The news - again
I haven’t said anything about the shooting in Buffalo, or the church in Orange County, or any of the mass shootings last week that didn’t seam to make it into the national news. Not just haven’t said anything on social media. I haven’t said anything at all. Because anything I tried to say would come out as a scream. I am struck dumb - I have no words.
Then, this morning, I was looking for some pictures related to Pentecost to save to Pinterest and I came across this post I wrote in August 2019. There were mass shootings then, too, in Gilroy and El Paso and Dayton. Young men with guns. Racial motivation. I had words then.
(Originally posted in August 2019)
“When wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?”
I woke up this morning with the song from Godspell in my head. In hours of wakefulness last night, I had gone online and saw the news. Yet another shooting yesterday. Gilroy last week, then El Paso, then Dayton.
“Shall crime bring crime forever,
Strength aiding still the strong?
Is it thy will, O Father,
That men shall toil
for wrong?”
I prayed this as I drank my morning cocoa. Sometimes prayers are answered right away:
“I have given you everything you need.”
Okay, then.
I’ve been reading Rachel Held Evans’ last book, Inspired. (It makes me sad to write that.) Yesterday evening I was reading the chapter titled Gospel Stories. In this chapter she asserts that “every Christian gets a ‘gospel according to…” - there are as many gospels as there are people who interact with Jesus. (Remember that “gospel” simply means “good story.”)
“I have given you everything you need.”
Those angry young men with their body armor and their guns and their high capacity magazines have their stories of hate - manifestos, and Reddit and 8chan. I cannot match their fire power (nor would I want to). Our government is unwilling to act to curb them. But I do have a story, a gospel according to Esther.
I blame my parents. Because of them, the sound track of my childhood was a constant refrain of Sunday school songs:
"Jesus loves me, this I know.”
"Praise Him! Praise Him! All ye little children. God is love!"
and
”Jesus loves the little children - all the children of the world!”
The next line is not PC by today's standards, but it gets the point across clearly:
"Red, brown, yellow, black and white.
All are precious in His sight."
Jesus said "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”
My parents taught me this, and I believed them. I still do - more than ever. Not with a childlike faith, but with the faithful reasoning of an adult.
I am about to start a Bible study of the book of Acts. The consistent message of this book is the sheer power of the story - the good news of Jesus - to change lives and in doing so change the world. Indeed, it rocked an empire.
“I have given you everything you need.”
I pass this message along to you. Share your gospel. Counter the messages of hate, of racism, of exclusion, of violence, with good news. It has the power to change the world.
I am given thread, and sometimes words, to weave the good news.
