One of the most iconic images from my youth was the man standing in front of Chinese tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989. This was part of mass protests against the Chinese government led by students who wanted more democracy and to address the enormous inequities in an ever-increasing market economy in China. While the protests were ultimately squashed by massive force, the image of the lone, unknown man standing in front of tanks and preventing them from moving forward will always be etched in my mind. Even more intriguing about this image is that no one knows who this man was or whatever happened to him.

The power of that image sunk deep into me as a 21 year old college student. I had already engaged in anti-death penalty protests as well as protests against oppressive governments around the world, including my own. This image only deepened my commitment to disrupt an unjust status quo.

The man in Tiananmen Square knew he could not overpower tanks. That was not his goal. His goal was to disrupt their forward movement; to make their path forward problematic and to delay the march towards injustice. You could say that his actions only delayed the inevitable – but delaying the inevitable can provide much good! That can give time for the most vulnerable to make other plans or to just get out of the way. But sometimes disruption can spark dreams and imaginations in so many others who wonder what tanks they need to stand in the way of. The truth is that we all know of tanks rushing towards injustice that will cause suffering for others that we can stand in the way of.

So much of injustice is dependent on people ignoring suffering or repression of others, and accepting that suffering as a normal part of our everyday lives. Those who cause or benefit suffering want desperately for the suffering to become mundane. We get used to homeless people on the corner and don’t stop to think why the Mayor of Washington DC continually puts forth a budget every year for the city that favors developers more than the unhoused and in fact, that criminalizes the unhoused. We don’t think about the stories of those forced to live on the street because they had to choose between paying the rent or the expensive medicines for themselves or their children. We don’t think about the giant holes in our safety nets that don’t catch people who are living with debilitating mental illness and for whom we do not have adequate social services to effectively meet their needs. It’s easier to criminalize or warehouse them in substandard conditions. Out of sight, out of mind.

We simply live with the collateral consequences of budgets prioritizing those not suffering or facing injustice.

The truth is that for those who claim to follow Jesus, he was and is a disrupter. He overthrew tables to protest the temple becoming a marketplace. He regularly upended social, religious, and political hierarchies to give favor to those at the lower ends of those social orders, shaming those at the pinnacle of social, economic, political, or religious power. He healed people both physically and socially, which led to greater inclusion and the capacity for that person to be able to contribute to the economic, social, and religious systems of the day. Jesus repeatedly opted for those outside the centers of power to illustrate what authentic godly power is.

We have grown so used to looking past how disruptive Jesus actually was that we do not see that almost every day of Jesus’ life he was standing in front of tanks.

We are living in a country that is quickly sliding into autocracy. Elected Republicans have shown no sign of being willing to buck their leader and I have zero hope that any of them will develop a spine in the coming days. Their jobs are more important than anyone’s safety or prevention of suffering.

And I don’t have much more to say about elected Democrats either. During trump’s State of the Union their idea of disruption was to wear matching clothing and hold up small signs. Wow (my “wow” is meant to be read sarcastically). We figuratively have tanks coming down Pennsylvania in the form of Elon Musk and his idiot band of 20 year olds, seizing control of vital information and closing down important agencies that serve people across the globe and elected Democrats want to wear matching clothes and hold up signs?

YAWN.

I miss John Lewis more than ever right now. He would know instinctively that the only way you stop autocracy is noncompliance. Elected Democrats seem to be waiting on you and me to show up so that they have a good crowd to go speak to before they hide back in their congressional offices and send out texts and emails asking for more money. Right now in DC there is a feeling of terror both on the part of immigrant communities and from government workers. We are waiting for those who have job security to step into the breach. We are waiting for elected Democrats to do the one thing they were elected to do: to lead.

I recently got an automated text from House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries asking for money for the Democratic Party to turn the House blue. I had one message in response: HELL NO. Not until they put down the silly signs and matching clothing and instead, when they decide to go stand in front of tanks.