Risky Business Luke 19:28-40 Rev. Dr. Rhonda Blevins April 13, 2025

Risky Business

Luke 19:28-40

Rev. Dr. Rhonda Blevins

April 13, 2025

After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he 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. Now as he was 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.” ______ In the 1970s, in the northern forests of India, lumber companies began to arrive in the remote villages of the Himalayas. With their chainsaws and big government contracts, they came to clear-cut ancient forests that had sheltered and sustained local communities for generations. When the lumbermen arrived at the small village of Reni in March 1974, the men of the village were away on business. So Gaura Devi, a 50-year-old widow, gathered 27 women and children. They had zero weapons. They wielded zero political power. What did they have? They had conviction; they had courage. As the workers prepared to cut the trees, these women rushed forward and did something extraordinary—they embraced the trees, placing their bodies between the axes and God’s creation, standing in the way of the gun-wielding loggers. “Brothers! This forest is the source of our livelihood,” Devi cried out. “If you destroy it, the mountain will come tumbling down onto our village. This forest nurtures us like a mother; you will only be able to use your axes on it if you shoot me first.” For days, the women held their ground, chanting “Embrace the trees!” to one another. They hugged the trees, they sang hymns, they maintained their vigil through cold mountain nights. Their actions became known as the “Chipko” movement— meaning “to embrace” or “to cling” in Hindi. What began in that small village spread throughout the region. Women from village after village adopted this profound act of nonviolent resistance—embracing trees as if they were embracing their own children, practicing a form of devotion that protected what could not protect itself. In time, their persistence led to a ten-year ban on commercial logging in the Himalayan forests and inspired environmental movements worldwide. That’s the power of nonviolent resistance! Today, as we wave our palm branches remembering Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, I want you to consider your act of waving a palm branch for what it was—it was an act of nonviolent resistance. I didn’t realize this for so many years, perhaps ecclesiastical powers have never wanted us to realize the significance of Palm Sunday. But once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it: when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he wasn’t on a mighty steed, he wasn’t pulled along in a chariot, he wasn’t carried into Jerusalem on the shoulders of strong men. He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Friends, this was a joke. It was a mockery. A lampoon. It was a prearranged nonviolent protest against Roman Imperial authority. You see, on or about the same day, on the other side of the city, Pontius Pilate would be entering the Holy City ahead of the Passover, making his presence known—alongside a few hundred of his closest sword-carrying Roman soldier friends—increasing Imperial presence because Passover was always a tinderbox in Jerusalem. Passover, when pilgrims from all over the region would gather, was a time ripe for an uprising against Rome. So Pilate would come to town, in grand fashion. Carried by chariot, soldiers marching alongside him, loyal Roman subjects lining the streets, waving palm branches to welcome his excellency. “Hosanna!” they would shout, as “God’s representative” paraded into town. So here’s Jesus, on the other side of town, riding a jackass to enter the Holy City. It’s a nonviolent protest, friends! Fellow protestors lined the streets shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” The Pharisees, keepers of “law and order” (and puppets of the Roman state) begged Jesus to tell his disciples to stop. They didn’t want a scene like this in their Holy City, especially not while Pilate himself was in town. What Jesus and his disciples were doing was risky business, and they knew it. Now, the Gospel of Mark adds a detail here that Luke doesn’t offer: Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple, and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. —Mark 11:11 The next day, on Monday, Jesus turns over the tables in the Temple. Mark makes it sound like maybe he was planning to turn the tables over on the same day as the Palm Sunday processional . . . but he looked around and it was already late, so he and the twelve went back to Bethany. It was already late, so there weren’t enough people to witness the scene he planned to make by turning over the money changers tables . . . those tables where poor people were oppressed by having to buy animals with money they couldn’t spare for sacrifices that were required by the Temple but not by God. Jesus didn’t suddenly become enraged by this practice . . . no, his righteous anger at this injustice had been burning for some time. His plan was to cause a scene by nonviolent action, turning over the tables of oppression to affect social change. I fear that contemporary Christianity has made Jesus out to be some kind of namby-pamby lamb-carrying do-gooder without a spine. These two stories of nonviolent protest show that Jesus was a courageous revolutionary who paid the ultimate price for standing up to power. When the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him, for they were afraid of him because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. —Mark 11:18 Many believe it was this act of turning over tables in the Temple that ultimately got Jesus crucified. As we enter into Holy Week, I invite you to consider this: Jesus wasn’t our exemplar so much in how he died, but in how he lived. Jesus lived in such as way as to push back against oppressive systems. These Holy Week activities point us to this truth. So if we want to live like Jesus lived, our call is to follow his footsteps not just in caring for people on the micro level, but for doing what we can to affect change at the macro level as well. Think back to Gaura Devi, from the story of the women who saved their forests in India in the 1970’s. As a single individual, Guara Devi could only embrace one tree at a time . . . by doing so, she saved a single tree. But by her actions, she started a movement that eventually saved entire forests from deforestation. There are so many examples of ordinary people affecting extraordinary change throughout human history. Like when Soviet tanks rolled into the Baltic states, they conquered territory but not hearts. For decades, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania endured occupation but kept their cultures alive through song. Traditional folk songs became repositories of national identity, and singing festivals—though heavily censored—preserved the languages and spirits of these nations. Then, in the summer of 1988, something extraordinary happened. At a festival site in Estonia, 300,000 people—nearly a third of the country’s population—gathered to sing patriotic songs that had been banned for decades. Night after night, people gathered to sing, waving their forbidden national flags. In 1989, two million people joined hands to form a human chain 420 miles long across all three Baltic states. Not a shot was fired, not a window broken, yet within two years, these nations had sung their way to independence. Their revolution reminds us that when a people raise their voices together in harmony, even empires must eventually listen.A decade earlier and an ocean away, another example of ordinary people affecting extraordinary change happened in Buenos Aires in 1977. Fourteen mothers gathered wearing white headscarves, carrying photos of their “disappeared” children. During Argentina’s “Dirty War,” the military dictatorship had abducted thousands of citizens suspected of dissent. When the authorities banned public gatherings, these mothers found their loophole—they would walk, not stand, circling the plaza in pairs. Week after week they returned, their numbers growing, their silence speaking volumes. When threatened with death, one mother replied, “We have already died. They killed us when they took our children.” For over four decades, through threats and intimidation, through democracy’s return and DNA identification programs that reunited some families, these mothers continued their witness. Their white headscarves became Argentina’s conscience, showing us that a mother’s love is more durable than any regime, and that sometimes the most revolutionary act is simply to remember those whom others wish to forget. Here in our own country, I am reminded of John Lewis’ famous words, on the 55th anniversary of Bloody Sunday: “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.” This “good trouble” is risky business. But some things are worth the risk. Jesus risked his life to stand against the Roman Empire and oppressive Temple practices.  Like Jesus, what might you be willing to risk your life for?  Like Gaura Devi, what “tree” is God calling you to embrace?  Like citizens of the Baltic States, what forbidden “song” is God calling you to sing?  Like the mothers of Buenes Aires, what “plaza” is God calling you to occupy?  Like John Lewis on Bloody Sunday, what “good trouble” is God calling you to get into? My challenge for you today is this: take your palm branch home with you, and remember how Jesus stood up against evil forces in his day. Place the palm branch somewhere where you’ll see it every day. And before that palm branch withers away, find some way to stand up against the evil forces in this day. Risky business? Absolutely. But some things are worth the risk.