From Parades to Prayers: The Resistance of Jesus

how to let Holy Week guide our steps these days

Yesterday was a high holy day in the church - Palm Sunday, so named for the palm branches in the story.

Except there are no palm branches in the story. At least, not in the gospel of Luke. The other gospels do - Matthew, Mark, and even John, who basically doesn’t follow any rules, they all make note of palms. The people “took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him,” John writes. Mark says that the people used them to create a red carpet of sorts, spreading them out on the road. Matthew claims the same.

But not Luke, which is why this is my perferred version. There is no obligation to organize a re-enactment of the day by shoving palm branches into the hands of our kiddos and pushing down the aisle, while trying to get them to yell, “Hosanna!” Not today, anyway, because Luke says nothing about palm branches.

I’d like to think that Luke and I are of the same mind, here, even though Luke was definitely not thinking of us at all when he wrote his gospel. But still, I’d like to think that Luke did not include the palm branch business because he wanted to encourage best practices - and in this case, it is a best practice to not have children wildly waving sharp sticks around people’s faces. I come to that perspective because ya girl went to law school and is doomed to constantly think about liability. And I would argue that Luke, who is traditionally says is a physician, would not have wanted to put children’s eyeballs at risk over this story.

I also wonder if we take Bible stories like this, ones that make us a bit uncomfortable, and build traditions around them so as to lower the tension. If this is a children’s story, it can’t really be for adults. Right?

But there is tension in this story, and not just from the Pharisees. We know from socio-historical context that Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem was really a counter-protest. Scholars explain that because Passover was coming up, the Empire was making a big show of its power and might, just like it did with every religious holiday of the people it subjugated. It was the standard practice of Roman governors of Judea to be in Jerusalem for the major Jewish festivals. As Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg explain, “On one side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers . . . Pilate’s procession displayed not only imperial power, but also Roman imperial theology. According to this theology, the emperor was not simply the ruler of Rome, but the Son of God. For Rome’s Jewish subjects, Pilate’s procession embodied not only a rival social order, but also a rival theology . . .”

And on the other side of the city, Jesus led an opposition parade. “Jesus’s procession,” Crossan and Borg continue, “deliberately countered what was happening on the other side of the city. If Pilate’s procession embodied the power, glory, and violence of the empire that ruled the world, Jesus’s procession embodied an alternative vision, the kingdom of God,” one in which the poor are lifted up, the hungry fed, and captives set free. Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. This was a non-violent direct action.

This is foundational story of our tradition - a protest against Empire, resistance that did not use the same techniques as the oppressor, but instead pushed back with non-violence, parody, and reclamation.

It does make one wonder what kind of signs the crowd carried - since they weren’t fussing with waving palm branches, they could hold signs (wink). Perhaps something like, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Cesar has got to go!” or “No justice, no peace!” or “We have no king!”

Which doesn’t sound too different from the signs we’re seeing these days.

If you are going to protests these days, that is. It’s hard to know what to do, isn’t it?

It’s not for lack of people telling us what we should be doing. Plenty of people - like, everyone with an internet connection - seems to have thinky-thoughts on what we should be doing and so much of it is conflicting: Go to protests. Symbols are powerful! But also, don’t go to protests because moral victories don’t matter. Sign the petition. Every name matters! But also, don’t sign the petition. It’s just a piece of paper. Email, call, and write your congressional delegation. But use a script so you don’t ramble. But also, don’t use a script because form letters get trashed. Focus on the national level. But also, don’t focus on national politics because this is a better

I do not find it necessary to give us another list. There are already plenty. The truth is that everyone’s specific lists of doing is different - we have different gifts and graces that we bring to the table, different ways to advance the cause of justice, peace, and liberty for all. So lean into what you are good at, and help other people lean into what they are good at. Do the work that is yours to do.

But I will remind us this morning that Jesus did not start and stop his protest with that parade. Long before he entered Jerusalem, he had pushed back against orthodoxy, tended to children, empowered women, gave away free healthcare, and advocated for the poor and vulnerable His protest against Empire was in his daily living. Then came Palm Sunday, which began a week of a different kinds of protest against violence, against, greed, against dominion, against oppression. And his protest, that day, was a parade.

But if we keep reading, the next thing Jesus does is weep over Jerusalem. To grieve and lament that things are the way they are is to register discontent. It is to note that we want things to be different. It is a way to send out a flare, not just to God, but to everyone else that says: HELP NEEDED HERE. Sometimes, prayer is protest.

And then after that, at least in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus enters the temple and drives out those who were selling things there. He flipped tables to upset the greed and economic exploitation happening there. He did not simply talk about economic disparity, he did something to interfere with it. Sometimes, economic disruption is protest.

Much of the rest of the week Jesus spent teaching, another form of protest. In our text today, Jesus noted that, even if the people were silent, the stones would should out” - in other words, some things must be said. So Jesus does not keep his mouth shut, even though he knows he is being watched and followed. “Everyday,” the text says, “he was teaching in the temple.” Engaging with folks. In conversation with his neighbors. Pushing the dialogue. Sometimes, education is protest.

Things escalate over the course of this week, what we now call Holy Week. On Maundy Thursday . . . well, I should stop there. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves. Maundy Thursday will be here before we know it.

Friends, as we find ourselves in a time when we aren’t always sure what to do to resist, what we know is that protesting injustice, pushing back against the status quo, and refusing to stay silent is our tradition and it is in our bones. Our story reminds us that protest takes many forms, and all are needed.

So pick something or a couple of thing(s), and get to protesting - whether it be in the form of a parade, prayer, economic discretion, conversation, education, or all of the above. The only wrong way to do it is to not do anything at all. For if we do nothing, as Marcus Borg wrote, “It means letting the Pharaohs and monarchs and Caesars and domination systems, ancient and modern, put the world together as they will.”

And that, our story tells us, is not what Jesus did. He did not go along to get along, nor did he let fear shut him up. He used everything he had available to him - from parades to prayer - to spread the word that there is another way.

Church, there are plenty of things to raise our voices against, plenty of things that are going wrong, going sideways, going off the deep end.

But the good news is that we have plenty of ways to protest. Jesus showed us how.

Time to pick up where he left off. Amen.