As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.
— Luke 3
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say,
Rejoice.” So writes St. Paul in
Philippians. I do know about you, but I
can hardly read those words aloud much less feel them.
How do you rejoice when our nation is in mourning over
the senseless deaths of children in a place which should have been the safest,
their classroom at school? How do you
rejoice when we live in a society where death by gunshot is not just greater than
other nations in the world, but greater on an order of magnitude that is
astonishing? How do you rejoice when
this is not the first time we've been here?
John the Baptist and
Jesus himself lived in a violent society just like we do. It wasn't gun violence, but it was violence
they encountered on a regular basis. Not
only was there violence between people, but there was government-sponsored
violence. Jesus in Luke 13 spoke about
Galileans who came to worship whose blood Pilate had been mingled with their
sacrifices. Folks who simply came to
worship at the temple murdered their by their own government. The same government that would execute John,
and later, our Lord. And John's answer
to that in today's Gospel was that there was a Messiah coming who was going to
gather up wheat and burn chaff. There
was a Messiah who was coming in power to conquer and defeat this kind of thing. John was so caught up in his vision of Holy
Spirit fire, later even he had a hard time recognizing the gentle Messiah
Jesus.
We too are caught in a culture of violence, where
every action movie we see proclaims the solution is more violence. The hero is always able to find a better way,
a bigger gun, to nail the bad guy. It's the myth of redemptive violence that so
many people have bought into. But Jesus’
answer to the violence of his own time wasn't to tell everyone to start packin'
a sword. Jesus' answer was love. His answer was to seek peace. His answer was
forgiveness. His answer was kindness.
Unlike the children we've lost, we're no longer young
and innocent as a nation. We've been
here again and again. And I'm having a
different reaction to it this time. In
the past, there was just this overwhelming sadness… and I do feel sad. But mostly, I feel angry. I'm angry that it's happening again. I'm angry that this has become a normal thing
in our society. And I'm angry with people who tell us it is okay to mourn with
the parents and the families and the friends who have lost children, but it's
not okay to talk about how to prevent this from ever happening again. We are better than this as a nation. We are better than this as Christians.
The only thing I know for sure is the hand of God was
not behind the trigger, but the hand of God was behind those who shielded the
innocent, cared for the wounded, and who, even today, grieve alongside and hold
one another. It's natural for folks to
try and find a way to feel safe again after events like this. Unfortunately, complete security is a fantasy
for human beings — an illusion we seek
because we are mortal. We know we get
sick. Life can be cut short by any
number of dangers, including completely senseless violence. We seek security when, as Isaiah tells us,
the only true security is in trusting God: "Surely, it is God who saves
me; I will trust in him and not be afraid."
There is the temptation to withdraw from the world in
the face of such violence and loss. But Jesus's answer in Matthew 5 is to tell
us that we "are the light of the world… The salt of the earth." We are the very people Jesus is looking to
help change this nation and this world. I
don't know that there are any simple solutions to this kind of violence. I may not be completely sure of the how but I am very sure of the who. I do know who is going to help
solve this problem: The people who are
going to help solve this problem are you.
I know you thought Christianity was all about little stuff like not
cussing, and loving orphaned kitties, and not being cranky with your wife, but
Jesus tells us your faith is custom-made to take on immense national and global
life changing issues.
As we practice love, as we practice compassion, as we
practice forgiveness, we hold in our hands immense power that doesn't just change
our own individual lives. God places in
our hands a raw, molten power that can change a nation and change our world. We are not, however, promised that God will
keep us from ever having to experience sorrow or loss, because loss is part of
the human journey, but we are promised a God who will walk alongside us; A God
who grieves with us. A weeping God. A
God who is weeping over our children this very moment. A God who will give us the strength to keep
walking, to keep being the salt of the earth, to keep being the light.
Jesus came down at Christmas, God incarnate, so he
could live a life that was fully human. To
be fully human is to experience loss. To
be fully human is to grieve. Jesus
invites us to embrace and live courageously and creatively in the face of our
human anxiety, not to withdraw, but to embrace more of what it means to be
fully human. You see, faith is not
believing a laundry list of all the right things, but rather faith is — in the
face of danger, and anxiety, and fear, and loss, and the unknown — to keep living
and walking alongside one another, to keep forgiving one another, to keep
trusting. Faith is recognizing in the
face of such tragedy how precious each and every one of us is, and to love each
other all the more.
