Palm Sunday, in the small Baptist church in which I grew up, was just the Sunday before Easter. The Baptist tradition followed by most of the members wasn't big on the events of the Christian calendar, except Easter and Christmas, we didn't cover the pulpit with the various colors representing the different seasons of Christian tradition, our pastor wore a black suit, with a black tie and a white shirt, and the only thing different about Palm Sunday was that we sang the typical crucifixion hymns and left church in a somber mood.
So, did anyone go to church on Palm Sunday? Maybe to a non-denominational church, where it seemed to be a cute thing to gather all of the younger children in a room off the side of the sanctuary, give each one of them a palm branch and have them come in, adding a little kick to the emphasis of the day. Or maybe worship was more formal at a mainline Protestant or Catholic church, where there was a processional, during which the clergy marched in with the palm branches, waving them around while other clergy carried incense burners and others sprinkled holy water on the worshippers in the pews.
Most of us in the United States went to church after the news of the Russian bombing attack on the Ukrainian city of Sumy had already been circulated. In fact, I heard about it on my way to church, on MSNBC's satellite broadcast. I thought to myself that there would not be a single worshipper anywhere in the United States who would be sitting in their church that morning, worried that a foreign enemy's drone would sent a bomb through the roof, while some of our fellow Christians in Ukraine were dead, because that had happened to them while worshipping in their church on Palm Sunday.
It made me angry. I'm enraged that this happened, that historically, people who are even more closely aligned in ethnic culture and especially in the same Christian tradition could attack their brethren without even giving it a second thought, that such an incredibly evil act could reach right inside a Christian church, and have American Evangelical supporters of Trump try to brush it off, excuse it, justify it or simply ignore it as insignificant. That makes them as evil as those who did it.
I hadn't planned to do it, but after I heard this news, I gave my entire Sunday offering, which included my monthly gift to the church, to the ministry our church supports from which takes funds and gifts to Ukrainian relief directly to churches in Ukraine for distribution, across the Romanian border. This avoids the bureacracy and gets the aid to where it is needed, mostly for food and shelter.
I called my very liberal, Democratic congresswoman's office, left a message encouraging her to say something on the floor of the house, and asking her if she's brave enough to start an impeachment inquiry. I called both of my Democratic senators, and left messages with them along similar lines.
I don't expect to see any condemnation or repudiation of this attack from any self-appointed, right wing religious leaders in this country. I expect to hear the whining about Trump not having anything to do with this, or something like Rubio's remark, that this is why Trump is trying to bring an end to this war, something he promised to do on his first day in office, but among the many things he has failed at so far. Putin wouldn't have done something like this if he thought he did not have Trump's support to give him the upper hand in any negotiation.
I could go into a preachy, justifiable rage against Evangelicals, and the fact that their support for Trump all along, and their indifference to the evil con artist, rapist and fraudster that he is has turned them into a pseudo-Christian cult that has abandoned all of the values of the Christian gospel they still claim to preach, but this specific event, at this particular point, carries little weight toward that conclusion. That they care only about political power and the money they can make off of it has been obvious ever since Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell linked up to defeat Jimmy Carter in 1980.
So, on Palm Sunday, 2025, to this Christian tradition is added the tragedy of an unjustifiable, brutal, inhumane, evil attack by one group of white, Eastern Europeans of the same racial and cultural heritage on another group of white, Eastern Europeans.
For what purpose?
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