June 7, 2020, Summer Rooke Chapel Congregation.
The 13th Sunday of Remote Worship
Mark 11:8-11, 15-19
On May 25, 2020, a white police officer named Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck,
of George “Big Floyd” Floyd for eight minutes and 46 seconds. (start a timer.)
Killing him.
Amidst a pandemic that is robbing people – disproportionately Black people –
of life
by stealing their breath.
My good colleague, the Rev. Professor Cheryl Townsend Gilkes,
wrote this week,
that kneeling – in Christian circles,
is an act of veneration.
This murder was a veneration of an American tradition,
of lynching, racism and white supremacy.
This week, our President (Trump – not Bravman),
declared himself the Law and Order president,
and asked that the national guard and active duty military be used to “dominate the streets”
and then proceeded to disperse peaceful protestors,
with tear gas – a substance banned by the Geneva convention –
so he could walk across the street to pose with a bible in front of St. John’s church.
I do not wish to comment upon the President’s private faith.
But I hope – my dear friends –
that your bibles look more like this.
And less like that.
And it is clear to me, in this moment,
that our President is spending too much time posing with that bible,
and not enough time reading it.
because, amidst all the important lessons contain therein –
foremost that we are called to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves –
we learn that Jesus was a protestor.