United States of America v. Sarah N. Klaassen

The title says it all.  We thought maybe by this point there would be no further response to our Good Friday witness, and then two weeks ago I received a "Notice to Appear" from the United States District Court.  It came in the mail with the weekly Safeway ad, return address Central Violations Bureau in San Antonio, Texas. 

We will gather at 8:00 a.m. on July 14 outside the U.S. Courthouse to pray and prepare for whatever will happen that morning.  All are welcome to join us in witness and preparation.  Most likely we will be asked to enter a plea, guilty or not guilty being the standard responses.  And yet, as these new friends and old mentors gently guide us, I am reminded over and over that the witness has not yet ended.  Guilty or not guilty are only two choices, but for followers of Jesus, we always have a third way. 

Teacher, biblical scholar, and experienced protester Wes tells the story of a courtroom overtaken by the spirits of control and power a few years ago.  The protesters fell subject to the rituals of empire, the robed judge, the armed officer, the inflexible liturgy of the judicial process... until he rose and said something like this: As a follower of Jesus Christ, I do not acknowledge the jurisdiction of this court to decide my innocence or guilt.

The other week as we were talking War Tax Resistance at Seattle Mennonite, pastor Weldon spoke eloquently about the power of threat: an abstract force so strong that it can prevent us from acting upon even our most strongly held convictions.  The police, the IRS, the District Court, all made up of individual people, become larger than the sum of their parts and we become in response, less than the body of Christ, weakened by the possibility of negative consequences.  It's something I've been pondering, something for us all to ponder - for despite how things often seem, we often do have the agency to neutralize threat.  Sure, it's the hard path, this third way.  It's the less obvious path; it puts a little less hope in a lush bank account or predictable negotiation of bureaucracy.  But haven't we always known that we have to give something up to follow Jesus? 

In reality, this current journey is not so difficult.  We eleven have been charged with Preservation of Property, and the code is as follows:

§ 102-74.380  

All persons entering in or on Federal property are prohibited from— (a) Improperly disposing of rubbish on property;
(b) Willfully destroying or damaging property;
(c) Stealing property;
(d) Creating any hazard on property to persons or things; or
(e) Throwing articles of any kind from or at a building or climbing upon statues, fountains or any part of the building.
 
Penalties (41 CFR 102–74.450). A person found guilty of violating any rule or regulation in subpart C of this part while on any property under the charge and control of the U.S. General Services Administration shall be fined under title 18 of the United States Code, imprisoned for not more than 30 days, or both.

We are not sure how our action connects to one of these offenses, and we don't know how our day in court will unfold.  Some of us hope for a trial and others of us first-timers are unsure how to navigate all of this.  And yet I can't help but think something new is happening here, not so much in the world but in my little world.  After two weeks with this notice, United States of America v. Sarah N. Klaassen doesn't seem as threatening as it did before.