“Protest Parade and State Sponsored Violence” based on  Psalm…

Because
of the work of Marcus Borg and John Dominic Cross in “The Last
Week” I have been convinced that the first “Palm Sunday” parade
was an intentional protest in response to increased military presence
in Jerusalem of the Roman Empire for Passover.  

Those
who have been listening to me preach for years are familiar with this
concept, and this year I’ll be taking it in a new direction, but
first I want to bring everyone else on board with this idea, as it
can sound quite different from what I learned in Sunday School as a
kid.

I
think the key to understanding the protest is to think about
Passover, and what it is.  Passover is a Jewish holiday celebrating
God’s work to free God’s people from oppression from a foreign
government when they felt powerless to help themselves.  

So
it might not be surprising that the Roman Empire, which had power and
control over the Ancient Jewish lands, got a little bit uncomfortable
when the city was overrun with devout Jews celebrating Passover.  Nor
would it be particularly surprising that Passover was a time when
people tried to reclaim autonomy, the faith of their ancestors, the
sanctity of their Temple, and the right to the fruits of their labor.
After all, the Hebrew Bible itself sets a rich vision for a just
society, and the ways that wealth flowed from the poor to the rich in
the Roman Empire (and every empire before, during, and since) was the
OPPOSITE of that vision.

It
might even be good to remember that in 66 CE the was a revolt by the
Jewish population that lasted for 4 years.  The final result was the
destruction of Jerusalem along with the Second Temple, and hundreds
of thousands of deaths.  So the Roman Empire’s perception of threat
wasn’t actually wrong.  The city and its many many Passover pilgrims
were primed for revolt.

And
that’s why the Roman governor came to Jerusalem from his normal digs
on the Mediterranean along with horses, flags, music, and a
significant number of soldiers prepared to take down riots. It was an
intentional show of force, meant to tamp down revolutionary
enthusiasm as well as efficiently deal with anyone who dared to start
anything.  All of this is not unlike crucifixion itself which was a
particularly horrid form of capital punishment done in public to
those who lead VIOLENT REVOLTS against the Roman Empire to attempt to
discourage others from doing so.

The
Governor’s procession came in the West gate, as the Governor’s home
was to the west of the city.  The big shiny military parade was an
annual event, something easy to anticipate.  So, Jesus and his
followers staged a counter-parade coming in from the East gate.
Instead of flags with the golden eagle of Rome, the people waved Palm
branches – the symbol of ancient Judea.  Instead of “Hail Caesar,
prince of peace” the people shouted “Hosanna” which means “God
save us!”  And let’s be clear, “God save us from our oppressors.”
(The name Jesus and the word “Hosanna” come from the same Hebrew
root.  Jesus literally means “God saves.”)  They went on to say,
according to Mark, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the
Lord!   Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna
in the highest heaven!“   Instead of being passively awed by the
display of violent capacity as in the western parade, the people put
their lives on the line by laying their outer garments (often the
only protection they had from the elements) on the road for Jesus’s
colt to walk on.  

So,
to cut to the chase, Jesus appears to be staking a claim to the
rightful kingship of Israel, which suggests that then the Roman
Empire is not the rightful king.  Jesus is having a protest against
the Empire.  BUT, it was a NONVIOLENT one, just so we’re clear.

According
to the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus also engaged in a protest at the
Temple complex.  Both protests appear to have been wildly popular,
and the people were following Jesus and claiming him as God’s
deliverer (read: save-r).  Thus, the authorities got scared.  Thus,
they started to work to take him down, disperse his movement, and
threaten any who would try to follow in his footsteps as leader.
Thus the death on the cross even though the protests were NONVIOLENT.

Not
to give the ending away, but the presence of Jesus followers
remembering and embodying this story 2000 years later is a good
indication that the Roman Empire may have had the power to kill
Jesus, but it didn’t have the power to stop the Body of Christ.  But,
alas, I get a week ahead of myself.

Most
years I like to contrast the ways of God from the ways of Rome, and
to clarify that there was nothing particularly wrong with the Roman
Empire – it is the way that pre-industrial agricultural domination
systems work – and at the core it is the way ALL domination systems
work, and for reasons I don’t entirely understand, humanity was WAY
into domination systems.

But
this year, the story of Jesus engaging in acts of public protest, and
as a result having the authorities of the day send a violent guard to
grab him in the middle of the night, convict him based on false
testimony, and kill him in a way the State itself said was unjust
(PEACEFUL revolt) is all just hitting too close to home.

Last
summer the Governor put in place an executive order, in response to
Black Lives Matter protests,  requiring each local government in N.Y.
State to adopt a policing reform
plan that will maintain public safety while building mutual trust and
respect between police and the communities they serve. I have been
paying attention to what has happened in Schenectady and it is NOT
GOOD.

Here
in Schenectady, well after activists had release 13 demands¹
that included an end to knee holds on people’s heads or necks, a
video was released of a police officer using a knee hold during an
arrest.²
In response to outcry, the police banned knee holds.  

What
followed was a fraught process that added up to the police pushing
through the police department’s OWN ideas of what police reform
should look like.  Which a problem.  No one can claim things are OK
here.  We are not, after all, a city without a record of our own –
Andrew Kearse was a man of color who died in police custody in 2017.
We know we have parts of our city that are profoundly over-policed.
We know that the police end up being called into situations with
mental health crises, and are not trained or capable of responding,
and things go very badly. That is why there is a desire to move some
of the police funding to social workers who can respond with
training!

This
past week, our city council passed the police reform report put
forward by the police department.  Upon careful inspection the ban on
knee holds on people’s heads and necks …. as been revoked.  Knee
holds are, apparently, back in.  Similarly, there is something called
“pain control” that I didn’t even want to google, but refers to
controlling people by hurting them.  I’m quite confident that this
isn’t the way humans treat people that they see as fellow humans,
much less God’s beloveds.

It
all feels to me to be far too familiar to the Jesus story.  Jesus was
inconvenient to people in authority.  He empowered “nobodies.”
He helped the community work together.  He questioned authority,
including questioning economic practice.  He stood up for God’s
visions, God’s people, God’s dreams of justice.  And it was so
threatening that they killed him to silence him.

Friends,
I have on some of my worse days, had to hold down a person who was in
the midst of a crisis to prevent the person from harming self or
others.  I hate it.  It turns my stomach, even years later, to think
about it.  But we were able to stop him without harming him, or
putting pressure on his head or neck.  

And
many, many, MANY times in my life I have responded to people in the
midst of crises, people hijacked by their amygdalas, people out of
their own control.  And 99.something% of the time, people can regain
control with just TALKING.  There is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED to dehumanize
anyone, accused of any crime, by seeking to control their actions
with pain or with a knee on their head or neck.  EVER.  We need to
keep talking about this – to each other, to the police chief, to
the mayor, to city council, AND to the governor’s office.  The plan
submitted by our city is NOT sufficient police reform for our
community.

Next
week we will be celebrating Easter, God’s incredible powers of life
that overcome even death.  But this week we need to be unsettled by
the world’s powers of death, and violence, and who they’re used
against.  

Jesus
was the victim of state sponsored violence.  Who else is like him,
today?  Amen

1http://www.allofusuntitledandfree.com/

2https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/us/schenectady-police-officer-knee-on-man-video/index.html

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady