Key Points:
- United Methodists are among the Christians helping to organize rallies and processions in at least 13 states on March 29, this year’s observance of Palm Sunday.
- The demonstrations are intended to counter rising authoritarianism and greed with Jesus’ call to feed the hungry, care for the sick and welcome the stranger.
- Organizers also note that protest was part of the original Palm Sunday, which saw Jesus humbly entering Jerusalem on a donkey in opposition to the pomp, greed and oppression of the Roman Empire.
United Methodists plan to join with thousands of other Christians on March 29 in taking their Palm Sunday processions outside church walls and into the streets.
Their goal for the Palm Sunday witness: Challenge notions of earthly power and domination with Christ-like humility and neighborliness.
“We hope that people will see that there are people of faith who see that it’s important to speak out,” said the Rev. Paul Slentz, a retired United Methodist pastor who is helping to organize the ecumenical procession through downtown Nashville, Tennessee.
“And when they hear what we have to say and the kind of vision that we’re putting forth — which we believe is the vision that Christ calls us to — we hope that they will respond in a positive way,” he added.
Christians of varied traditions have joined in planning about 30 similar Palm Sunday faith actions in at least 13 states across the United States.
Initiating this day of mass, nonviolent protest is ISAIAH, an interfaith group that organizes for racial and economic justice in Minnesota.
The Rev. Todd Lippert, an ordained United Church of Christ minister and ISAIAH’s rural organizer, said planning began late last summer — months before the surge of federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota that resulted in the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
By August, Lippert said, Minnesotans were reeling from the politically motivated murders of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, by a self-avowed Christian. Lippert said he and fellow clergy were also disturbed by the militarization in Washington, D.C., and the way the newly passed Big Beautiful Bill Act gutted federal food aid and health insurance while cutting taxes for the nation’s wealthiest.
“Our clergy were asking: Is this our Confessing Church moment? Is this our March on Washington moment?” Lippert said. “We had a group of clergy here who recognized that no one’s going to tell us. We’re going to have to decide. And we’re deciding that, yes, it is.”
So, in September, the clergy started making plans to launch a faith action on Palm Sunday and invite others across the country to do the same.
Lippert added that the choice to hold the public witness on Palm Sunday — the start of Holy Week — was in keeping with the Gospel accounts.
Learn more
To find a Palm Sunday witness in your area, visit https://www.palmsunday2026.com/. The site is being updated with more events as they become public.
To join the event in Nashville, Tennessee, you can learn more and sign up here.
“Palm Sunday was a protest — not a parade,” Lippert said, quoting a fellow Minnesota pastor, the Rev. Brian Herron. “We know that Jesus’ action on the first Palm Sunday was a protest against the abusive power of the Roman Empire, the ways the empire was taking from the poor and keeping it for the rich, the ways it was distorting the Jewish faith.”
Just as Jesus was making his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the late New Testament scholar Marcus Borg has written, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate likely was leading an imperial procession on the other side of the city. Joining Pilate in all his pomp would have been an entourage of Roman soldiers — a show of force intended to intimidate the Jewish pilgrims who had come to the city to observe Passover and celebrate God’s victory over yet another earthly ruler in Exodus.
Many of those first Jewish witnesses would have registered Jesus’ humble entrance on a donkey — a reference to the king of peace in Zechariah 9:9 — as a rebuke of Roman greed and tyranny. The crowd’s cry of “Hosanna to the Son of David!” also was not a simple declaration of praise but a political statement. After all, the word Hosanna means “Save us.”
On Friday, Roman authorities would kill Jesus. But as Christians know, crucifixion was not the end of the story. Sunday would bring Christ’s resurrection — an enduring reminder that God’s glory far exceeds humans’ limited view of power.
In Kansas City, Missouri, Trinity United Methodist Church volunteered to host the local Palm Sunday action “to embody the story we proclaim,” said the Rev. Tino Herrera, the church’s senior pastor.
“To us, Palm Sunday is more than a remembrance; it is a public, communal act of courage, hope and truth-telling,” he added. “Our congregation felt compelled to step beyond our walls to participate in a visible expression of faith that speaks to both the joy and the tension of that moment.”
Herrera said the congregation’s hope for the witness is twofold.
“First, we hope it reconnects people to the deeper meaning of Palm Sunday as a lived reality that calls us to examine the powers and priorities of our world,” he said. “Second, we hope it offers a visible sign of the Church at its best: united, prayerful and engaged in the work of peace and justice.”
In Omaha, Nebraska, Urban Abbey — a United Methodist church, coffeeshop and bookstore — immediately responded to ISAIAH’s invitation to organize a Palm Sunday rally. The church is joining with First United Methodist Church in Omaha, which has the space to host the event that is expected to draw congregants from a variety of churches.
The Omaha event will feature speakers, music and opportunities to connect with local nonprofits to take further action.
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Gab Rima, campus and community engagement coordinator at Urban Abbey, said the hope is to emphasize the shared Christian values of feeding the hungry, caring for the sick and welcoming the stranger.
“That’s something that we can hold together, and something that should spur you into action,” Rima said. “So, we’re hoping to activate congregations from around the community that are not currently engaged in anything like this.”
After all, living out Matthew 25 has policy implications. In practical terms, Rima said, Jesus’ call means “combating food insecurity, expanding health care access and immigration reform.”
In Nashville, the organizers of the Palm Sunday Witness want to emphasize not only Christ’s call in Matthew 25:31-46 but also his mission statement in Luke 4:18-19 to free the oppressed.
Those joining in the witness will gather at First Lutheran Church and process together to the state capitol, with palms in hand and clergy in purple stoles. Along the way, organizers are planning to stop at the federal building and a state office building. At each stop, participants will pause for brief reflections, Scripture readings, prayer and a song about Jesus’ call.
The Rev. Eric Mayle, pastor of Edgehill United Methodist Church and another Nashville organizer, said the Palm Sunday gatherings are an opportunity to stand with immigrants, to stand with people whose health care is at risk and stand with people seeing their food benefits taken away.
“So, we have the opportunity to be in solidarity with the marginalized and to be a part of their liberation,” Mayle said. “And we believe that’s what Jesus was about when he preached in his first sermon, when he said: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring good news to the poor, release of the captive, sight to the blind, liberation to the oppressed.’
“That’s the core of what we believe Jesus’ ministry was about, and so that’s what we’re supporting and proclaiming on Palm Sunday.”
Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
