In Response to Lafayette, LA.

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.” Ps. 130.1-6 NRSV

Last evening our 7 year old granddaughter asked her father, “Why do all these shootings happen?” as news of the killings in the theatre in Lafayette, Louisiana came across the screen of their television. It is a great question and one that I’m not sure anyone can answer with accuracy or certainty, yet the questions of our children and grandchildren will not be silenced. “Why do all these shootings happen?”

Already this morning there were the usual and varied calls for gun control and tighter gun availability through registration, which are the expected political speaking points on days such as this, for it is far easier to speak of reducing crime by controlling weapons than it is to consider the deeper issues of ‘why’ such crimes occur. Additionally, social media sources and individuals are calling for, and offering, prayers for the victims, their families, the community, those in the theatre not injured, the First Responders, the Police, the Mayor, the Governor . . . and for the shooter and his family. People, all kinds of people, are echoing the question of a 7 year old, “Why do all these shootings happen?”

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.”

I cannot and will not argue the relative ease with which folk can purchase firearms, but before there were guns, there were swords and knives and, before there were swords and knives, there were rocks and limbs. People will acquire what they need, legally or illegally, to do what they want to do. Can gun registration be tightened? Of course. Might ease of accessibility of firearms be more restricted? Yes.

Yet, the bottom line is this: None of that answers the prayers of the masses or the question of a 7 year old, “Why do all these shootings happen?” By extension, one might surmise that along the Via Dolorosa on a day not so very long ago another 7 year old might have asked, “Why do all these crucifixions happen?” for, the truth is, we haven’t answered the essential question of ‘Why’, simply because it is easier to deal with the ‘How’ with our laws. The ‘Why’ requires something far deeper and self-assessing of each of us – and we would rather not touch such places or imagine such answers. Their implications might pierce our own comfortable soul.

What happens if the answer to ‘Why’ has to do with the widening economic gap in our culture? With those ‘who-have’ investing and legislating ‘those-who-have-not’ into even more cataclysmic financial burdens?

What happens if the answer to ‘Why’ has to do with modern day self-proclaimed prophets who tell the masses what is wrong with the state of their lives, create the stir for ‘reformation’, set the fires, then go back to their comfortable homes, private schools for their children, safe employment and retirement plans, smug in their certainty they are making a difference in race relations, equity and justice? Whatever happened to the prophet who lived and labored among the people – and didn’t just visit?

What happens if the answer to ‘Why’ has to do with an increasing sense of fear about and for our world and the broadening sense of insecurity among the people and our nations? With the building dread for who or what might be considered an enemy and the looming wonderment if we will even be able to tell?

What happens if the answer to ‘Why’ has to do with the state of religion in today’s world? With Christians who place themselves as judge and jury over anyone with whom they have a disagreement about sin? With radical Christians, Muslims and Jews, all of whom believe themselves so righteous in their faith that the only way they can keep themselves pure is to eliminate everyone who is not the same as them or is a threat to them?

What happens if the answer to ‘Why’ has to do with an ever-increasing devaluation of life itself? With husbands and wives who cheat with others, with video games which ‘kill’ then start over again, with the sense that nothing really matters if it doesn’t affect me directly or with the idea that we can use up the earth and its’ resources and pollute the earth while expecting no real consequence which will affect our generation?

What happens if the answer to ‘Why’ has to do with parents who birth, but do not parent? With communities which require compliance, but do not comply? With corporations which worship the profits, but profit no-one other than themselves? With nations which consume creation, yet create nothing on which others might depend?

What happens if the answer to ‘Why’ has to do with a faith which prays, but does not listen for an Answer? With a Church which seeks the conversion of all the earth, but only secondarily focuses on doing any earthly good? With a growing sense of having no voice in the outcome of life, yet hearing no one else’s dread of not being heard? With wanting to live each day for a purpose, but purposely living each day only for one-self?

What happens if the answer to ‘Why’ is simply and poignantly on display before us as the driver of the car casually tosses her beer can out the window? Throws his fast-food bag of trash on the ground? Or another refuses to ‘re-use’? And yet another plays the game, ‘Smash the beer/soda can/bottle against the highway sign while driving down the road?

What happens if the answer to ‘Why’ has to do with you and me . . . and our unwillingness to be neighbor to another, even as the Levite and Priest passed by on the other side of the road when viewing the man beaten and in the ditch? With our own sense of entitlement – and fear of getting involved – even though we are called to be as the Samaritan who chose to change his day and journey to tend to the wounded man?

What happens if the answer to ‘Why’ . . . impinges on our well-ordered theories of life and faith, revealing us to be no less hypocritical regarding those who are different from us than the Elders and Chief Priests were of Jesus? When we will not and cannot accept differences in sexuality, ethnicity, race, politics, equity of pay and justice for gender in the workplace . . . and the faith-place?

What happens if the answer to ‘Why’ . . . .

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice!” . . . and cause me to listen to Yours, to live your Word, to embody your Meaning, to do your Will.

I am convinced the answer to the question asked by my 7 year old granddaughter – and 7 year old children around the world, “Why do all these shootings happen?” will only superficially be found in our corporate management of firearms. I am also increasingly profoundly convinced that the root answer to such a question will only be found when, in praying to God for answers, relief, healing and comfort, we dare to look in the mirror of the cross and see ourselves in the nails which continue to pierce His flesh and hold Him on the rough wood of our behaviors.

In the moment we can divest ourselves from having to be right, have the most, be in control, have the authority, assume the power, gather all the resources, and be adored by the masses/elected to be king/queen by their joyous acclamation . . . in that moment, when we humbly believe and serve as we are believed in and served . . . we will be nearer the Answer for which our soul longs - and not until then.

I mourn this day for the loss of so many lives in Lafayette, Louisiana. I mourn for the community, our nation and our world in the face of such brutality and senselessness.

God did not cause this to happen, nor is God giving us only what we can endure, nor does God have such cruelty as part of some ‘grand-plan’ from which we can all learn something. No, such things are not of God, but neither are such things out of God’s capacity to redeem, as the teacher protecting the other teacher there that night reminds us. So it is that I mourn, too, our loss of innocence. Once upon a time we were content to blame everything upon the will of God and take ourselves off the hook for our behaviors regarding God and each other. No longer can such innocence be claimed or tolerated, lest we never answer the question of ‘Why’ because it is personally easier to address the issue of ‘How’.

As we near the end of Summer in the approach of August, I pray each of us are approaching a new day in Christ and the beginning of a future marked by truthful, thoughtful answers to the questions of 7 year olds throughout the earth. Their future depends on our diligence, honesty and faithfulness in facing the answers – and our soul requires no less. Peace be with you all on the journey.

Pastor Don