In this faith tradition, Holy Tuesday is another hard day with a knee just full of iron, that we are required to digest. Jesus essentially takes to the temple, and runs a roasting session for the Pharisees, and Sadducees. He tells them everything they stand for is wrong, everything they’re doing is wrong, how they show up in the world is wrong, and their hearts are wrong, too. In true cultural fashion, Jesus has metaphors and similes for days that frankly make Wild’N Out look like child’s play by the time he’s done.
As hilarious as it is to read in Matthew 23:23-26, it’s also hard to hear as well. Jesus essentially is heartbroken and pissed, at the way in which societal structures have not kept the main thing, the main things. It’s the ways in which we are willing to pick apart people’s personal expression, and never address the oppression that got them there to begin with, for him.
It’s similar to the ways in which you can criticize a woman’s attire in her youth and adulthood, but simultaneously pass the potatoes to the uncle that assaulted her, at Thanksgiving. It’s similar to how you can chant All Lives Matter, and use it as religious rhetoric to suggest that God cares about all people, but are simultaneously willing to allow Black folks who are murdered at the had of the state, becomes suspects as victims of their own murder. It’s the kind of thing that will allow you to go foreign countries to offer aid and resources, as though the levels of poverty that plague the USA aren’t the equivalent of what would be a third world country, with maybe an off brand Gucci belt. It’s the kind of thing that will chant to Stop Asian Hate, instead of ACTUALLY stopping white supremacy. We love to critique the flowers, but never pull up the root.
While Jesus is listing his grievances, he also runs the history of the many things that they said they’d never do, that they ended up doing in another form under a rebranded name. I have often stated this thing, and while this reading can be considered compounded, because he’s dealing with 50-ll issues, one at a time, he clearly is fervent in his belief that you have to deal with all the bad. Here’s the thing: If America’s biggest sin is racism, it’s second biggest one is gradualism. This idea that only one group of people can only have so much of justice at a time. The reason we are able to operate like this, is because we like picking apart the small things, instead of doing the work of dealing with the roots, and keeping the main thing, the main things.
Oh, but you know who actually gets this temple teaching moments without getting offended? The babies. People love to live in this pretend world where they don’t think the kids know anything, only to find out that they know everything. The knew about the pimped out donkey, the jacked up temple, and the healing of the blind and lame man. They, too, have been living under the same oppression and Roman rule, watching and experiencing suffering. They too, have had enough. They too have lost. They too have grieved. They too have worked. And when folks try to block the babies from getting to Jesus, which essentially is ironic seeing as the same folks who try to keep them away from him are victims of their own disenfranchisement and discrimination, Jesus basically says “not today!”
The youth have a way of telling their stories and experiences of holiness, in ways that don’t make sense to us, and frankly don’t have to. We are responsible for not only keeping the main thing, the main thing. We are responsible for making sure that everyone, the youth, have access, because they’re going through too. They’re feeling this too. And they too, are seeking salvation. The presence of the kids here is necessary. The kids ain’t just alright y’all. The kids are necessary.
I’m praying for us today, that will take the responsibility of not policing the small things, but keeping the main things, the main things. Praying we’ll be delivered from the sin of Jesus. Praying that when we see salvation, we make sure the kids have access. Now let us continue on this hard journey, because Calvary soon come…
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