When I was fourteen, I was assigned a career project at school. I was to choose a career, interview someone who held it, and write a paper and make a presentation about it.
I was incensed. How dumb! How was I supposed to know what I wanted to be when I grew up? Why couldn’t I remain a child forever? Why did I have to think of myself and my life in terms of work and economics when I was only fourteen? (I wasn’t thinking about late stage capitalism then, but I sure am now.)
So I decided that I wanted to be a clown when I grew up.
And I committed to the bit. I found a local Shriner,1 and called him on the phone. He seemed confused, but answered my questions. I followed the assignment instructions, all the while gently mocking the assignment itself, and made an A. (Incidentally this did lead to a few clowning gigs over the course of my high school career. No, I will not put photos on the internet.)
I wanted to be a clown. I became a priest.
***
At lunch with Rabbi B. this week, she invited me to join their Purim celebration (happening tomorrow night). It’s Barbie themed, and she’ll be wearing a long blond wig, and everyone will be celebrating in costume.
Purim is the holiday that celebrates God saving the Jews of Persia from death and destruction as recounted in the book of Esther. It’s traditionally a celebration in which everything is exaggerated, farcical. The good works you’re supposed to do that day are doubled: you’re supposed to listen to the whole book of Esther read aloud twice, booing and stomping and screaming whenever the name of Haman shows up; you’re supposed to give food or money to two people/families; and you’re supposed to celebrate with so much wine that by the end of the day “you don’t know the difference between ‘blessed is Mordechai’ and ‘cursed is Haman.’”
As Jewish people remember this threat to their existence — or more precisely, chabad tells me, they remember the moment when they refused to deny their Jewishness, when Esther refused to deny her Jewishness, even if it meant death — they do not remember it with lament, but with hilarity, making fun of the threat.
***
On Sunday, a couple hundred of us from the three churches of Church St. will gather in the road, palm branches in hand, and follow a pair of donkeys to Pritchard Park, where we’ll pray and sing. We’re remembering the day when Jesus rode a donkey and people shouted “save us!” and threw palm branches and coats on the ground for the donkey to walk on.
Progressive preachers (myself included, I guess) love to mention that as Jesus rode on toward Jerusalem, on the other side of town, perhaps at the very same moment, Pontius Pilate was entering Jerusalem at the head of an imperial procession. The book The Last Week describes it this way: “Cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold.” Romans believed that the emperor was the son of God — that the emperor Augustus was the son of Apollo, was the “lord” and “savior” who had brought “peace on earth” — and that every subsequent emperor was divine, too. Pilate represented that divine rule. And Jesus, we like to say, threatened that rule.
But the more I picture Jesus riding in, the less I can believe that anyone saw him as a threat.
What we celebrate on Palm Sunday is often called “The Triumphal Entry” of Jesus into Jerusalem. That title makes me laugh every time. Maybe it’s supposed to be ironic?
The gospel of Mark, which we’re reading this Sunday, says Jesus started out in Bethany. Makes sense — Bethany was sort of his favorite spot, where his besties Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived. It’s where he stayed the week before the Passover.
He ate dinner at Simon the Leper’s house in Bethany – that’s where he was when a woman came in and anointed him with expensive perfume. And when Jesus was ready to ascend to heaven after his resurrection, he walked toward Bethany, and ascended from right outside that village.
But it’s not the kind of spot most people would choose to visit when they take a day off of work.
The name – Bethany – probably means house of the poor, or house of affliction.
Scholars believe it was a village that was established as a place where the poor and sick could find refuge and care. It was where lepers lived. It was a spot for folks who didn’t fit into normal society. And it was also a spot for pilgrims, a last stop before they reached the holy city of Jerusalem after the long and potentially arduous journey from Galilee.
A funny thing about Martha and Mary and Lazarus is that it seems that none of them are married. They’re adult siblings, living together – which was somewhat strange for that time and place – but even stranger, Lazarus doesn’t seem to be the head of the group. We hear from Mary and Martha at various points in the gospels, but Lazarus never speaks. The text calls their house “her” home, not his. I heard the former bishop suffragan of North Carolina suggest that because normally, the man would have been the head of the household, the one speaking for the others — this strangeness in the text might suggest that Mary and Martha have made their home in Bethany because of Lazarus.
Maybe Lazarus had leprosy. Or downs syndrome. Or a degenerative disease. Or an accident in his youth that left him in need of more help. Maybe it was their brother’s illness that led Mary and Martha to give up any ideas they had about “normal” adult lives so that they could care for him in Bethany.
In any case, picture it again: Jesus and his disciples. Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Some local lepers. A few bedgraggled, road-weary pilgrims heading to Jerusalem for Passover. Waving palm branches and asking a man on a donkey to save them.
“Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts,” Wendell Berry said. I guess they understood the assignment.
***
From KEXP’s Palestine Amplified series in January 2024:
“Practicing things that bring me joy is a revolutionary act of asserting my humanity. I don’t believe in this whole thing of let’s stop working, let’s stop making art… No, we must gather together. We must sing together. We must make radical joy. Pleasure is an activist choice.”
Alsarah, a Sudanese-American musician
“Anyone who comes from a community that has suffered at the hands of colonialism in the way that Palestinians have, they understand the interconnectedness of suffering and grief and joy… They understand that by them existing, they are resisting the attempted erasure of the Palestinian people, of themselves, of their families, and they’re going to keep creating life and teaching life throughout their lives. That joy is also an act of resistance.
I was raised by my grandmother…. where did she find joy? She found it in listening to Palestinian music. In telling the stories of her homeland…. Our joy is really intertwined with our resistance movement.”
Palestinian-American Sabrene Odeh
***
A couple of years ago a group of climate activists shut down London traffic for eleven days. They steered a bright pink boat through London and then secured it to the road, blocking cars and buses. They occupied multiple sites in central London — Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square — and articles describing the disruption called it “jubilant” — “Everyone’s having a great time, there’s a party atmosphere,” they said. Where cars used to go, they brought trees and flowers and a skate ramp. They played music and danced and cooked good food.
We could debate their tactics or believe. But we can’t deny the power of joy.
Last fall Rosie and I gathered with folks to encourage our local government to pass a single-use plastic bag ban. (Save the French Broad mermaid! She’s being choked by plastic bags!)
That same day, the state government passed a law making it impossible for our local government to pass a plastic bag ban; but I can’t believe our joy was impotent.
***
Hope is born when we realize, as James Cone says, that it makes no “rational or even spiritual sense to say that hope came out of a place called Golgotha – a place of the skull. That God can make a way out of no way in Jesus' cross is truly absurd to the intellect, yet profoundly real” to those who have suffered. When we see that God in Christ shares our deepest suffering, we begin to know that the troubles of this world will not ultimately define us.
***
What else? How are you committed to clowning this year?
Three Things:
This is a such a good month for music! New albums from Waxahatchee (currently obsessed with “Right Back To It” and “Lone Star Lake”; Adrianne Lenker (current faves are “Sadness as a Gift” and “Free Treasure”; and Kacey Musgraves (try “Sway” or “The Architect”).
the New York Times has a new word search game in Beta mode
the only actually good bottled mocktail I’ve had
a pretty basic stir-fry recipe, but it uses dates instead of honey or sugar as a sweetener, and it’s craveable
Dangerous Territory is now available in an updated second edition and as an audiobook! Buy it in paperback or ebook at Bookshop, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble.
Where Goodness Still Grows is available wherever books are sold.
Their website uses COMIC SANS. They are even clowning on the internet.
I think of the chapter in Julian of Norwich where she sees that when the devil is allowed his shenanigans, Christ just sets it all to naught. The harder the demons work, the more “naught” they get! Seeing this makes her laugh out loud.
In a review about a production of Shakespeare, I read: Comedy is just tragedy gone awry.
Suffering is real. Evil is serious. But what else is the Gospel if it’s not tragedy gone awry? And who better to proclaim this than clowns?