This is my message the Sunday after the shootings in Louisiana, Minnesota, and Dallas.
Earlier this week, I was walking from
my home to the church office as I often do.
It’s a little over a .5 mile walk.
A married couple walking their large, strong dog came toward me. I have walked past these folks and their dog
hundreds of times. Sometimes we exchange
smiles but we’ve never talked. On this
day, as I walked past they greeted me and asked about my family. Clearly they have noticed me walking or
riding bikes with my kids just as I have noticed them. I gave friendly response and then reached to
pet the dog. He decided to jump and sink
his teeth into my hand.
The bite hurt a little bit but did
not break the skin. That dog could snap
my finger if he bit hard enough. I don’t
know if he was playing and just plays rough or would have really gotten me if
the husband didn’t quickly move to discipline him.
As I said, it didn’t hurt much, but it
surprised me in a most unpleasant way.
They were friendly. I was
friendly. We didn’t really know each
other, but I was feeling good like maybe next time I see them we’d speak a
little more. They and I were inching
toward each other in hopeful friendliness and then the dog jump and bit me.
I feel like that might happen again this
morning as I preach because this is an unpopular topic full of unseen snares.
We Americans are weary of the violence in our
country, but I have to address what occurred in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, St.
Paul Minnesota, and Dallas, Texas. We don’t
want to have to face the reality of violence.
Part of the reason we don’t want to face it is we don’t all agree on
what causes it or what to do about it or what it means. Within this room, we have different
opinions. Another reason we’d rather
talk about something else is it so painful and disheartening.
However, even when we disagree about causes,
and we disagree about politics of race and politics of guns; even when we
disagree about all that, we can agree that it is sad when people in their 30’s
die.
Some of the people who died this week are almost
1o years younger than me. I wasn’t ready
to die 10 years ago. I am not ready to
die now. So, we as followers of Jesus have to face what’s happening. When I say we have to, I mean we are
commanded. We don’t have the option to
ignore it. For those living in “white
privilege,” as Christ followers, we must relinquish our privilege for the sake
of love. Love is more important than our
comfort. In this church family, we are
not all white. We have a debt of love to
be paid to our brothers and sisters, and so all of us must face the growing
crisis of race and violence in America.
We hold the Bible to be authoritative. The word of God guided by the Spirit of God
is how God speaks to us. Under the
influence of the Holy Spirit, we open the Bible and our lives are shaped by
what we read. In the book of Romans, a
bedrock text for Christian theology, we read, “Weep with those who Weep.”
In Baton Rouge, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old
black man, died when he was shot in an altercation with the police. Can we weep with Quinyetta McMillon, the
mother of Sterling’s 15-year-old son? Can
we weep with that 15-year-old son and his other children? I know Christians, not necessarily in this
church but Christians nonetheless, who will find reasons to judge him. Instead of pity, they offer contempt. Let be as blunt as possible. Swallow
that kind of judgment right now. It
is not to be hear here. We don’t have
room for it. This room where the church
gathers is to be filled with love and compassion. Romans – the word of God – tells us to weep
with those who weep, to share their pain.
Psalm 102:1-2, “Hear my prayer, O Lord; let
me cry to you. Do not hide your face
from me in the day of my distress.”
Can we weep for Philando Castile and his
daughter and his fiancé Diamond Reynolds who watched as he was shot during a
routine traffic stop? I have been
stopped for the same violation – a taillight not working. The police did not approach me with guns
drawn. They did not panic when I reached
in my pocket to get my license. That’s
privilege, by the way. When you’re
white, a traffic stop is an annoyance.
When you’re black, a traffic stop means your life is on the line
depending on how you act. Can we agree
that what happened in Minnesota is terribly sad and can we heed the word of the
Apostle Paul and weep for this man?
Ezekiel 2:9-10 (paraphrased). “I looked and a hand was stretched out to me;
it had writing on the front and on the back, and written on it were words of
lamentation and mourning and woe.”
Lord, we lament the sorrow of the loss of Philando Castile and of Alton
Sterling.
And we lament for the police officers in
Dallas and for their families.
Patrick Zamarripa was a father of two
children.
Brent Thompson of the Dallas Area Rapid
Transit Agency was newly married.
The names of the others who died are Michael
Krol, Lorne Ahrens, and Michael Smith.
In addition, several others has gun shots wounds that were not fatal.
These officers are the heroes. We can go downtown to a concert or a movie or
a big game or a protest and we can feel safe because these men and women are on
the job. When I go to work, I open a
Bible, my notebook, and a computer. When
these officers go to work, they put on a flak jacket, holster weapons, and then
get into their cars willing to face the danger so you and I can live in peace
and safety.
This week it didn’t work. For a moment, let’s just align our hearts
with God’s heart and grieve.
Lamentations 5:1, 15 “Remember, O Lord, what
has befallen us; look and see our disgrace.
… The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to
mourning.”
I am humbled that God has called me to
preach His word. I am grateful to be
able to do it in this church. I love you
and I love the role I get to play. Most
Sundays, we gather in happiness and embrace to be together. Some have told me that Sunday morning at
church is the happiest time of the week.
In the warmth of the atmosphere we reach to each other in brother love, and the dog jumps up and bites! Violence rips into our serenity once
again. Just a few weeks after the evil
insanity in the Orlando night club, more comes along.
In addition to weeping in lament, we raise
our voices in anger at injustice and death.
But to whom do we direct our anger?
Think about this year in our country and the world. Are we to rage against Muslims? During Ramadan in Saudi Arabia, there were terrorist
attacks. Muslims were the victims the
way police and black individuals were this past week. Last month in Orlando, gay people were the
victims. And this past week, police
officers were caught in the crosshairs. In
past years, mass shootings have happened on army bases, in elementary schools,
on campuses, at white churches, at African American churches, and in Wisconsin
a few years ago, it was a Sikh worship gathering. Everyone is vulnerable in the path of the
bullet.
It reminds of an old political cartoon, one I
cut from the newspaper in college. In
the cartoon, there are two skulls which sit in a field of scatter bones and
bomb craters. Each skeleton has a bullet
hole. One says to the other, “Man, I
can’t tell if you used to be man or woman, Jew or Arab, black or white, gay or
straight, old or young.” The second
skeleton says back, “Man, I used to be alive.”
Jesus got angry. There is the familiar story of him toppling
the money changers’ tables in the temple’s outer court. That’s an account many recognize. But also read his testy exchanges with the
legalists in Jerusalem. Read of his
exasperation when his disciples acted just like those legalists. He got mad.
And he wept. Again, the familiar
story; he wept for Lazarus –John 11:35. Oh it’s the shortest verse in the New
Testament: Jesus wept! He was
weeping at the sorrow of Mary and Marth, Lazarus’ sisters. But it is not the only time. The one that sticks with me is Luke 19. Jesus wept as he rode into Jerusalem because
he could see just how blind and lost the people were.
In lament and in anger, we walk in our
master’s footsteps. We should do this
here as the body of Christ gathered together.
And we should do this in our times of private, individual prayer. And we should seek out persons different from
ourselves. This week, pray and weep with
someone in law enforcement. Appreciate
them and help them carry their emotional burdens.
Reach out to a black person if you aren’t
black. Or extend yourself in love and
compassionate mercy to gay person or to a Muslim. Obviously we have some of these persons
present. So if you are black, Muslim, or
gay, reach to someone different than you in order to embrace and pray and weep
together. This isn’t easy. It could be awkward. The dog will inevitably jump and bite
you. But get past that. In Romans 12, Paul does not say, “weep with
those who weep if it is easy and convenient to do so.” He actually says, “Bless those who persecute
you.”
Lament.
Anger. Prayer. There is one more critical response to weeks
like this for followers of Jesus. This
one is the most important for pointing the world toward the Kingdom of our
Savior God.
Followers of
Jesus must tell another story than the ones that are dominating public
consciousness right now. We have to make
sure that the story of life in Christ gets told and told in love and
compassion.
Our story
involves grace, mercy, and love. Our story requires us to compassionately sit
with others in their pain and not try to explain away their pain or negate
their pain with logic. Pain doesn't abate with a well-reasoned argument. Jesus
people are to affirm others' pain and comfort them.
Followers of
Jesus must tell a hopeful story.
Followers of
Jesus must hold wrongdoers accountable.
Followers of
Jesus must sit with others in their pain.
Followers of
Jesus must also model the kingdom of God. We do this through grace-filled
collaboration in which we work with different group – black churches, Hispanic
churches, community groups, and other organizations. We join and work together, and in this
effort, we discover God-inspired creativity. The Holy Spirit helps us create
contexts in which people can freely love across racial and ethnic divides. We
open our arms to embrace people different from ourselves. And we do not balk when it gets sticky and
testy. We do not quit on potential relationship if the other comes from a
hostile perspective. We love past the hostility. How? Sometimes, we just stay until the other
realizes that no matter how much pain he vents, we’re not leaving.
He has to unload
that crushing burden. To relieve
himself, he casts his hurt onto us. He
does this by being aggressive, by hurling insults, and by refusing to enjoy our
overtures of peace and embrace. But we
don’t run away when the ‘other’ is unwelcoming.
With grace and persistence, we stick with it. We care too much to bail.
Our calling is to
tell and live a better story than the one the world is believing right now.
Paul concludes Romans 12 by writing, “If your
enemies are hungry, feed them. If they
are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap
burning coals on their heads. Do not overcome evil by evil, but overcome evil
with good.”
I don’t know about burning coals and I
suggest we don’t see anyone as our enemies.
I suggest, as followers of Christ, we set our chins in resolve to be
agents of God’s love no matter the cost.
In all the noise of the violence, the racism, the hatred, and the fear,
oh the mounting fear … in that dread cacophony of chaos that is building to a
frightful crescendo, I pray we will raise our voices with a competing
narrative: the story of God’s love expressed in Jesus Christ.
I pray we will tell that story and we will
live it. Swallow any words of judgment
we might feel creeping into our throat. I
have them sometimes. We all do. We all harbor our own prejudice. Swallow it.
Beat it down. Stifle any impulse
to defend cops or defend white people or defend the #blacklivesmatter
hashtag. People defend when they feel
attacked, but as followers Jesus the Holy Spirit conditions us to respond
differently.
As followers of Jesus, when we are attacked,
we respond with God’s love. We heap his
love on people. A good place to start is
in prayer, in lament, and in compassionate weeping with someone who has lost
everything. No explanations. No judgments.
No opinions asserted. Just sit
with the one heartbroken and with the love of Christ share her burden.
AMEN
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