Jesus wasn’t the kind of person to bask in a welcome, even if it only came from the poor and lowly as it most likely did. After he cried over Jerusalem, the city of such anger and violence between the Israeli government and those crying for justice, he went into the temple courtyard and drove out the moneychangers.
Who are the money changers of today? And how do we drive them out from those who cloak themselves as “leader?” We should use the real name for them: collaborators with the instruments of war.
Sometimes protest can only be symbolic, as it was in Helsinki, using pairs of children’s shoes, a pair of children’s coveralls, a soft plush toy and a Ukrainian flag on the plaza in front of the Finnish National Theatre. Our protests can be more than symbolic if we refuse to buy products made by the Koch empire which still operates in Russia.
Prayer for the Day
Watching and waiting, we look for you, O God,
But you do not come to us as we expect;
Unable to see you in the halls of the powerful,
We go to the streets among the people to search for you.
Open our eyes, O Lord, so we can see where you are,
For you elude us and we stumble in darkness.
In the name of the One who is the light,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Silence becomes cowardice when the occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity; the least divergence from it is the greatest crime.
- Emma Goldman, Russian-born activist, deported 1920 (1869-1940)
Then Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling prescribed offerings, and he said, and it is written,
My house shall be a house of prayer
but you have made it a den of robbers.”
Luke 19: 45-46