Rev. McKinley L. Sims, M.Div.

I just got done with a week long fellowship at Princeton Seminary, my alma mater. My track was based on preaching embodied hope in times like these, under the direction of Dr. Veronice Miles from Wesley in DC. It was awesome. I was so glad to be there and be a student again. I met some incredible folks, ate well, slept in a dorm, and shot hoops every day. I was in heaven.

But there was also what happened on Wednesday of last week.

While I was supposed to be on Princeton’s campus in New Jersey, I was also in the nation’s capital, with 400 other clergy members of various denominations who responded to the call of Dr. William Barber and Rabbi Arthur Waskow to march on the White House and deliver a moral impeachment, even if it meant risking arrest. I eagerly signed up to go and put my body on the line. It’s the least I can do as an able-bodied, white, young, straight, male, Christian. I drove through the night to be there at New York Ave. Presbyterian church, where the original Poor People’s Campaign kicked off in the 60s.

We mingled early Wednesday morning to get the legal training about what we would face while risking arrest- zip ties, possible extradition to Anacostia, heat, full bladders, charges and consequences ranging from a $50 fine to a misdemeanor with community service or some jail time. Honestly, it’s kind of a low bar. I wasn’t too worried about the repercussions of being arrested in DC. It would be a badge of honor and cool photo op at the very least.

No, I felt that this was the right thing to do, even if only in a symbolic way, to resist. This country gave me everything and gives nothing to so many of my siblings who are of different ethnicities, faiths, and social location. It’s not right, and it feels like it’s getting worse. I wanted to do something and use all my privilege and minister flex to show up and cause a scene.

There were wonderful speeches and rousing prayers from the clergy in charge. I was so grateful to be among them. I made more friends along the way, standing with Jews and Muslims, Baptists and Presbyterians. We all responded to the call as one, and if there is a heaven on earth, I’m pretty sure this was it.

And yet. I was a little nervous. Not about the arrest part. As Dr. Cornel West once said, “I didn’t come here to give a speech. I came here to go to jail.” That was my creed as we marched silently from NY Ave. to Lafayette park. The Spirit was with us and we were there to make our selves known.

No, the only thing I was nervous about, while they wrapped a green band around my arm and reminded me not to resist the arrest, was whether they might take my stole if I had to go to jail. I’d heard rumors they would take them and classify them as weapons and not give them back if you pissed them off real good. I only have three stoles! I can’t pick which one to lose! It’d be like picking between kids!

So that was on my mind as we marched forward to the park. There was a group of protestors marching in front of the White House, moving in a circle, because to stop is a crime (the one we were possibly looking to commit). We got to the corner of the park and saw a flurry of activity. Secret Service and Park Police came out of the woodwork to bar us from entering, stating that a “foreign” dignitary was arriving. This might have been the President of Poland, but given that he was on TV at about the same time giving a speech inside the White House, I doubt he was walking through the park at that exact moment.

Regardless, we gathered on the sidewalk with cameras to make ourselves known. Eventually, they relented and let us into the park. Mayor Pete was there now, too! We listened to a host of speakers and prepared to head to the front of the White House and deliver the moral indictment papers.

As the speeches ended, the faithful willing to risk arrest linked arms and marched through the sea of resistors. I was linked to Michael, a rabbi from Philly, and Ben, a Presbyterian from New York. We marched arm in arm, singing and chanting, only to be barred from entering the street by the Secret Service. They told us it would be a felony to march on Pennsylvania Ave.

A felony to assemble under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.

A felony to be in the same space the Polish protestors had been twenty minutes before. A felony to be in the same space tourists would be in twenty minutes after we left the park later that day.

A felony is one year and one day in prison, minimum.

And I have to admit….I thought about it. I felt they wouldn’t convict a white guy from Texas in a clergy collar. Rabbi Waskow seemed to have similar beliefs, because he was on the Cornel West plan for civil disobedience. He came to listen to speeches and get arrested…and he was all out of speeches to listen to.

I loved it.

We ended up taping our moral impeachment papers to the fence, prayed for the souls of the Secret Service members, and regrouped back at the church for lunch

Apparently, the President of the First Lady looked out the window and saw clergy coming and didn’t want that photo op to conflict their supporter’s views of their Camelot. 100 clergy being arrested doesn’t jive well with Fox news and Franklin Graham’s misguided support of this President as a Christian or Jewish duty. We were there to make a scene, and we did.

I have to believe that if there were a heaven on earth, this is what it would look like. People of all faiths, colors, creeds, gathered together to sing and dance and get in a little ‘good trouble.’ It was a wonderfully holy day, with God at work in all corners of our parkside mutiny.

But I have to wonder what it means for the future. If they can shut down the right to peaceably assemble as protected under the 1st Amendment for a prayer group….what next?

Who knows, but what I do know is this: we’ll meet it when it does.

Until then. I’m yours, in faith.

Rev. McKinley