No Way! NO KINGS and The Subversive Meaning of Hosanna | Monday Invocation
“Jesus was and continues to be a positive force for personal growth, community change, and political equity and justice.”
Rev. Regan Saoirse
There is a wonderful synchronicity in how the third NO KINGS protest and rally across the United States of America (and many other countries as well) was on Saturday and the next day was Palm Sunday for Christians.* The tradition of Palm Sunday is to imagine how the people of Jerusalem greeted Jesus as a subversive King of Israel, which at the time was a colony of the Roman Empire, waving fronds of palm trees and laying their cloaks upon the ground for his donkey and her baby colt to walk regally upon through the gate and narrow streets. So, imagine with me as people shouted “Hosanna!”
Hosanna is a Hebrew expression which means "save, I pray," "save us now," or "please deliver us!" Scholars see it as both a plea for rescue and a recognition that Jesus is the Messiah in the Hebrew scriptures. Some churches skip past the “deliver us” and “save us” to the celebration of a new Messiah rather quickly. However, as Rev. Carl Gregg wrote, “Jesus’ subversive donkey ride reminded all those waving Palm branches that Rome was the new Egypt, and the Emperor was the new Pharaoh.” The crowd knows of the deeds of Jesus: the healings, the miracles, and, hopefully, the teachings as well. Jesus was and continues to bea positive force for personal growth, community change, and political equity and justice. In the parade participants’ world, a person with that kind of vision and from David’s line would naturally be a King. In today’s world, where would such a person be? Where would a disciple of such a Messiah be on the Saturday before this Palm Sunday?
As I write this, I plan to participate in a Virtual NO KINGS rally for those unable to do the in-person version, where we will do our part to raise awareness of the current harms, injustices, and atrocities committed in the name of citizens of the United States of America. And on both Saturday and Palm Sunday, I will remember how my Messiah rode into Jerusalem as the Christ, the religious Messiah, and as a human being protesting the state of the world. I give thanks for both!
Prayer: God who hears our Hosannas, I invite my spirit to receive the inspiration of the subversive protestor Jesus, and I invite my spirit to receive grace from Jesus the Messiah, my healer, teacher, and grace giver. May I learn from him the ways for personal growth, community change, and political equity and justice. Amen.
*If this troubles your political point of view, I invite you to be open and curious about the moral aspects of protest as devotion and less of the specific political goals of NO KINGS.
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