Tragedy and Hope

I am sitting at my computer trying to figure out what tomorrows sermon should look like.  This advent season I have used the Christ Birthday Offering sermon thought starters provided by Christian Women Connection as a jumping off point.  And the first two weeks were fine.  

On the 2nd I preached about who God invited to the birth of Jesus, Mary [a 13 year old girl] and Joseph [a carpenter who disappears from scripture soon after], shepherds [who were on the outskirts of society], and the three 'wise men' [a group from a different culture, a different religion, a different skin-tone].  

On the 9th I preached about the gifts that were given by the Angels [a gift of praise], the shepherds [a gift of presence], and the 'wise men' [a gift of provision].

But this Sunday the thought starters didn’t really speak to me, so I decided to go off on my own way.  My original plan was to speak about Mary and her journey, but then Newtown, Connecticut happened, and I feel that part of a Pastor’s job is to give hope in times of trouble.  So, here I sit trying to see if there is a way to marry the birth of a child and the death of 20 children.

The simple answer is that of course there is, life and death are intrinsically connected whether we like to admit it or not.  You cannot live and not die. [as Braveheart would remind us, though, every man dies, not every man truly lives]  Sooner or later death comes to us all.  An by and large this is not shocking, until death comes at a time and place where we don’t expect it, like in a harbor in Hawaii, or a pair of tall buildings, or a school.  When the cruel hand reaches into the places we feel safe we are rocked to our very core.

It has happened to all of us, multiple times over I would imagine.  I first felt death’s cruel hand when I was 5 and my father died.  I remember death walking into my own school years, first in high school taking the life of a friend by their own hand [or maybe he was just cleaning his gun], and then shortly after college graduation when a friend died in a house fire.  During seminary my employers son took lives because of drugs and sex.  Whether we want to admit it or not, death comes in a multitude of surprising ways.

Perhaps the worst place it visits is a school, and it happens far too often.  In the inner-city we in suburbia kind of just shake our heads and talk about a culture of violence, but when it hits home we don’t talk about a culture of violence, we talk about God not being allowed in schools.  God does not allow hate and death into our schools because we don’t have teacher led prayer.  Hate and death enter into our schools because hate and death exist outside of them and occasionally find their way inside them also.

There are people who are currently calling for God to be let back in, as if to say that the God that they insist is everywhere could be kept out by lack of prayer or FCA.  God never left our schools, God still sits beside and watches our children, sometimes God watches them succeed, sometimes fail, sometimes be overjoyed, and others be hateful.

There are other people who are calling for better gun control, a cause I wholeheartedly support, but no matter how many guns we outlaw death and hate will still exist, perhaps even more so.  In truth guns are not the cause of this crime, pain and sorrow are.  The same can be said for every crime everywhere.  Whole people do not take the lives of others, only those who have been mistreated, misused, unloved, or simply not helped do.  It is possible that this 20 year old young man have mental issues, I do not know, and in truth it doesn’t matter, whether or not he did he was missing something in his life, something that those around him failed to give him, hope.

In this moment, in this tragedy, we need to understand that if we really want to see a world where moments like this are fewer and farther between we do not need to get rid of guns, we need to work to get rid of hate, get rid of bullying, get rid of mistreatment, get rid of the idea that some people are better and some are worse, get rid of the idea that human life isn’t precious.  We need to love better, educate better, nourish better, help better, and give hope better.

I am woefully inadequate to be dispensing advice in times like these, I simply write the words that are on my heart, if they are helpful take hold of them, if not let them fade away.  There is a hymn that resounds in my head from time to time, and I am going to leave you with a variation on its words, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ love and righteousness.

Peace and Love,

Pastor K