Encountering the Stranger: Making Room for The Political Other A sermon by Rev. Aaron Fulp-Eickstaedt At Immanuel Presbyterian Church, McLean VA On March 20 th, 2016 Luke 19:28-40, Luke 23:13-25 Today I continue my sermon series on Encountering the Stranger by focusing on a very timely topic the question of how we deal with those who have different political viewpoints than we do. There s no question that we live in an increasingly polarized society, politically and otherwise. At Immanuel, we have always had a variety of political perspectives represented in our congregation and that s a good thing. People here don t all vote the same way or hold to the same philosophy of government. We ve by and large managed to learn to live with that and that s a good thing. As our society becomes increasingly divided, we ll need to work harder at being a safe place for people. This series of sermons, you may remember, was occasioned by the Resolution on Violence that our Session passed last April. That resolution challenges all of us, among other things, to undertake actions consistent with breaking down the barriers between ourselves and persons who might be wrongly considered the other, such as engaging in conversation, or joining at table, or providing support to persons holding religious beliefs, and/or of ethnicities, and/or of nationalities other than our own. Lent is a great time to take on the spiritual discipline of reaching out to and providing support to people we might think of as the other. It is also a time to decry encouragements to violence and aggression in the political sphere from wherever those encouragements might happen to arise. This is a time to reach across barriers towards one another. Our first text is the story of the first Palm Sunday, Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This happens to the shouts of a crowd that sees him as political messiah, someone come to save them from the domination of the Roman Empire. Listen now for God s word in Luke 19, beginning with the 28 th verse, and hear how a crowd a multitude gets whipped into a frenzy of praise to God. After he had said this, Jesus went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of the disciples, saying, Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, Why are you untying it? just say this: The Lord needs it. So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, Why are you untying the colt? They said, The Lord needs it. Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven! Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, order your disciples to stop. He answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out. Our second passage shows us the scene five short days later. There is another mob scene, but this time the crowd is opposed to Jesus. Pilate declares Jesus not guilty, but the crowd calls for Jesus death anyway.
Pilate then called together the chief priests, the leaders, and the people, and said to them, You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; and here I have examined him in your presence and have not found this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. Indeed, he has done nothing to deserve death. I will therefore have him flogged and release him. Then they all shouted out together, Away with this fellow! Release Barabbas for us! (This was a man who had been put in prison for an insurrection that had taken place in the city, and for murder.) Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again; but they kept shouting, Crucify, crucify him! A third time he said to them, Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him. But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished. How easy it can be to get caught up in a mob mentality and, in so doing, set aside some of our capacity for critical thought and bold, compassionate action. Emotions run high. There is a surging energy in the crowd. We re often with ostensibly like-minded people. But even when we know our viewpoints differ with those of the multitude, it s possible to get swept away in the tide of those around us. A fellow Immanuel member tells the story of being at a George Wallace rally back in the 1960 s. She knew, going in, that she didn t agree with what he or his followers stood for, Wallace being a segregationist, among other things. But she found herself getting caught up in the power of his speech and the shouts of the crowd, so much so that she finally thought, I ve got to get out of here right away. And she did. Our texts for today give us a glimpse into the power of mob mentality and the importance of knowing who you are and what you stand for in the midst of such crowds. As followers of Jesus and his way, surely one of the things we stand for is love and loving action. We stand for love for those we might wrongly consider the other: the religiously different, the racially different, the economically different, the immigrant, and even if we take the Sermon on the Mount seriously our avowed enemies. If we are to love those groups, surely we are also called to love those who have different political views than we do. This means not getting caught up in a mob mentality or demonizing those with whom we disagree. Which leads us to our two texts for today. First we have the Palm Sunday crowd. According to Luke, there are a multitude of disciples lining the palm-strewn path down from the Mount of Olives and into Jerusalem. Jesus has quite an entourage, not just the twelve. Marcus Borg says that Jesus entrance into Jerusalem from the East on a donkey was deliberately timed to coincide with Pilate, the Roman governor s entrance into Jerusalem from Caesarea to the West. Pilate would have entered Jerusalem with a retinue of Roman soldiers on white horses, with bronze shields and iron swords glinting in the sun. Jesus would have come in a humble donkey, hailed as a king, yes, but not taking on the traditional trappings of power and royalty. Palm Sunday, Borg argues, was a political statement a counter-demonstration of sorts. But the crowds there, even the disciples, still didn t fully understand what sort of King Jesus was and would
be. They wanted someone who would deliver them from Rome and its domination, someone who would help them take up swords and defeat their enemy. They wanted someone who would guarantee them political victory. 1 But Jesus wouldn t be that guy. He knew who he was and what he stood for, and he wouldn t be that guy. In fact, when he is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus disciples ask if they should fight with their swords. One of them John s Gospel says it was Peter struck the high priest s slave and cut off his ear. To that, Jesus tells them, Stop. No more of this. Even on the cross, being heckled by one of those crucified with him ( Aren t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us! ), Jesus will not respond to violence with violence. The Palm Sunday crowds wanted Jesus to usher in a political revolution leading to the overthrow of the Roman occupiers. What he brought instead was a spiritual revolution the very embodiment of non-violence and a vulnerable God. I ll bet that disappointed some people. It s not clear whether any of the people who were in that Palm Sunday crowd were in the mob who called for Jesus to be crucified five days later, but I can imagine that there might have been at least a few a few former followers frustrated that Jesus wasn t going to bring in the Kingdom in the way they wanted him to do, by dominating their enemies. Granting that the crowds were almost certainly made up of different people, I think it s a good discipline for us to envision ourselves in both groups: both the joyous Palm Sunday crowd hailing Jesus as King and the angry Good Friday crowd calling for his head. Because the truth is, there are times when I, at least, would like Jesus and his pesky call to love those with whom we disagree out of the way. At least for a little while while I compose a biting Facebook post or write an angry email response. It can be so tempting to demonize people, especially political candidates and their adherents who don t see eye-to-eye with me. It can be so tempting to call them names, to write them off as stupid or ignorant because they don t agree with me. I don t, but it s tempting. It feels easier to do that rather than trying to listen to and understand what is going on in them, what their fears and anxieties are, what grievances are motivating them. People long to know that they ve been heard. But human nature being what it is, it is easier to demonize, or at least discount those with whom we disagree. Then we have Jesus hanging on the cross, saying Father forgive them, they don t know what they are doing. He s not just speaking about them, you know. He s speaking about us. Jesus just keeps pushing us to love. Now that does not mean that we can lay aside our responsibility as followers of Jesus to decry violence and the wink, wink, nod, nod calls for violence that come from campaigns. That goes for whatever side of the political spectrum they may come from, right or left. Don t kid yourselves, there 1 Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus s Final Week in Jerusalem. (HarperOne, 2006), ISBN 0060845392
are calls for violence that come from both sides. Maybe not in campaign speeches, but there are calls for violence that come from both sides. For instance, when whole groups of people are targeted with rhetoric that leads children in our elementary schools to taunt their fellow students we must speak up. When people on either side of the political spectrum predict violence if their candidate doesn t win, we must speak up. It is important to remember that the fabric of our society is more fragile than we d like to admit and as such we have a particular charge to speak out on behalf of compassion and mercy and understanding for all. All. That includes the people with whom you or I might disagree politically. That requires us to make a choice. Pontius Pilate offered the mob who called for Jesus death two options. After telling them that he found no crime in Jesus, no legal basis for the death penalty, Pilate asked the crowd whom they would like him to release for them. Would it be Barabbas, a man of violence, who had been imprisoned for insurrection and murder? Or would it be Jesus, the one who had done nothing deserving of death but had certainly made the religious authorities mad? The choice was clear. And the crowd chose Barabbas. The mob chose the way of violence over the way of peace and compassion. Several years ago, at a Festival of Homiletics conference I attended in Atlanta, I heard Kenneth Samuel, an African-American preacher out of Atlanta, give an impassioned sermon on the story of the crowd calling for Jesus death. As he delivered his message, he kept coming back to the fact that nobody in the crowd spoke up for Jesus. Seems like somebody in that crowd would have had a good word to say for Jesus, he shouted. Seems like somebody would have stood up and had their voice heard! Seems like somebody would have said, Hey, this is not right! Seems like somebody would have cast their vote for Jesus! And he encouraged us to be that somebody. That s a heavy responsibility, especially in the face of a mob mentality around election season. It s so easy to look the other way, keep our mouths shut, especially when the mob is people like us. Maybe you know the organization A Mighty Girl. It calls itself the world s largest collection of books, toys, and movies for parents, teachers, and others dedicated to raising smart, confident, and courageous girls. That s a good organization with a great goal. They posted a story about Keshia Thomas on their Facebook page this week. When Keshia Thomas an African-American was 18 years old in 1996, the KKK held a rally in her home town of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hundreds of protesters turned out to tell the white supremacist organization that they were not welcome in the progressive college town. At one point during the event, a man with a SS tattoo and wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a Confederate flag ended up on the protesters' side of the fence and a small group began to chase him. He was quickly knocked to the ground and kicked and hit with placard sticks. As people began to shout, "Kill the Nazi," the high school student, fearing that mob mentality had taken over, decided to act. Thomas threw herself on top of one of the men she had come to protest, protecting him from the blows. In discussing her motivation after the event, Keshia stated, "Someone had to step out of the pack and say, 'this isn't right'... I knew what it was like to be hurt. The many times that that
happened, I wish someone would have stood up for me... violence is violence - nobody deserves to be hurt, especially not for an idea." Thomas never heard from the man after that day but months later, a young man came up to her to say thanks, telling her that the man she had protected was his father. For Thomas, learning that he had a son brought even greater significance to her heroic act. As she observed, "For the most part, people who hurt... they come from hurt. It is a cycle. Let's say they had killed him or hurt him really bad. How does the son feel? Does he carry on the violence?" Mark Brunner, a student photographer who caught this scene on film, added that what was so remarkable was who Thomas saved: "She put herself at physical risk to protect someone who, in my opinion, would not have done the same for her. Who does that in this world?" In response to those who argued that the man deserved a beating or more, Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator Leonard Pitts Jr. offered this short reflection in The Miami Herald: "That some in Ann Arbor have been heard grumbling that she should have left the man to his fate, only speaks of how far they have drifted from their own humanity. And of the crying need to get it back. Keshia's choice was to affirm what they have lost. Keshia's choice was human. Keshia's choice was hope." 2 In Jesus name. Amen 2 A Mighty Girl, https://www.facebook.com/amightygirl, posted on March 14, 2014. https://www.facebook.com/amightygirl/photos/a.360833590619627.72897.316489315054055/64780218858943 1/?type=3&permPage=1 (last accessed 22 Mar 2016)