The Sixth Sunday of Lent-A Peasant Procession
If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
-Henry David Thoreau
When we speak of Henry David Thoreau we jump back and forth between two different images. One is the naturalist and semi-hermit on the banks of Walden Pond for a little over two years. His writings began a great line of writers and seekers of peace and direction in the wildness that Thoreau knew was the salvation of humanity.
But there is also the tax resister, the anti-slavery and anti-war protestor. As the author of Civil Disobedience, Thoreau also began a second line of thought, one that influenced Gandhi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, and nameless protestors in the streets of many cities. Today we return to the protestor, to the Thoreau who wrote that the law must be disobeyed if it requires you to do injustice to another. We make this turn to the activist on the day we tell again the story of another activist 2000 years ago.
Today is the beginning of Holy Week. Today we sing of palms and crowds as cheers of “Hosanna!” ring through the air. It is the greatest week in the Christian year. It will end in death- and life! It was the week of Passover those many years ago in Judea. A time to celebrate the possibility of liberation from slavery and oppression under the boots of foreigners. As such it was a tense time for many.
In their book, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Last Days in Jerusalem, the New Testament scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan argue that two processions entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, and that Jesus’ was not the only Triumphal Entry.
Two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30…. In the centuries since, Christians have celebrated this day as Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week…. One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession. From the east, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered by his followers…On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea, and Samaria, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. Jesus’ procession proclaimed the kingdom of God; Pilate’s proclaimed the power of empire. The two processions embody the central conflict of the week that led to Jesus’ crucifixion.In a very real sense Borg and Crossan are reminding us of the struggle that has existed for millennia when the nation may be acting with injustice and asking its citizens to also do so. While we have often hidden the political side of Holy Week behind the spiritual struggle, we have thus done violence to the whole picture of this important week. Jesus was not executed simply because a small minority of religious leaders wanted him dead. He was executed because his leadership was a threat to the established political and governmental order. He was executed because his understanding of God and faith was not a “nation” based understanding, it was not an expression of “nationalism” as we would define that today. It stood in stark contrast to that.
Jesus spoke passionately and often about caring for the least and the lost. The image of the sheep and goats at the last judgement equated righteous actions with visiting those in sick or in prison, helping the poor, the widow, and the orphan, or giving food to the hungry. Those who do not do these things cannot call themselves “righteous.” The intertwining of the religious leaders and the governmental leaders in Jesus day was anything but righteous. He entered the Temple and challenged those who were mixing the two. He engaged in an act of civil disobedience that set the stage for many.
Thoreau was not an anarchist, even though some would like to call him that. He did not want to do away with government. He said it clearly:
I ask for, not at once no government,
but at once a better government.
It is hard, of course, and ultimately absurd to compare the Roman government of Jesus’ day with the American government of today. We would all agree with Thoreau that we want better government, caring government, although some may want far less government than others. It is a tough time.
What is a person of faith to do? We hear the cries from both sides to this day. The issue is as raw and painful on this Palm Sunday as it was on the first. Sides have been taken; some see the government as a way of enforcing a particular religious view. It is a time of power for them. Some see government leadership, even immoral and criminal leadership as a way to get the political agenda enacted. Bring down the hard hammer of law to make sure that the ways of a particular faith are enacted and followed. They decry these actions in other faiths and then call for them to be enacted in their own faith.
It is Palm Sunday. As it has often been since the first, there are two choices we are called to decide between, especially in our modern American dilemma. Are we to succumb to the power of the gun and the loudest, wealthiest voices? Are we to bow before a government that criminalizes ethnic groups and nationalities simply because they are who they are? Are we to seek ways to enforce a particular righteousness because it is what we think is the way?
Or do we stand up, as many did yesterday, and say “Enough!”?
Hear the two processions marching this week.
One is an imperial procession pointing fingers, rattling war sabers, making a joke of truth.
The other is a peasant procession calling for change and grace, hope and compassion, safety and life.
Not much has changed in 2000 years, except perhaps today we are more able to make our voices heard.
- What can I do this Holy Week to speak for hope and life?
- How can I witness to the power of grace standing against the power of hate?
- Where is the call of God leading me to take a stand?
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
