#if tax boycotts are an avenue of nonviolent protest

[thetimeicansee]

[firstumcschenectady]

“Nonviolent Protests” based on Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 and Luke 19:28-40

Palm Sunday, quick and dirty:

Passover is a Jewish holiday celebrating God's acts in freeing oppressed people from their oppressors, and leading them to freedom even when a superior military force wanted to prevent it.

The Celebration of Passover brought crowds of faithful Jews into Jerusalem to celebrate God's power to free them from their oppressors.

Judea, and Galilee were functionally Roman Colonies, overburdened with taxes that took the wealth of the land and transferred it to the wealthy artistocrats at the top of the Roman hierarchy.

The Roman Empire was fairly nervous and jerky about large crowds of religiously faithful people who believed in the power of God to overcome oppressors.

Thus, before Passover, the Roman Empire had a HUGE military parade into Jerusalem emphasizing the power of their military and bringing the Governor into town to – as they would say – keep the peace.

The military parade and the presence of the Governor functioned as THREATS OF VIOLENCE against anyone who might think God was up to freeing people from oppression once again.

(It may be worth remembering as well that a few decades later there WAS a big protest and the Empire responded with a massacre as well as the destruction of the temple. They weren't kidding about the threat of violence.

The military parade happened EVERY YEAR.

Knowing this, Jesus engaged in NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION to parody their parade and clarify the differences between Rome's violent power and God's nonviolent realm.

As the Jesus Seminar puts it, “For his part, Jesus made it clear that he was entering Jerusalem to face death.  In that case, the 'triumphal entry' as Mark depicts it is a satire of revolutionary processions and of the kind of triumphal entry the Romans enjoyed making into cities they had conquered.”1 That is, “Jesus was not making a statement about his own messiahship, but contrasting God's imperial rule ('Congratulations, you poor!  God's domain belongs to you”) with Roman Imperial Rule.”2

When I think about nonviolent direct action, this Palm Sunday protest parade is an outstanding example.  It is up there with the best.  I believe most of you are aware of the lunch counter protests whereby people of color (gasp) sat down at lunch counters where they would not be served to draw attention to that injustice (and take the space of someone who might be served AND PAY).

I believe most of you are aware of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, when for over a year African Americans refused to ride buses in Montgomery, Alabama until the buses stoped having segregated seating.  They refused to ride AS second class citizens, and without their participation, the buses weren't sustainable.

Nonviolent direction action is really, really hard work.  In both of those cases people faced violence and hardship in response to seeking justice.  I'm always astounded at the commitment people made FOR MORE THAN A YEAR in the bus boycott, and in the face of VIOLENCE at lunch counters.

Those actions changed our society for the better.  They didn't counter violence with violence, but rather with nonviolence.  They showed up or didn't as needed, and allowed their nonviolent actions to create change.

Our society isn't particularly fond of protest, or at least that what I hear when Black Lives Matters gets brought up in most places.  I hear that people should seek justice in other ways, which makes it clear to me that a lot of people don't actually understand the point of protests.

Protests or nonviolent direct actions are what you do when other avenues of justice are closed OR you need to increase public awareness of injustice in order to work through other avenues of justice.  If a problem can be solved directly, most people chose that route.  Nonviolent direction action is the HARDER way forward – one that comes at personal cost, often with a threat of violence against those who are involved with the action, and when other avenues are closed.

I'm quite confident that if a nicely worded letter to a Diner or a local paper managed to desegregate restaurants, people would have done that.  I'm assured that if a phone call to a city councilman or a postcard campaign to the transit authority would have desegregated buses, people would have been thrilled to take the easier route.  

Several years ago now, the Poor People's Campaign NY did a series of nonviolent direct actions in the New York State capital to draw attention to the ways that the needs of people in poverty are being ignored.  The one I thought was most creative was the Fort Orange Club action.  Kevin Nelson was present and he explains it this way:

“We were protesting the influence of lobbying interests (and their related campaign donations) on policies that subvert the interest of average New Yorkers. We had a human chain thing from the Legislative Office Building (LOB) to the Fort Orange Club, with “bags of money” along the chain to indicate the money flow. We blocked exits and entrances to the parking lots at the Club for several hours.”

This one particularly reminds me of the Jesus Palm Sunday protest, in that it seems equally BRILLIANT, and infuriating to those in power.

The injustice I have spent the most time working to change is the structural institutional homophobia of The United Methodist Church.  Because of my work there, I've seen the ways that all other avenues have been blocked.  Since 1972, petitions to change the homophobic stances have come to the floor at General Conference, with no positive action.  The judicial branch of the UMC has upheld the discrimination, and most Bishops will enforce it.  LGBTQIA+ people and their allies lack the votes, the power, and the access to justice.

Thus, there has been a need to increase the pressure to create change, to increase anxiety, to bring attention to injustice, and to be clear that the only way to stop the demands for justice was to BRING JUSTICE to God's people.

There have been a lot of protests, and I want to talk about two of them.

For the first, I'm going to share it in the words of Rev. Dr. Julie Todd who spent many DECADES as an activist for Queer and Trans rights in the UMC.  This is from the “Love Prevails Blog”

There was a regularly scheduled communion at every lunch break in the plenary hall at General Conference 2004 in Pittsburgh. On the day the votes went badly yet again for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people, we decided as a movement to go to that communion service, where we could stand in the presence of the broken and resurrected Body of Christ. We did this as a means of re-asserting our presence in that Body. We did this as a means of resistance against the false institutional proclamation of one cup, one Body, and one baptism, when clearly the actions of the General Conference actively sought to harm and exclude members of that Body. All forms of our resistance and disruption are embodied statements that the unity of the church cannot continue to come at the cost of LGBTQ lives. These same acts of resistance are theological affirmations that the resurrected Jesus lives on in our whole and beloved queer bodies.

There was weeping and there was anger at communion. There was a need for a deep and spiritual release of the violence that had just been done to the queer body of Christ. Because when votes are cast against the very existence of LGBTQ lives, that is what is happens: violence. Christ’s body crucified again. To not act in the face of such violence does further violence.

When the sacrament was over, Rev. James Preston grabbed a chalice from the communion altar and smashed it on the floor. The smashing of the chalice was not a planned disruption. While there were many interpretations of that moment of breaking the chalice, in fact there was no chaos, no storming the altar, no desecration of the sacrament. There was a holy anger that took shape in a prophetic act. A movement of the Spirit interceded to express anguished sighs too deep for words. In the breaking of the cup, Christ spoke to the real brokenness of the moment.3

The destruction of that chalice REALLY upset a lot of people.  To this day I remain horrified that they were upset at the breaking of a sacred symbol, but not at the ways the church has broken God's beloved PEOPLE.

At that same 2004 General Conference, people started wearing short rainbow stoles to symbolize a commitment to full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer person in the life and policy of The UMC.  Rainbow stoles become particularly symbolic at Annual Conferences and their ordination services  - when they are a sign of protest over who gets the authority to wear a stole (a symbol of being ordained) in The UMC.  When I was ordained, I was supposed to have a red stole placed on my shoulders, as red is the color of pentecost and ordination.  Instead I was ordained with a rainbow stole (and still won't wear a red one – not until all those called can serve).  My mentors laid hands on me without their robes or stoles (and one of them in a LOVELY rainbow shawl), as further expressions of my objections (and theirs.)

In the scheme of things, what a clergy person wears or doesn't while being ordained into a homophobic institution is a pretty low form of protest.  (I joined to bring change, but I'm often still uncomfortable with it.)  There were no consequences, and no changes came from it.  But I remember having a colleague I was getting ordained with asking me to refrain from those signs of protest so that our shared ordination could be “sacred.”  And I remember responding that I couldn't refrain from sharing my objections about ORDINATION AT ORDINATION.  (By the grace of God, that colleague later changed their mind and told me so, thanking me for my witness.)

So, this Palm Sunday, this day of remembering a nonviolent direct action that was responded to with deadly force, I invite you into reflection on justice, protests, and

nonviolent direct actions.

When you see a protest – ask yourself – what justice is missing, and WHY and HOW  is it blocked?

When you see an injustice, talk with others and pray about what means of responding will bring change.

It seems that's the Jesus way, thanks be to God.

Amen

1. Acts of Jesus, 120.

2. Acts of Jesus, 121.

3. https://loveprevailsumc.com/2016/05/12/on-the-body-being-broken/