When Jesus came to Jerusalem on the day we now call “Palm” or “Passion” Sunday, the people thronged before him waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna.” The Pharisees (religious leaders of the day) said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” Jesus answered, “I tell you this, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:39-40).
The stones have been crying out. Haven’t you heard the sound? The rock-solid foundation of this nation have been screaming! The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence has been violated—not just with the murder of George Floyd—but for the past 400 years. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (women and children, black, brown, and white) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” When these self-evident and unalienable rights are denied—we as a nation live a lie. The current protests across the nation are saying, “Either live these truths out or confess to the “cover-up”—the Lie.
The stones have been crying out. Haven’t you heard the sound? The disciples have been silent. The Church, the Mosque and Synagogue have been predominantly reticent, failing to cry out against injustices and often siding with the status quo. But at last, at long last, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington is waving her palm branches—becoming “outraged” after Donald Trump walked from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo-op after dispersing peaceful protesters outside the White House gates with police on horseback, tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets. “I am outraged. The President did not pray when he came to St. John’s, nor…did he acknowledge the agony of our country right now.”
She went on to say, “And in particular, that of the people of color in our nation, who wonder if anyone ever—anyone in public power will ever acknowledge their sacred words. And who are rightfully demanding an end to 400-years of systemic racism and white supremacy in our country. And I just want the world to know, that we in the diocese of Washington, following Jesus and his way of love….we distance ourselves from the incendiary language of this President. We follow someone who lived a life of nonviolence and sacrificial love.”
If the disciples of Jesus do not shout out (protest and vote) to prepare the way for “Love at the Heart of Things” to enter our cities (rather than armed forces) the stones will cry out—as they already do.
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