C Palm Sunday BFC 2019
Luke 19:28-38
April 14, 2019
Tracy is the Chief Financial Officer
in our home, largely due to my dread at handling anything financial. So lately we have been figuring out whether
we have the financial wherewithal to send the, alien invader, who still holds a
room in our house, to the college of her choice. The American Dream is in us. We don’t let ourselves think too much about
why it is important to send her off to a ridiculously expensive school. Our joy is found, really, sadly, in having
the wealth to do this. Isn’t that kind of
creepy? Our joy is found in the wealth
we have that gives us the freedom to do what she declares as her school of
choice. Not sure it suits the degree she
wants or the budget we have. But we can
do it! Yeaaaaaah, we have arrived as
parents! Hmmmmmmmm.
At
the Jesus Seminar, two weeks ago, early Christianity scholar Hal Taussig
pointed out how joy and devastation were found in the same chapter of an early
Christian writing. He observed that this
is a foreign concept to many of us living in the American empire. Our culture has taught us that joy cannot be
found in the midst of devastation and trauma, that wealth or material success
and position are required to experience joy, that joy is impossible in the midst
of collective suffering and loss. But
this is a lie as pointed out by such sacred texts.
Sacred
text reminds us that the joy of Palm Sunday can happen even though, in spite
of, the authorities closing in, the privileged and the powerful re-asserting
themselves, and violence and death having their way over and against compassion
and kindness. In our present age, I
cannot state how critical this is to our sanity, to our well-being, to continue
to struggle in a way that calls us to God’s often difficult path and way.
And
until we know this in our bones, practice it through our actions, we will
continue to be a society that exists in such a way that hoards power and
privilege in fear that we will never experience joy unless we have or aspire to
material wealth, social position, cultural privilege, and the right to
determine what it means to be “civilized” or human and what does not. We are
called. We are called to a different set
of values, a different understanding of what makes us whole, a different way of
seeking out joy in the world. If the
American Dream is that we all can be wealthy, anybody can be president, and
that there are rags to riches stories, who would we be willing to trample on to
make sure this is secure, what families might we be willing to destroy to make
sure this can be “us too”, or what people might we be willing to target to say
that “all lives matter,” and, of course by “all”, I mean that I matter too!
What
if joy can be found in the most dire circumstances, far away from the halls of
power, outside wealth and privilege?
Would we then need so much law and order to defend us, a wall and
checkpoints to surround us, so many military operations and black sites to
protect the American way of life? And
what does that nasty little phrase mean, “American way of life?” I think we leave that phrase largely
undefined because we don’t want it to hold us accountable. At times, I believe “American way of life”
meant that we would be a different kind of nation, a nation providing a better
life for the immigrant and refugee, a nation that chose freedom over a security
state. But more and more “American way
of life” has come to mean our freedom to destroy and ravage with impunity, our
freedom to amass wealth regardless of consequence to the poor, our freedom to
dictate to the rest of the world policy and practice that is more about bravado
than what might be best for everyone.
Dr. King once said, “"A nation that continues year after year to
spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is
approaching spiritual death.”[1] As King said in that powerful speech, “We may
be too late.”[2] We may be too late.
These
are not things we did when President Trump came into power. We have been long on these values. I believe President Trump’s election, hold on
now as I share this, President Trump’s election is the American Dream
incarnate. And it has us in the midst of
spiritual death.
We
must begin practicing differently.
Deeper joy is not found in wealth and privilege, domination and
death. Deeper joy is found in a
community life that has learned to share its resources, open its doors, and
recognize that our connection to one another and this good earth is laced with
God’s intent. It means we may despair
but we are not defeated, violence may come our way but it does not define us,
we may experience death but we are not doomed.
This Holy Week is filled with disturbing stories about betrayal and
desertion as disciples see wealth, authoritarian power and privilege try to rob
the Divine of all its power—the Divine’s power to sew together community, to
communicate humility and kindness, to stand up again and again and again with
healing and life. In our fear, let us
remember that deeper joy is not found in wealth and authoritarian power. As people of faith, we know that fear,
wealth, and authoritarian power are transitory.
If the absolute worst happens in our nation over the next few years,
even in despair, the deeper joy of God can be found but it will require of all
of us a revolution of values, our eyes on a Messiah who intentionally reaches
after humility and non-violence in contrast to displays of wealth, grandeur,
and war.
We
are incredibly proud of Sophia and her journey to get to this point. But even if she couldn’t get into this
particular school, if we said we would plan and scheme to show ourselves worthy
as parents by being able to pull this off, sadly, maybe we wouldn’t be so joyful?
Palm
Sunday provides all this joy in the midst of all of these peasants in the Roman
Empire. Come later this week, all of
their hopes and dreams will be shattered as Rome reasserts its will. We will have to decide whether there is
something deeper, a deeper joy than even such trauma. Even in our despair, a deeper joy is
possible. Amen.
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