Solidarity Bones | Palm/Passion Reflection | 2025

Peace, all. Here's a rambling thing for Palm/Passion Sunday this year. Hope its helpful. 

Peace. 

-Tom

[ Bone Chapel | Évora, Portugal | My Photo ]

“You know that the rulers of nations have absolute power over people and their officials have absolute authority over people. Y’all better not be like that.” ~Jesus, Matthew 20:25-26

“I remember standing on a street corner in Selma during a voting registration drive. The black [voters] lined up before the courthouse, under the American flag; the sheriff and his men, with their helmets and guns and clubs and cattle prods; a mob of idle white men standing on the corner. The sheriff raised his club and he and his deputies beat two black boys to the ground. Never will I forget the surge in the mob; authority had given them their signal.

The sheriff had given them the right–indeed, had very nearly imposed on them the duty–to bomb and murder.

And no one has ever accused that sheriff of inciting a riot, much less of sedition.”

~James Baldwin, “Black Power (1968),” The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings, (New York: Vintage International, 2011), 100-101.

“The Christian does not ask ‘What would Jesus do?… [Rather, the Christian] asks: ‘What is [Jesus] doing? Where is [Jesus] at work?’” The Christian “is concerned not about good and evil in the abstract, but about [people] who are lynched, beaten . . . It is not enough to know [percentages]. These facts must be translated into human beings . . . Through Christ the poor [person] is offered freedom now to rebel against that which makes him other than human.” 

~ James Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books).

In many churches

today is often observed both as

Palm

as well as

Passion

Sunday.

Two stories are read.

Each side

by side.

Each

full of fear.

And

mockery.

And hope:

“Pessimism of the intellect.”

“And optimism of the will.”

And each full of that kind of violence

(both actualized and present as a threat–

as a cross on a hill, a Gahenna, a Gologotha,

there at the edge, the entrance,

the welcome sign and the keep out caution

of an ancient sundown town.

That kind of fear that freezes, 

that silences, 

that conjures screams.

That kind of fear 

that forces people 

to polarize.

“Who is your ruler?”

“With whom do you stand?”

Is it Hosanna? Is it? Hosanna?

Disciples curse.

Loudly.

Cocks cry.

And so on. 

Posterboard white. 

Letters black. 

Tape electricians': 

Silence is another word for crucify!

The song of the miners.

The song of the marchers.

The melody made among bullets and baracades.

Sung, soothing, beneath the barking of the dogs.

“Which side are you on, my children? Which side are you on?

“You can make the bible say anything.” True.

That sheriff? He was a Christian. 

The one who clubbed the kids.

There were crosses on his robes

at night. 

And in the fire. 

On his flag and on his ring.

He believed.

Heart.

Mind.

Soul.

Etc.

When Sunday’s plate passed, he smiled–

knowing

trusting

believing

he had contributed to “the good.”

You can make the bible say

anything.

True. It’s true. It's true. True. True. 

More:

You can trick yourself into thinking that God said it–that God said that thing that you made the bible say. That is to say: you, I, we–we can say something awful and terrible, dehumanizing and degrading.

And we can pretend that:

“I didn’t say that! God said that! And I can’t argue with the Word of God. 

Look! Look! Look! 

It’s written. 

It’s not me. 

It’s God. 

Look, look! Look right there…”

Said again (but differently): 

We say awful stuff.

Terrible stuff. 

And we convince ourselves that God said it.

And we call it faith. 

And belief. 

And trust. 

And conviction. 

"Lean not on your own understanding." Or whatever. 

Then we say we have no choice.

“Our authority is the text!”

The book. The Good Book. The text. Letter dripping red. 

But really, our authority is

the hate

and the violence

and the [insert your word here]

that seem quite often to come to live in us,

to dwell there, 

to "pitch a tent" and so on: 

to possess us,

to distort the vision of our hearts:

to distort love so it is love no longer: 

so that we see clubs and guns and crosses–

and we smile.

Glory! That is glory. And power! And might! Crucify/Crucify/Hosanna in the name of the Lord!

So that we see the crucified people of this world as:

Well, 

as: 

two-thirds,

and less than,

and something . . .

other than human.

As dirty.

Dogs.

Deserving:

Of death.

Of destruction.

Of cages.

Of cruelty. 

“Lock them up.”

“Build a wall.”

“Deport them.”

“Deny them.”

“Denaturalize them.”

"Death, death!" 

"Kill them all!"

You can make the bible say anything.

We can make the bible say anything.

And we can even believe the bible said it. 

We can eat and believe our own bullshit.

And when we do, we can blame our own evil-doing, 

our abuses, 

our dominations

our so-many-things

on 

God.

The Devil made me do it? An excuse no more!

For: 

it was God!

“God made me do it.” “It is His will.” [Clearly, with a capital H]

“I was only following orders.”

"I opened fire." 

"I abducted a student." 

"I killed some kids" 

"Just doing my job." 

"Just doing my job." 

"Just doing my job." 

"Just doing my job." 

"Just doing my job." 

"Just doing my job." 

"The king said Crucify."

“Lock them up.”

“Build a wall.”

“Deport them.”

“Deny them.”

“Denaturalize them.”

“Death. Death, Death!”

“Crucify! Crucify, Crucify!”

It’s God’s will. It’s God’s will! It’s God’s will!

Not mine!

May it be done.

Oh sh*t. 

Amen. 

May it be so.

Hammer.

Nails.

Wine soured.

Spears in sides.

Clubs & Kids.

Preachers & Pulpits.

Power Players

Pulling no punches.

Stepping back. Stepping out. Watching it happen.

Washing their hands.

“Hosanna.” Hosanna.

Save us.

Save us.

Lord, Lord!

To whom shall we go?

To Pilate.

To Herod.

To the sheriff.

The pastor. 

The priest. 

The president. 

The high king of all Mammon? 

When the cross is crafted?

The club is raised?

When authority has given its signal?

Lord.

Lord. Lord.

To whom? Shall we go?

Juan Luis Segundo once said

that the community called church

(or maybe: the community who is/does church)

is the community who learned from Jesus

what the characters in the parable of the goats and the sheep were only 

surprised 

to learn.

That is, the community that is/does/becomes Church, 

is the community who well knows that:

for those who wish to serve Jesus, 

for those looking for direction and authority 

to orient or to follow,

the place to look for such direction and authority is not

[surprise!]

to those who yield clubs or crosses.

Rather, the call of the community of those who wish to be faithful

is a call to stand with: 

the hungry, the beaten, the bruised, the marginalized.

It is a call to stand, as Ellacuria would phrase it,

with the crucified people of the world

(and indeed the crucified creatures and planet) 

that lives and dies all around us today.

And of course: 

not simply to stand.

The call to salvation:

the soteriological call: to save, to heal, to feed, to salve,

is a call not only to a position:

to gahennas, to galgothas, to the sites where authority crucifies;

or to serve.

More, 

More, 

More: 

Is is a call to solidarity.

Not simply standing with.

Not simply admiring the cross–or from the cross enjoying a new perspective. (Quite educational!) No! We are not simply voyeurs.

Rather, “standing-with” for us must become dancing.

Solidarity must become song.

“Hope is to hear the melody of the future,” Ernst Bloch whispered.

“And faith,” said dear Rubem, “Is to dance to it.”

The angels after the Ascension appeared to the disciples, gazing heavenward there.

“Why do you look up?” they asked. 

“Why do you hope into the skies, into the heavens?”

Vítor helped us hear the answer to the angels' questions. 

Why do you look to the heavens? 

Why the kings? 

The presidents? 

The calves of gold, the bulls of bronze? 

The thrones and rockets? 

Cages and crowns?

Jesus does not come from the sky.

Do not peer upward. 

But there. 

There, there, 

In the dirt. 

From the earth.

In the mangers.

the crosses.

the crucified.

In the down. 

In the yearning for life all around.

In the hopes of bones begun to rattle.

Authority has given its signal.

Batons and crosses 

raised. 

"It will not be so among you." 

For your uprising 

will be my Resurrection.