In Saturday’s DM, we meditated on the meaning of marching on No Kings Day. No doubt many DM readers participated or supported those who did.
In that meditation, I alluded to marches of Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King; the Buddhist monks from Houston; pilgrimages; the new woman leader of the Anglican church walking from London to her anointing in Canterbury; and the millions who marched Saturday against rising American fascism.
Synchronistically, Christians celebrated Palm Sunday yesterday which commemorates a march or procession at the inauguration of Holy Week that leads to Jesus’ death at the hands of the empire and ultimately the Resurrection.
We are told by Mark, the earliest gospel writer, that many people welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem on the first day of the week in a procession of rejoicing and celebration. He rode a donkey on the occasion to mock society’s rulers who love to ride on horses.
Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan interpret that procession this way: What we often call Jesus’s triumphal entry was actually an anti-imperial, anti-triumphal one, a deliberate lampoon of the conquering emperor entering a city on horseback through gates opened in abject submission.*
It’s hard to read this summary of the Palm Sunday procession without relating it to our moment in history. Many were the lampoons depicted in speeches and signs at yesterday’s marches aimed at a particular emperor in our day who is without clothes, but wears his narcissism proudly for all to see.
This wanna-be-emperor has unleashed his own personal army, thanks to a supine Republican congress, which has been killing citizens and violently breaking up families because they speak with accents or are not white. This wanna-be-emperor is bent on building monuments to himself, whether giant ballrooms that swamp the historic and modest-sized White House, or a triumphal arch larger than other kings’ arches of past empires. He has already plastered his name on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts named in honor of a slain president who actually cared about and did not censure artists.
On Monday, Jesus challenged religious leaders of the Temple who were too cozy with the imperial rulers of Jerusalem by overturning tables of those selling items in the Temple. Jesus cited the prophet Jeremiah who complained about a “den of robbers.” (7:11)
In a direct rebuke of Christian nationalism so prominent in today’s administration (check out the head of the defense department’s speeches), Jesus is alluding to centuries of warnings from the Jewish prophets about how both worship and justice have a place in religion, but justice comes first, and is the test of whether worship is authentic or not.
Jeremiah warns: “If you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow…then I will dwell with you in this place….” (7:5-7) Notice: “the alien”—that means immigrants.
Amos warns: “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies…But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (5:21-24)
Hosea: “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (6:6)
Micah: “Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?…He has told you, ‘O mortal what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?’” (6:6-8)
Isaiah: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood….Remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (1:15-17)
Justice matters and trumps religious hypocrisy.
* Borg, Marcus J. and Crossan, John Dominic: The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus’s Final Week in Jerusalem (HarperOne, 2006), p. 32.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: A depiction of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem by Croatian painter Ivan Tišov, 1897. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you find the prophets cited by Jesus and called up in this meditation especially relevant to what you feeling happening in America these days? Do they represent a healthy outlet for moral outrage and a spark to ally with others in holy resistance?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessing of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance.
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision For a New Generation.
Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson and Jen Listug, Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action.
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2 thoughts on “Palm Sunday: Another March Mocking Emperors as Prophets Urge ”
Yes! Yes! Thank you Matthew for today’s DM reviewing the many spiritual archetypes of this Holy Week! They are especially significant in our perilous times in our inner and outer communal struggles for Love Wisdom Healing Peace & Justice in the US and around the world…
Thank you for drawing our attention to the mockery of Roman imperial power that Jesus was making by entering the city of Jerusalem on a donkey. As we watch all the No Kings marches, we see the same satire as people all over the country in cities and small towns hold up the country’s would-be king as an object of ridicule–something he so richly deserves. (I’d like to thank Portland for all the blow-up costumes of frogs and such worn at these rallies.) Just today, I read in the NYTimes that tRump now says that he has already accomplished regime change in Iran. (Isn’t it interesting that a synonym for “lie” according to my online dictionary is “a trumped-up story.”) As important as these satires are (and they are powerful!) Pope Leo does not rely on humor to respond to tRump and his minions. Like Jesus, he referred on Palm Sunday to the prophets of old when he said that God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war. Although he didn’t name Hegseth and other MAGA sycophants, he was obviously referring to them. We are blessed to have Pope Leo at this point in history. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/29/pope-rebuke-trump-leaders-with-hands-full-of-blood