Even still, think joy
Matthew 21: 1-11
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
April 5, 2020
Earlier this week Carlos Rodriguez, an author and pastor in Puerto Rico, tweeted: “In America it’s still easier to get an AR-15 than a test for COVID-19. In America, there are still more prison beds than hospital beds. In America, there are more gun shops than free clinics. We’ve been sick a long time.”
A former seminary professor and her wife traveled to Spain before the travel ban and have been sheltering in place there for the last month. Last week in a news report from the United States regarding essential businesses, including gun shops in some states, one woman who was interviewed offered this explanation: “When the grocery stores run out of everything, and everyone is competing for scraps, I want to have my gun.”
This is why we protest. This is why we’re grieving. It hides beneath our feeling unreal, uncertain, unnerved. This is the future we fear, what some have always lived with, the seeds of which were planted long ago.
Violence and the threat of violence (and poverty is a form of violence)—these are tools of empire. And so when Jesus was entering Jerusalem through the eastern gate for the Passover festival, Pontius Pilate entered Jerusalem through the western gate along with a retinue of Roman soldiers as a show of force. Pilate would’ve been riding a war horse. Jesus was riding a donkey with her colt in tow. Whoever greeted Pilate would’ve been obedient and submissive, cheering because it was better if they did. The crowds that greeted Jesus were exuberant with hope as they cried out “Hosanna! Save us! Deliver us!” and hailing him with green branches and laying their clothing on the ground as they would for a king. It was a direct challenge to the Roman government, a protest against economic struggle, injustice, hunger, oppression.
These people feared for their future under Roman occupation. As they gathered to celebrate a festival in which they remembered God’s deliverance from slavery and tyranny, their ancient cries for liberation from the Psalms gave them life once again. They cried “Save us, O God” not with grief but with joy, not with fear but with hope.
And so in our own time of inequality and greed, racism and poverty,
Our “hosannas” are our nightly applause for first responders and doctors and nurses and healthcare workers and all those taking risks to keep us fed and sheltered, informed and safe.
Our “hosannas” are in our Zoom meetings and FaceTime and Skype calls.
Our “hosannas” are in the sewing of thousands of face masks.
Our “hosannas” are in our empty streets and sidewalk chalk and teddy bear windows and homes decorated with lights.
Our “hosannas” are in our staying home.
Our “hosannas” are in our humble meals and the food we share with others.
Our “hosannas” are in our vegetable and flower gardens.
Our “hosannas” are in our refusal to accept that anger and disgust are our only response to the government’s response to this virus. Where is our power? How can we disrupt this pattern of domination rather than passively accept our destruction?
Our “hosannas”, our cries for deliverance are in our tears and our prayers, in our songs and when there are no words, and in the ways we are still Church and synagogue and mosque and temple and community.
Our “hosannas” are at this Table and your Table, set with comfort food, as we commune with one another and in remembrance of Jesus and all those who are sick and near death and the injustice and hubris of it all.
Our “hosannas” are also in our joy – joy that we cannot always feel but we can think with it, we can give thanks with it, though we “have considered all the facts”, and we can let that joy be our protest. Indeed it is that joy, the desire for joy that defines us and compels us to be the people we are, the people we aspire to be.
The humanity, the courage, the hope, the joy that survives this, is the humanity, the courage, the hope, the joy we choose now, that we live now. The more we choose this, hopefully more of us will choose this. Good Friday will be with us for quite some time to come. Next Sunday we will claim resurrection nonetheless. We will live this story in ways both painfully terrible and incredibly wonderful. The only way love wins is when we live that way, every day, not only for ourselves but for everyone.
Save us, O God, deliver us!
Amen.
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
April 5, 2020
A former seminary professor and her wife traveled to Spain before the travel ban and have been sheltering in place there for the last month. Last week in a news report from the United States regarding essential businesses, including gun shops in some states, one woman who was interviewed offered this explanation: “When the grocery stores run out of everything, and everyone is competing for scraps, I want to have my gun.”
This is why we protest. This is why we’re grieving. It hides beneath our feeling unreal, uncertain, unnerved. This is the future we fear, what some have always lived with, the seeds of which were planted long ago.
Violence and the threat of violence (and poverty is a form of violence)—these are tools of empire. And so when Jesus was entering Jerusalem through the eastern gate for the Passover festival, Pontius Pilate entered Jerusalem through the western gate along with a retinue of Roman soldiers as a show of force. Pilate would’ve been riding a war horse. Jesus was riding a donkey with her colt in tow. Whoever greeted Pilate would’ve been obedient and submissive, cheering because it was better if they did. The crowds that greeted Jesus were exuberant with hope as they cried out “Hosanna! Save us! Deliver us!” and hailing him with green branches and laying their clothing on the ground as they would for a king. It was a direct challenge to the Roman government, a protest against economic struggle, injustice, hunger, oppression.
These people feared for their future under Roman occupation. As they gathered to celebrate a festival in which they remembered God’s deliverance from slavery and tyranny, their ancient cries for liberation from the Psalms gave them life once again. They cried “Save us, O God” not with grief but with joy, not with fear but with hope.
And so in our own time of inequality and greed, racism and poverty,
Our “hosannas” are our nightly applause for first responders and doctors and nurses and healthcare workers and all those taking risks to keep us fed and sheltered, informed and safe.
Our “hosannas” are in our Zoom meetings and FaceTime and Skype calls.
Our “hosannas” are in the sewing of thousands of face masks.
Our “hosannas” are in our empty streets and sidewalk chalk and teddy bear windows and homes decorated with lights.
Our “hosannas” are in our staying home.
Our “hosannas” are in our humble meals and the food we share with others.
Our “hosannas” are in our vegetable and flower gardens.
Our “hosannas” are in our refusal to accept that anger and disgust are our only response to the government’s response to this virus. Where is our power? How can we disrupt this pattern of domination rather than passively accept our destruction?
Our “hosannas”, our cries for deliverance are in our tears and our prayers, in our songs and when there are no words, and in the ways we are still Church and synagogue and mosque and temple and community.
Our “hosannas” are at this Table and your Table, set with comfort food, as we commune with one another and in remembrance of Jesus and all those who are sick and near death and the injustice and hubris of it all.
Our “hosannas” are also in our joy – joy that we cannot always feel but we can think with it, we can give thanks with it, though we “have considered all the facts”, and we can let that joy be our protest. Indeed it is that joy, the desire for joy that defines us and compels us to be the people we are, the people we aspire to be.
Save us, O God, deliver us!
Amen.
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