We got into good trouble on Good Friday. Twenty-six people were arrested for a nonviolent direct action at the headquarters of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons contractor, where the weapons being used in Gaza are made. Hundreds of other joined in.
Here’s why we did it. And here’s why we did it on Good Friday.
One of the central convictions of Christianity is that there is a God who is near to the suffering, to the poor, the widows and orphans, and to all those who are victims of violence. Jesus left all the comfort of Heaven to be born as a brown-skinned, Palestinian, Jewish baby, born as a refugee during a genocide under King Herod… born homeless in a manger, from a town called Nazareth, where people said nothing good could come… arrested, terrorized, tortured and executed on a cross. On Good Friday, Christians around the world remember in a special way that Christ is God’s act of solidarity, as he endured the most horrific violence on the cross, and subverted it with love, forgiveness, and an empty tomb. It is Christ who said, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they are the children of God.” It is Christ who rebuked his own disciples when they wanted to call down “fire from heaven” on the people of Samaria. And it is Christ, who scolded Peter when he resorted to violence, saying to Peter, “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword… put the sword away.”
As many fellow Christians bless the bombs falling on Gaza, weapons made at Lockheed Martin… we say NO, not in our name, and not in the name of our Savior. As many Christians try to defend the violence of Israel being done in planes made by Lockheed Martin, we are calling for a ceasefire, and an end to the violence in the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace.
The Lockheed Martin Corporation—the world’s largest and most profitable weapons manufacturer—supplies Israel with F-16 and F-35 fighter jets to bomb civilian communities throughout Gaza, C-130 Hercules transport planes to support the ground invasion of Gaza, and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles for Israel’s deadly Apache helicopters.
Lockheed Martin earned $65 billion dollars in profits in 2024.
In the Easter story, Pontius Pilate washes his hands as Christ is being killed, attempting to get the blood off his hands and pretend he was not responsible. So that was part of our message at Lockheed Martin on Good Friday. Our lead banner read: Lockheed Martin, YOU HAVE BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS.” Ironically, Lockheed Martin covered up the large signs at their main entrance with large blue tarps and duct tape, making the point even stronger. They literally tried to hide any evidence of their corporate logo as we gathered. You can’t make this stuff up.
We also made a banner with the words of Jesus: “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.” And we all added our handprints in red paint, as a reminder that the genocide in Gaza is not just being done by Israel. It is being done with funds from the United States and weapons made in the United States, by companies like Lockheed Martin.
So yes, Lockheed Martin has blood on its hands. They have made a killing off killing. They have turned war into a billion-dollar business enterprise. The old saying is correct: “If you want to stop war, figure out who is profiting from it.”
Just before we began the procession onto Lockheed Martin, I reminded the group of these words of Martin Luther King (whose assassination we remember on the anniversary this week), as he said this:
“There is nothing wrong with a traffic law which says you have to stop for a red light. But when a fire is raging, the fire truck goes through that red light, and normal traffic had better get out of its way. Or when a man is bleeding to death, the ambulance goes through those red lights at top speed.”
There is a fire raging in Gaza, and we need brigades of ambulance drivers who will ignore the red lights of the present system until the emergency is solved. That’s why we were willing to go to jail.
On the citation we were given, we have been charged with Disorderly Conduct, and underneath the charge is a section called “Nature of Offense” and they wrote the police officers wrote this in that section: “Defendant created a physically offensive condition by an act which served no legitimate purpose”.
There was something offensive happening that day, but it was not our prayerful protest. The thing that is offensive to God is making a profit off the mass destruction of human lives. What was offensive was not those who laid down with roses on their bodies at the main gate of Lockheed, but it is the mangled bodies from Lockheed’s weapons that lay in the street and under the rubble in Gaza. That is offensive to God.
There was a crime committed at 230 Mall Blvd, but it was not prayerfully putting our bodies in the way of the flow of weapons of mass destruction. As we taped off the entrance to Lockheed, we made it plain — the real crime scene is happening inside the headquarters of Lockheed Martin.
We will not build a better world by killing other people’s children. It’s time to get in the way of the business of war. I am proud of the good trouble we got into on Good Friday, as we went to jail with Jesus.
Too many lives have been lost. It is time for us to turn up the volume for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. And for many of us, we do this holy work in the name of our executed and risen Savior… that brown-skinned Palestinian refugee from Nazareth… Jesus the Christ.
