5/26/2022
5/26/2022
Dear beloveds,
I am heartbroken. Heartbroken about the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. And angry. Enraged. Furious that we allowed this to happen again. And I feel helpless. Helpless to change anything. Helpless because I’m pretty sure nothing will change. Helpless because this will keep on happening.
Last night I participated in a conversation sponsored by the Interfaith Council of Contra Costa County (I4C) about gun violence that was prompted by the mass murder at Buffalo NY, but since the invite expanded to include the shooting a presbyterian church in Laguna CA, Rudd Elementary school in Texas. I attended in the hope of hearing something I could offer you today in the way of comfort and hope and even practical advice. What I heard were other people expressing the same feelings of heartbreak, rage, and helplessness as I felt. What it did was remind me I am not alone in my feelings and give me three takeaways which are stunning in their indictment of our country:
1. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the US.
2. There are more guns than people in the US.
3. Despite the fact that news reports say the gunman acted alone, he did not in fact act alone.
The gunman was an eighteen-year-old kid who was formed by the particularly toxic blend of white supremacy, far right conspiracies, privilege, and entitlement that peddles an expectation of getting what one wants and needs and blames minorities and traditionally vulnerable groups of people when one doesn’t get it instead of the individual and corporate power structures that are really to blame. We all let him down. And we are all complicit in his rampage.
In my sermon last Sunday, I named lies such as the narrative surrounding this shooting and so many others before it, as the purest expression of what the bible calls evil, because they ignore God’s commandment to love one another as Jesus loves us. Agape. A self-sacrificing love that puts the needs and well being of another over our own needs and well-being. A characteristic that is solely lacking in a nation that appears to love its guns more than its children.
I am enraged. And I am heartbroken. And I imagine you all feel the same way. And like you I am struggling how I respond as a person of faith to such a tragedy. Today is Ascension Day; the day when the resurrected Jesus ascended into heaven leaving his disciples for the second and final time. In his final words to them to prepare them for his leaving, Jesus promised not to leave them alone and bereft but to send God’s spirit to be with them at all times. Despite all evidence the world provides to the contrary right now, God has not left us alone either. As my seminary colleague Martin Elfert preached on Christmas Eve 2012 in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting:
Where was God on December 14th in Newtown, Connecticut? The Gospel says that there is only one possible answer to that question. On December 14th, God was gunned down twenty-seven times. Or, if we are to believe the claim of scripture that all of us are made in God’s image and we want to have some compassion on the perpetrator in his madness, then God was gunned down twenty-eight times that day.
God was gunned down in Newtown, much as God is killed by drone strikes in Palestine, by roadside bombs in Afghanistan, by death squads in Syria. The
Incarnation tells us that God is always with the vulnerable, always with those who suffer, always with the least of these.
God was present in that elementary school in Uvalde Texas on Tuesday, just as God was present in Buffalo New York on May 14th, and in Laguna CA on May 15th, and every time someone picks up a gun to inflict mass murder and violence on another people. And God is with us in our heartbreak and our rage and our helplessness.
The phrase “thoughts and prayers” has become a cliché after tragedies such as these, offered thoughtlessly and meaninglessly by people who have no intention of doing anything to change things. But prayer is all we have. Prayer is what we do. I am not praying for comfort or reassurance. I am praying to stay heartbroken and angry and never become numb to this kind of tragedy. I am praying for the strength and motivation to change things. Because it is only in our heartbreak and our anger that we will find the strength and motivation for this.
I heard one other thing last night – the need for faithful people to break their silence and to speak up and speak out. As Jimmy Kimmel said in the opening to his show last night:
This is not time for a moment of silence. This is a time to be loud. And to stay loud. And not stop until we fix this. This is not their fault anymore; this is our fault. Because we get angry, we demand action; we don’t get it, they wait us out and we go back to the lives that we should rightfully go back to. But you know who don’t get to go back to their lives… the parents.
There is a place for outrage as long as it comes from a place of love and is offered for the purpose of healing and reconciliation. Let us stay outraged and seek the healing of the world. And let us do it together.
Yours in Christ,
Rev. Jane+