Today is Palm Sunday, the day said to commemorate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The text from the Gospel of Luke is not as familiar as those from Mark and Matthew which portray Jesus riding on a donkey, with his followers laying down palms in his path. In Luke Jesus rides a young colt and his followers pave the way with their own garments. But whether donkey or colt—indeed, colt here probably refers to the foal of a donkey—the intent is the same—to show that Jesus entered Jerusalem, not upon a war steed, not as one who conquers by force, but as a simple and humble man of peace.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is often described as triumphal. His followers are portrayed as rejoicing, shouting their good news, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” The Pharisees try to silence the crowds, telling Jesus to rebuke them. But Jesus answers, “ if they were silent the very stones would cry out,” as if to indicate that their joy was so great that it could not possibly be stilled. And yet, contrast this image of the rejoicing crowd with Jesus’ own reaction. The text says that when he drew near and saw the city, he wept. He wept over the city, saying, “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” Jesus was not weeping for himself. No, he was weeping over the city, weeping with compassion for a city that did not know the things that make for peace.

Today is Palm Sunday, but it also the day that Emerson’s Social Action Council has designated as Justice Sunday. Justice Sunday is an initiative of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee calling attention to the costs of the war in Iraq, a war which, this Thursday, will enter its sixth year. Palm Sunday may not have the same significance for us as it does for Christians, but it is an appropriate time to reflect on the things that make for peace. For we too revere that prophet of Galilee, share a vision of a world of justice and equality. We too dream a world redeemed.

“Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

So much has been hidden from our eyes in the propagation of this war. It is a war that began with lies and half truths and distortions of intelligence, a war waged with hand picked embedded reporters. A war where photographs of the coffins of our dead soldiers have been forbidden and where pictures of those returning with missing legs and arms and faces have been carefully meted out. A war where horrible physical abuse has gone on under the cloak of subterfuge about whether such things as water-boarding and stress positions that dislocate bones truly constitute torture. A war where prisoners taken in battle exist in a no man’s limbo, neither prisoners of war nor charged with any specific offense, denied access to legal counsel, barred from the visage of the International Red Cross. A war where citizens of sovereign nations are spirited away in the night, through that deceptively euphonious practice called extraordinary rendition, to countries who will do our felonious work for us far from objecting eyes. A war where the numbers of Iraqi dead are deemed to be of such little consequence that no official count is taken.

So much has been hidden; so much that would give us cause to weep, it should hardly be surprising that the real monetary costs have been hidden from our eyes as well. When the war began, President Bush’s economic advisor, Lawrence Lindsey, estimated the war might cost $200 billion dollars and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld scoffed. Lindsey was wrong, but not in the direction Rumsfeld thought. A new book by Nobel laureate and former chief economist of the World bank, Joseph Stiglitz, argues that a conservative estimate of what the war will cost by the time it winds down and the troops come home is three trillion dollars. Three trillion dollars—that’s three thousand billions or three million millions—and that’s a conservative estimate. The only war that has cost more in US history is the Second World War. Three trillion dollars. How is that possible? Do we not have eyes to see?

The true cost of the war has been hidden from us by piecemeal supplemental funding, by burying some of the costs in other parts of the pentagon budget, by deferring future costs through deficit spending and, perhaps most disturbingly, by obscuring the number of injured soldiers who will need long term disability care for the rest of their lives. In fact, the Pentagon keeps two sets of books. The first is the official casualty list posted on the DOD website. The second, harder-to-find, set of data is available on a different website that can only be accessed under the Freedom of Information Act. This site shows that the total number of soldiers who have been wounded, injured, or suffered from disease in Iraq is double the official casualty list. Fully thirty nine percent of the men and women fighting in Iraq wind up with some form of physical disability. Additional others will suffer the long term effects of post traumatic stress disorder and depression because of what they have endured and witnessed.

And, as the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee points out, the true costs of the war are also hidden by the domestic needs that have gone unmet and the domestic programs shortchanged to pay for the war. What might be accomplished if three trillion dollars were spent in other ways, in things that make for peace rather than war?

Three trillion dollars is a staggering figure—it boggles the mind. It does make the eyes glaze over. But if we are to know the things that make for peace, we must try to remove the veil from our vision, try to comprehend what those dollars might otherwise mean.

Three trillion dollars translates to $720 million dollars for one day of the war in Iraq. What could you buy that makes for peace with $720 million dollars? With the cost of just one day in the war in Iraq, you could provide health coverage for 424,000 children or build 84 brand new elementary schools. With $720 million dollars, you could provide 6,482 units of affordable housing or buy school lunches for 1.2 million needy kids. With the cost of just one day in the war in Iraq, you could pay the annual salaries of 12,500 new classroom teachers or provide renewable energy in 1.3 million homes. With $720 million dollars you could create 95,304 head start openings for disadvantaged children or put 35,000 students through a four-year state college. All this at the cost of just one day in the war in Iraq.

Would that we knew the things that make for peace. But even now they are hidden from our eyes. When Jesus looked upon the city of Jerusalem, he wept with compassion for the city. Would we not weep also if the blinders were removed? Weep over the cities of Bagdad and Fallujah and Mosul and Basrah. Weep for their dead uncounted, for all those who mourn and are not comforted. Weep over the Abu Graibs and the Gitmos and all the unnamed CIA black sites. Weep over the coffins of our youth and their orphans and widows. Weep over the wounded, even now suffering, lanquishing in long lines, waiting for treatment in underfunded veterans facilities. Weep over any American city or town where some father and mother are this moment receiving the news that their son or daughter will not be coming home.

And would we not weep also for all the resources wasted, squandered, in waging war and repairing its damage? Weep over opportunities lost and needs unmet? Weep, for example, over the city of New Orleans, where, two and half years after Katrina, the resilience of the French quarter notwithstanding, affordable housing is non-existent, where only one of seven general hospitals is operating at pre-storm levels, where hundreds of students still cannot go to school because there simply are not enough places for them, where funding for mental health services is at an all time low, despite the fact that depression and post traumatic stress are on the rise, where thirty one months later, almost 34,000 families are still living in F.E.M.A. trailers, trailers contaminated by formaldehyde?

Would we not weep for all the lives lost and all the lives irrevocably injured in this war? And would we not weep, also, for all the lives that could be redeemed if only we knew the ways of peace?

Surely we would weep if we had eyes to see. But if we are to know the ways of peace it is not enough to weep. We must speak, even though the Pharisees rebuke us. For if we do not the very stones will cry out.

When Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem, his followers rejoiced because they had good news to share—the good news about their leader who came in God’s name, a leader who came in the name of that which is most holy and right and good, who had a vision of a world where there was room for the weak and the vulnerable, a leader who spoke the truth of love, who exposed the lie that human beings have no alternative other than to kill and brutalize one another and hide the devastation, who exposed the lie that a dream of peace and equality is only for the childish and naive.

The good news Jesus’ followers proclaimed is our good news, also. We too share a vision of a world redeemed, a world with room for those who have been left out and left behind and all but forgotten, a world where everyone of God’s children might know the ways of peace. And we have the means to speak that truth. And not only to speak, but to act.

Ever since their conception, the Unitarian and Universalists Service Committees, now the merged Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, have worked to advance the causes of peace, human rights and social justice around the world. During World War Two, the service committees assisted some 3000 refugees to escape Hitler’s forces and channeled thousands of dollars for relief to war-torn areas. Today the UUSC responds to humanitarian crises around the globe, in places like Darfur, partners with local advocates to challenge oppressive policies in places like Kenya and Chiapas, Mexico, and works for economic justice for people in marginalized economies in places like Nicaragua and Indonesia. And here in the US, the UUSC is, among other ventures, currently speaking out to educate the American public about the true costs of the war in Iraq and it is actively involved in efforts to restore dignity and equity to those still adversely effected by Katrina, to help rebuild in New Orleans and Biloxi. There, as everywhere, the UUSC works in respectful partnership, taking its lead from those directly affected. As one New Orleanean put it, “you Unitarian Universalists, you all just didn’t talk about what needed to happen here—you asked us, those of us who live here, what we needed, and then you came down here and started working with us to help make it happen. I’m a Baptist and I know we may not believe the same things, but you all are doing what matters.”

When we open our eyes to all the costs of this war, it is hard not to weep. But our tears need not be tears of frustration or helplessness. They can be tears that move us to speak, to proclaim again the good news that we dare to dream a world redeemed—for justice, for equality. They can be tears that set our minds on freedom from want for all persons, tears that move us to stretch out our hands in compassion, to act in the name of our faith to restore hope, to rebuild lives, to do those things that make for peace.

And so might we pray together:

Spirit of Life, or Precious Lord, or whatever name we give to that which is most holy, most right and true, we pray this day that a way might be found to end this war. We pray for the men and women in uniform, that they might be safe, well held in your grace, that they might return home soon. We pray for those who mourn and for those who have been broken in body and spirit. We pray for all the innocent Iraqis who also have known untold suffering. And we pray also for those whose needs have gone unmet, whose cries have gone unanswered, because of the costs of this war.

And we pray that we might hold fast to a dream of freedom and justice, that we might open our eyes to see the ways of peace, that we might use our voices to speak the eternal truth of love, and that we might turn our hands and our hearts to the service of compassion and hope. And we pray this in the name of all those women and men, known and unknown, remembered and forgotten, who have been the helpers and redeemers of humankind. Amen.

Benediction

As we prepare to take our leave, to take up our separate journeys once again,
      may the blessings of our time together sustain us on our way.
May we know that though sorrow is real, we are not alone.
We are part of a Beloved Community, faithful to the ways of freedom, justice and love.
We are part of a great covenant of people who seek to walk in the ways
      of the spirit of that which is most holy, good and true—a spirit, which,
      one day will triumph and which even now, holds us in its embrace.
Until we come together again, may that spirit bind us as one. Amen