“After Pilate had Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus.. and gathered the whole cohort around him… and threw a scarlet military cloak about him and… kept striking him on the head… and led him off to crucify him… (at) a place called Golgotha —which means Place of the Skull… After the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided his garments by casting lots.”
The institutional christian church, formed primarily by one of Pilate’s successors, the soldier Constantine 1700 years ago, highlight the cross, especially during Lent. Militarism’s weapon has its perverted meaning on Palm Sunday and Good Friday with a veneration of the cross and a retelling of Jesus death on it. The yearly retelling remembers Jesus’ very public execution by the state. Yet, despite this Gospel fact, self-title Christians, especially in the U.S., routinely, even fervently, still support empires, their many Pilates, and their many weapons bearing soldiers guilty of killing Jesus. Militarism’s deadly soldier system publicly killing people is still openly acclaimed, justified, and sanctified by self-titled Christians who keep it in operation. The sanctified slaughter of human beings is observed in the death penalty and in war. It is also observed in mass shootings. Mass shootings are simply another public crucifixion in which the empire and its many Pilates, with its many soldiers, using their many weapons keep killing so many people. We are politically indoctrinated into returning to office weapons supporting Pilates. We are financially indoctrinated into purchasing the products and stocks of weapons manufacturing companies. We are theologically indoctrinated into offering thoughts and prayers to victims of violence killed at the hands of Militarism’s many soldiers. Militarism’s many soldiers and those supporting the troops include the Boogaloo Boys, Corporate Media, Hollywood, the Military, the NRA, the Police – certainly of Ferguson and Hogan Square and Memphis and so many regions, the Second Amendment Foundation, shooters Cruz and Klebold and Lanza and recently Hale, and so many more, and The Supreme Court, and still so many more. As we are indoctrinated by the religion of Militarism into accepting salvation through public execution and we celebrate on Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and other feast days, the Veneration of the Cross, so too we also celebrate, in some manner or another, the Adoration of the F-22 Raptor, the Worship of the Electric Chair, the Exaltation of the Uzi, the Glorification of the AR-15, and the Sanctification of the Glock. Under Militarism’s indoctrination, the empire with its many soldiers carrying out their many public executions will continue. The Supreme Court in New York State Rifle and Pistol Assoc Inc vs Bruen, asserted Militarism’s right to continue public executions using guns, “the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.” “We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach.” But that ignores “the State’s compelling interest in preventing gun violence and in protecting the safety of its citizens” (Breyer). The U.S. Empire forces gun rights over human rights. We can learn from the wise Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995), a Professor of Black Studies, an author, documentary film-maker, social activist and artist. She rejected violence as acceptable and knew that “as a cultural worker, who belongs to an oppressed people, my job is to make (peaceful) revolution irresistible.”
“After I’ve been executed for the crime of being in a public place, my final wish is for the people who enabled this crime, again and again and again, to have to… look at what the bullets did to me… Every day, pile more bodies in the halls (of Congress, corporate America,…) so they can’t go anywhere without stepping over the victims… I want them to look down into my vacant eyes and reckon with the way it ended… I (was) thinking of all the ways my own country has abandoned its people (for profit, for spite, for no reason at all). I would be lying there, remembering all the murders I’ve cheered for in movies, all the thousands of dead bodies I’ve digested and forgotten, and I would look up at the ceiling searching for meaning and find nothing at all.” (What To Do With My Body In The Event I Die In A Mass Shooting – Tom McAllister)
Prayer: Spirit of Courage, fill me with an irresistible power for peaceful revolution.
Question: What am I doing for a peaceful revolution away from soldiers and their guns rights and toward artists expanding human rights?
April 02, 2023 Gospel Matthew 26:14-27:66 Palm Sunday