Service on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seeyouonsunday/videos/659620620135721 and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzUKMI8CZYQ
In early 2021, mostly people of color started asking white folks like me generally educated, think we’re aware, trying to do social justice and race-conscious work. When we were asked when we first learned about the destruction of Black Wall Street. And honestly the answer was 5 minutes after I read the question and had searched for the answer.
The Greenwood District of North Greenwood Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma was a successful self-sustaining black community with barbershops and salons, clothing stores, jewelers, restaurants, taverns, pool halls, movie houses, grocers, banks, doctors, dentists, and lawyers.
On May 3oth, 1921 a black man, Mr. Rowland was accused of attempting to touch or rape a white woman in an elevator. He was arrested on May 31st. As often happened, several hundred armed white men went to the courthouse seeking their own justice. Then, 50 or so armed black men went to the courthouse hoping to keep Mr. Rowland from being lynched.
They say the lawmen tried to keep the peace. You can imagine how well it went when the 50 or so black men and the several hundred white men clashed with each other and shots rang out.
Over the next two days, stores and homes were looted and torched. Fleeing residents might be shot. Planes were used to shoot bullets and drop homemade bombs. The national guard was brought in, martial law was declared. Residents of the Greenwood District were rounded up, detained, and weren’t allowed to leave unless a white employer or citizen vouched for them. There was almost $2 million in damages and almost all insurance claims were denied, destroying the economic wealth of a community for generations. For decades, it was called a race riot, thus assuring it would be believed that it was the black community that rose up against the white community, or at least they were on some kind of equal footing. Today, it’s called the Tulsa Race Massacre, or the destruction of Black Wall Street. Official reports in 1921 said that there were 26 black folk killed and 10 white. Modern estimates put that closer to 300. 10,000 became homeless.
This is the most simplified version of the story. One that starts with an alleged act of one person that results in the destruction of a community. I wonder if, before this destruction, some folks in the black community thought, “If we could just keep to ourselves, they won’t have any reason to come after us.” The white folk were saying, “Who do they think they are?” They certainly use the word uppity.
There are many revolts, riots, and massacres of a group of people in power and a group of people without any. Folks were living in a tinder box that might ignite with a single spark, some heat up slowly until it exploded.
And it makes me wonder how many times over centuries different oppressed communities distinguished by nationality, immigration, race, economics, culture have said, “If we just… “if we just stay out of their way… “if we just make ourselves useful… “if we just do the job really well… “if we just stay out of trouble… “if you just not drive down that street… “if you just not go to that store… “don’t put your hands in your pockets… “just don’t talk back…
And I wonder if that’s what the Pharisees thought as Jesus and the disciples paraded into Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was occupied by Rome, and you don’t get to be an empire by being kind. They conquered lands at the end of a sword, under the wheels of chariots, and they kept power through violence and fear–punish swiftly and hard over any slight and those occupied will stay in line. Rome was a machine. It was a tank and everyone else were ants. If one of the ants rebels, punishing the ant was not enough, it wouldn’t deter the masses. It’s better to take out a whole section of the ant farm.
One of the tasks of the Pharisees was the care for the Jewish community. They were in a position of leadership and privilege and responsibility for the survival of the Jewish people. They understand that if one of them acts in opposition to the Empire, everyone suffers.
So when the disciples are joyfully praising God, that blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord and peace and glory in the highest heaven, these are the kinds of words that gets you in killed by Rome. The Pharisees are not just saying they don’t like the parade, they’re saying “Shut up. You’re going to get us all killed.” If we can just follow the rules… if we could just fly under the radar… If we can just worship our God and not even bother them with theirs, we can survive this. If we don’t stir the waters we can live in peace.
But something different is happening and must be witnessed and named and exclaimed. Even the very cosmos, the rocks see that something different is coming.
I know that’s a big claim, to go from hearing about rocks to making assumptions about the cosmos. Our author, whom we call Luke, takes a long time to tell us about the donkey. Somehow Jesus told them about the donkey, where to find it, what to say, and it as exactly like he said. Did he just know? Was it foretold?
Did you notice this is a Palm Sunday with no palms in our reading? And maybe our author didn’t mean anything by it. Or maybe our author was trying to make a point. In Maccabees during the time of the Greek occupation, when the Maccabee family became King Jewish kingship in Jerusalem, the people waved palm branches when the king rode into town. That was a time of nationalistic violent uprising reconquering kind of King which was necessary at the time. But well, our author Luke says blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Maybe he doesn’t mean that kind of King, not one that can be claimed by a nation. Because the whole of the cosmos, even the rocks are witnessing what Christ is doing.
Not a king that claims peace through violence like the empires of this world. But a king for the whole cosmos, for all, that brings peace through love and justice and that none are free until all are free.
Because when the parade is over, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, saying to it, to the leadership, and all the people living there, “If you had only recognized the things that make for peace,” he meant really peace. And I wonder if we would recognize the things that make peace.
Now, this is the point where my friend Bruce and I kind of had a fight. Not a real fight. Just a little fight about how this sermon should end. We were taught every sermon. Should have a good news. Something that God is doing in the story and in our lives and a mission. A thing we are called to do in response. The shepherd God goes to find the lost sheep so we should go and find who’s missing from our tables. Jesus truly sees Zacchaeus and reconciles him back into community and we can learn the deeper stories of others and reconcile community.
And Bruce and I don’t disagree on the story. I don’t disagree on interpretations at least in the conversation we were having but we disagreed on was. What’s the mission that is needed here.
Because there’s a nice version of this sermon where we consider where we find ourselves in the story and the ways in which we have conceded to the empire or like the disciples we could shout. Shout with joy for what Christ is doing in our lives and the world. And those our valid sermons on this text.
But here’s the thing. The place where I got caught is when Jesus looks to the city and says to personify Jerusalem or the leaders in Jerusalem to the whole of the cosmos. If only you knew what it was to make peace, he continues by saying you are going to be surrounded And ultimately destroyed. And maybe our author is referencing when the temple would be torn down in the year 70 by Rome because there was no accommodating that would ever make them completely safe. Maybe Jesus is saying this to all of us who live in such times. There is no accommodating. There is no falling back on your privilege that is ever going to keep you safe.
And the one who comes into the city that day as the king and the bringer of Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven is going to be executed by the state. Is that what it means to be a peacemaker? Is that good news Because that is the end of our story for today.
But we are people of the Resurrection and so we know the story isn’t over. There is always new life. But sometimes it takes time to get there. Sometimes it hurts a little. It is not good because it hurts, it is life and it is human because it hurts. It is new life because it is God’s.
I don’t know what the next weeks, months, years will look like. It’s possible that nothing will escalate beyond what we are seeing in these days, but these days are already putting the immigrant, the foreigner, and the vulnerable in unjust and dangerous situations, people we are called to care for; I just don’t think we can count on that.
And we who think we can live peacefully if we just don’t saying, doing anything, post anything, show off anything, may we remember the words of Dr. King: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizens’ “Councilor” or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice;”
By doing nothing, we are not making peace, we are complicit.
If we are going to be peacemakers, we are going to need to be peacemakers for all, peace that isn’t rooted in the violence and death of the empire but in the self-sacrificial love of Christ. And many of us are people of privilege, many of us are not going to have to worry that the empire of today is going to come after us, but those who are vulnerable, living on the edges of society, those without enough, who love wrong, dress wrong, have the wrong color skin, or speak the wrong language will be crushed, will be crushed for our peace of not rocking the boat if we don’t give some of our privilege to keep them wheels from running over them.
I’m not saying that you need to give up your life, your home, you don’t have to die like Christ to care for those who need peace. But maybe we could be uncomfortable. Because if I am being really honest with myself, the idea of calling my political representatives is horrifying, but people are dying, are going to die, are imprisoned, deported, and I don’t want to be uncomfortable or inconvenienced?
And, if Jesus and Dr. King are enough sacred texts for you, I offer us one the shire.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
In these times, It is easier to bury our heads in the sand, but it is not just. It is easier to stay quiet hoping no one will notice us, but that is not what it means to be church. It is easier to deny the injustice and oppression because we’re ok, but that is not peace.
We are, as we have always been, on a relay race marathon with our ancestors and those we will be ancestors for, across all of time and all of space, across the cosmos, to be bearers who live in and co-build around us the kin-dom of God in the midst of the Empires of this world. Kin-dom of peace rooted in love that gives. What do we do?
Educate yourself.
Be bold, and if you can’t be bold, help the church be bold.
Meet your neighbors.
Go to places, and meet people with stories different than yours.
Learn from others.
Volunteer at one of the non-profits we support.
Start a group, build community.
Call your representatives.
Blessed are you, the makers of peace,
you, the citizens and co-builders of the kin-dom of God,
you, the givers of love and mercy
you, the strivers of justice for all
you, who are not willing to close your eyes to the pain, who are willing to be uncomfortable,
Blessed are you, the makers of peace, you are the children of God.