a piece, a planned non-violent action strategy. A drama of anti-empire march straight into a table turning pro-life - an an actual life-affirming meaning - action designed to build on each other and work together. Throughout the action, shouts of Hosanna hold the story together and highlight the response of the people. Hosanna on the road and hosanna in the temple.

When I hear ‘hosanna’ - when I hear much of this story actually - I hear the strains of Jesus Christ Superstar:

Ho-sanna, hey-sanna, sanna, sanna ho

Sanna, hey-sanna, hosanna.

Hey JC, JC, won’t you smile at me

Sanna ho-sanna, hey Superstar

It’s bright and poppy and a little trippy. It’s a song literally praising Jesus as superstar. Our Hosanna hymns, while not poppy, necessarily (definitely not the ones in the blue hymnal) are pretty - center children waving palms, hopeful anticipation

Hosanna, loud hosanna, the little children sang

Through pillared court and temple the lovely anthem rang

Even when anticipating the cross and ultimately a resurrection, our palm-waving celebrations are always just that - celebrations and praise. We’ve severed any relationship of the waving branches to protest.

Hosanna has become associated biblically with a general expression of praise. Is particularly associated with a messianic praise - a praise for the hoped-for one. So that connotation was there. We’re challenged to think about exactly what kind of leader and ruler we’re celebrating when we wave our branches. But what hosanna literally means is ‘Save us’. How would it sound if instead of ‘Hosanna, the little children cried’ we said ‘save us’? Save us, Heir of David!

That is not as lovely an anthem. It begins to sound a little less like praise and a little more like desperation. A little less like “hey-sana, superstar” and a little more like “I can’t breathe!” or “Hands up. Don’t shoot” or “Not one more!” or “Abolish ICE!”

Jesus rode into Jerusalem in a way that directly contradicted the kind of saving action that people had come to anticipate and expect. The saving of military conquest or zealous rebellion. He rode in on a donkey instead of a war-horse, accompanied by his motley crew of disciples instead of a battalion. He was hailed with branches instead of spears. This was and is a reign of non-violent love.

And then when he entered the temple, hosannas still ringing as he turned over the tables of sellers and traders, he began to answer the hosanna call. Save us, Son of David! And he does. With tables that facilitate the economy of sacrifice, that offer the sheep and pigeons and temple currency for people with means, Jesus saves. They bring to him those needing healing - those who are unclean by the standard of temple worship - and he heals them. Touches and ministers to people and literally saves the ones who would have been turned away. Hosanna.

The temple authorities are appalled infuriated - especially aghast when they hear “the children crying out in the temple” Hosanna - save us - to the Son of David.” How dare they be seen and not heard. Who are these? When I was in grade four, the grade five class sang Whitney Houston’s “The greatest love of all”.

I believe the children are our future

Teach them well and let them lead the way.

Show them all the beauty they possess inside.

It was only much later that I realized the irony in children singing “I believe the children are the future”. Nine-year-old me was dazzled by pop.

In fact now, I am usually annoyed when I hear someone say the children are the future. The youth are the future. Friends, then future is now. Youth already are leading the way. Last year the weekend of Palm Sunday fell on the same weekend as the March for Our Lives. Voices like Emma Gonzales and David Hogg have become household names in their eloquence and wisdom. Calling BS on politicians and naming the very real fact that communities of color have been experiencing gun violence and calling for action for decades but it’s taken the voices and action of white and white-passing students to get attention. And they’ve had a lot of blow-back. How dare they be make themselves seen and heard in this way. Yet they drawn in youth and adults of all stripes from across the nation to raise their voices together. Hosanna, our children!

In May of 1963, the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham AL changed the course of the civil rights movement, with children as young and 9 and 10 marching, being arrested and continuing to stand for justice. I can clearly remember a time when our youth influenced the direction of our congregational discernment when we were in conversation about welcoming an out queer ministry intern. Our own youth are doing amazing work now in clean water advocacy, writing award winning essays, connecting with the Duwamish tribe (and spearheading a brilliant mural).

As Jesus’ disciples, we follow him into Jerusalem and into the temple...and back out into the street again. We have an opportunity to be save and be saved. To live hosanna. Like Marches, public actions make me anxious and uncomfortable. What if I don’t know anyone? What if I get in trouble? What will happen? But I keep trying to remind myself of the words like those in a picture book by Shane Evans called We March:

The morning is quiet. The sun rises and we prepare to march.

We pray for strength. We work together. We come from all over...to march.

We follow our leaders. We walk together. We sing.

We are hot and tired, but we are filled with hope.

We lean on each other as we march to justice, to freedom, to our dreams.

So, trusting that I can inhabit my discomfort and fragility and push through it, trusting that I can lean on others, sing, pray, gather strength, I am going to do with others have done before me and join the Table Turning action. This tuesday along with other faith communities and leaders I will show up at the ICE offices in Tukwila - the same building where i hope to become a citizen this year - an I will protest the human rights violations carried out by ICE against refugees and immigrants. Families and kids welcome, by the way.

I do not presume that like Jesus I can heal with my presence. But maybe I can be healed. Maybe build some resilience against the fragility, anxiety and discomfort and forget about needing or expecting safe space and instead show up for and create brave space. It’s time to follow the call of the children crying Hosanna - save us - and show up. Time to go into uncomfortable spaces and situations to wave branches or protest signs, to turn tables and call for healing and change. Maybe the our cries of Hosanna - save us - on behalf of justice will be heeded. May it indeed be so. Amen.