Kinship is Resistance

Warning: This post contains some AI generated images and strong language. (Sorry Mom & Dad)

I love this protest sign and I love how many variations I saw of it at the Hands Off! protests last weekend.

Some years as we approach Palm Sunday (which was a political protest), I feel empowered by the reminder that we are part of a long legacy in the fight for justice. This year I’m feeling like this tenacious elder.

You’ve probably heard about a bill that passed the US House this week that would impact millions of people’s ability to vote. 

The SAVE Act would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship (like a passport or birth certificate) in order to register to vote in federal elections, including updating voter registration. And, the name on your voter registration must match your passport and/or birth certificate. 

221 members of the House voted to create unnecessary barriers for millions of Americans who could be removed from voter rolls or blocked from registering. 

• 11-15% of low-income, and 25% of Black and Latino, voting-age citizens who lack ready access to documentation, 

• Elderly voters who may have been born before universal birth certification or lost access to their certificate, 

• 23 million naturalized citizens

• Transgender or non-binary people whose name on their drivers license or registration does not match their birth certificate. 

• As many as 69 million women who have married or divorced and their names no longer match their birth certificate. 

And, it’s as much a political narrative game as it is actually purging the voter rolls. Just talking about possible barriers is enough to deter people from even trying to vote. In the 2024 presidential election ~250 million people were eligible to vote, of those, ~175 million were registered and ~161 million actually cast a vote. The populations with the lowest voter turn out; young people, racial minorities, and lower-income groups, are also the most vulnerable to laws like the SAVE Act. If it gets too tricky to rig an election, you can make it nearly impossibly for ~90 million people to vote. (More people didn’t, or couldn’t, vote in 2024 than voted for either candidate.)

Jewish scholar Ellis Rivkin writes; 

The Roman emperor held the life or death of the Jewish people in the palm of his hand; the governor's sword was always at the ready; the high priest's eyes were always penetrating and his ears were always keen; the soldiery was always eager for the slaughter.... The emperor sought to govern an empire; the governor sought to hold anarchy in check; the high priest sought to hold on to his office; … [Jesus] taught and preached that the Kingdom of God was near at hand, a kingdom which were it to come, would displace the kingdom of Rome. By creating the impression that he... would usher in the Kingdom of God... he had readied the people for riotous behavior. The fact that the charismatic of charismatics had taught no violence, had preached no revolution, and lifted up no arms against Rome's authority would have been utterly irrelevant. The High Priest Caiaphas and the Prefector Pontius Pilate cared not a whit how or by whom the Kingdom of God would be ushered in, but only that the Roman Emperor and his instruments would not reign over it.

So, we’re still protesting. At the Hands Off! protest last Saturday, 1.2 to 1.8 million people joined in over 300 protests around the country. My friend Rabbi Seth has a protest sign that says, “Resisting tyrants since Pharaoh.” Same shit, different emperor.

Imperial colonial systems will aways protect themselves above all else. And, they will always be threatened by subversive and domination-free kinship movements, like the Israelites, like the Jesus movement, like the suffragist and the civil rights movement, like us.

Jesus taught us what a kinship movement looks like. Feminist theologian Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza writes;

Jesus, and the people, men and women, who were his early followers, sought to bring about the ‘commonwealth of God,’ an alternative world free of hunger, poverty, and domination. A vision of healing and liberating practices that were already present in the inclusive table community of the Jesus movement.

On Sunday, through the stories of protesters in Jerusalem waving palms, a last meal with friends, and washing feet as an act of service, we get to enter into the ritual memory of the “commonwealth of God.”

May it empower and encourage our own liberation movement.

I hope it's obvious that these are AI generated pictures.