Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen
“Let
justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
These are the
words of Amos.
Another prophet,
Micah, wrote similar words:
8 He
has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and
what does the Lord require of you
but
to do justice, and to love kindness,
and
to walk humbly with your God?
Karl Marx
famously wrote:
“Religious
suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a
protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed
creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.
It is the opium of the people.”
“The abolition of
religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their
real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their
condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.
The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale
of tears of which religion is the halo.[2
OK, so by now,
having quoted two Old Testament prophets, and Karl Marx, a founding father of
communism, you are probably wondering where in the world this sermon is headed.
Well, let’s start
with last Sunday.
While Christians
across the nation gathered for worship on All Saints Sunday, many taking time
to remember the loved ones that have died, a gunman, Devin Kelley, entered
First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas and killed 26 of the
parishioners worshipping there.
It’s not the
first time Churches have been targeted.
Parishioners at a
Bible study in Charleston were gunned down, not so long ago.
And though
another shooting took place at a school back in 2006, it was the Amish people
that were targeted.
When Christians
become a target for mass murders, there are countless questions that are
raised.
One is, are we
safe as we gather here for worship?
Another is, how do
we respond? What should we do.
I was asked this
week if I'd start packing a weapon in Church to protect my flock. My response:
"Hell no."
I wrote on
Facebook:
“I refuse to
surrender to fear.
I refuse to resort to evil.
I believe that peaceful resistance is the only way to follow Jesus.
I believe that two or more shooters will do more harm than one.
I believe that policing the community, including the Church, is a government responsibility, not something to be assumed by everyday citizens.
I believe that the only way the frequency of violence will change is if we finally realize that reasonable gun controls are our moral mandate and do something. (Which we won't because we love guns more than we desire to protect one another.)
But most importantly, I believe that selling one's soul and adopting a reliance on violence to counteract violence is worse than being a victim.
I refuse to resort to evil.
I believe that peaceful resistance is the only way to follow Jesus.
I believe that two or more shooters will do more harm than one.
I believe that policing the community, including the Church, is a government responsibility, not something to be assumed by everyday citizens.
I believe that the only way the frequency of violence will change is if we finally realize that reasonable gun controls are our moral mandate and do something. (Which we won't because we love guns more than we desire to protect one another.)
But most importantly, I believe that selling one's soul and adopting a reliance on violence to counteract violence is worse than being a victim.
In other words,
I'd rather die than sell out and become one of "them". Yes, there is
a fate worse than death, and that is to become the very evil you abhor. This I
learned from a Quaker friend.”
There is another
response that has become too frequent as our nation has dealt with one mass
shooting after another.
Politicians and
religious leaders alike have declared to the survivors: “our thoughts and
prayers are with you”, as though saying that in some way makes anything better.
I rather imagine
that if the prophet Amos was alive today his words might be:
“I despise your thoughts,
and take no delight in your prayers, but let justice roll down like waters, and
righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
This is where the
critique of religion that Karl Marx
comes in.
Too often,
religion is used to comfort people in their suffering, and as a result, to
prevent people from taking appropriate
action to actually end the suffering. It’s
a pain killer, an opiate. It relieves
the pain, but does not address the underlying issue.
“Our thoughts and
prayers are with you”, but, we’re not going to do anything else.
There is a part
of me that wants to say “No!”
We cannot with integrity
consider ourselves to be Christians if all we are willing to do is think and
pray, but not take any action in the face of such evil.
But the problem
for many of us is that we simply do not know what action we can take.
Every time such a
tragedy happens many people raise the issue of gun control.
There is some
legitimacy to that concern.
I mean, if I
wanted to commit such a crime, all it would take is a fifteen minute drive over
to Cabelas and I’d have access to a full arsenal of the type of weapons,
assault rifles, that are being used in these mass shootings.
Reasonable gun
controls might not eliminate the problem entirely, the argument goes, but on
the other hand we don’t need to make it so easy to get those guns.
Others lift up
the issue of mental illness in our society, and the need for a greater emphasis
on taking care of the mentally ill.
The problem with
using mental illness as an explanation is that the vast majority of people who
are mentally ill are not a threat to anyone, except in some cases to
themselves.
The truth is that
these people committing mass murders are not insane, they are enraged. Anger, not mental illness is the problem.
But there is a
deeper issue, and one that we don’t want to face.
In ‘family systems
theory’, there is an “identified patient”, a term used in a clinical
setting to describe the person in a dysfunctional family who has been
unconsciously selected to act out the family's inner conflicts as a diversion.
In other words,
often the family prefers to identify one member of that family who has been
acting out as the problem when the real issue is that there is a greater
problem that involves the whole family.
And so you might
have a child who has developed behavioral problems, failing in school, or doing
drugs, and the family identifies that person as being the problem.
What they don’t
see is that the identified patient, the problem child, is merely reflecting the
sickness that permeates the entire family.
It’s much easier to say “Johnny has some issues” than it is to say “we
have a problem”.
I believe that
these people committing these horrendous crimes are actually acting out the sickness
that pervades our entire society.
In the church, we
call that sickness “sin”, and we are all guilty of it.
“Let
justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
These words of
the prophet Amos are a call to repentance.
What does sin
look like?
Part of the
problem is that it is easier to say that we have all sinned and fallen short of
the will of God, than it is to actually identify the ways that we have
sinned. Not only that, but even when we
try to identify the sin that pervades our society our perspective is colored by
the very sin that is part of who we are.
Having said that
though, I’m going to be bold and identify three things that I believe run
deeply throughout our society, and which are at the root of the problems.
First, we are a
divided people.
This polarization
pits one against another and it affects our families, our churches, our
governments, in fact, the entirety of our society.
Secondly, we are
an angry people.
And we seem to
have lost the ability to deal with our anger in responsible ways. You don’t have to seek out these murderers to
find this anger. All you have to do is
drive across town.
You want to make
people angry? Try getting in line in the
express lane at the supermarket with more than ten items in your basket. Try driving the speed limit in the left hand
lane of the freeway.
And thirdly, we
are a fearful people.
I work with a
number of people who are so afraid that they will not drive anywhere without a
loaded pistol in their car. Think about
that. In order to go out of their house,
they have to pack a weapon. That’s
fear. And then, knowing that the roads
are full of people with loaded weapons in their cars, the rest of us have
reason to be afraid.
Divided. Angry.
Afraid.
That’s the sin
that permeates our society.
We view others as
an enemy, we too often get angry, and our fearful response can be devastating.
The mass
murderers who make the headlines are simply acting out the divisiveness, anger,
and fear that permeates our society.
That’s a tough
pill to swallow.
“Let
justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
Those are the
words of God given to Amos.
Jesus put it
differently.
“I
give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved
you, you also should love one another.”
And love does
more than offer “our thoughts and prayers”.
Love overcomes
all divisions.
Love dispels anger.
And love casts
out all fear.
But most
important of all, love is more than an emotion.
It’s more than
just how we feel toward one another, its about how we act.
So here’s a
challenge for you, a way to make a difference.
Instead of
viewing others as the enemy, instead of allowing anger to run rampant, instead
of being afraid—find a way, anyway, to act toward one another with love.
And see what happens.
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